The Best Possible Answer

The Best Possible Answer, by E. Katherine Kottaras
On Sale November 1, 2016 by St. Martin's Griffin
Rating: ★★★

So this is the book I expected: an over-stressed, over-worked, high school perfectionist with trust issues learns to open up to "Mr. Right" and live in the moment.

That's not the book I got. This book is not a typical YA romance. In fact, it's not really a romance at all.

This is a book about struggling to keep things together when your life is falling spectacularly apart.

Viviana has real issues. It goes deeper than the humiliation she feels from her first love spreading around her nude selfies in retaliation for their break up. This incident puts her in the hospital with a severe case of anxiety. Viviana's parents put enormous pressure on her to get into an elite college, and her father is livid that the nude pics might bar her from Stanford (how?). In fact, her father is so disappointed he's moved out of the home and gone off to Singapore. If that weren't enough pain, Viviana also struggles to repair her relationship with her mother. Then she learns the truth about her father, and it's something that would land even the most well-adjusted person into a lifetime of therapy. With all this going on, she learns her best friend, Sammie, is moving away, and they spend much of their last summer together fighting over a boy. Then there's a mentally ill professor living in their apartment complex who somehow is going to teach a bunch of teens some important life lessons (sigh).

I think this book tries to do too much. From the romance drama, to the family drama, to the best friend drama, to the sister drama... this book feels like a collage. A bunch of plot bits slapped together with glue into something that's not altogether horrible to look at but is undeniably cluttered. Each chapter starts with headers about studying for SATs, entrance essays to college, ect.-- I skipped past those.

Something needed to give with this book. Removing one or more of the story elements and going further into depth with the remaining could have made this a much better novel, IMO.

The Fall Guy

The Fall Guy by James Lasdun
Published October 18, 2016 by W. W. Norton & Company
Rating: ★★★★

So this review is a bit of an unpopular opinion. The rating on this book has sunk to little over 3 on Goodreads. One of the common complaint is that this book is not riveting. And that's right. This book has a bit of an old-fashioned feel to it, imo. It's slower, less shocking, less sadistic than many modern thrillers. I don't think the thriller label is a good fit for this book, and I think it was slapped into that popular category for marketing reasons. Ok, enough of my rambling, onto the review....

Matthew and Charlie are cousins, more like brothers really, but their lives have gone in very different directions. Charlie is a successful investment banker and a married father. He owns multiple homes, has a million dollars in cash in his home safe, and is the type to be impressed with his own wealth. Matthew lives in a dingy one bedroom and is still striving to make his mark in the restaurant business. Both men are harboring some measure of resentment toward the other, but, like in most families, they keep it bubbling under the surface. That's until Charlie invites Matthew to spend the summer at his vacation home. As the days go on, the cracks between become undeniable.

Maybe things would be less complicated if Matthew weren't enamored with Charlie's wife, Chloe. While he's not in love with Chloe and isn't looking to steal her away from his cousin, Matthew feels both an intimacy and possessiveness over her that he can't quite explain. She's his without really being his. It's a dynamic they've all danced around for the last decade. But as the summer wears on, Matthew starts to suspect that Chloe is hiding something, and he becomes obsessive about it, more or less acting like a stalker. It takes him down the road of no return.

This is a suspense novel, and it might disappoint fans of modern thrillers, but this is the type of book I really appreciate. It's told from one perspective and relies on a slower build up of tension. The writing is good and the plot realistic. It kept me interested, and, while not a true page turner, by the end I was racing through to see what would happen to Matthew. My main frustration was with Chloe and Charlie, who I felt were underdeveloped. What did Charlie really think of Matthew? What were Chloe's motivations? On the whole, though, good book.

