Tag Archives: goodreads:reviews

The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen [Review]

The Peach KeeperThe Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my second book by Sarah Addison Allen and I really enjoyed it. I’m a reader of pretty heavy material, so every once in awhile, I like to clear my palate with some lighter fare and Ms Allen always delivers a fun, indulgent read laced with sweetness and a little bit of magic.

Willa Jackson, Colin and Paxton Osgood, and Sebastian Rogers all went to high school together and all but Paxton (who never left) returned years later, completely changed people. The story centers around a Gala, a formal party to celebrate the re-opening of the Blue Ridge Madam, led by Paxton and the Women’s Society. Just as the Madam is about to open,a skeleton is found, tying Willa, Colin and Paxton together via their ancestors and a well kept secret.

The Peach Keeper is more than a story about a magical man who smelled of peaches and once held an entire town under his spell, and who suddenly and mysteriously disappeared… and then reappeared as a skeleton just as Walls of Water’s premiere luxury hotel was to reopen. It is a story of regrets, of self reinvention, of resistance to change and letting go of fears, and most of all of being true to oneself.

There was a lot less magic in this book than in The Girl Who Chased the Moon– I really expected more and perhaps the story could have benefited from it, but I also felt the story was full– each character had a purpose for being in the book and each character lived up to his or her potential. I especially enjoyed the scandal between Tucker, Agatha (Paxton and Colin Osgood’s grandmother), and Georgie (Willa Jackson’s grandmother. I wanted there to be a bit more detail about covering up the secret and what it had taken to keep it quiet.

And I’ll say this, because romances in books, by definition are unrealistic, but the romantic connections, to me, seem to be a stretch. Too pat and perfect and… unrealistic. I guess I am hard to please, and these relationships needed to form in order to push the story along. I was happy to see some old friendships rekindle, and some begin for the first time. I’m still sort of appalled that people still live in the town where they went to high school.

I gave this book 4 of 5 stars, purely because I enjoyed it so much!

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Can’t Say No by Jennifer Greene [Review]

Can't Say NoCan’t Say No by Jennifer Greene

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After tragedy strikes, Bree Penoyer’s feelings of guilt leave her speechless-literally. Tired of always being the good girl and just letting things happen to her, Bree decides it’s time to take life into her own hands. She dumps her lucrative but uninspiring career and her sweet but boring fiancé, and escapes to her late grandmother’s rustic cabin in South Carolina to find herself again.

Her solitude is immediately disrupted by her new neighbor, Hart Manning, a sexy but arrogant rogue who doesn’t seem capable of taking no for an answer. The last thing Bree wants is an affair, especially with a self-proclaimed womanizer like Hart. But she can’t deny he arouses her as no man ever has, and when at last she finds her voice, she’s very ready to say yes!

I received “Can’t Say No” from NetGalleys.com and read it in practically one sitting. I was intrigued by the storyline of a perfect Bree, whose life was so disturbed by her Grandmother’s death that she could no longer speak… except in her dreams. I identified with Bree right away.

Have to say, I never came to like Hart Manning. I realize the author’s goal was to create a character so enigmatic and aggressive that you first hate, then love him. It reminds me a bit of the Mr. Darcy effect. No matter how much I love Mark Darcy, I found Hart to be quite over the top, though I was happy he got her to speak again.

This was a quick, enjoyable read. I think probably the only iffy point was how many people flew, then drove for 3 hours to come see Bree and then immediately left. Quite unrealistic and bothersome… but I guess if she didn’t have a phone…

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Chocolate & Vicodin by Jennette Fulda [Review]

Chocolate and Vicodin: My Quest for Relief from the Headache that Wouldn't Go AwayChocolate and Vicodin: My Quest for Relief from the Headache that Wouldn’t Go Away by Jennette Fulda

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Finished this book in about a day… very compelling read. I’ve been an avid reader of PastaQueen for nearly three years. Back when I was trying to lose some weight (never did manage to outrun those lbs, the suckers) I was looking for inspiration and someone linked her blog and I was hooked, right away. I love a success story, and when Jennette Fulda, the Queen of Pasta herself, announced that she was writing a book, I was ultra excited.

