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Published on Leave a comment on The Pull of the Stars
The Pull of the Stars Book Cover The Pull of the Stars
Emma Donoghue
Fiction
HarperCollins
July 21, 2020
Audiobook Advanced Listener Copy
304
Publisher via LibroFM

In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.

In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.

My review:

A book with a medical related storyline is a go to for me, every time! This one is yet another book about the influenza of 1918. It seems lots of authors started writing about this when the 100 year anniversary brought it to the forefront a couple years ago. Little did they all know that when their books would be completed, we would have our own pandemic that closely mirrors many of the historical facts from then. This one takes a slightly different tack in that it takes place in a hospital in Ireland. Specifically a section of the hospital where infected maternity patients are brought to be cared for, and deliver their babies. The whole book takes place over the course of three days, and while two of the characters are fictional, the doctor in charge of the hospital is based on a real person from history. Other than the fascinating tales of labor, delivery, and treating those disease stricken mothers, this book also tackles some other relevant issues of that time. Bridie comes to help nurse Julia in the ward, and we learn her story of growing up in an orphanage under horrible conditions. There is also lots of references to the class structure in Ireland, as well as the issue of birth control and sexual abuse. I thought the romance thrown in was of no value, and thrown in is probably a good term, because it doesn't turn into much of an issue (I'm not sure what the purpose was?). I wish we could have had just a bit more info at the end about what transpired with Julia's life after leaving the hospital that third day.

I listened to this one on audio, which I enjoyed very much. The narrator had an Irish accent, which I always appreciate when I'm being transported to another country where the story takes place.

Not exactly a happy go lucky book, this one deals with lots of issues on top of a pandemic, but if you like hospital setting books, I think this will be just what the doctor ordered.

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Published on 1 Comment on Musical Chairs
Musical Chairs Book Cover Musical Chairs
Amy Poeppel
Atria/Emily Bestler Books
July 21, 2020
E-book
416
Publisher via NetGalley

Bridget and Will have the kind of relationship that people envy: they’re loving, compatible, and completely devoted to each other. The fact that they’re strictly friends seems to get lost on nearly everyone; after all, they’re as good as married in (almost) every way. For three decades, they’ve nurtured their baby, the Forsyth Trio—a chamber group they created as students with their Juilliard classmate Gavin Glantz. In the intervening years, Gavin has gone on to become one of the classical music world’s reigning stars, while Bridget and Will have learned to embrace the warm reviews and smaller venues that accompany modest success.

Bridget has been dreaming of spending the summer at her well-worn Connecticut country home with her boyfriend Sterling. But her plans are upended when Sterling, dutifully following his ex-wife’s advice, breaks up with her over email and her twin twenty-somethings arrive unannounced, filling her empty nest with their big dogs, dirty laundry, and respective crises.

Bridget has problems of her own: her elderly father announces he’s getting married, and the Forsyth Trio is once again missing its violinist. She concocts a plan to host her dad’s wedding on her ramshackle property, while putting the Forsyth Trio back into the spotlight. But to catch the attention of the music world, she and Will place their bets on luring back Gavin, whom they’ve both avoided ever since their stormy parting.

With her trademark humor, pitch-perfect voice, and sly perspective on the human heart, Amy Poeppel crafts a love letter to modern family life with all of its discord and harmony. In the tradition of novels by Maria Semple and Stephen McCauley, Musical Chairs is an irresistibly romantic story of role reversals, reinvention, and sweet synchronicity.

My review:

What happens when you are expecting a romantic summer at your property out of the city, and things turn upside down? Bridget is ready to spend some quiet time with her boyfriend, until her bails on her, and her grown children come back to spend the summer. Along with them (and their problems) comes the fact that her career is at an impasse without one of the key players in her musical trio, the other player also decides to show up since his NYC digs are being sold, and her elderly father springs upon her the fact that he is remarrying. That's a lot to pack in to one story, but the author does it deftly. I never felt confused with all the characters (the pets, and who belonged to who was a different story!), and the story flowed really well. I loved the descriptions of the house and barn remodeling projects. While I liked some characters more than others, none of them was outwardly irritating (except Sterling, but thankfully we get rid of him early on!). Did it tie up a bit too smoothly at the end? Perhaps, but it was still satisfying without being too cheesy.

A fun family drama with lots of moving parts. It reminds me a lot of the new Emma Straub novel All Adults Here. I think if you like that one, you will also enjoy this. It was engaging for me.

