Book Reviews
Here are some book reviews from adult summer reading participants. Share a book review HERE.
Title: China Room
Author: Sunjeev Sahota
Continent: Asia/Europe
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 3 Stars
Review: A mother of three sons picks three wives and keeps the identities of the sons hidden. The women live separately from the household in the China Room. It was a window into culture of 1920s India.
Quick and easy read.
-Michelle
Title: Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream
Author: Dean Jobb
Continent: North America/Europe
Genre: True Crime/Biography
Rating: 1 Star
Review: Centers on a serial killer in 1890s England.
Read like a college textbook.
-Michelle
Title: City of the Lost
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Continent: North America
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Rating: 4 Stars
Review: Female detective running from mob becomes member of community in a hidden town in the Yukon.
Well written and a fast read.
-Michelle
Title: Yahoo Boys
Author: Carlos Barragan
Continent: Africa
Genre: Narrative Nonfiction/True Crime
Rating: 4 Stars
Review: The Yahoo Boys is a term for Nigerian young men who use the Internet to scam Westerners. Scamming can take multiple forms including romance, celebrity impersonators, money laundering and blackmail. The lives of four young men are examined who engage in scamming to overcome the poverty in their lives. This book was extremely enlightening. The intersection of Western loneliness and the poverty of a Third World country interface. An objective look at the scammer and the “scammee” without judgement.
-Suellen
Title: Hour of the Witch
Author: Chris Bohjalian
Continent: North America
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: In Puritan Boston 1662 Mary Deerfield seeks divorce from her cruel husband. She has to fight the legal and social system.
I really liked the protagonist and her fight for freedom from abuse.
-Babbie
Title: Churchill’s Secret Messenger
Author: Alan Hlad
Continent: Europe
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: Rose Teasdale was recruited from Churchill’s typing pool to spy in Nazi-occupied France. She works with the French Resistance to deliver messages and aid sabotage efforts.
Excellent historical fiction blending historical details and real-life inspirations.
-Babbie
Title: The Storyteller’s Secret
Author: Sejal Badani
Continent: Asia
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: After a third miscarriage, Jaya leaves her husband and New York to travel to India to learn about her family’s past. There she meets her grandmother’s oldest friend who tells Java the story of her grandmother and helps her understand her mother. I like that the narrative switches between modern day and India’s pre-independence time when Java’s grandmother struggled to accept and reject the rigid social customs of that time.
-Babbie
Title: The Gates of Evangeline
Author: Hester Young
Continent: North America
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: Following the sudden death of her three-year-old son, ‘Charlie’ Cates finds herself having vivid dreams conveying messages from dead or injured children. When a book offer comes through that seems to connect to one of her visions, she finds herself in Louisiana at the former plantation, Evangeline, trying to solve the thirty-year-old missing child case of Gabriel Deveau. Continuing to follow her mysterious dreams while working through her own grief Charlie unofficially investigates, unraveling the lies and dark secrets of the Deveau family. This engaging and haunting gothic thriller is not to be missed by those who love a complicated and captivating mystery.
-Carol
Title: The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
Author: Ken Liu
Continent: Asia
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: A master of ‘speculative fiction,’ Ken Liu’s fantasy and sci-fi stories seem far removed from our current reality while some simultaneously provoke the reader to consider that his visions of possible futures may not be so impossible after all. In some of the linked stories, Liu creates riveting worlds in which human beings choose to die in order to merge their consciousnesses into AI technology to escape a desecrated earth and enjoy the perks of a post-singularity world. Liu’s powerful, brilliant writing and his prodigious imagination spurred me on to read all the stories, even when some of them were too bizarre for me to fully enjoy. But it is a gift to experience the worlds he creates through his superb, dynamic writing.
-Carol
Title: Fruit of the Drunken Tree
Author: Ingrid Rojas Contreas
Continent: South America
Genre: Historical Fiction/Literary Fiction
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: Two girls of different socioeconomic classes – a seven year old girl who resides in a gated community and a thirteen year old girl who works as the the family’s maid are growing up under the reign of Pablo Escobar in Columbia. Based on their life circumstances, each girl experiences loss, violence and trauma which may or never be resolved. A compelling novel that in part is based on the author’s life. A realistic account of what women experience in the throes of war.