Chocolate and Vicodin is her second book, about the headache that is like the Little Engine That Could. Since February 2008, Jennette has had a constant headache. At a time in her life when she should be deliriously happy and celebrating, she is knocked to her knees by debilitating head pain. My father suffers from chronic migraines and back pain on a constant basis, has for as long as I can remember. I have friends who are migraine sufferers. If nothing, Chocolate and Vicodin brings the experience home and puts it into words which are down to earth and even humorous. I don’t know how Jennette does it… if I’d had a headache for 3 years, I would be pretty unbearable right now.

I cried on page 96 and laughed on page 113. In fact, I laughed on every other page. Jennette’s natural dry humor and wit give this book a great personality. I really enjoyed it. Well done.

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Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen [Review]

Water for Elephants Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.

I started this book on the audio version, at first a bit turned off by the obvious attempt to make the narrator sound aged. On reflection, I simply wasn’t a fan of the narrator, and that, plus an intriguing story line is what makes an audio book interesting for me. I can only listen to a book in the car, so if it can’t block out traffic irritation for me, it isn’t an audio book that’s going to work for me. Not only did the narrator irritate me, but so did traffic. It wasn’t engrossing or distracting at all.

By the time I switched to the eBook, interest in this novel was on life support. I’ve found that while I read, I skip a lot. Too much detail? Skim. Boring dialog I don’t care about? Skip. When I’m unable to skip past parts I don’t feel like reading, I feel trapped by the author in the minutiae and I resent that. Once I picked up the eBook, I was able to read more quickly, pick up the story and get to the climax.

Water for Elephants is set in a Depression Era circus called the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. The RingMaster, Uncle Al and his right hand man, the Equestrian Director August, quite clearly want to be Ringling Brothers. They’ll never measure up, but that doesn’t stop them from trying. The main character, Jacob, ends up with the Benzini Brothers after he loses his parents, his future, and his home, all in one fell swoop. One moment a promising veterinarian with a promising practice waiting for him. The next, “roustabout” shoveling animal dung out of stalls.

When Big Al finds him stowing away, his Veterinary knowledge is his only saving grace. He’s hired as the Circus Vet, to work with the animals, namely to check out the show’s stars: Silver Star and her trainer, Marlena. It’s obvious, right away, that Jacob has a “thing” for Marlena. Who is married to August.

Drama ensues, and becomes the crux of the entire story.

In between tales of life on the rails with the Circus are interspersed stories of Jacob in the future, in his 90′s, reminiscing, remembering, regretting. He is long forgotten in a nursing home, resentful of the fact that he’s living amongst those who aren’t in their right minds. The highlight of Jacob’s week is a visit to the local circus that’s in town. He’s been looking forward to it for days.

I checked a few other reviews, just to make sure that my analysis of the characters wasn’t totally off. I liked Jacob, some. Not a whole lot, but I think that was more an issue with the narrator than anything. His naivete kept me biting my nails and his bravery came so late in the story that it was maddening. August was confusing… the revealing of his mental condition came too late, for me. I think it would have added to the plot if it had been revealed earlier in the story. I wasn’t a fan of Marlena. Her characterization fell flat, to me. The convenience of her feelings seemed sudden and unexplained and her damsel-in-distress act didn’t bring any feelings of sorrow or worry.

I did feel for the elephant, Rosie. She made me laugh and cry and cheer. Smart animal. Very smart animal.

In my rating, 5 stars is impeccable, 4 is very good, 3 is okay, average. This book scored a firm 2 for me. It wasn’t awful. It wasn’t really good, either.

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The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom [Review]

The Kitchen HouseThe Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have to start by saying I LOVED THIS BOOK. I got this as an audio book, a something to listen to that would ease my traffic woes and it WORKED. I can only concentrate on audio books in the car, so it got to where I was making up reasons to leave the house. A trip across the street became a reason to get 10 more minutes in. I savored every bite and morsel I could get, and though it only took me a few days to listen to it all, it felt like this book would never end, and yet I could not stop “reading”.

Lavinia, orphaned at 7 years old, has been brought to Tall Oaks Tobacco plantation as an indentured servant. She’s put under the guidance of Belle, Captain Pike’s illegitimate daughter, and Mama Mae, the matriarch of the “family”. Over the years, Belle begins to feel as if Tall Oaks is her home and the servants are her family, even though she is white and they are black. She also doesn’t seem to know the difference between herself and the others and no one feels the need to point it out. Lavinia only learns that she is quite different when she is allowed to go to church and doesn’t understand why her friends the twins must stand at the back of the church while she is allowed to sit up front.

Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where she finds that all that glitters is not gold. The Captain, though kind to his servants is absent and the mistress falls prey to an addiction. The Captain’s family believe that Belle is the Master’s mistress, not his daughter, so there is tension in the household among Belle and Mrs. Pike.

This situation, though not altogether pleasant, is not the nightmare it could be, and of course is too good to be true. When the Master falls ill and eventually dies, here comes trouble and the start fury and upheaval at Tall Oaks, so much that I could not mentally turn the pages fast enough. Captain Pike’s son Marshall becomes the new Master and he is nowhere near the kind soul his father was. Tall Oaks descends into a nightmare.

The Kitchen House is full of suspense, and moments where I said loud, “No, don’t!’ and “Oh you dumbass!” and ‘I want someone to shoot Marshall!”

I felt the main characters were well defined, and when even they weren’t, it was frustrating, but fitting. The story bounces between Lavinia and Belle, and since we see the story through their eyes, feel their confusion and pain, it’s only right that we don’t know the entire story from everyone’s point of view.

I found myself alternately rooting for and upset with Lavinia. Her naivete and ignorance was annoying, and the “family’s” insistence on keeping her within that cloud made for a lot of drama. So many times, issues could have been resolved without punishment if someone would have just said something… but they decided not to and the drama continued.

I was completely enthralled with this story– it is well written with an incredible climax and a satisfying ending. I would be very excited to read more from Kathleen Grissom. I very very rarely give five stars to a book, but this novel is simply perfection. As an added note, the narrators for the audio book are so well suited that when I re-read the print copy of this book, I will hear their voices in the back of my mind.

A wonderfully well written, compelling first novel.

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Left Neglected by Lisa Genova [Review]

Left NeglectedLeft Neglected by Lisa Genova

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I won’t write a long review for this book. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed it just as much as Still Alice. It was still riveting while be educational and scientifically interesting. I saw some parallels to Still Alice, in that the main characters in both books could be interchangeable. I feel like Genova is almost switching out the life altering debilitating condition and leaving the story mostly intact.

That’s not to take away from the story at all. I still enjoyed its complex simplicity and the style in which it was written.

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The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Heidi W Durrow [Review]

The Girl Who Fell from the SkyThe Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi Durrow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rachel Morse is the soul survivor of a horrific tragedy, brought from Chicago, IL to live with her grandmother and aunt in Portland Oregon. Rachel creates within her self a “new girl”… the old girl is gone, dead with the rest of her family. This new girl struggles to navigate a different life in Portland. Back home, her parents – a white Danish woman and a black soldier, never told her she was black. They never prepared her for a world where her kinky, curly hair and bright blue eyes would land her smack in the middle of two races, able to identify with neither.

The novel follows Rachel and those who are involved in her life on the periphery, like spokes on a wheel, by switching narrators. We jump in time between Rachel’s present day and the slow re-telling of the story through other voices.

I’m having a difficult time forming the words to describe my feelings on this book. It is beautifully, almost poetically written. I was deeply involved in the story and invested in each character. I started listening to the audio book in the car and it was just moving so slowly that I came home one day and bought the book so I could read the rest of it and find out what happened!

I like stories that are subtle. You don’t read what happened, you come to understand it. You don’t get a play by play, but you get enough details to know, in your heart, what’s going on. I felt that there was an effort to explain things from the mind of a young, confused girl and I was sympathetic to that.

I also felt like there wasn’t… enough story. I got to the end and thought… “erm… that’s it?” I still sort of feel like I don’t really know what happened, or why. I still have questions at the end of the book and while I don’t like endings where everything is pat and everything is tied with a big bow, I do like to have major plot lines tied up.

This is a great read, and I really enjoyed it. It just left me wanting more.

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Columbine by Dave Cullen [Review]

ColumbineColumbine by Dave Cullen

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dave Cullen’s Columbine is a circuitous tale through the days leading up to and following the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. I find myself appalled and shocked and saddened at the loss of life and the immense sadness and pain of the families of the Thirteen who died as well as the survivors still fighting for life everyday.

