Blindness - Jose Saramago

It's been two days since I finished Blindness. And I thought two days would be enough time to really process what I thought of this one. But here I sit, two days of thinking of what to say, and I'm still not really sure.

That I even decided to pick up this book and start it is a real accomplishment. I tried so hard to read Saramago's History of the Siege of Lisbon last year. But once the dog started narrating I was just done. And I couldn't get past Saramago's lack of paragraph breaks for dialogue. I guess the story just wasn't interesting enough for me to do so much work to figure out what was talking.

But in this case, Blindness was interesting enough, and horrifying enough, and realistic enough. (No dogs narrate in this one). The book starts with a man suddenly going blind at an intersection. Despite the honking cars, he's paralyzed by indecision and cannot find a way to get out of his car. He's disoriented. A "good samaritan" helps him home and into his house (and then steals his car -but don't worry that guy goes blind too, so Karma). 

The blindness begins to spread. The government, also paralyzed by fear, decides to stick the blind and those they've come in contact with in an unused former mental asylum. They deliver food three times a day. Otherwise the blind are left to fend for themselves. More and more afflicted begin to arrive. The conditions are deplorable. No working toilets, no clean water. 

And then, one group of the blind begin to terrorize the others. Until, well, I don't want to give too much away. But it's actually painful to read, but again not totally foreign because sometimes epidemics do not bring out the best in people. And just because people are afflicted does not mean that they are honorable or even worthy of assistance. Being blind brings out the worst in people in some cases.

The interesting parts are how Saramago really nails all those things we rely on sight for. The blind don't even recognize each other. People they've known or been intimate with are strangers. It's altogether pretty fascinating. 

Again, I'm not a big fan of how Saramago constructs his dialogue. It's confusing and irritating, but in this case, I didn't mind a little extra work to get it done. So, I can see why he's a nobel laureate, and I kind of forgive him for that Lisbon thing.

4/5 Stars.

It Starts with Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways - Dallas & Melissa Hartwig

You are what you eat. Basically. It's hard to argue with some of the main precepts in this book. Added sugar is bad for you. Eating too much of the wrong thing is bad for you. Vegetables are good for you. I did enjoy the science background of the information. It's important to have that as well. Although I do think sometimes they emphasize the science that supports their conclusions and dismiss the science that does not rather summarily. 

My sister "discovered" the Whole 30 this year and I was at first skeptical. No wine? That sounds terrible. But I've had a bit of my own transformation with food this year and the Whole 30 takes it a couple steps past what I was already doing. So this doesn't seem quite as scary as it would have earlier in the year. 

You can check out their website for all the nitty gritty (click here). But I appreciate their "tough love" concepts that basically acknowledge our complicated and emotional connection to food. The Whole30 seems strict so it's probably not as accessible to some people. I think that's okay. Sometimes we need some tough love to look at what we've been eating and how we got that way. Taking a break from all that for 30 days is a great way to really examine what we put in our bodies. 

Here's a good quote from the book that's pretty hard to argue with: “There is no food neutral; there is no food Switzerland—every single thing you put in your mouth is either making you more healthy or less healthy.” 
― Melissa Hartwig

Here's the basics. 30 days. No dairy. No gluten. No alcohol. No legumes. No grains (not even rice or quinoa). Just meat, vegetables and fruits. And after 30 days, slowly reintroduce small amounts of these things to see how you do. What makes our bodies feel the way they do. There are apparently thousands of anecdotal good results with this program. And while I usually dismiss anecdotal evidence, large amounts of anecdotal evidence start to represent trends and more solid evidence in my mind. This is a way to address chronic inflammation, immune and bowel diseases and a host of other conditions. 

So after listening to the book. I'm not "sold" but I'm definitely going to try it starting January 1st (I'm realistic enough to know I won't make it through Christmas without eating a cookie) and I'll use my body as its own laboratory to figure out how the food I eat affects me. If it works for me, then it works and then I'll be "sold." I'll post an update January 31st.

4/5 Stars.

The Girl in the Spider's Web - David Lagercrantz

I was concerned that Lagercrantz wouldn't be able to capture the odd mix of action and exposé that marked the earlier Millennium books. I was thankfully wrong. 

This book finds us with our two friends, Lisbeth Salander and Mikhail Blomkvist again on the hunt of a story. Mikhail's little magazine has suffered a bit since its last scoop and is now partly owned by a larger media corporation which has threatened to show Mikhail the door. He's lost his stuff. His writing is tired and so is Mikhail. 

Lisbeth, however, has been busy. She's been trying to track down her erstwhile sister Camille, who she suspects has picked up where their horrible father left off. In order to get the information she needs, she sneaks into the NSA to find get the dirt on her sister's organization. In the meantime, there is a Swedish computer genius and his autistic son Franz and August Balder, who get caught in a struggle for Franz's technology. Franz is murdered while Mikhail is on his way to interview him. 

And if that was then end of the conspiracy, this would be a poor Millennium novel indeed. It goes deeper than that and of course Salander is in the mix on it all as well. Mikhail and Lisbeth maintain a loose affiliation and friendship and it's nice to see them work together again. 

There were a couple sections of exposition that may seem slow, but that again is also characteristic of this series. This is a solid action/conspiracy drama, perfect for fans of the first three novels. I can't write any more without giving away the goose.

3.5/5 Stars.

Ploughshares Summer 2015 - Guest Editor Lauren Groff

It's been a while since I gave Ploughshares a 5 star review. And really that's unfair since it's the piece of mail I look most forward too. I love Ploughshares. I love that it gets me out of my genre rut. I love that it gives me short fiction to devour or savor depending on my reading mood.

This edition was edited by Lauren Groff, whose personal tastes she described thus, "Give me the short and the sharp, like a slap; give me the long, slow immersion in an alien sea. I am searching for work that is written with blood or bile or choler, not necessarily sweat alone." And I have to say, after reading the collection, I'd probably read anything she recommends. There are many many good stories in this collection.

