The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

New Author

2018 A to Z Challenge - F

NY Times Best Seller, Best Book of the Year, rave reviews...I was SO looking forward to this book!!  Sadly, I was disappointed.  I found it pointless, inane, lacking the "hilarious".  It does provoke the question of Art.  What is art?  We hear it all the time in the modern art section of the museum "That's art?  I could do that!", but those words are not uttered in the classical section. People will attend a classic opera or ballet and appreciate the performance art, but what about the more obscure performances of modern dance or recitation of stream of consciousness poetry?  To me I've always believed that art is what the viewer believes in, the whole "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".  Just because someone else doesn't view something as art doesn't mean that its not.

In The Family Fang, the Fang parents are quirky performance artists that primarily cause chaos for their "art".  From the birth of their first child they have always included their children in their performances.  When the children become adults and choose not to continue with the family "art" and go their own ways, things get weird...or weirder.

I kept reading hoping the book would improve and while it kept me engaged to simply find out how it was going to end, the ending was terribly disappointing.

Quotes:  "She killed everything that needed to be killed, and when she was done, when all had been made, if not right, at least less wrong, she crawled into a cave, dark and deep, and hibernated for months, waiting for a new season to arrive and find her sated."

"Isn't that what art is, right?  It's about one thing, but its really about a lot of things."

#2018AtoZChallenge

                        The Quiet Game  -  Greg Isles
                                       "I" author

A good legal thriller.
Penn Cage, an attorney and novelist, returns to his home town of Natchez, Ms. with his young daughter to have some healing time after losing his wife to illness.

While there, he is asked by a local black woman to help solve the 30 year old  murder of her husband.  As he digs deeper into this unsolved case, he finds many, many secrets that affect his hometown and even his family. 

To uncover this murder that seems to have been swept under the rug, Penn will almost lose his life, will face past demons of his own, and face dangers that reach high up the government ladder.
A good read.

                                                                    #2018atozchallenge

                                                 
                                                                                 

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Guilty Pleasure

2018 A to Z Challenge - April Mini Challenge - A book with yellow on the cover.

What a fun and engaging book.  Quirky, socially-challenged Don Tillman comes up with a logical solution to his dating problems - an extensive questionnaire to weed out incompatible partners!  I've thought the same exact thing at times and honestly, it's no different than creating profiles on on-line dating sites.  Right? Frankly, though how legit are these questionnaires/profiles?  20 years ago I was a smoker and a meat-eater.  Today I kicked the habit, became a vegetarian and many of my opinions/judgments have changed!  When we limit ourselves to what we think may be the "perfect" partner we often miss the adventure of an unexpected companion.

What entails in The Rosie Project is an entertaining journey with Don as he discovers the joy in his life when he gets off schedule.  I found myself not wanting to put down this gem of a book and laughing and cheering Don on through all his social awkwardness!

Quote:  "'If you really love someone...you have to be prepared to accept them as they are.  Maybe you hope that one day they get a wake-up call and make the changes for their own reasons.'"

#atozminichallenge

Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance by Ruth Emmie Lang

"L" Author

2018 A to Z Challenge - April Mini Challenge -A book with less than 100 reviews on Amazon

It's not often that you come across a book that you simply do not want to end.  This is an enchanting book with a lovable, quirky, mysterious protagonist - Weylyn.

Beasts offered what I was missing in my last read -  a "red thread of fate".  The story is told through a number of cities and there is a little back and forth between the past and present, but we see how Weylyn has touched each of the people he has met.

While there is a magical quality to this story, maybe the true magic is the effect of our lives touching another's no matter how long or short the stay.

Quotes: "I could tell, even before he spoke, that he had drained his mind of his own sadness and replaced it with empathy for mine."

"Even geese fly north for the summer.  I was less adventurous than a goose."

#atozminiChallenge

          All That's Left to Tell   -   Daniel Lowe


                    April mini challenge
                    less than 100 reviews.


First let me say that Daniel Lowe is a very good story teller.  I was able to "see" the scenes he painted with his words.  Having said that, I did not like the way this book was written.  It was a story within a story within a story. 