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Published on 2 Comments on Too Much and Never Enough
Too Much and Never Enough Book Cover Too Much and Never Enough
Mary L. Trump
Biography & Autobiography
Simon & Schuster
July 14, 2020
Audiobook
240
Overdrive library loan

In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald’s only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world’s health, economic security, and social fabric.

Mary Trump spent much of her childhood in her grandparents’ large, imposing house in the heart of Queens, where Donald and his four siblings grew up. She describes a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse. She explains how specific events and general family patterns created the damaged man who currently occupies the Oval Office, including the strange and harmful relationship between Fred Trump and his two oldest sons, Fred Jr. and Donald.

A first-hand witness to countless holiday meals and family interactions, Mary brings an incisive wit and unexpected humor to sometimes grim, often confounding family events. She recounts in unsparing detail everything from her uncle Donald’s place in the family spotlight and Ivana’s penchant for re-gifting to her grandmother’s frequent injuries and illnesses and the appalling way Donald, Fred Trump’s favorite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb to Alzheimer’s.

Numerous pundits, armchair psychologists, and journalists have sought to parse Donald J. Trump’s lethal flaws. Mary L. Trump has the education, insight, and intimate familiarity needed to reveal what makes Donald, and the rest of her clan, tick. She alone can recount this fascinating, unnerving saga, not just because of her insider’s perspective but also because she is the only Trump willing to tell the truth about one of the world’s most powerful and dysfunctional families.

My review:

Oh you bet I went there and obtained an audio copy (narrated by the author) the day it was published! I have an irrational hatred of this man (I have what was written about in A Warning.....TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome!)! But honestly I wasn't expecting much from the book, other than a few tidbits that I could shake my head at, and would verify my opinions. It was a lot more than I expected. Mary is a very skilled writer (Donald hired her to write one of his books, but wouldn't ever sit down with her to give her any information to make it credible, so it fell through). The majority of the book is actually about the dysfunctional mess of a family they all grew up in! Fred was a sociopath, his wife was sickly and never paid attention to the five children, the oldest son (Mary's father) was shunned by Fred because he didn't want to go into the family business, and Donald (who did enter Daddy's business) was allowed to get away with anything without consequences. There is no question that Mary feels resentful of the way her father was treated, which she feels led to his alcoholism and early death, when Mary was just 16.  I'm going to give her a pass on this as I felt it led more credibility to her story, what daughter wouldn't feel this way? However I never felt while listening that she was making up stuff to promote herself, or denigrate others, it was just the way the family dynamic played out. Interestingly the members of the family who were not part of the business seemed to fare better in life, as they got away from Fred's influence. An interesting couple of quotes that I'll share:

“His bragging is not really directed at the audience in front of him...but of his audience of one, his father”

“Donald today is as capable as he was at three years old....incapable of growing, learning or evolving, able to regulate his emotions, moderate his responses, or take in and synthesize information”

“Donald’s need for affirmation is so great that he doesn’t seem to notice that the largest group of his supporters are people he wouldn’t condescend to be seen with outside of a rally. His deep-seated insecurities have created in him a black hole of need that constantly requires the light of compliments that disappears as soon as he’s soaked it in. Nothing is ever enough.”

Obviously the people who really should read this book are not going to, but it's a well written documentation of a family in crisis, and what the end result from that dysfunction can lead to. Please don't make us have to live with four more years of it!!

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Published on 1 Comment on Mother Land
Mother Land Book Cover Mother Land
Leah Franqui
Fiction
William Morrow
July 14, 2020
Advanced reader copy
384
Free from publisher

From the critically acclaimed author of America for Beginners, a wonderfully insightful, witty, and heart-piercing novel, set in Mumbai, about an impulsive American woman, her headstrong Indian mother-in-law, and the unexpected twists and turns of life that bond them. When Rachel Meyer, a thirtysomething foodie from New York, agrees to move to Mumbai with her Indian-born husband, Dhruv, she knows some culture shock is inevitable. Blessed with a curious mind and an independent spirit, Rachel is determined to learn her way around the hot, noisy, seemingly infinite metropolis she now calls home. But the ex-pat American's sense of adventure is sorely tested when her mother-in-law, Swati, suddenly arrives from Kolkata--a thousand miles away--alone, with an even more shocking announcement: she's left her husband of more than forty years and moving in with them. Nothing the newlyweds say can budge the steadfast Swati, and as the days pass, it becomes clear she is here to stay--an uneasy situation that becomes more difficult when Dhruv is called away on business. Suddenly these two strong-willed women from such very different backgrounds, who see life so differently, are alone together in a home that each is determined to run in her own way--a situation that ultimately brings into question the very things in their lives that had seemed perfect and permanent . . . with results neither of them expect. Heartfelt, charming, deeply insightful and wise, Mother Land introduces us to two very different women from very different cultures . . . who maybe aren't so different after all.