The German Girl

The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa
Published October 18, 2016 by Atria
Rating: ★★★★




When eleven-year-old Hannah Rosenthal winds up on the cover of the German Girl, a Nazi propaganda magazine for pre-teen girls, it's almost a sick joke. Because if her childhood in Berlin living amongst the "Ogres" has taught her anything it's that she's not German-- not pure, not wanted, barely tolerated. Her blonde hair and blue eyes can do nothing to change that. By 1939, her family is more or less holed up in their apartment building, the one that's been in her mother's family for decades but that the Ogres now want for themselves. The Rosenthal family's tenants used to respect them, but now they ask "Why won't they just leave?" (the building they own! the country of their birth!)"Why are they still here? Don't they know how uncomfortable this situation is making us?"

And Hannah's family does leave, because as Jews they don't really have any other options. The Ogres arrest Hannah's father, only allowing the family to leave the country if they turn over all their assets. But it's worth it for the chance to escape to Cuba, where they will go on to America. Along with 900 other Jewish passengers, including Hannah's best friend, Leo Martin, the Rosenthals set sail on the MS St. Louisbound for Havana. In one final insult, all the passengers are forced to buy return tickets, even though everyone knows this is a one way trip.

For two weeks, they're human beings again. Their captain, a German but not an Ogre, makes sure that his passengers were treated with respect. There is fine dining, dancing, and swimming. It's almost a dream vacation.

It ends in a nightmare. Unknown to the passengers aboard, the Cuban government had retroactively invalidated almost everyone's visas. Hannah and her pregnant mother are allowed to disembark, but her father and Leo are still on ship as it is forced to sail away from salvation. 

But Cuba doesn't turn out to be a salvation for Hannah, not really. Even though she lives to become an old woman, her life pretty much ended in 1939.

The German Girl is told from two perspectives: Hannah and Anna, her only living relative. Hannah's story follows the events of 1939, from life in Berlin, where her only refuge is in her friend Leo, to the sailing of the St. Louis, to life in Cuba afterwards. Anna is her grand-niece. She comes to Cuba to meet with Hannah and learn about her father's past. Anna's father died before she was born on 9/11.

The historical subject matter of this book is pretty fascinating, but I wasn't always riveted by the The German Girl. The writing is beautiful, but I don't read a book like this for the glamour. This book was slow for me to get through. I will say the ending was masterful. I don't know that I would have given this book 4 stars otherwise. Overall, this is a book that grows on you and gets better as it goes on.

I don't feel like we get to know too much about Anna. Hannah definitely dominates this book, but even then we get a lot of "I wish I had said" and "what I wanted to do was" and not a lot of genuine action. Hannah is definitely stuck in her own head a lot.

I loved the story of Hannah and Leo. I enjoyed the parallels between Nazi German and Communist Cuba. When the passengers boarded the St. Louis, crowds jeered and spit on them. Newspapers covered the event with the words: "Good Riddance!" The same exact thing happened to Cubans fleeing the island to America. The Nazis took Hannah's mother's apartment building; the Cuban state took her pharmacy. Their Cuban maid's nephew became an "enemy of the state" as a Jehovah's Witness and sent to a work camp, with a huge sign at the entrance that read: "Work will make men of you."

Sounds familiar, no?



I recommend this book to fans of historical fiction, lovers of beautiful writing, and ww2 buffs. I also recommend learning about the real St. Louis and especially its hero captain Gustav Schroder.

We Are Still Tornadoes

We Are Still Tornadoes by Michael Kun and Susan Mullen
On Sale November 1, 2016 by St. Martin's Griffin
Rating: ★★★★

Cath and Scott are best friends who grew up on the same block and never experienced life without each other. That bond is tested when Cath goes off to college several hundred miles away, and Scott stays behind in their hometown to sell menswear in his Dad's shop. Their lives are seemingly taking different directions. Together, they were Tornadoes, class of 1982. But what will they become?

The book is written entirely in the format of letters exchanged back and forth between Cath and Scott. I have to admit, I find the premise a bit hokey. I mean, outside of war and possibly prison, what 18-year-old guy writes this manyletters to a platonic girl friend? Overall, though, it was enjoyable to read, and I laughed pretty hard at some of Scott's letters. I did feel the expected ending came abruptly, like the authors only had x amount of paper and needed to fit it in before they ran out.

