All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood

Synopsis by Goodreads:

As the daughter of a meth dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. Struggling to raise her little brother, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible “adult” around. She finds peace in the starry Midwestern night sky above the fields behind her house. One night everything changes when she witnesses one of her father’s thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold, wreck his motorcycle. What follows is a powerful and shocking love story between two unlikely people that asks tough questions, reminding us of all the ugly and wonderful things that life has to offer.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First, to the publisher, thank you for giving me the opportunity to advance read this book. When I saw the title and book blurb in an email I received, I knew I wanted to read it. When I requested it on Netgalley I couldn’t believe my luck.

This book is going to be very controversial when it is released. It is an incredibly daring move by a debut author with tough and gritty subject matter. It is not for the easily offended or weak at heart. Many readers will be pissed – especially the sanctimonious and righteous ones! Hey life isn’t all butterflies and unicorns. What it is though is pretty damn amazing. She takes on subjects that make you want to close your eyes and look away and yet you can’t. It’s like being transfixed. I resented that I had to put this book down at times because I wanted to read straight through it.

There were times I knew I should have been appalled at what I was reading, yet the author manages to create such fully rounded characters that they are hard to completely dislike. It just works. I’m sure there will be readers that question my morals just for giving this 5 stars. This is not about condoning the subject matter. This is about a wonderfully written book that makes you feel an entire spectrum of emotion and forces you to think about how life is for others outside of your comfy little bubble. For the majority of people, life is friggin hard. We prefer to wear our rose colored glasses so we don’t have to deal with it.

How do you take lives that consist of nothing but terrible despair with no hope for anything and form some sort of happiness? A life filled with nothing but abuse and give it a beacon of hope or love even if it isn’t what most would consider normal? This story shows that even in the darkest of lives, there is some good – but it is all relative. What feels good and right to one can feel completely wrong to another.

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Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson

Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson

Synopsis by Goodreads:

Reclusive literary legend M. M. “Mimi” Banning has been holed up in her Bel Air mansion for years, but now she’s writing her first book in decades and to ensure timely completion her publisher sends an assistant to monitor her progress. Mimi reluctantly complies—with a few stipulations: No Ivy Leaguers or English majors. Must drive, cook, tidy. Computer whiz. Good with kids. Quiet, discreet, sane.

When Alice Whitley arrives at the Banning mansion, she’s put to work right away—as a full-time companion to Frank, the writer’s eccentric nine-year-old, a boy with the wit of Noël Coward, the wardrobe of a 1930s movie star, and very little in common with his fellow fourth graders.

As she gets to know Frank, Alice becomes consumed with finding out who his father is, how his gorgeous “piano teacher and itinerant male role model” Xander fits into the Banning family equation—and whether Mimi will ever finish that book.

Full of heart and countless only-in-Hollywood moments, Be Frank With Me is a captivating and heartwarming story of an unusual mother and son, and the intrepid young woman who finds herself irresistibly pulled into their unforgettable world.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really enjoyed this adventure with Frank. He’s quite an amusing young man.  The ending was so incredibly abrupt that it felt like the book just stopped. I didn’t feel satisfied and it really detracted a star for me.  I wish she would have spent a little more time tying it up.

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The Winter Girl by Matt Marinovich

The Winter Girl by Matt Marinovich

Synopsis by Goodreads:

A scathing and exhilarating thriller that begins with a husband’s obsession with the seemingly vacant house next door.

It’s wintertime in the Hamptons, where Scott and his wife, Elise, have come to be with her terminally ill father, Victor, to await the inevitable. As weeks turn to months, their daily routine—Elise at the hospital with her father, Scott pretending to work and drinking Victor’s booze—only highlights their growing resentment and dissatisfaction with the usual litany of unhappy marriages: work, love, passion, each other. But then Scott notices something simple, even innocuous. Every night at precisely eleven, the lights in the neighbor’s bedroom turn off. It’s clearly a timer…but in the dead of winter with no one else around, there’s something about that light he can’t let go of. So one day while Elise is at the hospital, he breaks in. And he feels a jolt of excitement he hasn’t felt in a long time. Soon, it’s not hard to enlist his wife as a partner in crime and see if they can’t restart the passion.

