Tag: fiction

Book Review: All We Ever Wanted, by Emily Griffin

all we ever wanted
Image belongs to Random House/Ballantine Books.

Title:   All We Ever Wanted
Author:   Emily Griffin
Genre:   Fiction
Rating:   4 out of 5

Nina Browning is living the good life among Nashville’s elite. Her husband sold his tech business for millions, catapulting them into the moneyed class, and her son, Finch, just got accepted to Princeton. It’s a far cry from Nina’s middle-class other-side-of-the-tracks upbringing.

Tom Volpe is a single dad who works several jobs trying to raise his independent daughter, Lyla. Since her mom left, he’s been struggling to keep Lyla from following in her drinking and partying ways, so Lyla attends the elite Windsor Academy, her way out.

When questionable pictures of Lyla surface after a party, Tom refuses to let his daughter be victimized, and reports the incident to the principal. Soon the entire school is in an uproar, and Nina is faced with believing her beloved son—even when his story doesn’t always add up—or following her own instincts.

I enjoyed this read about Nina, who on the outside looks like a wealthy wife with nothing to do but charity work, living off her husband’s money and content with the choices she made. But Nina isn’t content, and when she realizes what happened to Lyla, she does what she knows is right, bucking the system and society both, as well as her husband. This was a great read, and it delves into some of the questions surrounding social media use and taking advantage of girls with it.

Emily Griffin is a former lawyer turned best-selling author. Her newest novel is All We Ever Wanted.

(Galley provided by Random House/Ballantine Books in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Museum of Us, by Tara Wilson Redd

the museum of us
Image belongs to Random House Children’s/Wendy Lamb Books.

Title:   The Museum of Us
Author:   Tara Wilson Redd
Genre:   YA
Rating:   4 out of 5

Sadie has a boyfriend she loves, Henry, who plays in a band and loves her even though she can’t understand why. Her best friend, Lucie, runs Cross Country and is a secret nerd, but still loves to hang out with Sadie. Then there’s George. George just gets her. They talk for hours. They go on adventures. They explore the world around them. Together, they are magic.

George is a secret. He’s imaginary. But when a car accident leaves Sadie calling out his name, she ends up in a hospital for people with issues like hers.

Life with George is more extraordinary than anything Sadie has experienced without him. But, while trying to keep her secret, she starts to yearn for something more, for something real. Can she give up George and the magical lives she leads with him?

At first, I wasn’t too sure about this book. I mean, daydreaming is one thing, but Sadie takes it to a whole other level. Her adventures with George are fantastic, but she just can’t see how great her real life is, too. I just didn’t get it at first, but then it all started to make sense, and I really felt for Sadie and all she’d been through. This is an exploration of mental illness from the inside—and it is very, very well done and vivid.

Tara Wilson Redd lives in Washington D.C. The Museum of Us is her debut novel.

(Galley provided by Random House Children’s/Wendy Lamb Books in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Melody, by Jim Crace

themelody
Image belongs to Doubleday.

Title:   The Melody
Author:   Jim Crace
Genre:    Fiction
Rating:   3 out of 5

Alfred Busi, aging local singer, lives alone in his villa by the ocean. He’s lived in the house his entire life, but it’s empty now, since the death of his wife, except for himself and his piano. One night, after hearing noises in the courtyard, he’s attacked, bitten, and scratched. He never sees his attacker, but he feels it wasn’t an animal. And not wholly a man.

Bui’s account of the attack is exaggerated and used to revitalize the public outcry against the destitute and animals living in a public park. When the issue grows beyond him, Busi retreats, trying to decide if he will sing again, while still struggling to come to terms with his wife’s death several years before.

I was very intrigued by the idea of this mysterious attack by an unknown creature. That’s why I wanted to read this novel. But…I almost stopped reading before the attack even happened. And I kind of wish I had.