Marc is kidnapped in Pakistan and he is always blindfolded and his hands are tied whenever his interrogator ,"Josephine" comes in.  She doesn't interrogate him though.  She tells him stories about what his daughter's live "could have been like"  if she had lived.  His daughter was murdered at 19, just a few months before Marc goes to Pakistan.

According to the fly leaf  " a searing tribute to the redemptive power of storytelling".   I agree with that,  I am just not convince the setting in the book worked for me.   If you read it,  let me know what you think. 

                  #AtoZminichallenge
 

The Maze at Windermere by Gregory Blake Smith

PageHabit Subscription - January-Historical Fiction

New Author

2018 A to Z Challenge - "M"

"The only maze here was me desperately trying to get out of these disjointed narratives." L Hopkins (reviewer)

I make a point of not reading reviews of a book until I am finished with it.  I try to be as unbiased as possible from the start and only read the reviews after I'm finished to gauge my interpretation/feelings with others.  Though I usually find that reviews of most books are all over the place; with some people loving it and others hating it.  With "Maze" I was surprised how many 4 star ratings it received (130 out of 351).

I struggled with this book from the outset and felt very much as the reviewer above did!  This book followed 5 different eras from 2011 back to 1692 with the only connection being the town of Newport, Rhode Island.  While I enjoy a volley between eras and/or narratives, 5 seemed WAY too many and as we neared the end Smith sped up the plots of each so that the eras were no longer separated by chapters (with the year heading the chapter) but by paragraphs (with no headings).  Smith did attempt to write each era's narrator with the language and tone of his/her time so the reader could discern which era we were in, but one had to pay very close attention to do so.

I think I would have enjoyed this book more if (1) there were fewer eras.  I felt with all the jumping around that I could never really connect to any of the characters and their dilemmas, struggles and epiphanies. (2) If there was some other connection between the characters/eras other than the town.  There were only tenuous connections between the house, Windermere, the breakwater, and the works of Henry James.  I wish there had been a "red thread of fate" that somehow would link the orphan Quaker girl of 1962 to the washed-out tennis player of 2011.

#2018AtoZChallenge

                Carnegie's Maid  -   Marie Benedict

                        New Author
                 April mini challenge - yellow cover

Clara Kelly is not who she pretends to be.  Clara Kelly is her real name but she is posing as a genteel woman from Dublin not the poor farmer's daughter that she actually is. 
She is hired as Mrs. Carnegie's maid under the pretense of having a different background.  A background that she must keep hidden at all costs. If she is found out,  she will loss her job and she needs the money she earns to help out her family back home in Ireland.

A nice, quick read. It was interesting to learn a little about Andrew Carnegie, how he acquired his fortune and about the plight of the immigrants in the 1980's.

                                      #AtoZminichallenge
               

               The Taster  -  V.S.Alexander

                         Historical Fiction 

                 2018 A to Z Challenge - "T"   

Wow,  I have read many books about the WWII, the Holocaust, and the horrors of Hitler but I have not read one from the viewpoint of someone like Magda. 

Magda is forced into a job of being a taster for Hitler.  He was so paranoid about being poisoned that he hired young women to taste all of his food as it was being prepared.  Magda wonders if each                                                            meal she eats will be her last.

This is a haunting and gut-wrenching story of how Magda must live and act one way to insure her safety while keeping her thoughts and feelings to herself.  What a very dangerous time!!!

I will keep reading books like this so that this time in history and the many, many people who lost their lives and the sacrifices that were made,  will never be forgotten!!

                                        #2018atozchallenge

2018 A to Z Challenge

Well, one of us has achieved Flamingo Status - Bookworm is living up to her name with 15 books logged for the challenge!!!

UPDATE:  Couscous finally made it to Flamingo Status!!!

                       Jewel  -  Brett Lott
                             New Author
                    2018 A to Z Challenge - "J"

Set in rural Mississippi where we meet Jewel.  She is blessed with a wonderful family of 5 healthy children and a hard-working husband.  Then when she is in her 40's, she has her 6th child, Brenda Kay.  Brenda is also healthy but has special needs.  The baby is welcomed into this loving family but she also challenges them all in ways they do not expect.