A couple I particularly liked were In the Flesh, We Shone by Alex Shakar; An Arc Welder, a Molotov Cocktail, a Bowie Knife by Kevin Wilson; and The Miracle Years of Little Fork by Rebecca Makkai.

In the Flesh is a story of a woman who falls in love with a dead man. As their relationship blooms, his flesh, does not. It's a really interesting take on love and futility. Little Fork follows the trials of a small town after the circus comes to town and the star elephant dies. It is all told through the eyes of a Reverend in the middle of a faith crisis. It's just a really interesting mix of subject matters that somehow works. Arc Welder is look into the lives of a man and his girlfriend following an incident of domestic violence among the girlfriend's family. They must take temporary custody of the sister's children. It's all very dysfunctional and somehow hypnotic. The narrator has you agreeing that he'd be a much better parent even as he criticizes how the children are raised but does absolutely nothing to change anything in their lives.

I even loved the Plan B essay this go round which I usually skip. Instead, this time, Thomas Pruiksma describes how he was a magician as a young child and how he managed to get back into magic but making it somehow literary. It's a unique read that I really cherish because I just can't imagine reading something like this anywhere else.

So yeah, I loved it. And I can't believe I let it sit on my nightstand for so long before getting to it.

5/5 Stars.

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

I'm not sure how I missed Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men when I was slogging through required reading in my High School and then Undergraduate years. But somehow, I'd never read this short gem of a novel. The plot is relatively straight forward. Lenny and George are ranch hands, traveling within California and going from ranch to ranch to work the land.

George is a small dark fellow with dreams of owning his own land and never having to work for anyone again. Lenny, is a large lumbering blonde man who is dim witted and essentially has the mind of a child. George looks out for Lenny and has a lot of compassion and love for Lenny that goes beyond simple companionship. Essentially, George has become Lenny's caretaker, his parent-figure. And he takes his duties seriously, even if he may resent it a little.

Lenny has a penchant for soft things he can pet. At the beginning of the story, we are shown that Lenny has pocketed a small mouse, but in the midst of his overzealous petting, Lenny has killed the mouse. It doesn't keep him from wanting to keep petting it however. George advises Lenny that when they buy their own land, he will get Lenny some rabbits, which will be larger and therefore, harder to kill.

Lenny obviously doesn't mean to kill the mouse, but he really has no concept of his own strength and he is sad that the mouse had to die, although there is a strange disconnect between Lenny's knowledge of the death, and his knowledge of his own actions which produced the death.

Lenny and George get hired on to a new ranch at the beginning of the story. The old ranch they had to leave when Lenny took a liking to a girl's red dress and wanted to pet it. Even after being told to let go, he got confused and grabbed tighter, leading the girl to run to the authorities, who then run Lenny (and by association, George) out of town.

Lenny is joyous to learn that the lead ranch hand on the property has a dog that has just given birth to a litter of puppies. The lead ranch hand, Slim, is appreciative of the care George has taken for Lenny and agrees to give Lenny one of the puppies. The new jobs are complicated by the son of the ranch owner, Curly, a small man with a Napoleon complex who decides Lenny is a good target to pick on, and his wife, who shows up at odd times ostensibly to "look for her husband" but really to flirt and talk with the men.

Steinbeck does a great job of overlaying all scene's with Curly's wife with an uneasiness bordering on foreboding. George tells us she is no good and will only lead to trouble. In the end she does, but not in the way we'd expect.

The unlikely friendship between Lenny and George is a bright spot in the book. It's easy to see how Slim would be warmed by it. Taking care of Lenny makes George more human. It gives him a reason to want a better life, to remain connected to himself and his humanity. This makes the ending that much more despairing. I won't write a spoiler here in case you are like me and one of the probably 25 people who have not read the book before. But if you have managed to miss it, you should pick it up and give it a chance. The writing itself is fantastic and the story really hits hard. It's no wonder it's withstood the test of time and is considered great American fiction.

5/5 Stars.

The Age of Miracles - Karen Thompson Walker

I really really wanted to like this book. The premise is interesting, a slowing has started in the earth's rotation, having all kinds of effects on gravity, plant growth, magnetic fields. This is all very interesting. And the writing is very good. The actual words on paper and the prose are well done.

But.... It's boring. The narrator is 11 years old at the beginning of the book, so events just kind of happen around her and she comments on them. An 11 year old is a bit young to have a lot of agency in a novel. She can't really make anything happen, so she takes to commenting on things as she sees them. Things other people are doing. It makes for very very slow progress. The book is also written from Julia's perspective looking back. She's around 20 years old as the narrator, talking about things that happened when she was 11. So there is a lot of "that was the last time I ever saw (insert minor character name) again."

The drama of the events don't quite match up with the reactions recorded by Julia. All the world's food is grown in greenhouses using artificial lights? Hmmm.... pretty sure this wouldn't quite cut it. Perhaps after reading the really really well researched, The Martian (read my review here), it's too much to expect a young adult novel to have plausible scientific calculations, but I wanted the cause and effect to at least make sense. Even those things that Julie should be able to convey or have some kind of dominion over are not taken as opportunities. She ends up eating alone in the library at lunch time.

The slow plodding of the plot, coupled with the complete impotence of the main character made for a very very slow and unexciting read.

2/5 Stars.

O is for Outlaw - Sue Grafton

I always enjoy an alphabet series book where we learn more about Kinsey. I'm not sure if Grafton always had in mind that she would write 26 of these things but she, like Kinsey, has been slow with the personal details. So Kinsey's backstory has been slow to be revealed. Here we are in book 15 and although we have always known that Kinsey was married twice before we "met" her, we have never known the identity of her first husband.

In this case, Kinsey is contacted by a storage picker who has come across some of her personal items in a storage locker. Kinsey buys the items off the picker and then tracks down the ex-husband she left them with a decade earlier. Her ex-husband, Mickey Magruder, has been shot and is in a coma. Kinsey sets out to find out what happened to him. It leads us to Vietnam and a her old bar stomping grounds from her cop days.

