Author: Scott Stambach
Release Date: August 9th 2016
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Version Reviewed: digital ARC courtesy of publisher and NetGalley
Rating: ★★★★★
Wow. I don't tend to use the word in book reviews, because I think it's kind of cliche. But, sometimes, a book is just... wow... and there's no better way to describe it.
Ivan has lived his entire seventeen years inside the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children in Belarus. He was born with a number of physical deformities, including missing 3 of his limbs, probably due to radiation exposure after the Chernobyl meltdown. Abandoned by his parents and with little hope for a normal life, Ivan gets through the day by making everything a game. One of his favorites is to pretend to be in a coma to eavesdrop on the nurses. He dislikes most of these nurses, except Nurse Natalya, who is his biggest ally, his book supplier, and, ultimately, his savior.
Much of every day is the same for Ivan, until terminal cancer patient Polina comes to the hospital. Their relationship starts as a friendship, but becomes more. In some ways it's as bleak as the hospital, in other ways it's hopeful and typically teenaged. One thing is for sure: Ivan will never be the same.
There are parts of this book that are uncomfortable to read and even a little gross. But, in it's own way, it's also wonderful and moving. This is a unique book and a strong debut from the author. I recommend it.
I'm not a huge fan of the cover art for this book. It just doesn't say "fun!" to me. This book is coming out in both the UK and US in a couple of weeks. I reviewed the British version.
Authors: Janet Evanovich and Phoef Sutton
Publisher: Headline Review
Release Date: August 16th 2016
Version Reviewed: digital ARC via NetGalley
Rating: ★★★★
I haven't enjoyed reading a Janet Evanovich novel this much since the earliest books in the Stephanie Plum series.
"He was a bootlegger?"
"Not in the least. He merely wanted to maintain his supply. And to have an avenue of escape when the lizard people took over."
Riley Moon has two professional degrees, but not a lot of real world experience. She's only been on the job at the investment banking firm Blane-Grunwald for two weeks when she's assigned to babysit a VIP client who is concerned about the state of his gold holdings. Emerson Knight is a rich and eccentric conspiracy nut who lacks social grace. He convinces Riley to help him find his gold, and in the process they get sucked into a maniacal plot for world domination that they're determined to stop.
This book has the type of plot that's best not to think about too much. Or at all, really. This isn't great literature, but the ride is fun. I was disappointed to see Evanovich fall back on her old crutch of destroying cars. My favorite bits were the interaction between Riley and Emerson. To be fair, I developed a bit of a crush on Mr. Knight, because emotionally-stunted, clueless men are kind of my thing:
"Would I get paid?"
"Is that important to you?"
"Yes."
"Would you like a zebra?" Emerson asked her.
"No. I'd like money."
Author: Tiffany McDaniel
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Release Date: 7/26/16
Version Reviewed: digital ARC via NetGalley
Rating: ★★★★
Lawyer Autopsy Bliss put an add in the local paper welcoming the devil to the town of Breathed, Ohio. The only response came in the form of a pre-teen boy named Sal, who claims to be none other than beelzebub in the flesh. And if Sal hadn't been black and the weather unrelentingly brutal, maybe that would have been the end of it. But prejudice, fear and heat are a bad mix. Soon, a band of bad luck is moving through Breathed, and the townspeople know who's to blame.
The story is told from the perspective of thirteen-year-old Fielding Bliss, who is recounting that summer of 1984 as an old man. Fielding's life is never the same after Sal comes to town, and he never moves on from that fateful summer. It continues to haunt him seventy-one years later. Perhaps a dance with the devil will do that to a person...
This book isn't my normal cup of tea. I find most "literary fiction" books try to hard. I think that's true for this book, as well. However, the story is good enough to overcome a pretty heavy handed writing style and use of allegory that borders on excess. This book is a needed reminder of the dangers of mob mentality, cult of personality, and ignorance-- something that remains as much a part of society today as in 1984 Southern Ohio.