My review:

This author's previous book, America for Beginners, was one of my best books of 2018, so I jumped at the chance to get an early copy of this one! I loved this one too! The author has such a way of writing characters and settings that you are completely immersed within the story! The characters of Rachel and Swati were so well portrayed that I switched alliances several times while reading, depending on whose side of the story I was presently engaged in. I absolutely loved learning about Mumbai, and the Indian culture, particularly as it relates to the role of women in the society. I was also drawn to the feminist aspect in this. Swati, who has been brought up as a traditional Indian daughter, wife and mother, suddenly yearns for something more:

".....she, Swati had never been that comfortable with anyone in her life. Not with Vinod, not with her parents, her siblings, her son, and certainly never with herself. It was like walking around in uncomfortable shoes all your life, and never knowing that shoes could be comfortable, and then finding out you could have been walking comfortably the whole time."

And Rachel starts to see that maybe she doesn't really know what she wants and needs as well as she thought when she agreed to move to Mumbai with her Indian husband:

"Because the truth is, you can't absorb what someone else wants, their certainty, it can't become yours, it can't take the place of you knowing what you need. And I don't. I thought I would find it here."

Even though I liked it, the ending was probably a bit too tidy (although I wouldn't call all of it predictable). The characters and writing in this book shine, and I can't recommend this one, and her previous book America for Beginners, enough! Can't wait for what comes next from this author!

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Published on 2 Comments on Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.
Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. Book Cover Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.
Joyce Carol Oates
Fiction
HarperCollins
June 9, 2020
Hardcover
800
Purchased

The bonds of family are tested in the wake of a profound tragedy, providing a look at the darker side of our society by one of our most enduringly popular and important writers Night Sleep Death The Stars is a gripping examination of contemporary America through the prism of a family tragedy: when a powerful parent dies, each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways, and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all. Stark and penetrating, Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel is a vivid exploration of race, psychological trauma, class warfare, grief, and eventual healing, as well as an intimate family novel in the tradition of the author’s bestselling We Were the Mulvaneys.

My review:

Before I begin my praise for this book, let's get one thing out of the way first. This book is 800 pages long! I say that because I know that is super daunting for some (myself included), so I wanted to be transparent about its length. Having said that, if you enjoy family sagas, you will love it, and you won't even notice the pages flying by! As is usual for this author, the writing is beautiful, her characters are splendid and so real, and the story deals with so many issues. The main theme of the book is how the different family members (5 children and a wife) react when the patriarch is killed. Each one reacts differently of course, and they all have opinions about how the others are dealing with this grief. There are also underlying themes about police brutality, race, moving on, and all the typical sibling interactions we find in this type of family drama. I was pretty smitten with the entire book, however Oates can wax poetic (or long if you prefer), and I did feel that a hundred (or so) pages could have been shaved off and still have had the same effect. The ending was mostly satisfying, although I was saddened by the resolution of the accident (it was the likely outcome, but not what I had hoped for).

If you love a masterfully crafted story about a family in grief, and a huge book is not a deterrent for you, I highly recommend this one! Lots of thoughts and situations to mull over, some of them pertinent to today's events.

Published on Leave a comment on The Dilemma
The Dilemma Book Cover The Dilemma
B. A. Paris
Fiction
St. Martin's Press
June 30, 2020
Audiobook
352
Library Overdrive

It’s Livia’s fortieth birthday and tonight she’s having a party, a party she’s been planning for a long time. The only person missing will be her daughter, Marnie.

But Livia has a secret, a secret she’s been keeping from Adam, her husband, until the party is over. Because how can she tell him that although she loves Marnie, she’s glad their daughter won’t be there to celebrate with her?

Adam is determined everything will be just right for Livia and the party is going to be perfect… until he learns something that will leave him facing an unbearable decision.

My review:

I've read previous books from this author, but this one is a bit of a departure from her norm, and I really liked it! Her previous work has been more of the typical psychological thriller with the heart pounding twists and turns within the plot. I like that type of story, but after you've read a few, they can get repetitive and all blend together. I love the fact that this author took a different turn here and posed the question....if you have information that will cause great destruction to someone, when is the right time to tell them? Should it be right before a party that you've been planning for years? Each of the two main protagonists are holding tight to a secret regarding their daughter, but haven't been able to find the right time to expose it. There are other people involved who also have a stake in these secrets as well, and they will have devastating repercussions for them. I loved trying to figure out how I would have handled these moral dilemmas, knowing there would be huge fallout no matter when they came to light. The writing was succinct, there weren't any points where I felt the story lagged, and I truly felt for the characters and their angst over what to do, given the situation.