While this book is a solid outing in the series, and it is nice to get more of Kinsey's backstory, it always seems weird to get so much of a completely new history at once. If this was really in Kinsey's past, why haven't we had ANY inkling regarding this before? And, frankly the more Kinsey reveals of her personal life, the more selfish and petty and unlike able she becomes. Maybe this was meant to be a growth showing book but mostly I was annoyed with her. Why is she so against telling the police anything? Why does she keep so much information to herself?

I did appreciate the way the mystery unfolded and Grafton's writing is spot on. So this is again 3 stars.

Feed - Mira Grant

I'm really torn on giving this book three or four stars. I really enjoyed it. It was really well researched. Exhaustively researched. Exhaustive. Yeah sometimes I felt the details were exhaustive. The background research bogs down the story line sometimes and slows down the action.

Feed is an interesting offering in the zombie apocalypse genre. Following the combination of two miracle drugs each curing their own affliction but then combining to create a super-virus which, yep, reanimates dead people and causes them to hunger for others' flesh. Oops. Thanks science. The research into virology and epidemiology is so well done. It's amazing. But, it also reads a bit like a peer reviewed journal.

The thing that I love most about the book is that in the midst of the zombie outbreak, the country has recovered somewhat. The government is still functional. People still have jobs and live throughout the country, except Alaska (sorry Alaska). But it's sort of a life goes on and technology evolves rather than disappears angle that I really enjoyed.

The story follows Georgia and Sean Mason as they, in turn, follow the campaign of Senator Ryman as he runs for president. They become attached to the campaign as embedded media. Georgia, the "newsie" covers all the straight forward news for their combined blogging/news/multimedia site. Sean, the "irwin" is the part of the team that pokes zombies with sticks and films it for an adrenaline rush. Buffy, the fictional, writes poetry but also handles the team's technological needs.

The three team members each have their responsibilities covering the Senator's promising campaign. As they travel with him, they endure one zombie outbreak that starts to look a bit like sabotage and then uncover a plot to use the zombie virus as a weapon - terrorism in 2039. How much will their pursuit of the truth cost them? Well, it's not all hugs and puppies folks.

Still the inventiveness and thorough approach to the story deserve some well earned accolades for author Mira Grant. I imagine the next book in this trilogy (why is it always a trilogy!?) will likely flow faster since a lot of the background material is out of the way.

Let's call it 3.75 Stars because it's closer to 4 than 3.

Things We Set on Fire - Deborah Reed

I really want to give this book 4 Stars, but there's just something a little missing to get it over that hump.

Things We Set on Fire starts off really strong. Vivie commits a terrible act. She shoots her husband as he's out illegally hunting, which in turn makes it look like a hunting accident. This event is the gravitas around which all other events in the book get their weighty meaning. And for whatever reason, it just doesn't work.

Fast forward about twenty-five years and we are again shown Vivie getting a call from the police that her two granddaughters who she hasn't seen in six years, are in need of shelter after their mother has been admitted to the hospital.

Drugs? That's Vivie's thought, although later on in the book it's not really clear why this would have been her guess. In any case, Vivie takes in Kate's two daughters and calls Kate's sister Elin who lives in Oregon. Vivie and the girls are in Florida, but Elin agrees to come and drives all the way to see them.

Elin has lived in Oregon for about 8 years, having unceremoniously packed up and left Florida behind. She was trying to escape the heaviness of her life there and created a new life for herself in Oregon. When she arrived in Oregon she found that her longtime boyfriend had moved on... to her sister. This man is the father of the two girls who Elin becomes the caretaker of.

This all happens in the very first chapters of the book and the momentum builds as it is apparent that the Elin is aware of her mother's action from long ago and no one has spoken of it. But then something happens with the book, where the characters, and their background stories don't really match up with their current actions. The reason for Kate's hospitalization is laid bare, but there isn't really any time dedicated to getting the characters through their processing of events. Instead they have these wholesale realizations and understandings that don't really ring true.

The book meandered toward the end and the ending was overall not very satisfactory. So while the writing was great and the story line good, the book just missed some element to push it over into a four-star rating.

Three stars.

The Light Between Oceans - M.L. Stedman

I should have prepared myself. I should have known about 20% into this book, when two people, tending a lighthouse on a desolate island, far off the coast of Australia, find a baby in a boat. A tiny, helpless, perfect baby.

And decide to keep it.

I should have prepared myself then. I should have known I would cry. But instead, I drove 5 1/2 hours to Cincinnati to run a 1/2 marathon and the entire way, listened to this book on audio. And cried. Cried so much my sunglasses remained on in the gas station where I stopped in Kentucky and was worried people would think I was crazy. Cried so much I ran out of Kleenex somewhere in Northern Kentucky and then had to go into the exhibit hall to pick up my race packet with my eyes feeling puffy and raw.

It's hard now, to read stories about loving and losing children that don't get to me. The way my own two have planted themselves firmly in my soul, in my heart, in my mind and everything in between. Imprinted.

So in this story, Tom and his wife Isabelle man the light station on Janus rock. A lonely island out to sea that sits between to oceans. After three heart-breaking miscarriages, a boat washes ashore with a dead man and a baby. And from the second it does, I knew Isabelle would want to keep the baby. Keep it and pass it off as her own. And she does. Even after learning that the baby is really the child of a local woman who has mourned and longed for her child, just as Isabelle has done for her own dead children. Because by then, how could Isabelle let go? There are no real winners in this scenario and the book is all the more heartbreaking because you cannot cheer for any of the characters. There is so much loss to pass out.

So if anything, the book gets 4 stars because when I cry this much, I'd like to be happy at the end, and really, I never was lifted from this state. The book could not have ended or gone any other way, I see that, but all the same, it's a sad read, even if it is wonderfully written.