Their one simple transgression quickly sends husband and wife down a deliriously wicked spiral of bad decisions, infidelities, escalating violence, and absolutely shocking revelations.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first half of this book sucked me in and I thought we were headed for a 5 star read. The last quarter of the book is where I get conflicted. It becomes a little too predictable and one begins to wonder if he’s been living under a rock as he’s so unaware what has been going on around him.  What was interesting is that it was written from a male POV.

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Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Synopsis by Goodreads:

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio’s back lot–searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of “Cleopatra” to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion–along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow.

My thoughts:

As usual I’m in the minority of the glowing reviews on this. I’m having a serious problem with rating this book. For starters, I read it all in one day so I was engaged in the story. I didn’t even mind so much the back and forth between time as it was necessary to the storyline. But I do take issue with writers who feel the need to fill pages up with unnecessary writing.

Examples – Alvis, the wanna-be-writer that goes to the hotel each year to write more of his book. Leaves behind what he has written so far and then we have to read the entire thing within the book? Shane, the wanna-be-screenwriter who along with reading in detail the “pitch” for the screenplay, we have to actually read the entire pages of the pitch also. This kind of fluff irritates me greatly in books. A writer needs to keep the story tight and not meander off because that is how you lose a reader. It is usually at this point where disengaged readers chuck the book to the bedside never to be picked up again. I found myself skimming through all that as I heard the voices of the parents on Charlie Brown in the back of my head saying “wok, wok, wok, wok, wok…”

But when all this wasn’t going on, I did enjoy the book. So I’m giving it a solid 3 which by Goodreads standards means “I liked it”. In my mind though, it could have been a 4 or 5 if we weren’t dragged through unnecessary details.  Those parts were just painful to me.

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The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Johnathan Evison

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Synopsis from Barnes & Noble:

Benjamin Benjamin has lost virtually everything—his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood. With few options, Ben enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving taught in the basement of a local church. There Ben is instructed in the art of inserting catheters and avoiding liability, about professionalism, and how to keep physical and emotional distance between client and provider. But when Ben is assigned to nineteen-year-old Trev, who is in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, he discovers that the endless mnemonics and service plan checklists have done little to prepare him for the reality of caring for a fiercely stubborn, sexually frustrated adolescent. As they embark on a wild road trip across the American West to visit Trev’s ailing father, a new camaraderie replaces the traditional boundary between patient and caregiver.

My thoughts:

I wanted to like this more but the characters felt a little one dimensional to me until the last quarter of the book. If the first 3/4 would have had the same emotional punch as the remainder, I would have given it 4 stars.  I had trouble connecting with Ben until more of his past was let out.

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Julia’s Chocolates by Cathy Lamb

Julia’s Chocolates by Cathy Lamb

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Synopsis by Goodreads:

“I left my wedding dress hanging in a tree somewhere in North Dakota. I don’t know why that particular tree appealed to me. Perhaps it was because it looked as if it had given up and died years ago and was still standing because it didn’t know what else to do…”

In her deliciously funny, heartfelt, and moving debut, Cathy Lamb introduces some of the most wonderfully eccentric women since The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and The Secret Life of Bees, as she explores the many ways we find the road home.

 

From the moment Julia Bennett leaves her abusive Boston fiancé at the altar and her ugly wedding dress hanging from a tree in South Dakota, she knows she’s driving away from the old Julia, but what she’s driving toward is as messy and undefined as her own wounded soul. The old Julia dug her way out of a tortured, trailer park childhood with a monster of a mother. The new Julia will be found at her Aunt Lydia’s rambling, hundred-year-old farmhouse outside Golden, Oregon.