While the writing is lyrical and Busi is a semi-interesting character, this was a very slow read. And, frankly, I don’t feel like the author delivered on the promise he made. The synopsis of the story is focused on the attack and the mystery surrounding it, but it was a side-note in the book, with the rest of the novel centered on Busi’s internal struggles.

Jim Crace is an award-winning English author. The Melody is his newest novel.

(Galley provided by Doubleday in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Not the Girls You’re Looking For, by Aminah Mae Safi

Not+The+Girls+You're+Looking+For+Cover
Image belongs to Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends.

Title: Not the Girls You’re Looking For
Author: Aminah Mae Safi
Genre: YA
Rating: 3 out of 5

Lulu Saad has her squad, her family, and a huge chip on her shoulder. She doesn’t need anything else. She’s fasting for Ramadan, which she does every year, and her squad still doesn’t get it, but Lulu is determined to make it through this time.

Except Lulu and her friends have a falling out. And she alienates half of her extended family. And she can’t quite figure out why everything in her life is going wrong…

Okay. I didn’t realize quite how…plotless this book was until I tried to write a synopsis. And now it’s all so clear to me…Lulu and her friends aren’t very likeable. Scratch that. They aren’t likable at all. They do stupid stuff, knowingly. They talk about people. They sabotage people. They’re judgmental. Basically, this book is all angst and anger, with a lot of cultural diversity thrown in.

Now, that part was very well done, and executed so well that I caught all the nuances of Lulu’s struggle to fit in when she feels like she doesn’t belong in either culture. But she’s also touchy to the point of looking for things to take offense at. Have some respect for yourself. Guys should absolutely respect women, and women should be able to wear whatever they want without having to be afraid of guys’ reactions…but, it’s not okay to sexualize men for their bodies, either. Lulu doesn’t get this, and she thinks it’s okay for her to be focused on the guys and for her to react inappropriately towards them. So…all the stars for diversity, but no stars for plot or character likability.

Aminah Mae Safi has studied art History, but now writes fiction. Not the Girls You’re Looking For is her debut novel.

(Galley provided by in exchange for an honest review.)

 

Book Review: The Love Letter, by Rachel Hauck

Love-Letter_Cover-Comp

Title: The Love Letter
Author: Rachel Hauck
Genre: Historical, Romance
Rating: 4 out of 5

Chloe Daschle is known in Hollywood for being the actress to play a convincing death scene. But she’s tired of dying. She wants to live. When she hears about the role of Esther Kingsley in a historical film, she decides to go for it.

The script is based on a one-page love letter written by screenwriter Jesse Gates’ ancestor, Hamilton Lightfoot, but Jesse would far rather write about romance than try his hand at it…again. When Jesse and Chloe meet, they both must re-think their views on love—and their pasts.

During the Revolutionary War, Esther longs to be with Hamilton, her friend from childhood, but Hamilton is torn between his love of peace, and his desire to fight for the land he calls home. He’s afraid his thirst for revenge over the death of his father will motivate him—not the cause he wishes to fight for. And Esther must choose between her beloved father, a British Loyalist, and the rebel Hamilton, the man she loves.

I expected a light romance in The Love Letter but got so much more than that. Chloe is an intriguing character: she grew up in Hollywood and has a past as one of those behaving-badly starlets caught on tape to live down. She’s changed, and now she wants so much more out of life, but Hollywood has her in a tidy box she’s not sure she can escape. Until she meets Jesse, who does things his way, not buckling to threats or even friendly advice. With Esther and Hamilton’s story woven throughout, The Love Letter was an engrossing, lovely read.

Rachel Hauck is an award-winning and best-selling author. Her newest novel is The Love Letter.

(Galley provided by Thomas Nelson in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata

csw
Image belongs to Grove.

Title:   Convenience Store Woman
Author:   Sayaka Murata
Genre:   Fiction
Rating:   3 out of 5

Growing up, Keiko was a strange child. She didn’t react like everyone else—two students fighting, and everyone wants them to stop? Bashing one of them in the head is the solution, right?—and she never understands why her reactions are so wrong. So she learned to mimic everyone around her, creating a nice, normal persona with nice, normal reactions.