A heartwarming story about love, courage, and compassion.

  #2018atozchallenge

                  The Life She was Given

                    Ellen Marie Wiseman

                         Guilty Pleasure

What a good book!!   I don't know when I have cried so hard because of a good book!!!.   This book is heart-breaking,  tender,  suspenseful, and I could not put it down.

It it told in two voices.  We meet Lily in 1931. A very young girl who for some unknown reason seems to be kept locked in a room in her parents attic.  The only thing her mother says is that people will be shocked if they saw her.  She is kept there until her mother sells her to a traveling circus!!!!

We also meet Julia in the 1950's.   She has been raised by the same unloving parents but managed to run away.  She is contacted by a lawyer at the time of her mother's death and goes back to the family home where she begins to relive painful secrets and discovers shocking family secrets.

Like I said,   a very good book.  I look forward to reading more by this author.

                    The Great Alone

                     Kirstin Hannah
               
                   2018 A to Z Challenge -"G"



Wow!.   Alaska is breathtaking!!!    and Kirstin Hannah takes you right into the beautiful landscape!!!

Leni , a 13 year old girl, and her parents move to the last frontier of Alaska in 1974.   A lot more rugged territory then,  than it is now.

Leni's parents, Ernt, a Vietnam POW. and Cara,  so in love with the man Ernt was before the war, that she will do anything and forgive anything he does.

They move to Alaska for a new beginning,  but they are not prepared for the brutality of Alaska.  They learn to be strong and depend on each other, but again they are not prepared for affect the long dark winters have on Ernt.  They  are also surprised by the openness of their new friends in their new small town.  Leni is a very strong 13 year old and Cara becomes a much stronger woman while dealing with all the Alaska of the 70's and the sometimes violent nature of her husband.

I enjoyed this book but felt that it might have been rushed at the end.

                                  #2018atozchallenge

                            Flight Behavior

                         Barbara Kingsolver

                      2018 A to Z Challenge -"F"


Dellarobia is a restless and dissatisfied housewife with 2 children and a husband with no ambition. She has lived on her in-laws property and under her mother-in-law's thumb for a decade. 

But what she sees when she goes up on the mountain for a possible secret tryst will change her live.  Will make her question her life, her church, and her belief in the world.

Very good and moving book.  Oh,  and I think I need to plant a butterfly garden.   Just saying!!!!

                 #2018atozchallenge

                 Murder of Mary Russell

                     Laurie R. King
                         Series

                  2018 A to Z Challenge -"M"


Well, of all of Laurie King's Mary Russell series,   this was not one of my favorites.  I am very sorry to say that because I have really enjoyed all of the adventures I have gone on with Mary and Sherlock Holmes.  If you have not read this series,  you MUST start with the first, "The Beekeepers Apprentice".  By doing so,  you will grow with Mary Russell from a young girl, to her demise in this the 14th book of the series..  You will travel with Mary and Sherlock to the Moors of England, the Arabian desert, India,  Japan,  and so much more!!

We begin this journey with a man pulling a gun on Mary Russell and then Mrs. Hudson ( the housekeeper of many years to Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes) arriving home to find Mary gone and a pool of blood on her kitchen floor!!! Can this really be the end of Mary Russell???     I certainly hope not!!!!      As intrigued as you might be,  please start at the beginning of the fascinating series to learn all about Mary and Sherlock.   

                                          #2018atozchallenge

                       

                                    Pretty Baby
                               
                                  Mary Kubica

                      2018 A to Z Challenge -"P"

I did not care for this book.  None of the characters,  Heidi, Chris, or their daughter Zoe,  were very likable.  They were all so self-absorbed.  Heidi with her work,  Chris with his money and Zoe, a surly 12 year old.

Then Heide brings home a homeless girl, Willow, and her baby.  Willow is hiding many secrets and Heidi becomes obsessed with Willow's baby.  Chris is very suspicious of Willow  and Zoe becomes even more withdrawn.

As the family dram unfolds, some events are expected,  few are true surprises.  It was not the psychological thriller that I was lead to believe it would be.

                                 #2018atozchallenge