This one is for the thinkers out there who like to imagine their handling of a  problem presented for them. You may start out with an opinion, but after the story builds, will you change your mind? I commend the author for taking a different direction with her writing, this one is definitely worthy of a read.

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Published on 1 Comment on The Last Flight
The Last Flight Book Cover The Last Flight
Julie Clark
Fiction
Sourcebooks Landmark
June 23, 2020
Hardcover
320
Purchased

Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of ten, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is quite as it seems. That perfect husband has a temper that burns as bright as his promising political career, and he's not above using his staff to track Claire's every move, making sure she's living up to his impossible standards. But what he doesn't know is that Claire has worked for months on a plan to vanish.

A chance meeting in an airport bar brings her together with a woman whose circumstances seem equally dire. Together they make a last-minute decision to switch tickets ― Claire taking Eva's flight to Oakland, and Eva traveling to Puerto Rico as Claire. They believe the swap will give each of them the head start they need to begin again somewhere far away. But when the flight to Puerto Rico goes down, Claire realizes it's no longer a head start but a new life. Cut off, out of options, with the news of her death about to explode in the media, Claire will assume Eva's identity, and along with it, the secrets Eva fought so hard to keep hidden.

The Last Flight is the story of two women ― both alone, both scared ― and one agonizing decision that will change the trajectory of both of their lives.

My review:

Yay! This one was my kind of thriller! I don't require a million twists and turns to entertain me, just a good story with characters that I care what happens to. This one grabbed me from the very beginning, and sustained my interest until the very end. While I'm not going to say the circumstances were totally believable at first, as you near the end they make much more sense. This book is told in an interesting way. Told in alternating chapters, Claire is in real time, whereas Eva starts that way, but then we go back in time six months, and work back up to the present. So you hear about Claire's past through her reminiscing, but Eva is actually living hers. Different take that made it stand out from the usual formulaic storyline. No complaints about writing style, character development, or length, this one had just what it needed to deliver a punch. Definitely a slow burn, this one had my heart pounding by the end, and while maybe not the ending I would have wished for, it was the ending that made sense (mine would have been implausible and would have ruined it).

Want a hanging on the edge of your seat waiting for the outcome story? You need look no further, I was completely invested in this one.

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Published on 1 Comment on A Burning
A Burning Book Cover A Burning
Megha Majumdar
Knopf Publishing Group
June 2, 2020
Hardcover
304
Purchased

Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan's fall. Lovely--an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor--has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.

Taut, symphonic, propulsive, and riveting from its opening lines, A Burning has the force of an epic while being so masterfully compressed it can be read in a single sitting. Majumdar writes with dazzling assurance at a breakneck pace on complex themes that read here as the components of a thriller: class, fate, corruption, justice, and what it feels like to face profound obstacles and yet nurture big dreams in a country spinning toward extremism. An extraordinary debut.

My review:

This is a book about what happens to three individuals who all have aspirations of a better life, and their relationship to each other. Jivan is accused of a terrorist attack on an Indian train, and thrown in jail with minimal evidence to support her guilt. Lovely has an alibi that can hopefully absolve her, and her former teacher PT Sir gets involved in politics that may use Jivan as a pawn. I really enjoyed reading all three of their stories, but although it is a short book, this was not an easy read.  Descriptions of the slums in contemporary India, the political corruption, the use of the press to sway public opinion, the willingness of those in charge to want to cast blame without proof, these are all touched on within  the story. I do wish that it could have been a tad longer so that the three main characters could have been even more fleshed out. This book did nothing to change my opinion about traveling to India, but I believe that was the point......to point out the bold miscarriages of justice in the country, which we can only hope will try to do better job in the future.

A fast read, but I'm going to warn you going in that overall it is very depressing. I still feel that it's a book worth reading, if for no other reason than as a warning to stay away from chatting up strangers on Facebook!

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Published on 2 Comments on Patsy
Patsy Book Cover Patsy
Nicole Dennis-Benn
Fiction
Liveright
2019
Hardcover
432
Purchased

When Patsy gets her long-coveted visa to America, it comes after years of yearning to leave Pennyfield, the beautiful but impoverished Jamaican town where she was raised. More than anything, Patsy wishes to be reunited with her oldest friend, Cicely, whose letters arrive from New York steeped in the promise of a happier life and the possible rekindling of their young love. But Patsy’s plans don’t include her overzealous, evangelical mother―or even her five-year-old daughter, Tru.