For 18 years now, she’s worked part-time at a convenience store. She’s never had a boyfriend. She has only a few friends—who don’t know she’s playing a part. Her family doesn’t understand her. But the routine of the convenience store gives her structure, and the employee handbook gives her rules to follow—she knows the part she must play to look like everyone else.

When she meets a fellow convenience store worker who also doesn’t seem to know how to react, she decides to take action to make everyone finally believe she’s normal once and for all. But will change be for the better?

I’ve been fascinated with Japanese culture since the first time I read Shogun. That’s why I picked this up. However, this book ended up being pretty meh for me. I like feeling a connection with the characters, and I just didn’t get a sense of connection at all. I felt sorry for Keiko, but she felt so distant that I couldn’t really care. (Part of this may be due to the novel being a translation, part to the fact that Keiko may be on the spectrum, so she just isn’t easy to relate to.)

Sayaka Murata is an award-winning Japanese writer. Convenience Store Woman is her newest translated work.

(Galley provided by Grove in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Bookshop of Yesterdays, by Amy Meyerson

bookshop
Image belongs to Park Row Books.

Title:   The Bookshop of Yesterdays
Author:   Amy Meyerson
Genre:   Fiction
Rating:   4.5 out of 5

Miranda Brooks loves her job as a teacher in Philadelphia. She loves her boyfriend, Jay, whom she just moved in with, and she’s looking forward to their first summer together. Until she receives a package in the mail and a clue and knows that one of her uncle Billy’s scavenger hunts has started. Except the clue is closely followed by a call from her mother:  Billy is dead.

Growing up, Miranda loved her uncle, a seismologist. He taught her so many things using scavenger hunts, and she always loved the adventure. But when she turned 12, her mom and Billy had a fight, and she never saw him again. When she returns to California for the funeral, she finds that Billy has left her Prospero Books—his beloved bookstore, now teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

Her mother will barely mention Billy—she didn’t even go to his funeral—and Miranda knows the scavenger hunt will lead her to the truth about the fight when she was twelve, the truth her mother doesn’t want her to know. Miranda works to untangle Billy’s clues while she searches for a way to save Prospero Books, the legacy Billy left her. Soon she realizes just how deep the secret her family has hidden for years goes—and wonders if happiness looks different than it did at the beginning of summer.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that I love a book about a bookstore, a book filled with literary clues and references. I enjoyed everything about this novel:  the setting (Can I just move into Prospero Books?), the clues, the mystery, and especially Miranda herself. I loved how her mind works, and how determined she is to unearth her family’s secrets. An excellent, engrossing read!

Amy Meyerson lives in Los Angeles. The Bookshop of Yesterdays is her first novel.

(Galley provided by Harlequin/Park Row in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Emperor of Shoes, by Spencer Wise

emperor
Image belongs to Harlequin/Hanover Square Press.

Title:  The Emperor of Shoes
Author:   Spencer Wise
Genre:   Fiction
Rating:   4 out of 5

Alex Cohen is a 26-year-old from Boston who lives in China. His father, Fedor, runs their shoe-making business with an iron first; profit is everything and Fedor isn’t about to change a thing. Until Alex gets involved with a Chinese seamstress named Ivy—at the same time his father names him heir to the company and places him in charge—at least in name.

Now Alex finds out the truths kept hidden by his father:  the obsession with productivity—workers’ times are assessed and anyone wasting even 8 minutes a week is a problem—as well as the cruel conditions the workers live in—hot water only at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., no safety measures in place to protect the workers. And Ivy is determined to start a movement for change.

Alex learns a lot from Ivy, but is the change she seeks really based on truth? The more Alex discovers, the more he wonders, until ideas meet action in a showdown at the shoe factory.