There, among uppity chickens and toilet bowl planters, Julia is welcomed by an eccentric, warm, and often wise clan of women, including a psychic, a minister’s unhappy wife, an abused mother of four, and Aunt Lydia herself–a woman who is as fierce and independent as they come. Meeting once a week for drinks and the baring of souls, it becomes clear that every woman holds secrets that keep her from happiness. But what will it take for them to brave becoming their true selves? For Julia, it’s chocolate. All her life, baking has been her therapy and her refuge, a way to heal wounds and make friends. Nobody anywhere makes chocolates as good as Julia’s, and now, chocolate just might change her life–and bring her love when she least expects it. But it can’t keep her safe. As Julia gradually opens her heart to new life, new friendships, and a new man, the past is catching up to her. And this time, she will not be able to run but will have to face it head on.

Filled with warmth, love, and truth, Julia’s Chocolates is an unforgettable novel of hope and healing that explores the hurts we keep deep in our hearts, the love that liberates us, the courage that defines us, and the chocolate that just might take us there.

My thoughts:

This is the first I’ve read by this author and it certainly won’t be my last. A couple of the weekly meetings got a little goofy, but what speaks to me so loudly is the power of female friendship. The bond between women can be so strong and gripping. We have many friends in our lives, many come and go, but true and deep friendships are few…and those are the ones that last forever and weather any storm.

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The Round House by Louise Erdrich

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Synopsis by Goodreads:

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe’s life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.

While his father, who is a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning.

Written with undeniable urgency, and illuminating the harsh realities of contemporary life in a community where Ojibwe and white live uneasily together, The Round House is a brilliant and entertaining novel, a masterpiece of literary fiction. Louise Erdrich embraces tragedy, the comic, a spirit world very much present in the lives of her all-too-human characters, and a tale of injustice that is, unfortunately, an authentic reflection of what happens in our own world today.

My thoughts:

I gave this a 5 star rating because I thought it was written beautifully. There were many sections, however, that almost demoted it to a 3 star for me. When she stuck to the storyline it was beautiful. The many sidelined pages, yes pages, of folklore (I’ll call it that because I’m not sure what else to call it)took away from the book for me, not added and I found myself skimming the pages through all that. Had I not been so engaged in the actual story I would have set this book aside after the first instance of this.

I thought the characters were well developed and I was always interested in Joe’s “coming of age” adventures.

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The Strain by Guillermo del Toro

The Strain by Guillermo del Toro

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book synopsis from Goodreads:

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Ephraim “Eph” Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing.

So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city – a city that includes his wife and son – before it is too late.

My thoughts:

Extremely interesting idea here and well plotted. It gave me the creeps and some bizarre dreams for sure.  I liked the pace and the characters.  I started reading the second book but it started going in a long tangle of procession so I shelved it to read at a later time.  I think when I read too many horror books in a row I get spooked because the other day, the inside door between the garage and my laundry room apparently wasn’t fully latched. Something caused it to open on me slowly when I was in the laundry room, the garage was dark, and it freaked me out and I slammed it back shut. Maybe a vampire was out there!

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Book Page Contest Giveaway

Hello my fellow Readaholics!  I found a fun contest over at the The Book Page’s website.  HarperCollins is running a big contest this month for readers and their local libraries.  You can enter to win a book title of your choice from a list and then pick five additional titles for your library.  Ten lucky winners will chose from the below list of books.  The link to enter is here.  The contest runs through September 30th.

The book list is:

And When She Was Good by Laura Lippman
The Cutting Season by Attica Locke
A Father First by Dwayne Wade
The Mirrored World by Debra Dean
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
The Hollow Man by Oliver Harris
Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes
Visiting Tom by Michael Perry
The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin
Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon

These are some great titles!  I selected The Orchardist because I am hearing a lot of buzz on that title.  But, I’ve also added And When She Was Good and Into the Darkest Corner at the top of my “To Be Read List”.

What grabbed your eye?