We're in the midst of a pretty obnoxious, stubborn heatwave. In it's honor, I decided to review a book about a heatwave. The Trouble with Goats and Sheep takes place during the memorable 1976 heatwave that baked England dry. And in case you forget for a moment how hot it was that summer, this book will remind you, again and again. It's a debut novel that's generated a ton of buzz, and, while I didn't like it as much as some other reviewers, I recommend it. However, I do laugh a little in the direction of the Britt's definition of hot, hot, hot! weather. I don't even blink if it's 86 degrees (30 degrees to the rest of the world). That's just summer. Call me when it gets to triple digits and full humidity.
Author: Joanna Cannon
Publisher: Scribner
Release Date: 7/12/16
Version Reviewed: digital ARC courtesy of NetGalley
Rating: ★★★
Mrs. Creasy has disappeared. Enter 10-year-old Grace and her best friend Tilly. They are determined to get to the bottom of the mystery in the most logical fashion possible: by finding God. After all, God protects all his sheep and brings them home. Of course, the job of finding both God and missing neighbor becomes very complicated when all the adults are around you are keeping secrets...
This book is beautifully written, although perhaps a bit overdone at times. It did seem like 10 is too old for a child to think there is a physical manifestation of the Lord Almighty hiding out in one of the neighbors' houses. However, Grace and Tilly are lovable characters that leave you with a smile. None of the adult characters left me with a similarly positive impression, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding a neighborhood fire grew tiresome. The book both started and ended strong, but the middle sagged.
This book straddles the line between young adult and new adult. I have given the title over to the latter. I don't read a lot of new adult, mostly because I haven't had any luck with the genre. This book is better than others of its kind. It was hard to write this review, because I can't talk about "the twist" without spoilers. All I can say is that it's in line with a trope I cringe when I encounter. However, these authors handle it well.
Title: You Before Anyone Else
Authors: Julie Cross and Mark Perini
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Release Date: 8/1/16
Version Reviewed: digital ARC via NetGalley
Rating: ★★★
Finley is a model who is tired of getting the cold shoulder at casting calls because of her "good girl" reputation. After all, she's close with her family, helps out with her younger twin brothers and knits (of all things!). Looking to shed her goody goody image, she decides to let lose and have a one night stand with bad boy Eddie Wells.
No, really.
But if you can get past the silliness that a model can somehow get booked for jobs by hooking up with a stranger, there's a lot to like about this book. Both Finley and Eddie wind up being likable, if sometimes a bit bland, characters. Eddie lacks some serious edge for being the "bad boy." I was worried when "the twist" materialized, because we live in a culture that increasingly romanticizes this sort of situation. The ending of this book could have gone very wrong, but it wound up surprising me by striking the exact right note. I was worried I wouldn't be able to relate to a romance about models, but that wasn't a problem.
This book exceeded my expectations in many ways, but there were places where it still struggled. The dialogue tagging is a bit dodgy, the writing very average, and the plot movement a bit turbulent. Finley's story lacked the conflict and depth that Eddie's did, and everything worked out for her a little too well to be interesting.
Author: Camilla Way
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: 7/26/16
Version Reviewed: digital ARC via NetGalley
Rating: ★★★★
Edie is the type of girl who makes it look easy. Her beauty and confidence are effortless. Right after moving into town she catches the eye of the hottest guy around, and she's in with the cool crowd hours after starting a new school. She's a talented artist who knows exactly where she wants to go to college and what she wants to do with her life. She's something special.
At least that's how Heather sees Edie. But Heather isn't always tapped into reality. She has a habit of getting stuck in elaborate day dreams where hours can pass without her realizing it. She tends to talk loudly and excessively, and always smells a bit of onions. She's known around town as a weirdo, but Edie doesn't notice or care. At least not at first. Heather is at first shocked Edie would want to be her friend, but as the girls get closer, the friendship evolves into something of an obsession for her. She loves Edie, no doubt, and will go to any lengths to keep her safe-- and close.
Heather and Edie's friendship ends badly. Edie winds up doing something that haunts her for more than a decade. For years, her worst nightmare is running into Heather. She sees her everywhere, in every face in the crowd. Until one day Heather really is at her door.
... they do remain a part of us, those people who have hurt us very deeply, or who we have hurt, never letting go, not entirely.