4/5 Stars.

The Children's Home - Charles Lambert

I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. It's hard to describe Children's Home so I'll start with a brief description of the plot.

The story follows Morgan, a recluse who lives in a giant mansion. He is scarred from a violent childhood episode (physically) and one day a housekeeper named Engle arrives to take care of him. After Engle arrives a bunch of children start appearing at the house. There is no explanation for their origin, they are just accepted as arrived and Engle and Morgan begin to take care of them all. Morgan befriends a doctor named Crane who also moves into the house, because why not.

A couple of times two men from a "ministry" appear to find out where the kids have gone. Morgan then decides to fix his father's car and go outside the gates of his estate. They drive to a "factory" owned by Morgan's family and confront his sister, who owns the family business.

They find a "potting shed" filled with half buried children who they attempt to rescue but end up killing in the process. Then they free more children from the fields outside. It's all very strange. There is probably some greater allegory going on here that I'm just too confused to pick up on. The book is blessedly short, and I'm sure I could put together a lesson from the story of children who are at once innocent and capable of terrible deeds, as they are in the story. There is a reference to children in a home being killed at the concentration camps after being evacuated.

I know that's giving up basically the entire book, but I don't see the harm in that. It's a confusing book to read and in the end the final portion of the story is not very satisfying.

The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins

How do you review a book in which more than 50% of the time you spend inside the head of someone you aren't too keen on? I liked the book. I liked the story. I liked the unfolding of the mystery. But I really didn't like the lead protagonist, Rachel. She's a bit pathetic, and whiny, and crazy.

The book opens with Rachel as the narrator. She's sitting on the train. She's watching the homes slide by and she makes up stories about the lives of the people who live within the homes. She has no life of her own. She did, but now she doesn't. She's an alcoholic. She makes terrible choices.

She gets drunks and rings her ex-husband. She watches his home from the train like a real voyeur. She injects herself into events that do not concern her to add some interest to her life. And yes, you have to spend endless passages inside this woman's head. It's frustrating. I guess it might be the kind of frustration that comes with living with a real alcoholic. The endless backsliding and promises not to repeat.

The next person you spend that much time with is Megan. She's vague and doesn't seem to really do much. She sees a therapist. She's got some issues. She has a confession, a breath catching, eyes starting to water as I listen on my long run, confession. It's heart breaking. I end up liking her despite myself.

The last narrator is Anna, the new wife of Rachel's ex. She's irritating and holier than thou, even though she snatched away Rachel's husband and liked it. I liked her even less than Rachel.

I think my main problem is that you spend so much time in melancholy with Rachel and Megan that it starts to rub off on you. There's really no joy in the book.

So, why did I like the book? The writing is fantastic. The narrative voices of the three main characters are distinct. The plot is great, although it does get a bit slow in some parts. And I liked the mystery aspect to it.

4/5 Stars.

N is for Noose - Sue Grafton

N is for Noose starts out with Kinsey playing house with Dietz, a one time bodyguard turned lover who has commitment issues of his own. After Dietz has recovered enough to mostly take care of himself, Kinsey drives home with a stop over in Nota Lake to see about a job investigating the last weeks of a detective's life at the request of the detective's widow, Selma Newquist.

Nota Lake is a small mountain town in California and the people there are descended from some escaped convicts who once called it home. Kinsey's investigation keeps running into dead ends and uncooperative people. She even gets attacked by a masked stranger in her hotel room. Poor Kinsey.

She returns to Santa Theresa to run down a few leads and then is chided back to Nota Lake by Selma to finish the job. It all comes together in the final pages of the book as is usual for the alphabet series, although this ending had a few references to clues I didn't even remember reading (i.e. the main villain's motivation which I must have completely missed reference to in the beginning of the book).

The book does have some really memorable minor characters, Olga Toth for one (the 60-ish widow of a sometimes convict who likes to talk on an on about inappropriate subjects) was a rare treat. Seeing Kinsey ostracized on her return to Nota Lake was also an interesting move. All in all the book had some weaknesses but was otherwise a good read. 

3/5 Stars.

The Martian - Andy Weir

I loved, loved, loved this book! I'm recommending it to everyone I know. I think it's the best book I've read in 2015. It's smart. It made me WANT to read about growing potatoes for 30 pages. It made me WANT to hear about velocity, atmospheric pressure, etc.

I can see why the actual NASA astronauts have all read it. It's funny and well researched. I can't think of anything Weir did not include in his piece by piece structure of the novel.

If you've never heard of the book, that is probably about to end, as it is being released on October 2, 2015 in the theaters in movie form starring Matt Damon and directed by Ridley Scott (Gladiator) (you can watch the trailer here). And oh, I'm so deliriously excited to see this movie.

The story follows Mark Watney, an astronaut on a mission to Mars. Watney is lost during a massive storm on Mars and believed dead. But, he's not. Because, as you'll see when you read it (seriously go read it), Watney is AWESOME! This is a guy you can go have a beer with, watch a ball game with, talk about plants with. He's a mechanical engineer/botanist and he's hilarious. Following him around Mars is some of the best moments I've spent in a fictional world.

Most importantly, the book captures some of the magic of space exploration that I felt as a kid watching shuttle launches on TV. I'm not sure how Weir does it, but he does. And I followed along like a person reading news accounts of the effort to bring Watney home. I so hope the movie lives up to the book, because I want to like it and I want to spend more time with Watney, even if it is on screen as Matt Damon (don't screw this up for me Matt!).

Love, love, love this book.

5/5 Stars.

Finding Fraser - K.C. Dyer

This was a fun book turned on a goofy premise. The story follows Emma, a 29 year old woman who is (understandably) a bit obsessed with one James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser of the Outlander series (and now TV show - seriously, look up Sam Heughan and I dare you not to drool, see below and you're welcome). Emma, having had no luck in love or life is in need of a serious life shake up and decides to sell all her worldly possessions and head to Scotland to find her very own Jamie.