This is not a fast-paced novel. Instead, it moves at a slow, languorous pace, taking time to explore the nuances of culture as it exposes the ugliness behind business and commerce in China. Alex becomes a completely different person through the course of the book, and his relationship with his father is at the core of that. A book to sip and savor, taking in all the flavors of the culture it’s set in.

Spencer Wise was born and raised in Massachusetts but now lives in Florida. The Emperor of Shoes is his new novel.

(Galley provided by Harlequin/Hanover Square Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Us Against You, by Fredrik Backman

us against you
Image belongs to Atria Books.

Title:   Us Against You
Author:   Fredrik Backman
Genre:   Fiction
Rating:   5 out of 5

Beartown lives and breathes hockey. Always has, always will. Last year, after the unthinkable happened and tore the town apart, the team split, with most of the players leaving Beartown for neighboring Hed. The rivalry is real—and vicious.

Peter Andersson, GM of the Bears, spends his days—and his nights—focused on the team. Word that the club is closing rips his world apart, but when a new sponsor steps in, Peter will do anything—even risk the support of those who have always been by his side—to keep his team alive.

Now a new coach is in town, putting together a team of misfits in an effort to rise to greatness—again. Beartown residents might not support an outsider—especially a woman—coaching their team, but they do support the team. No matter what. As conflict with Hed grows from harmless pranks to malicious acts, tensions rise in the two towns, until one person dies and the entire community trembles on the brink of bursting into flames.

Us Against You is the sequel to Beartown, and takes readers back to that hockey-obsessed, small town home of bitter rivalries. This is a continuation of the story, an answer to what-happened-next-? Just as well-written, engrossing, and immersive as the first novel, Us Against You will leave the reader flying through the pages to find out which beloved character will die. I loved this—and Beartown—and I’m not even a hockey fan! If you love realistic, flawed characters and compelling storylines, this one’s for you!

Fredrik Backman is a New York Times-bestselling author. Us Against You is his newest novel.

(Galley provided by Atria Books in exchange for an honest review.)

 

More reviews at <a href=” https://tamaramorning.com/”>Tomorrow is Another Day</a>

Book Review: Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe, by Preston Norton

neanderthal
Image belongs to Disney-Hyperion.

Title:   Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe
Author:   Preston Norton
Genre:   YA
Rating:   5 out of 5

Cliff Hubbard tries to stay in the background at Happy Valley High School, a difficult task for someone who’s 6’6”, 250 pounds, and called Neanderthal by the whole school. Cliff’s life sucks:  he has no friends and his home life in a ratty trailer park has only gotten worse since his older brother committed suicide last year. He can’t stand the popular kids, and he doesn’t even know what to say to the druggies who hang around outside of school.

The guy he hates the most is Aaron Zimmerman, the perfect star quarterback who can do no wrong. All Cliff wants is to beat that smug look off Aaron’s face. Until Aaron has a near-death experience and returns to school with a message:  while unconscious, he saw God, who gave him a list of things to do to make Happy Valley better…and Cliff is the only one who can help him.

To his own surprise, Cliff agrees, and he and Aaron start on the List which includes the meanest English teacher ever, a computer hacker intent on exposing the entire school’s secrets, the local drug dealers, the school’s most sadistic bully, and a group of teens who are Christian in name only. But soon Cliff will realize the List is more personal than he ever suspected—and he must act if he’s to prevent tragedy from striking Happy Valley High again.

I’m just going to say it:  I LOVED this book! I generally prefer female YA protagonists, but Cliff was wonderful! His voice and humor brought this story to life, and I couldn’t wait to see what he’d do next. Cliff’s family life is sad and hard, and I felt so sorry for him at times I wanted to cry. But at heart, he’s such an optimistic, good-hearted person. Even the minor characters in this book are vivid (and somewhat over-the-top, making them completely realistic), and I loved every page.

Preston Norton’s newest book is Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe.

(Galley provided by Disney-Hyperion in exchange for an honest review.)