Review: A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

We are two days into 2021 and thus far no five stars—and I had such high hopes! This murder mystery/suspense novel seemed, out of the gate, destined to be a winner. All that promise, however, fizzled out, slowly, before crawling to an unlikely conclusion. Between that startling beginning and anti-climactic finish, there were moments of brilliance. Author Holly Jackson clearly can write! Unfortunately, those moments were overshadowed by a plethora of possible suspects whose stories, though they intersected with the main plot, served to make it sometimes feel as if the plot were moving forward through thick sludge. It was this muck that made the journey too much work.

I did enjoy the unique format for the novel (narrative interspersed with project notes and diagrams), and found the main characters, Pip and Ravi, to be sympathetic, though the breadth of their reach in the small community of Fairview strained the limits of my ability to suspend disbelief. Jackson’s character development kept me reading and saved this from ending up as a DNF.

I am going to definitely explore more of Jackson’s work, and I look forward to doing so. I hope, however, that she ups the ante and quickens the pace. If she does, I’m sure whatever she writes will be worth all the stars.

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Review: The Other Couple

The Other Couple by Cathryn Grant
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book came straight from the psych thriller category, with a jacket blurb that was incredibly intriguing. Unfortunately, after turning the final page and closing the cover, I am to unequivocally state that this was neither a thriller nor intriguing. Instead, this tome was flat and slow, featured an entire cast of wholly unlikable characters and held no secrets, surprises or twists to make it worth finishing the read. It was average in every sense of the word. Seriously. I wouldn’t bother.

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Review: The Dilemma

The Dilemma by B.A. Paris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I will eventually pen a review for this one, but for now I need to deal with the tremendous sadness that enveloped me as the novel raced to its tragic conclusion. I wish I had searched for triggers before I even started it, as the older I get, the less able I am to shrug off heartbreak as being the result of “just a story.” I think as we age, we have more experiences in our lives that we are forced to revisit when we encounter something tear-worthy. So, for now, well done, B.A. Paris, and damn you for the heartache.

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Review: Leave the World Behind

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I am once again gobsmacked at the inordinate number of five star reviews for a book that is obtuse, obscure and tedious. From the very first pages, this author’s pretentious use of vocabulary makes reading an experience akin to swimming through a thesaurus.

Myriad examples of this author’s self-indulgent style litter the pages. Instead of saying the occupants of the car weren’t paying attention: “None of them really saw the highway landscape. The brain abets the eye; eventually your expectations of a thing supersede the thing itself.” Instead of saying Archie ordered chicken nuggets: “Archie requested a grotesque number of little briquettes of fried chicken. He dumped these into a paper bag, mixed in some French fries, dribbled in the contents of a small foil-topped container of a sweet and sticky brown sauce, and chewed contentedly.” Seriously? If, as some authors contend, every word should “matter”, It’s clear that author Rumaan Alam didn’t get the memo.

I will concede that there are some interesting stylistic choices made by Alam. As the book climbs to its climax and panic sets in, Alam feeds those fires by clipping his sentences and sending in dialogue that is short, brusque and staccato. Conversations also become more introspective, internalized and needy, as underdeveloped characters search for meaning given limited context for what is happening around them. When their situation becomes more dire and one of the children falls ill with grotesque side effects, it is presented with disturbing objectivity—the severity diminished by the group’s reluctance to acknowledge it. They are by that time making decisions, or not making decisions, paralyzed by their fears that may or may not be justified. Like Schrödinger’s cat, the supposed catastrophic event both exists and doesn’t exist as they are swept up in alternating waves of acceptance and denial. That they move between these conditions becomes disconcerting and disorienting; surreal and hazy. That they may be facing the consequences of a world turning against itself, in which case children die and difficult choices are made, is far too grim to consider and is at once countered by their implied hope that they are wrong and help is a short drive away.

At the point where these characters finally do decide to take action, the book abruptly ends, almost mid-thought, leaving the reader flipping pages, convinced something must have been missed. Surely, SURELY, no author would just....stop? And yet....there it is. A betrayal by the author after committing to the read—an assumed pay off pulled from under the reader, resulting not in the smooth finale of the magician who expertly slips the tablecloth from beneath settings of fine china, but rather in a “toes to the edge of the ledge” position, looking for that safety net and instead gazing down into a dark void of absolutely nothing.