This is a cute, fluffy read that does not require a serious time investment. It's forgettable but fun and good when you're craving something lighthearted.

The Killing Game

The Killing Game by J. S. Carol
Published October 13, 2016 by Bookouture
Rating: ★★★★


Actions have consequences.

A gunman bursts into Alfie's, an exclusive L.A. restaurant where several A-listers are having lunch. These Hollywood VIPs, used to answering no one, are now his hostages. The gunman has a bomb strapped to his chest, attached to a heart rate monitor and set to detonate if his pulse goes too far above or below its normal range. If he gets agitated, if a swat team takes him out... his hostages will explode, along with the rest of the city block.

JJ is used to being able to fix any situation. It's why her big name clients pay her the big bucks. That actress from that thing who ran over someone with her car while drunk, maybe-- JJ is the reason you can't quite remember the details; she's the reason it barely made the news. It's her job to smooth over celebrity scandals and re-build their image. 

But JJ has finally found something she can't fix. And the more she tries, the worse the hostage situation gets. People keep dying...

Actor Alex King knows all about JJ's power to manipulate someone's public image. He only came to Alfie's for lunch that day because JJ set up a "date" for him with a supermodel. King gave up a real relationship in exchange for a life of fake-dating starlettes (paparazzi invited along, of course) at JJ's insistance. He realizes how deeply he regrets that decision as he faces the chance he won't make it out of Alfie's alive. But he didn't crawl his way out of a trailer park childhood and drug addiction to go down without a fight...

Everyone has a price.

The media can't believe their luck. A hostage crisis involving more than a dozen L.A. big wigs? It doesn't even matter who lives and who dies, or even if anyone comes out alive, as long as they can be the first network, the first reporter to break the story. Pay a rent-an-expert to push the agenda you want... pay off a cop to get insider information. But when the media realizes they have a direct line to Alex King, will they betray him to air the exclusive scoop? Will they get him killed?

I thought this was a really good book. I've had a lucky reading streak as of late, but nothing quite as addictive as this one. This is a true thriller, not a dressed up mystery novel, and a real page-turner. The writing didn't impress me. As the story progressed, I didn't much care, because I was riveted. There's a lot of perspective switching in this book, probably too much. There is one major, unforgivable plot issue that prevented me from giving me this 5 stars. I also had a problem with the bad guy's motivations. We find out why he targeted Alfie's, and two patrons in particular, but there's no reasoning behind how he acted toward the other hostages.

Faller

Faller by Will McIntosh
On Sale October 25, 2016 by Tor Books
Rating: ★★★★

A man wakes up in the middle of a street. He has no idea who he is, where he is, or what has happened to him. He's on a strange island that looks like a slice of urban jungle floating in the air. There are other people on the island with him, but none of them remember anything, either. The landscape is dotted with strange machines that no one remembers how to operate. Food only comes from cans found in abandoned homes and apartments-- and it won't last forever. This is Day One. And it's brutal. The strong band together in clans, hoarding cans for themselves. The weak, including almost all children, get tossed over the edge.

The man checks his pockets for clues to his identification. Others have found strange plastic cards with their picture on it and what they can only assume was their name before Day One. But all that's in the man's possession is an odd combination of a toy parachute man, a piece of paper marked with weird symbols drawn in blood, and a picture of himself with a woman. As far as he can tell the woman is nowhere in his world, but he longs for her regardless. He's convinced these items from his pocket are the key to discovering the truth about who he really is... if only he could figure out what they mean.

When Faller falls off the edge of the world, it's an accident. But it's also the begining of a discovery of who he is and what happened to him. He finds other world below his, other floating islands, each with a unique society that has dealt with the transition from Day One in its own way. Faller can't believe his luck when he finds the woman from the photograph. But just like there's more than one world, it seems there's more than one of this woman. From island to island, Faller continues to come across familiar faces.