Edie's adult life didn't turn out so charmed. At 33, she's working as a waitress, estranged from her mother, pregnant with no father in the picture, and still haunted by her past demons. She struggles as a new mother, and at first it seems like Heather is a godsend who turned up at her flat at the exact right time. But a feeling of unease nags at Edie. What does Heather want with her?
This was a good book. I appreciated that Edie and Heather each played a role as victim and predator. There are no true innocents here. On the downside, I had a hard time connecting with the characters. I also felt the suspense was lacking. What happened between Edie and Heather is tragic, but most of the expected "twists and turns" were rather pedestrian.
This is a modern interpretation of Snow White, minus the dwarfs (like most people, I'm only familiar with the Disney version of the fairy tale). It's available for purchase today, and I give it two thumbs up.
Author: Claire Seeber
Publisher: Bookouture
Release Date: 7/15/16
Version Reviewed: digital ARC via NetGalley
Rating: ★★★★★
After enduring a disastrous relationship and a career-ending scandal, Jeanie is ready for her Prince Charming to sweep her off her feet and whisk her away to his castle. Enter Matthew King, Jeanie's new husband. He's wealthy, successful, handsome, and head over heels in love with Jeanie. It seems like a fairy tale come true, but there are problems from the start. Matthew's twin teenaged children are slow to warm to her, with daughter Scarlett acting openly hostile. Matthew isn't keen on Jeanie's son, Frankie. Then strange things begin to happen. Threats to expose Jeanie's secrets to her husband. Dead pets and wild animals left for her to see. Blood mysteriously appearing in the bathroom. Strange noises and a vision of a woman in a mirror. Jeanie realizes she has to get out of both the horror castle and her marriage before it's too late.
I wavered back and forth on whether to give this four or five stars. The first 80% of the book is near perfect, but it started to fall apart for me toward the end, which is not how you want a thriller to progress. The ending resolutions were drawn out, anti-climatic, but also somehow incomplete. We never get a full understanding of Matthew's character or what his true intentions toward Jeanie are. A lot of the dark twisty turns are explained away as relatively banal family drama. The whole Simon bit was under developed and should have hit the editing room floor. The best part of the last 20% of the book or so is that it finally becomes apparent why sister Marlena's viewpoint is necessary to craft the story. I decided to cut the difference and give this better than average thriller 4.5 stars.
Author: Sam Polk
Publisher: Scribner
Release Date: 7/19/16
Version Reviewed: digital ARC via NetGalley
Rating: ★★★
It took thirty years for Sam Polk to learn a valuable lesson: there's never *enough* to fill the void. Never enough money, never enough sex, never enough praise, never enough accomplishments. If you have a hole inside, nothing on the outside call fill it. Not that Polk didn't spend about a decade trying. After graduating Columbia, he rose up the ranks of investment banking. But there was always something just out of his reach. One year he earned a bonus of nearly 4 million dollars, but his old insecurities of being undervalued and unappreciated resurfaced, causing him to fly into a rage. He'd hit his breaking point. How did he get to the point where 4 million dollars wasn't *enough*? After dedicating his entire adult life to the mass accumulation of wealth, Polk decided to make a change.
This is an honest, naked memoir, which, despite the title, is more about Polk as a human being rather than a larger statement on greed and Wall Street. There were times I wanted to hug Polk and times I wanted to throttle him. Mostly, I just felt sorry for him. I don't think I'll ever forget the passage about the death of his poor childhood dog, OJ. Polk is a classic addictive personality, and I'm not convinced he has the greatest perspective on it. He blames his excesses on both his father and the Wall Street "culture," but I think a lot of it is just him. While Polk tries to get a grip on his demon with the help of a "spiritualist" whose sole "credentials" are a Native American heritage, I would strongly recommend a licensed therapist to those who find themselves in similar shoes.
I'm disappointed this book isn't as much about economics and Wall Street as I'd assumed, but Polk makes his life a compelling story.
Author: Karole Cozzo
Publisher: Swoon Reads
Release Date: 8/2/16
Version Reviewed: digital ARC courtesy of NetGalley
Rating: ★★★★
Nikki Baylor wants a second chance. But will anyone grant her one? A couple months ago, she took part in a cyber bullying incident for which she took 100% of the fall. Now she's the girl everyone is whispering about. Her friends, and co-bullies, have ditched her and she's been expelled from school. She never leaves the house without a baseball cap pulled down to obscure her face, hoping she can get through the day without being recognized and vilified. Her once loving and supportive parents have gone cold. She's given up the things she used to love like singing and preforming. She's not sure what future, if any, waits for her after graduation.