Since Emma has very little money and a vast lack of world experience, surprising given her living in Chicago (see I'm totally biased, I think people from Chicago have to have the world travel thing figured out), she is going to do the trip on the cheap. Emma came across as a bit naive throughout the story, although she does have enough self awareness to admit to this after the fact.

I would be more annoyed with Emma's "need to find a man to complete myself and save me" attitude if she didn't vocalize the fact that women needed to be stronger characters in their own story. In the end, this is what Emma becomes, a stronger protagonist in her own story. I like the backdrop of using the Outlander books as a foothold for the blog turned novel concept, which is not actually a blog turned novel.


The book is fun and entertaining and a good summer read. I listened to this one on audible though and I have to say the narrator's accents were a bit forced and stereotypical. Let's just say one of the commenters on Emma's blog is Japanese and well.......the butchered English in the fake accent and what I can assume is the attempt at English as a Second Language syntax are a tad on the offensive side.

I love that Diana Gabaldon was pleased with this Outlander inspired work, since I've read before that she dreads and disapproves of fan-fiction. This isn't fan fiction in the strictest sense, so if Herself gives it a pass, all to the better.

This book was a solid 3/5 Stars.

Monster - Steve Jackson

Wow! Just, wow. This is a true crime story, which I didn't realize until I was about a chapter into it, but it follows the deaths of three women in Colorado in the 1980s and 1990s. It focuses on one man, Thomas Edward Luther, as a ruthless serial killer and predator of women.

What a scary dude. This book was endlessly researched and the narrative is told in a thrilling combination of direct quotes from interviews and statements as well as reconstructed observations from those sources.

There is something completely fascinating about serial criminals that defies logic and understanding, but this book really delves into all of this. It also delves into the mind of a woman who loved Luther, despite knowing of his heinous crimes. Debrah Snider met Luther when he was serving time for a brutal sexual assault. She was working as a nurse in a prison hospital at the time. She fell in love with this guy and starting writing him. She somehow believed she could change him when he came out of prison, so long as he stayed away from other women. Great. At least she later admits that it doesn't make sense that she loves this man.

The book delves the most into the death of Cher Elder in 1993 and follows the investigation by Detective Steve Richardson. Richardson's dogged determination to put Luther behind bars was rewarded during the trial for Cher Elder's murder. 

Here is a picture of this brutal dude looking like a frumpy nobody. Good. He's evil and should rot and die in jail.
 

Thankfully, Luther is serving a very long prison term and not eligible for parole until 2085. This is seriously one of the best true crime novel's I've ever read. I'm going to be looking up more by Steve Jackson. 

4/5 Stars.

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

Okay, I oscillated through this book. When I first started, I wanted to give the book 2-3 stars. And then a shipwreck happens and the book gets infinitely more interesting and I was going to give it 4 stars at least. Then the castaway(s) journey goes on for quite a long time and I started to lose my interest except I was so close to finishing I just powered through. And at that point I was back to 3 stars and the ending I really liked so I wanted to go with 4, but given the inconsistencies, I wound up here, at a 3 which is probably more accurately a 3.5.

So here is the best breakdown I can give:
2-3 stars - The book starts slow and I really disliked the change in narrative voice that occurs in the first section of the book. It keeps you from fully identifying with the main character Pi Patel. Additionally, the author's point of view that is told in short snippets at the beginning has an odd voice and doesn't flow well. It also repeats a lot of what is in the author's note at the beginning of the book. Martel is right, Mr. Patel's story is extraordinary, he just doesn't need to tell me so many times. Let me read the story and decide for myself. By the time Pi gets to the Island, I kind of started to lose interest though. This section ran a little long.

4 stars - The actual story of the shipwreck and survival. The story of the animals. I did just read Unbroken, and I didn't plan on reading another lost at sea book so soon, it happened totally by accident I swear, but this part of the book may also have benefited from the love I have left over from Unbroken. I also love the switcheroo at the end of the book. It makes you look back on the entire story and reevaluate all the events that happened. It takes away the spectacle of the books prior chapters and makes Pi's suffering so human and so horrifying, it adds a level of debt to the book that wouldn't have existed otherwise.

Bottom line is I am glad I read the book and found it very good. But I'm not sure if I agree that the story was one to "make me believe in god." I also don't like stories that are sort of ambiguous about whether they are really based on a true story, or try hard to make you believe they are, only to not be. And Life of Pi, from what I can tell is a complete work of fiction. I don't think Martel wants the reader to be sure of this and I think that kind of cheapens the story telling. It doesn't have to be real to be a good story.

3/5 Stars.

Bossy Pants - Tina Fey

I'll just start out this review with the fact that I LOOOOOOVE Tina Fey. I love that she's unapologetic over her success. She's self-effacing and confident at the same time. So listening to her read her own book was a real pleasure.

Bossy Pants gives a thorough history of Fey's upbringing and her start at Second City in Chicago. I loved the chapter detailing her days at the Evanston YMCA, a place I've been to a thousand times. I too have been warned to wear a bike helmet when walking around in the area. See, Tina Fey, I'm famous by proxy now!

She gives a great perspective on what it was like to work at Saturday Night Live and later on 30 Rock, a show I absolutely adore and am sad is no longer on TV. She even goes into detail on her stint playing Sarah Palin which was after she had already left SNL. It's weird that the book came out in 2011 and so much has changed since then. One of the last chapters is about whether she was going to have another baby (she may have been pregnant while actually taping that audio portion) and 30 Rock is, sadly, no longer on TV.

Tina Fey is hopefully going to be around producing and acting for quite some time. I think she's a great role model for doing your own thing and being unapologetic (whoops I used this word to describe her already) about doing it as a woman. She's one of those famous people I'd really like to have a beer with. 

4/5 Stars.