Disappointing at best, any redeeming qualities lost to the shock of a conclusion that was apparently left on the cutting room floor. The avant- guard reach was, in the end, a bridge too far and made it impossible for this reader to forgive a plethora of sins committed in the name of author hubris.


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Review: The Idea of You

The Idea of You by Robinne Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First, yes, I’m late to the party. Second, I think this cover is perhaps one of the worst on record. And third, Jesus, I loved the book. I’ve marked this review as one huge spoiler, because, seriously, while I want to live in the world author Robinne Lee here created, I also want to berate her and demand she rewrite the ending—a conclusion that could never be called a resolution, and a final page that left me awash in tears. Ok, some of that could be due to menopause (Mother Nature is one cruel bitch), but in allowing the beautiful love affair, penned into existence in the first hundred pages, to be discarded in some noble pursuit of parental-responsibility, Lee lays waste to the notion that as older women we can, indeed, have it all. And that was a truth that, throughout this emotional rollercoaster ride, I had been encouraged and moved to accept, right along with gleeful optimism posited on the platitudes that claim age doesn’t render a woman invisible; that time doesn’t favor those with youth on their side; that true love and romantic fantasy together are possible. In fact, the final pages of The Idea of You trampled those emerging beliefs and, after a few far too brief hours reveling in the possibilities, left me once again a tired, aging woman propelled back to earth in what can best be described as a crash-landing return to reality.

Highly recommended to those with enough of a positive self-image and view of aging to keep from being completely despondent when the rug is pulled out from underneath them.


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Review: 2020 on Goodreads

2020 on Goodreads by Various
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


What a strange and chaotic year this has been! Personally, one event somersaulted into the next, all complicated by the pandemic and all salved by a collection of books. Oh, the BOOKS! While I did, at almost the eleventh hour, meet my reading goal, I did so without the requisite reviews I had promised myself to pen. I started with the best of intentions, but around March I realized that I was enjoying the actual reading far less than I had in the past. The review writing had become a chore that I found looming over me as I pored over the pages. I started writing notes in the margins and mentally bookmarking things I wanted to talk about when I had finished the book. For me, it turned the allure of the story into an academic exercise I was required, rather than compelled, to complete. Once I allowed myself to part company with the idea that reviews were necessary, I found I was once again looking forward to my reading time and taking more risks with books I didn’t feel obligated to then write about. It was liberating. Since that time, I’ve reviewed considerably less, though enjoyed so much more, and although I’ve spent less time here, I still look forward to those times when I am able to sit back and read the reviews of those with whom I’ve become “Goodreads Friends”. Julie, Richard, RossDavidH, MarilynW and so many more—thank you for sharing your brilliant insights and for dropping by now and again to read my reviews.

So...the reading! I did begin the year by taking a deep dive into my former genre of choice—post-apocalyptic fiction. As the year progressed, however, I found things hitting a little too close to home. I turned, for the first time, to an inordinate number of rom-coms in an attempt to lighten my mood and seek escape from the general malaise. It was a good short-term move, as I discovered some hidden gems which I really enjoyed. When it became just too saccharine even for me, however, I reverted back to domestic noir and psychological thrillers. In short, my choices were eclectic, with varying results. And so I present The Excellent, The Good, The Eh and the Ugly: a review of the most memorable books of 2020.

The Excellent
The star of the year was, for me, Kate Elizabeth Russell’s My Dark Vanessa. Vanessa is a fifteen year old girl, with one foot in childhood and the other stretched over the divide of adolescence and into adulthood. Emotionally, she is a teenager struggling with being an introvert and finding her place as a student at a prestigious boarding school. Intellectually, she is inquisitive and curious, eager to reach beyond her years and dive head first into complex abstracts for which she has no foundation. It is her need to find a way to position herself in relation to newly acquired, and beyond her years, constructs that allows a trusted teacher to slowly and insidiously wend his way into every cell of her being. The question becomes how to convince a teenager, who is eager to be loved and racing toward maturity, that she is in truth a puppet, manipulated by a man who has groomed her to believe that she holds all the power—a teenager taught to equate being a victim with weakness while also made heady with romantic notions of tragic love and lust. My Dark Vanessa captivated me while tugging at my own memories and earned a rightful place in my library as the best book of the year.