Nikki meets Pax at the rehabilitation center where she does community service. Pax is the first person since the bullying fall out who sees her as a person instead of just her sin. Pax believes everyone deserves a second chance. He feels his own reckless actions resulted in him being paralyzed from the waist down and having to adjust to a new reality in a wheelchair. Pax is confident, good looking, charming, and Nikki starts to fall for him. But Pax has insecurities that get in the way and that Nikki can't fully understand. Neither Nikki nor Pax is where they thought they'd be in life. Can a pair of teenagers make a relationship work when they're still carrying so much baggage?
This is a sweet and fun book. Pax is one of those perfect YA boy characters we all know don't really exist but like to read about anyway. The relationship between he and Nikki is genuine and uplifting. I did not like Nikki's parents. They adore their queen bee daughter until she gets publicly outed as a mean girl, at which point they drop her like it's hot and act like she's contagious. Way to straddle both extremes, mom and dad.
The ending was nice, but for me it was a bit abrupt. Pax had a lot of issues he needed to work on, and I didn't see much resolution on them. I also felt like Nikki's story was incomplete. Yes, she gets the guy, but that's not everything.
Title: You'll Grow Out of It
Author: Jessi Klein
Publisher: Grand Central
Release Date: 7/12/16
Version Reviewed: digital ARC courtesy of NetGalley
Rating: ★★★
I didn't who Jessi Klein was before picking up this book. Still don't, really. What attracted me to this memoir was book blurb-- a woman who feels like she's on the outside of femininity, looking in. Even though I was hardly a tom boy (or tom man, to use the author's phrase), I also had/have no interested in typical girly things-- and my mother has been in the fits of anxiety about it for the last three decades. I thought I would find Klein's writing relatable and funny. And sometimes I did. But other times I wasn't sure I could stand one more page about the author's depressing sex life and relationships.
I had sort of a love-hate relationship with this book, chuckling out loud at some parts and left cold by others. Much to my disappointment, only a small portion is about the aforementioned phenomenon of the grown up tom boy. Most of the book is about her failed relationships. All these comedienne memoirs are starting to run together for me. It feels like they've all dated (and complained about) the same exact men. I think I might have enjoyed this book more had I not read Bossypants only a month earlier. There's nothing in here that Tina Fey can't, and didn't, do better.
You'll Grow Out of It is basically a funny rerun of other books.
Title: The Trap (original German title: Die Falle)
Author: Melanie Raabe
Publisher: Grand Central
Release Date: 7/5/16
Version Reviewed: digital ARC courtesy of NetGalley
Rating: ★★★★
Eleven years ago, best-selling author Linda Conrads entered the front door of her home and hasn't gone through it since. She's shut herself off from life on the outside, and her home has become her entire world. From it she has written a series of acclaimed novels. But there's one story she hasn't written yet-- that of the murder of her sister, Anna. It's been a nightmare that has had no ending, a nameless killer escaping into the darkness. Until now. Because Linda Conrads has just seen the murderer reporting the news on tv.
Linda wants to get reporter Victor Lanzen's DNA for testing, but the only way she can do it is to use her writing, and her house, as a trap. She writes a book about Anna's murder and offers Lanzen an exclusive interview about it. However, her planned snare starts to go wrong almost from the beginning. Linda has to confront the uncomfortable possibility that she's kidnapped an innocent man, and that the real killer might be much closer to home. To finally close her sister's case, she's going to have to wrestle her demons and go outside.
This biggest problem with this book is a lack of consistency. Some parts are very good, and others drag. I'm not a fan of the book-within-a-book concept. I've never seen it work to a story's advantage, and The Trap is no exception. I didn't think Linda's feelings for the investigating officer added anything to the plot, and it's a theme that's overplayed in thrillers in general. That said, this is a good debut. I thought the book improved as the plot progressed, and I liked the ending. I give this a strong 3.5 stars.
