The Exile -- An Outlander Graphic Novel

by Diana Gabaldon and rendered by artist Hoang Nguyen
1 out of 5 stars

Soooo, I guess graphic novels are not for me. I found this really hard to follow, mostly because the majority of the men all looked the same, and none of them are really identified that well. Also, the whole buxomness and sexualization of women in this genre is...well, annoying. Overall, it seems to follow the book pretty well, but it's such a small snippet of the story, it's hardly worth the time. Also, just a detail, but the first image of Jamie's back is missing the scars. And his godfather looks way too young.

Little Bee

by Chris Cleave
4 out of 5 stars

The connection(s) these two woman have is almost too much to believe for a relatively sheltered middle-class white reader, but it's definitely a reminder of the horrific events and human rights abuses that are still going on in this world that, despite our instant access to information, goes widely unacknowledged. That said, I did enjoy the story, which is both dark and funny in spots -- thanks in large part to the comic relief of a little boy who thinks he's Batman, right down to the caped costume he wears pretty much 24-7. There is a fair amount of foreshadowing and suspense in the story, but it's not the good kind of suspense, it's the kind that makes you peek through your fingers. I don't really like feeling that way, but I think it was probably necessary, and it made for a better unfolding than plopping it all in front of you to be horrified at all at once. This is the kind of book that book clubs will want to read and then discuss over lunch and lots of wine. Which I support.

Heft

by Liz Moore
4 out of 5 stars

Even though I have a few complaints about this book, overall, I really enjoyed it. It's a good story, and Moore's characters are a believable mixture of heroic and brave but also weak and flawed, which makes them seem complex and real, and all the more likable. In fact, one of my favorite characters is the peripheral Yolanda, a sassy but sweet teenage unwed mother who Aurthur hires to clean his house.

My complaints have more to do with structure (if that's the right word), because once again, we have an author who thinks it's OK to take liberties with basic grammar and call it poetic license. WTH? Giving your characters a voice is one thing. Distracting and annoying the hell out of your readers is quite another.

Aurthur, the 550-lb. shut in, is an intelligent, sensitive former college professor whose voice comes off a little child-like due in part, I think, to the fact that he (college professor, remember) uses ampersands instead of "and" throughout his entire account. Do you have any idea how annoying that is to read? I'll tell you: Very.

Kel, the other first-person narrator, recounts his entire story without the use of quotation marks. This is not only annoying, it's confusing. Is this a trend among authors? If it is, it needs to stop. Also, possible spoiler alert, but the publisher's summary gives you the impression that these two have stories that will intertwine, but they really don't. Not 'til the very end do they even make contact, so that too left me feeling a little disappointed -- like you would be if someone offered you a nice piece of cake, but then ate the frosting off it first. What's the point of cake without the frosting? It's the vehicle for the payoff...creamy frosting goodness. Ah well, maybe I'm just hungry. And I digress. Really, this is a very good book, and I still recommend it despite my annoyance and craving for cake.

Prince Lestat

by Anne Rice
1 out of 5 stars

OMG. What the hell? So apparently once you've had a couple best sellers, you no longer need an editor? I couldn't even finish this rambling tomb of moping, pathetic, navel-gazing vamps. Also, there's practically no plot. How do you write such a massive-ass book and forgot to include a plot? I can't even waste any more time thinking about this book.

The Heart Goes Last

by Margaret Atwood
3 out of 5 stars

Another creative and suspenseful take on a dystopian future by Margaret Atwood. I found this to be...I dunno, a little less sophisticated than Atwood's usual work what with the somewhat caricature-ish players, stereotypical villain, and even Elvis impersonator hi-jinx (in Vegas even), but overall, this is a good read and definitely something different.

Set after a global economic meltdown, Stan and Charmaine are living in their car and struggling to survive, though Stan hasn't yet resorted to teaming up with his seemingly criminal brother, and Charmaine isn't yet turning tricks at the bar where she works. Then they see an ad about the Positron Project, where you're given pretty much everything you need from employment to housing with high thread-count sheets in a seemingly self-sustaining community as long as you "serve time" every other month in the town's prison. As a prisoner. Doing time for no actual crime, but it's the notion of the for-profit prison that fuels the local economy. During your prison months, another family/couple/person lives in your home. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, lots, of course, and that's the adventure/horror/humor of the story. In fact, sometimes it's hard to tell if this is a satire, a comedy, or a horror story. It kind of jumps back and forth a bit on the strings of your emotions, and much of what fuels the inevitable downfall is of course greed and a kind of sick sexual force that makes you feel a little ashamed to be of the same race as these bizarro characters. 