Sharp Objects - Gillian Flynn

Here's what I love about Gillian Flynn, but others seem to dislike - not a single one of her characters are likeable, but somehow I always thoroughly enjoy reading her books. Sharp Objects is no exception. The story surrounds junior reporter Camille Preaker, a journalist at a third tier newspaper in Chicago. Camille is asked to return to her hometown of Wind Gap, MO to cover the story of a second missing girl. Camille reluctantly agrees and slowly, as only Gillian Flynn can, the background of Camille and her reluctance is laid out in the open.

I find one of the best things about Gillian Flynn's narrative style is how she uses the first person narrative voice and so forces you to experience the story as the main character. And for a while you trust and are lulled by the main character's point of view. You agree with them. You don't question them. Then, when you are good and comfortable, she smacks you with some objective truth or secret about the main character. And you realize you really knew nothing all along.

In this case, we slowly learn about Camille and her childhood. Flynn takes some pains not to make Camille completely unlikeable. In fact, I caught myself liking her despite myself. This debut novel is certainly not as polished as Gone Girl or Dark Places (you can read my review of Dark Places here), but it's timing of reveals is pretty brilliant. And while I did sort of predict the ending, it was still satisfying nonetheless. There were a few tropes that I felt cheapened the story a bit - for example, a line by one of the detectives that he's "fallen" for Camille. The whole dialogue in that section seemed out of character for the book.

Gillian Flynn is a master at writing and delving into unlikeable characters. Her heroes are always flawed and damaged. And there is something rewarding about that, as a reader, to explore with her. 

5/5 Stars.

The Litigators - John Grisham

I was pleasantly surprised that I actually really enjoyed this book. I haven't read John Grisham in a while. I've always associated him with 90s legal thrillers. I received this book over a year ago as a gift and just now got around to reading it. It's a comedy!

The story follows David Zinc, an associate attorney at a mega-firm in Chicago. One day David just can't go through another 12 hour day at the legal sweat shop a lot of these firms specialize in. So he goes on a fantastic drinking bender and then winds up on the doorstep of a two man ambulance chasing operation. The two partners at this firm are totally inept and hanging on by a thread. David decides to throw his hat in with them and becomes the firm's associate.

The two partners, Oscar Finley and Wallis Figg are bumbling along when one of them gets the bright idea to tag onto a giant mass-tort case against a major pharmaceutical company. Considering the pedigree and lack of ethics exhibited by the partners, the litigation does not go well, to comical results.

I enjoyed watching the Chicago backdrop of the legal community float through this book. It was entertaining and Grisham kept the action moving without getting thoroughly bogged down too far in talking about the minutia of the law suit itself.

4/5 Stars.

The Witch's Daughter - Paula Brackston

I'm mixed on this one. The writing was okay and the story was okay. I wasn't a big fan of the characters and the structure of the narrative.

The book starts with Elizabeth moving to a new town and on the lookout for some kind of danger that keeps following her. She befriends a teenager, Tegan, who proves to be kind of annoying.

Elizabeth starts sharing her history with Tegan who somehow doesn't realize the people in the story are actually earlier versions of Elizabeth until finally Elizabeth tells her a final story about love and loss.

Oh and this guy following Elizabeth disguises himself as other people and although Elizabeth gets a funny feeling around certain people, she never realizes its this guy until he kills a few people.

It's all fine but not excellent.

3/5 Stars. 

The Early Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald - F. Scott Fitzgerald

I really can't say enough good things about this collection of short stories. I have been a long time fan of the Great Gatsby and I've also read a previous collection of his short stories which included the unforgettable "Diamond as Big as the Ritz."

In this collection of early stories, you can see Fitzgerald process and explore themes following and during WWI. He's writing at a time when social mores are becoming undefined and the gender norms blurred.

The first story, "Babes in the Woods" explores a loosening of sexual restrictions among teenagers. Both play a game in which they observe the required social niceties, all the while thinking of how they will break them. When they fail to achieve their desired results, both are equally disappointed.

"Sentiment - and the Use of Rouge," follows a young man home on leave from the war who finds that he does not understand what has happened to society. He finds the women too "painted" and the men too scarce. The war may have meant something to him at the front, but it has wrought further changes back home.

"The Cut-Glass Bowl" uses a woman's conceit and pride to illustrate her downfall in both beauty and superiority. Just as the "Four Fists" shows a man learning life lessons at the end of a fist.

I cannot leave out the hilarious "The Camel's Back" in which a disappointed suitor attempts to arrive at a costume party as one half of a camel.

Lastly, the collection also includes "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," which I think I knew was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald but alas is nothing like the movie. It's main focus is on the things were learn as an adult, but shows them in reverse as Benjamin loses that knowledge as he becomes younger.

There's such a delicious voice of yearning, disappointment, understanding and disillusionment in so many of these stories. I can't recommend them enough.

5/5 Stars!

Loving Frank - Nancy Horan

My mom and sister received a scolding text message for not warning me I would cry in the last chapters of this wonderful and heartbreaking debut novel. So as I write this with swollen and red eyes at Midway airport I have mostly great things to say about this book.

The book takes an honest look at the role of women at the turn of the twentieth century. It is with a sense of relief and gratitude that the sacrifices and demands made by that generation such as the protagonist Mamah Borthwick made to ensure I and women everywhere would be evaluated and valued on our own contributions to society.

The author did a wonderful job of creating honest characters. Just as I was growing tired of one of the characters lamenting the situations they had made for themselves the character would also realize they were acting a little put upon.

They only detracting comment I can really say about this novel is that certain passages ran on and on and on. This may be part of a new author developing their craft but I found some pages largely unnecessary as Horan had done such a good job developing the characters already. 

I had absolutely no background in anything involving Frank Lloyd Wright aside from knowing where his homes are located and what the architecture generally looked like. This was such a pleasant and wonderful surprise. I can't recommend enough.

4/5 Stars.