This story holds some real life significance for me, as there are events in my past, in my family, that mirror what the Klebold and Harris families dealt with. Our pain was mirrored in theirs. Sometimes you just know, from experience, that there was nothing anyone could have done, let alone the families. People will do what they will do. I think what is most heartbreaking is that these families will never have the chance to really heal. They could never mourn. They can never participate in any “anniversaries”. They will forever be shunned and the community would never rest.

The final act of the killers was among their cruelest: they deprived the survivors of a living perpetrator. They deprived the families of a focus for their anger and their blame. There would be no cathartic trial for victims. There was no killer to rebuke in a courtroom, no judge to impose the maximum penalty. South Jeffco (Jefferson County) was seething with anger and it would be deprived of a reasonable target. Displaced anger would riddle the community for years…

What stood out to me, glaringly, was that Eric Harris was a manipulative psychopath, full and complete. Dylan wasn’t so much a follower as he was a person that wanted someone to pay attention to him. Eric fit the bill and fed his underlying rage. One of the passages that I highlighted about pair killers was that one fed off of the other. Cullen writes,

“It takes heat and cold to make a tornado. Eric craved heat but he couldn’t sustain it. Dylan was a volcano. You could never tell when he might erupt.

Together, these two cooked up the worst school shooting in history.

There is so much that we think we know about Columbine, because we kept CNN and MSNBC and local news on 24/7… and yet there is so much we did not know. Until I opened the book, I fully believed the martyr story. How disheartening to read how the actual encounter came about and how it became twisted in the media, so much so that a family profited off of a lie.

I encourage anyone who is even mildly interested in this subject to pick up this book and read it. The writing style is simple and straightforward, nothing superfluous. It is extensive and thorough and also heavily detailed. In my opinion, well done.

My only complaints were length and jarring jumps back and forth from past to the attacks to the aftermath and then back again… more history, more revealing, a blurb here and there, and then the author is a year past the attacks again and then in the next chapter he’s back to Eric and Dylan planning the attacks. I believe I would have comprehended more with a linear presentation, but that’s just me.

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Still Alice by Lisa Genova [Review]

Still AliceStill Alice by Lisa Genova

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lisa Genova presents a wonderfully and realistically woven, touching story about Alice Howland. Mother, wife, esteemed Harvard Professor, Research Analyst, Thesis Advisor– all around very important woman, busy and in full control of her life. Slowly, instances begin to pop up that seem strange and disconcerting, but also fleeting. She feels ridiculous even making mention of them until they start happening with more frequency and severity.

It begins with losing a word, here and there. Forgetting a name. The fact that she just met someone and forgot that she met them. Completely missing a flight to speak at a conference. The panic begins to set in when Alice goes out for a run and is momentarily frozen in fear– she has no idea where she is and how to get home. Unexpectedly, her memory snaps back, but the rising doubt within herself remains.

A visit to the neurologist confirms the unimaginable. In her early 50′s, a young, virile, brilliant Alice has been diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s. The news is a blow, but Alice tries to remain calm and steadfast, seek answers, prepare herself for what she knows is going to be a humiliating end.  “I am no longer a Harvard Professor,” she tells herself, after deciding to step down from her duties at the University. Alice begins to lose bits and pieces of herself, pieces she knows and can remember but seem to be lost inside her, swimming in something, being held back by a thickness that she can’t navigate. Alice will eventually have to be cared for. She won’t remember those who love her. Will she remember those she loves? And that she loves them?

Amid this story of awakening and an unremarkable strength is a tale of coming apart and gluing back together. Once at odds with a daughter who always paved her own way, her illness allows Alice to form a special bond that “old Alice” may never have allowed to form. At the opposite end, what was once a comfortable existence with her husband John begins to fray at the edges and unravel quickly as the disease progresses.

Still Alice is a moving, gripping story. At several points, I teared up, feeling the emotion with the author as she took us through the gamut of emotions- confusion, fear, anger, frustration. We feel, see, hear everything through Alice’s eyes. That view is revealing, a trip into dementia and Alzheimer’s that those of us on the outside of a debilitating, degenerative illness will never know.

I think one of the points of the story that was most moving to me, was the letter that Alice wrote to herself, back when she was lucid and of sound mind. The daily tests she gives herself and, upon failing, the instructions she also gives herself. I find it ironic that lucid Alice, as much forethought as she put into planning ahead, never imagined that she wouldn’t even be able to carry out her own instructions. And, thank goodness she couldn’t. She would have missed out on so much.