What the heck is going on?

And as if things couldn't get more complicated for Faller, he starts to suspect someone is out to kill him. But who would want him dead? And why?

I'm not an avid reader of science fiction, but I really enjoyed this book. It seemed like every chapter added a new layer to the story. Just when I thought things couldn't get more freaky, something would happen that threw me for a loop. At first, I was annoyed that Faller's story was interrupted-- right after he fell off the edge of the earth, no less!-- with the story of some guy named Peter. But then it becomes clear that Peter and Faller have converging story lines. That said, I never warmed to Peter and preferred Faller's chapters.

I can't give this book a full five stars, because I was left with too many burning questions. Everyone had their memories wiped clean but has some muscle memory that allowed them shoot guns and open cans. Why couldn't that same principle apply to cars? It just seemed a little random what people could and couldn't remember post Day One. I also didn't like that Ugo was transformed from a complex character into a superhero villain. That's a complaint that I would apply more broadly over the entire plot as well. As the book went on, it definitely took on a quasi comic book feel. Less mind-blowing world building and more good vs. evil action scenes. Luckily, however, the book pulls back in the reigns towards the end.

I can't talk about most of the logic issues I had with this book without ruining it. So I've hid them in a spoiler (click at your risk):

How did everyone seem to know that Faller is the real Peter? How come all the worlds were English speaking? If so many people died during the war/apocalypse, how did so many of the duplicates survive? Where are they getting all the ammo? Why would Ugo chose to clone a bunch of Peters to kill Peter instead of a bunch of Ugos? Why did some of the Peters understand physics, but Faller didn't? How did the orignals, except Peter, avoid getting the black out virus?

This book is definitely worth a look for fans of post-apocalyptic sci-fi.

Coming Clean

I don't normally post reviews for books published this long ago, but with this being available on Amazon's new Prime Reading, I thought it was appropriate. Also, I liked this book a lot, and wanted to share it.

Coming Clean, by Kimberly Rae Miller
Published July 23, 2013 by New Harvest
Rating: ★★★★

For a book about a child growing up in a hoarding environment, I found this to be surprisingly tragic. Like many others, I'm addicted the popular tv shows that feature, and some might argue exploit, this mental health issue. If you look around online, it's not hard to find articles and forum comments that are very judgmental, and often times vicious, toward the people who appear on these shows. It's not uncommon for viewers to suggest that watching Hoarders is inspiration to clean their own homes. It's easy to forget that these are human beings-- not motivational tools.

Kimberly Rae Miller puts a very human face on the issue of hoarding. Her father has no memories of his childhood, at all. His parents were hard-core alcoholics and whatever happened to him in his youth was protectively erased by his brain. Her mother grew up unloved by neglectful parents. She suffers with an extreme spinal condition because her parent's couldn't be bothered to get her a back brace as a child. Kimberly's father starts as the catalyst for the hoarding situation. He's fond of papers, any paper, and radios. Their house quickly fills of them. Her mother is angry at the mess, but also ultimately resigned to it. She eventually becomes a compulsive shopper who adds to the hoard.

The hoard slowly takes over the family's life. Their first house burns down in a fire, spurred on by the mounds of paper, killing all the family pets. Her parents separate for a time, partly to keep CPS from discovering their true living conditions. The boiler explodes, and they have to start taking weekly showers at a local gym. Then they discover a surprise living in their attic, the reveal of which literally had me screeching at my Kindle.

This is a very well-written memoir, better than many I've read from professional writers. The author is likable and down to earth. I think some people will be confused, maybe even put off, by her forgiving nature to her parents. But I get it. My interest in hoarding actually comes from my husband's family-- both he and his mother have hoarding tendencies. Yet, I grew up in a dysfunctional environment, and I could relate to every inner struggle with her parents. I wish her the best of luck going forward and dealing with her parents as they continue to age.