The White Princess - Phillipa Gregory

Probably a 3.5 star book. I really liked the story but the middle of the book was repetitive and thus got a little boring. This installment in the Cousin's War books (do not need to be read in order) tells the tale of Princess Elizabeth of York who weds Henry VII (Henry Tudor), her family's enemy. Told from Elizabeth's point of view, the story focuses on a series of York pretenders to the throne and Henry's treatment of them. It also posits a possible back story for the final York pretender which Tudor historians named "Warbeck" but understandable skepticism exists regarding the plausibility here. I do appreciate that Gregory isn't afraid to go her own way on some of these unclear historical events. The tale ends before Henry's reign ends. I would have liked to see Elizabeth deal with her son's death and the eventual crowning of Henry VIII rather than all the pages wasted repeating Henry VII's fears regarding Warbeck which is basically the same chapter over and over for 100+ pages. I feel like that put the story firmly in Henry's domain rather than focusing on Elizabeth.  3.5/5 Stars.

Only Time Will Tell (Clifton Chronicles) - Jeffrey Archer

So this meandering tale follows Harry Clifton as he grows from boyhood into an adult. The story shifts between various narrators including Harry's mother Maisie, Harry's best friend Giles, Old Jack Tar and a couple others which would be giving away plot points to mention. Through the various characters different lines of the truth are exposed and it's interesting to learn certain facts when the perspective changes. 

There are a couple things about the writing that I was not a big fan of. Each narrative shift encompasses a few chapters. The first chapter after the shift is written in the first person. The remaining chapters after a shift are written in The third person. I'm not sure what Archer is doing here. It's just distracting. 

The second issue I have with this novel is that although it seems to be well placed in historical events, the author might have not looked in to American history as well as he should have. For one there is a scene at the end with a character being read his Miranda rights. In 1939. Miranda v. Arizona didn't happen until 1966 so that's a little lazy. 

Otherwise I found the story entertaining even if it's not the most eloquent writing I've read. I'll read the rest of the series I'm sure but I'm not going to be reading them back to back. 

3/5 Stars. 

Dark Places - Gillian Flynn

If I could pick one writer I have read over the past year whose style and narrative voice I really enjoy and would want to emulate if I were to write something of my own, it would be Gillian Flynn. I think I enjoyed this story more than Gone Girl although the stories have some similarities which make them great.

First, Flynn writes characters that are morally ambiguous. You want to root for them but discover you can't, or you can, but you feel bad about it. No one is either all good, or all bad here (except maybe Diondra) and that feels more real than other stories. 

I also like her understanding of the way the narrators control the story. the narrator gets to decide when they will tell you something and it completely shapes how you see them, and Flynn knows just when to drop the best knowledge on you. It manipulates the reader in the perfect way. As a reader, it's a rare treat to feel completely in the author's control. Realizing at some point that the author has been manipulating all along is a delicious surprise.




This story follows Libby Day, a young woman who is getting by in life despite her awful past. As a seven year old, she witnessed her family's murder and now, as an older woman, she's being asked to reevaluate everything she thought she knew about the murder - including the evidence she gave that put her brother behind bars! It's exciting. 



Included in the cast of minor characters are some really great people to hate, including Libby's brother's girlfriend, and a whole slew of junior gumshoes who think they have the key to solving the mystery of Libby's murdered family. It's such great exercise detesting these people.

Sharp Objects, I suppose is next!

5/5 Stars.

Ploughshares Spring 2015 Poetry Edition

I've been reading Ploughshares as a subscriber for about three years now, but I would read it casually before then. And if you've ever read some of the "Best Short Stories of ____" series, then you've probably run across some of their published material.

Typically, the format includes short fiction and poetry from American authors. Occasionally, they do an all prose edition. This is the first time I've received an all poetry edition. Initially I was pretty excited, as my exposure, sad to say, to poetry comes exclusively from my Ploughshares subscription. And all told, I've really enjoyed the poetry that is typically published.

So the Spring 2015 edition was all poetry and instead of just American authors, this collection used a British editor and pulled selections from British, Irish and American authors. Some authors are immigrants of those countries, some selections were written in the original Gaelic text (translated, thankfully as well). As I was reading, I kept in mind that I would eventually review the entire collection and I wanted to be able to point to a few of my favorite poems.

As I was approaching the halfway mark, I realized I hadn't really marked any yet. Hmmm... was this an effect of me reading before bed and really not being in the right frame of mind for poetry? Am I just so obtuse that I'm not getting the profound nature of some of these poems? Am I simply on poetry overload? Or, am I just not connecting with the subject matter? I'm not sure what the answer is.

While I typically really enjoy the selected poems printed in Ploughshares, I didn't feel that about this edition. The poems present an interesting collection, and they certainly span a wide array of style and voice. I just didn't find any that I thought, absolutely, I need to read that again and again and pull out a quote and put it on my wall. 



That said, I did really enjoy "The Case of the Inconvenient Corpse" by Tracey Herd, "Return of the Native" by Suji Kwock Kim, "Psalm" by Dorianne Laux, "Ode While Awaiting Execution" by Thomas Lux, "Freudiana" by Jamie McKendrick, "Anthropologies" by Kate Potts, "Atropa Belladonna" by Austin Smith, and "My Problem" by Matthew Sweeney.

So I feel kind of lukewarm about this edition, although overall when I receive Ploughshares in my mailbox it makes me insanely happy.

3/5 Stars.

A Stolen Life - Jaycee Dugard

I don't want anything in this review to diminish the horrifying ordeal that Jaycee Dugard survived. I believe she showed strength and courage in writing this book and should be commended on raising what seem to be two well-adjusted daughters and for keeping her own sanity during 18 years of captivity and maltreatment. That being said, it's really too bad that she didn't have an editor to work with her on writing this memoir. It would have given it some structure to fall back on. At first she starts with writing about the past and then has sections called "reflection" where she discusses how that portion of the story has evolved in her thinking. This drops off midway through the book and becomes jumbled with the "in time" narrative. If you're not familiar, Jaycee was kidnapped as a teenager and held for ten years by a man and his wife. She was repeatedly raped and bore two of her rapists children while in isolation. She was eventually rescued and is trying to now live her life after the trauma. Again, I think she's a champion for surviving, and hopefully she can find a fulfilling career and life beyond her ordeal. She and I are very nearly the same age (within months) and I can't imagine going through what she has been through. Also being pregnant now, I can't imagine how scary it must have been to give birth without modern comforts with two people who are intent on using and abusing you for their own sick pleasure. I hope the paparazzi leave Jaycee and her daughters alone to grow and adjust to life on the outside. It's tough out there enough for regular people. 2/5 Stars.