In fact, I kind of wished I hadn't looked at Atwood's jacket photo before reading, because the juxtaposition of what looks kind of like a grandma's glamour shot gone wrong and the raunchy sex scenes (albeit non gratuitous -- they're an important part of the plot and include chicken rape, robot sex slaves, and brain "adjustments" that can make the object of your desire desire you right back) that she wrote was...unsettling. And now I feel like a jerk, because that was kind of mean but also ironic, I guess, given Atwood's ulterior feminist theme that runs through her books. So go me for irony. It just reminded me of the witch from Princess Bride who maybe got a makeover at Macy's and then had her picture taken. But I digress. The Heart Goes Last is really unique and, of course, as Atwood fans might expect, wonderfully written.

A Spool of Blue Thread

by Anne Tyler
1 out of 5 stars

Anne Tyler doesn't write suspenseful page turners, and the conflict in her books is usually more subtle, allowing the reader to linger over the minutia and enjoy the laser-focused attention to detail that Tyler is so good at. But this...it makes me sad to say I was more than half way through the book when I realized how much I didn't look forward to picking it up again. I returned it just yesterday, but if you were to ask me what it's about, I'd have to say, "Um, I'm not sure...I really don't remember. Mostly a really unlikable family I think."

Sixkill

by Robert B. Parker
3 out of 5 stars

I believe this was Parker's last contribution to the Spencer series before he died, and, while it's not as good as his earlier books in the series, it was a decent read. The "client," as it were, is a despicable pig, so it's hard to care if Spencer clears him of charges, but it's kind of fun to meet a new character, Zebulon Sixkill, a Cree Indian who, when the book opens, is serving as the client's bodyguard. Spencer, naturally, kicks Sixkill's ass in an altercation and then ends up taking him on as a protégé of sorts. So Sixkill ends up filling the Hawk hole in Parker's formula, which I don't mean in a bad way, because generally, it's a pretty entertaining formula. This story's a little lacking in action and conflict, but it was still a nice escape for a rainy weekend. 

Go Set a Watchman

by Harper Lee
2 out of 5 stars

Dang, I so wanted to like this book more. While far from a page turner (kind of plotless, really), it held my interest enough to keep listening -- though at times, I persisted only because I was stuck in traffic and had nothing else to do.

That said, it feels wrong to be overly critical, since this was apparently a rough draft of To Kill a Mockingbird vs. a true sequel. From what I've gathered, it was written about two years prior to Lee's best-selling novel was published. From that perspective, it's kind of fascinating to read and then compare to TKAM. 

Taken on its own, however, I would have enjoyed learning more about Scout's life between childhood and where this story picks up, when she's 27. It might have helped buffer the fact that she's not all that likeable any more. In fact, this precocious child of wise old Atticus Finch is kind of a self-absorbed pain in the ass to everyone around her, which doesn't play so well when you're an adult. I did enjoy the flashbacks (though they were kind of random) and some of the perspectives on civil rights, even though they got rather preachy at times. While it's easy to understand Jean Louis's outrage while you're sitting here in 2015, you can also see Atticus' perspective too, which seems to be that sometimes you have to take baby steps when you're trying to change minds and make it stick.

I missed Dill and really missed Jem, and, from a character perspective, I'm not sure why he had to be replaced by Hank. Ah well...another foray into the truth that it's hard to go home and sometimes is sucks to grow up. I should add that narrator Reese Witherspoon bumps this up to 2.5 stars on my scale.

Life After Life

by Kate Atkinson
5 out of 5 stars

Life After Life reads like vintage literature, but it's also darn right fantastical with a bit of a time-travel angle thrown in. If Atkinson's approach doesn't click with you right away, you might hate  it. It clicked with me, and I loved it. I also loved the time frame, the setting in England, France and Germany during WWI and II, and Atkinson's amazing story crafting.

Every time Ursula dies, it's like a reset button is pressed, and she starts over. As readers, we see these restarts from a variety of perspectives and from different moments in time, so it never gets tedious. Our heroic Ursula relives her whole life, from her birth in 1910 through and beyond WWII. It's a fascinating study of destiny vs. free will -- though Ursula has no idea she's being reincarnated as herself life after life. She does have premonitions and is haunted by feelings of déjà vu. Eventually, I think this starts to drive her a little mad.