-Suellen
Title: Say Nothing
Author: Patrick Radden Keefe
Continent: Europe
Genre: True Crime/Biography
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: A bold look at the Irish Republican Army (IRA) that sought consolidation of Northern and Southern Ireland and freedom from British rule. Its backdrop is the disappearance of a mother with ten children who is believed to be aligned with the loyalists. During the “troubles,” IRA members engaged in murder, bombings and other violent attacks to secure independence. Gerry Adams, the former mastermind of IRA strategies, comes to believe “politics” will be the solution and forms the Sinn Fein Party. Many die hard IRA members view Adams as a “sellout,” especially when he denies IRA membership. This historical account of the IRA, at times, reads like a novel. Radden Keefe grabs your attention and never lets it go. You feel intimately involved with the lives of the IRA members even if at times, you don’t understand their motivation and the role legacy plays in their lives
-Suellen
Title: Stone Yard Devotional
Author: Charlotte Wood
Continent: Australia
Genre: Literary Fiction
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: A woman leaves her present life (e.g. husband and career) to join an Abbey in rural Australia. She seeks an understanding of herself and the “outer” world. At the Abbey, she discovers there is no way to escape from real life struggles. She is confronted by a mouse plague, the remains of a murdered nun and a woman from her past who was the object of her ridicule and bullying as a school girl. A beautifully written novel that promotes self understanding on multiple levels. However, if you are phobic of mice (I certainly am), you may want to skim this section of the novel.
-Suellen
Title: The Place of Tides
Author: James Rebanks
Continent: Europe
Genre: Memoir/Travel Literature
Rating: 4 Stars
Review: Interesting account by an English sheep farmer who follows a woman wild eider duck caretaker on a remote Norway island. He lives with her for over 2 months learning about her life choices that led to an extraordinary choice to keep a family tradition of gathering eider-down alive and protecting the eider. In addition he also learned about himself while experiencing a secluded area of the world on the edge of the Arctic. His descriptions are vivid. A little slow to start.
-Robin
Title: Defiance
Author: Loubna Mrie
Continent: Europe
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: Loubna Mrie is a courageous young woman who grows up under the tyranny of the Syrian Baath regime. She is inspired by her mother to seek an education and joins the resistant movement and documents the brutalities of the Syrian civil war. As an enemy of the government, she forced to leave her home country and emigrate to the US where she begins to process her numerous losses. A stunning memoir of a woman who come of age who is willing to risk her life for democratic elections in Syria. But more than a political documentation, she shares her life with candor and heart break. Unbelievably inspirational!
-Suellen
Title: Cursed Daughters
Author: Oyinkan Braithwaite
Continent: Africa
Genre: Literary Fiction/Magical Realism
Rating: 4 Stars
Review: This book is about a Nigerian family that has a long-standing curse that no daughter will ever have a happy marriage. The youngest daughter who is believed to be the reincarnation of a deceased cousin sets out to overcome this “curse.” There are interesting family dynamics, especially about how our beliefs impact our thinking and reality. A family that is filled with love, loss and deception that you will not easily forget. A summertime read at its best!
-Suellen
Title: American Fantasy
Author: Emma Straub
Continent: North America
Genre: Contemporary/Women’s Fiction
Rating: 4 Stars
Review: If you ever loved a boy band (think “Back Street Boys”) this is the book for you. Imagine being on a cruise, partying and meeting your rock star idols. You are no longer a middle or a high school student but a grown adult. Does the music still hold its magic or are you confronted with the person you have become??? I liked the fact that it explores how adolescent music stars deal with their diminished fame and how they learn or don’t move on in their adult lives.
-Suellen
Title: The Namesake
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Continent: Asia
Genre: Literary Fiction
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: In my opinion, this book is about the immigrant experience in the United States and how, after many generations in a family, in order to find yourself, you must let go of the previous generations’ ties to their homeland. It centers on the son of an immigrant family and the complexities of navigating life in America as a second-generation American. Through Lahiri’s vivid and intricate writing style, the reader is captivated from the first page. Highly recommend!
-Elizabeth