Another book that continues to remind me of just how moving a well-written novel can be is Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin. The story is that of Claire, a young woman who has never truly come to terms with her sister’s unsolved murder while on a family vacation to the Caribbean. Years after that unbearable loss, a chance meeting brings Claire into the orbit of a man who was, at the time, questioned and labeled a suspect in her sister’s death. As the story unfolds, Claire is forced to face hard truths about just how well she knew her older sibling and how much she can trust her memories of that holiday. While the story itself is indeed compelling, it’s the writing that is absolutely mesmerizing. Sentences like “Her freckles, faint apricot this morning, are auburn sparks”, and “he grows accustomed to the resort’s beauty, to the bushes everywhere weeping pink blossoms and the brazen teal water” pepper the pages and bring a photographic quality to the work. The narrative paints vivid canvases that allow the reader to believe they, too, are there, on the beach, watching young Claire and her beautiful sister as they careen toward a tragedy that is especially poignant against such an exquisite backdrop.

A third, and unlikely, favorite for 2020 was Simone St. James’ The Sun Down Motel. This paranormal thriller reached outside my typical genres of choice and pulled me into the story of a missing woman whose niece, Carly, is intrigued by the years-old family mystery. Though she never met “Aunt Viv”, the stories kept her alive in collected family memories for over 35 years. Following her mother’s death, Carly strikes out on her own, as curiosity pushes her to seek answers to the questions surrounding Viv Delaney’s disappearance. Her journey leads her to the last place her aunt was employed, The Sun Down Motel. It is here that the ghosts of the past reveal themselves as the keepers of truth, and opposing forces conspire to both destroy and liberate Carly. The absolute frenetic pacing of the story, as well as the hair-raising episodes of the past emerging in the present, made this a read that had me sleeping with the lights on for days after I had turned the final page.

Other entries to The Excellent
This is How it Always Isby Laurie Frankel
Night Swim by Megan Goldin
The Neon Lawyer by Victor Methos
A Killer’s Wife by Victor Methos
Devolution by Max Brooks
Oona Out of Ordee by Margarita Montimore

The Good
Followers by Megan Angelo
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Coben
The Best of Friends by Lucinda Berry
In My Father’s Basement In My Father’s Basement by T.J. Payne

The Eh
Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner
The Two Lives of Olivia Bird by Josie Silver
The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley
By the Light of the Moon by Dean Koontz
The Likely Resolutions of Oliver Clock by Jane Riley

The Ugly Panik by Chris Selwyn James
The Rabbit Hunter by Lars Kepler
The Bone Jar by S.W. Kane

And the Worst of the Year goes to
Size Zero by Abigail Mangin—one of the most inane, poorly written books I’ve ever read.

So there you have it—a year of firsts in so many ways, and a year salvaged in large part because of the great writing to which I was given access, through books that I will treasure. Here’s to 2021–may it be filled with healing and many five-star reads!














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Review: This Is How It Always Is

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Five big gold stars for one of the most thought-provoking, inspired and touching books I’ve read in a very, very long time. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must come forward as the mom of a transgender child. Because of that, and in spite of that, I loved every chapter, every page, every word. The messages here were bold; the questions posed often difficult; the answers to those questions, messy. What was consistent, however, was the glorious beauty of the story itself.

Claude is born male, into a family that is already burgeoning with testosterone. Four brothers who run the gamut from creative spirit to nerdy bookworm inhabit the space into which Claude is born. It isn’t long before Rosie and Penn, Claude’s parents, are met with a request from their precocious youngest child: he wants to wear a dress to school. From there, Claude’s tendency to gravitate to all things “girl” progresses from garments to the name by which he then wishes to be called—Poppy. As the pages turn, this family explores the transformation of the child they had always identified as their little boy to the emergence of Poppy, whom they as a family begin to see as simply their little girl with a penis. As Rosie and Penn pave the way for Poppy to grow into a happy and content child, they inadvertently fail to prepare her for the way many will perceive her. Not as a “girl with a penis” but as a confused little anomaly of a boy, abused by his parents into believing it’s ok to pretend to be a girl. Traversing this unfamiliar landscape is both frightening and fraught with mistakes, but through it all, this family maintains not only love for one another but also a sense of humor that helps salve the sting of rejection and the ignorance of an unenlightened society.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough for parents of transgender children, people wishing to understand gender dysphoria or even those open-minded folks who just enjoy a good book. I so wish I could give this author a huge hug. Not only does she “get it”, but she did enough homework to present the frustration, tears and sense of loss that can accompany the gender transformation of one’s child. Well done, Ms. Frankel. Well done, indeed.

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