Beating with the pulse of a long-witheld confession, Patsy gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to choose herself first―not to give a better life to her family back home. Patsy leaves Tru behind in a defiant act of self-preservation, hoping for a new start where she can be, and love, whomever she wants. But when Patsy arrives in Brooklyn, America is not as Cicely’s treasured letters described; to survive as an undocumented immigrant, she is forced to work as a bathroom attendant and nanny. Meanwhile, Tru builds a faltering relationship with her father back in Jamaica, grappling with her own questions of identity and sexuality, and trying desperately to empathize with her mother’s decision.

Expertly evoking the jittery streets of New York and the languid rhythms of Jamaica, Patsy weaves between the lives of Patsy and Tru in vignettes spanning more than a decade as mother and daughter ultimately find a way back to one another.

My review:

This was not an easy read, but it was enlightening and important. It's definitely not a happy book. Patsy's world once she gets to New York is way different than what she expected, in more ways than one. Being undocumented follows her in the decade during which this book takes place. Patsy is an intelligent, highly capable woman, but without papers she is forced to find menial jobs that keep her from sending money back home to Jamaica. Meanwhile her daughter is living with a father (and his family) who she barely knows, and struggling to survive at the fancy school her father insists she attend, and she can't understand why her mother doesn't contact her. I also found this hard to read in that the dialog was in the characters'  English. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way, it would not have seemed authentic, but reading the dialog slowed me down and was a bit frustrating when I wanted to get on with the story. I wish that I had looked for this one on audio, I think that would have made a huge difference! While I never totally warmed up to any of the characters, I do think that they were well written and authentic. The scenes from Brooklyn and Pennyfield (in Jamaica) were very immersive.

An excellent immigration story about following your dreams, and what that entails. I would suggest the audio version if you have access to it.

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Published on 2 Comments on 28 Summers
28 Summers Book Cover 28 Summers
Elin Hilderbrand
Fiction
Little, Brown
June 16, 2020
Audio (Hardcover purchased)
432
Free ALC from publisher

Their secret love affair has lasted for decades -- but this could be the summer that changes everything.

When Mallory Blessing's son, Link, receives deathbed instructions from his mother to call a number on a slip of paper in her desk drawer, he's not sure what to expect. But he certainly does not expect Jake McCloud to answer. It's the late spring of 2020 and Jake's wife, Ursula DeGournsey, is the frontrunner in the upcoming Presidential election.

There must be a mistake, Link thinks. How do Mallory and Jake know each other?

Flash back to the sweet summer of 1993: Mallory has just inherited a beachfront cottage on Nantucket from her aunt, and she agrees to host her brother's bachelor party. Cooper's friend from college, Jake McCloud, attends, and Jake and Mallory form a bond that will persevere -- through marriage, children, and Ursula's stratospheric political rise -- until Mallory learns she's dying.

Based on the classic film Same Time Next Year (which Mallory and Jake watch every summer), 28 Summers explores the agony and romance of a one-weekend-per-year affair and the dramatic ways this relationship complicates and enriches their lives, and the lives of the people they love. (less)

My review:

What are we talking about in 2020? You'll get this reference once you read the book, but my specific answer is that this book received a 5 star rating from me! Two reasons why this is a big deal. One....I've read countless books by this author and thoroughly enjoyed them, however this is the first time she has earned a 5 star (which I'm very stingy with). Two......anyone who reads my blog knows how I feel about romance books (insert eye roll here!). I can count on one hand the number of 5 stars I have given out (and yes, I did go back and look). I've come to the conclusion from looking at past choices, that in order to earn a top rating, the romance book has to have an unusual aspect to it (Me Before You and The Girl He Used To Know are past choices). This book definitely fits the unusual romance story. Based on the movie Same Time Next Year, Mallory and Jake meet every Labor Day weekend on Nantucket. They have no contact the rest of the year, but we do learn about each of their lives throughout the book's chapters (dating from 1993 and up). We also learn from the start, what leads to their last meeting (and I still bawled like a baby even though I knew the ending!).  At the beginning of each chapter is a list of what we were talking about that year, which I loved! I got married in September of 1993, so it was neat to chronicle events in the years I've been married. As in all of Hilderbrand's stories, we are transported to Nantucket and her people, places, and things make you feel like you are there. I will place this warning for those who are against any and all forms of infidelity, no matter the circumstances, you should read a bit about the story before deciding to pick it up.  And make sure to check out the dedication at the front....let's just say the beginning and end of this one made me cry!

The number one summer read for this year, I can't recommend this one enough. Even for the non-romantics like me (LOL), this one is a winner all the way!