The Lazarus Project - Aleksandar Hemon

I'd probably give this book three and half stars if I could. (Oh wait, I can, it's my blog!) It's interesting and different from anything I've read in a while. It really delves into the American immigrant experience both in 1908 and 2008. While the times certainly have changed, the longing for home, the slightly unsettled feeling, and the loneliness are all quite the same.

Hemon uses the narrator and his subject to explore a realm of being in a place without really knowing it, and the disconnect that comes from having motivations and experiences totally different some someone else, to include the basic building blocks of personality (in this case founded in nationality).

With that said, I didn't really like all the jumping around done between the two distinct stories. While the stories switched off by chapters, they sometimes intermingled in the narrator's chapter within paragraphs. I see how Hemon was trying to more closely tie these two experiences than in other chapters, but it ended up forcing me to make the connection, and I would have appreciated a bit more breathing room in the narrative. 

3.5/5 Stars.

M is for Malice - Sue Grafton

This is the 13th installment in the Alphabet series. Kinsey is still living in the 80s, still wearing her turtlenecks and driving an old VW car. There's something that I appreciate about the books still be set back in the 80s. Large portions of time don't pass for Kinsey so the timeline is relatively truncated, even though after 13 books I feel like Kinsey should be using a cell phone by now.

In this one, Kinsey is hired by her cousin Tasha to locate a missing person who stands to inherit a lot of money from a will. At first I was a bit annoyed that Kinsey is still so reluctant to spend time with her newly found cousins. (New to the series? Kinsey's parents were killed in a car accident when she was little. She was raised by her aunt. Her aunt has since died too. Her mother and her aunt were two disowned children of some apparently super rich family in a nearby town. They never looked for Kinsey. She's bitter). Anyway, now her cousins have found her, they are interested in having a better relationship with her but she's not having it. And she bitches about it a lot. And part of me thinks, "get over it already." But having read the first paragraph of this review, I realized that although this has been four or five books coming already, it's only about 6 months in Kinsey time. So really, she hasn't had that much time to adjust yet. Sorry Kinsey, I'll stop judging you about this... for now.

Anyway, so Kinsey is sent to track down Guy Malek, the youngest of four brothers and black sheep of the family. The other brothers, hardworking Donovan, jealous Bennett, and golf pro Jack, all would like nothing more than for their younger, former addict brother Guy to remain missing so they can cut him out of the will and share in his $5 million portion of their father's estate. But Kinsey finds him and brings him back. Hmmm... that was short - it takes about 100 pages or less for this to happen. And I was thinking... what's the rest of the book going to be about. 

Oh wait, then Guy... well something happens to Guy and THAT is where the mystery really takes off. I actually was able to pick up a few of the plot points ahead of time. Good for me. I usually am pretty slow on the uptake of those.

This book had the return of Dietz, Kinsey's erstwhile love interest. It also featured Jonah Robb which I thought would be included more in the book, but he only shows up once and Kinsey and he do not have a big scene together. It's somewhat dissatisfying. I'm giving this one three stars because it got pretty slow there in the middle and there were these weird elements hanging out there, but I'm definitely going to keep reading this series. It's kind of a nice break from heavier literature.

3/5 Stars.

Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes

I simply can't say enough good things about Matterhorn. It's an intricate story with a lot of characters to keep track of, but it's worth it. I found myself so invested in the book 100 pages in that I had to put it down several times just to calm down before I could go on reading.

The book mainly follows 2d Lt. Waino Mellas, a Princeton grad who after signing up for the Marine reserves before going to college gets shipped off to Vietnam after graduation. 600 pages later, you have only been in the bush with Mellas for two months, but it feels like you've known him forever. Marlantes has written Mellas wonderfully ambiguous. He has some likeable and unlikeable qualities, but above all else he feels real.

It's probably not a spoiler to say some of the characters die, but I was surprised at just how many did. The book packs politics, racial equality, and battle descriptions all into its pages. The book should be required reading at any officer basic training school. While there is commentary about the political nightmare that was Vietnam, it also gives a great look at the men who bravely fought a war everyone back home would blame them for. 

This is a book that is going to stay with me for a long time. While people with no military background might not be drawn to it, I think it is something everyone should read to understand what that lifestyle is like. This one is so moving and so powerful on a human level. It is also long, but hang in there reader, it's totally worth it.

5/5 Stars.

Three Cups of Deceit - Jon Krakauer

It took Jon Krakauer 75 pages to unravel all the lies spun by Mortenson and Relin in 350 pages of Three Cups of Tea (read my review of that one here) I wasn't blown away by Krakauer's writing in this one, but he didn't intend this to be like one of his longer books. 

He succinctly unravels Mortenson's deceit.

Like Krakauer I am really confused why Greg would go to all that trouble to concoct such an elaborate lie. The story, the parts that are true would be admirable. It reminds me of the woman who lied for years about being a September 11th victim and really was nowhere near the towers on that day. 

The lies undo a lot of the good that could be done by bringing the entire scheme into doubt. The mismanagement of the funds make me happy that I never gave money to the organization. 

I hope the CAI can move on from here. Mortenson can take his millions and quietly live with his family, but I doubt someone who's ego needs that much fluffing will be able to stay away from the spotlight. At least he won't be looking at the Nobel prize anytime soon.

4/5 Stars.