Genova does a superb job telling her story. I already can’t wait to read her second novel, “Left Behind.”

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Easily Amused by Karen McQuestion [Review]

Easily AmusedEasily Amused by Karen McQuestion

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Easily Amused is the short, sometimes funny, lightning fast read about Lola, editor of a Parenting Magazine, sister to the ever so perfect Mindy, friend to Piper-the-busy- mom and Hubert– the friend with the girlfriend she can’t stand. She lives in an old house on King Street, bequeathed to her from her Aunt May. Lola fills her life with her job and her friends and the occasional online date.

When Hubert’s girlfriend blessedly dumps him, Lola gains a sudden roommate. When Mindy gets engaged, she gains a sudden problem. Ever the competitive siblings, Lola and Mindy have spent their lives one-upping each other. The ultimate one up is coming– Mindy is both younger, thinner, prettier, more put together and is getting married before Lola. She intends to use her wedding to as an opportunity to stick it to her sister– Lola turns 30 on Mindy’s wedding day.
Piper to the rescue! She devises a plan that just might work, if only they knew a tall, dark and handsome man for Lola to take to the wedding and announce… an engagement!

Enter Ryan, the most mysterious neighbor on King Street. Suddenly there’s a new rivalry between Mindy and Lola over Ryan, Hubert (who’s developed feelings for Lola) and Ryan over Lola, and the entire neighborhood and Ryan. Much to Lola’s surprise, Ryan seems interested in more than posing as her fake fiancé. Lola falls headlong into like with him, despite the suspicious rumblings of her friends and much -too-curious interest from her engaged sister.

I bought this book from Amazon Kindle because it seemed interesting and it was cheap. $2.99 will get me every time! I find I read two types of books. Vapid and deeply dark. Sometimes I just need a break from the deeply dark, so on my break from Columbine, it was nice to get lost in some fluff.

I saw some criticism in other reviews about this author being unsigned and such… I did not honestly know that until I’d finished the book and read the reviews. I don’t think it’s fair to say I don’t like something without saying why I didn’t like it, so here’s what stood out to me in the Needs Improvement Department:

Easily Amused didn’t come off to me as amateur, but in hindsight it could have used some editing and, for lack of a better word, primping. The characters seem to need more development (especially Mindy and Ryan) and the story moves very quickly. I was disappointed in the climax — the conflict reaches a crescendo and then the story screams back down the cliff. I wanted to read more about the confrontation. I also noted a few misspellings, but nothing that stands out glaringly.

I say, kudos to Ms. McQuestion for not wrapping the entire Lola/Hubert story line in one big unbelievable bow. I love the dangling question at the end of the book. I just wish there was more development along the Mindy/Ryan/Lola line. I also felt like there wasn’t enough information given about Ryan to make me sufficiently suspicious, though I was starting to feel a bit iffy about him.

I keep fighting between 2 and 3 stars for this book. I’ve settled on three. It was enjoyable, moved a bit slow but not an awful read, once I got a few chapters in.

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The Girl Who Chased The Moon by Sarah Addison Allen [Review]

The Girl Who Chased the MoonThe Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen

I didn’t know anything about this book when I picked it from the stack, other than my fave book blogger WriteMeg! had read it at as well and didn’t hate it. So glad I decided to get it and take a chance on it. I was craving something light and wonderful and this definitely hit the spot.

The town of Mullaby, NC is a small, southeastern town full of polite charm and a little bit of magic. Sixteen year old Emily has been sent there to live with her grandfather after the death of her mother. Right away, she learns that her mother was not always a fine, upstanding citizen. Rather, she had quite the reputation.

Emily meets her grandfather, a giant of a man as harmless as a butterfly. He is shy, avoids people and crowds, has a hard time fitting in– Emily knows how he feels. So does Julia, resident cake baker and owner of the local barbecue restaurant. Her return to Wallaby just a few short years prior dredged up a lot of old memories– namely Sawyer, a boy she once loved and was torn from, with whom she shares a large secret.

And then there is the strangeness. The Mullaby Lights that only glow in the night, the “sweet sense” that Sawyer seems to have, the sparkle that follows Julia around…. there are a lot of mysteries in Mullaby, for such a quiet little town.

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