At any rate, each life, the butterfly effect of her actions and decisions affect outcomes that range from tiny to absolutely life altering -- or ending. Atkinson's execution of this effect is fantastic, and her descriptions, in particular, of Germany's raids on England and the aftermath of Hitler's Blitzkrieg are both brilliant and horrifying.

But you really have to pay attention to the dates at the top of each chapter, because as readers, we're jumping around in time a lot. As for Ursula, she's plucky and hilarious, and she drops some bon motts that made me laugh out loud. Like our singular lives, the trajectory that the different versions of her lives take all contain happiness, sadness, triumph and tragedy -- in different amounts, but she never comes out unscathed -- it's definitely not a perfect system! You have to wonder if being re set is a gift or a curse. I think it's probably both.

I'll Give You the Sun

by Jandy Nelson
5 out of 5 stars

Yes, 5 stars. This is YA/teen fiction, so of course it's a little Vampire Diary* schmaltzy at times. But if we're honest, I think even us jaded grownups can still be and enjoy being a little schmaltzy, if just in our own heads (never out loud of course). That said, I LOVED these kids, I loved their relationship, I loved their artistic expression (especially Noah's), and I really, really enjoyed Nelson's descriptions of her characters' feelings, their art, their conflict, the surroundings, and even the supernatural-ish twin stuff. If you can listen to this book, do it; I think it helps the dual perspectives, and the readers are excellent. Like a lot of teen fiction, the grownup characters have less dimension, but it didn't bother me. I think that's pretty much how teens view adults and their parents anyway. I may listen to this again, just so I can re appreciate some of Nelson's prose and the many moments when a sentence passed through my brain and I thought, "RIGHT?!" and "Oh that's brilliant -- so perfect..." and, "Wow...am I a dork for thinking that's really beautiful?" The answer is probably yes, but I don't care -- it gives me hope that maybe I'm not as jaded as I thought.

*If you're a fan of Vampire Diaries, then you know what I mean...but no, this book has nothing to do with vampires.

The Blondes

by Emily Schultz

4 out of 5 stars

This is a pretty in-your-face satire about how women, beauty, femininity, and motherhood are not only viewed, but how easy it might be to twist these views in a heartbeat. What happens when all the pretty blonde ladies start going stark raving mad? How will society react? Read this and find out just one of the very likely possibilities. Really funny and also really creepy and even haunting in a Handmaid's Tale kind of way. The main character is somewhat pathetic, but you can't help but root for her. 

A Man Called Ove

by Fredrick Backman
4 out of 5 stars

The Goodreads blurb does a pretty good job of painting a summary of this book's plot. But don't think this is a Walter Matheau kind of romp about a crabby old man and the various hilarious hijinks that ensue, because there's way more to this book than that. Read some of the quotes for a glimpse into the depth of emotion that this book will take you. E.g.,

"She just smiled, said that she loved books more than anything, and started telling him excitedly what each of the ones in her lap was about. And Ove realized that he wanted to hear her talking about the things she loved for the rest of his life.”

"Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it's often one of the great motivations for the living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival."

A Man Called Ove has definitely got humor  (and some hijinks), but also a hefty dose of sadness (not the deterring kind, the kind that makes you nod and sigh), and the writing, which is at times poetic, goes much deeper than a made-for-tv movie. I thought it was a wonderful character study that's also an epic love story  -- one whose ending is both unexpected and expected. 

Surrender Dorothy

by Meg Wolitzer
4 out of 5 stars

Kind of on a Meg Wolitzer binge...love her writing. The stories themselves don't move all that fast, but the observational prose -- it's really, really good.

The Martian

by Andy Weir
4 out of 5 stars

This is a survival story on steroids. And it's funny.

The Gap of Time

by Jeanette Winterson
4 out of 5 stars

Since this is a modern-day take on Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, I feel justified in using adjectives like awesome, really cool, and amazing (even though I've grown to dislike the overuse of that word...) to express my enjoyment of this book. It's also beautifully written, and Winterson weaves a lot of atmosphere and mood into her prose. It was a perfect pick for a rainy weekend. As with Shakespeare's characters, you find yourself wondering at times what exactly is making these characters tick -- we're not taken very deeply into any of their hearts or minds. Sometimes this annoys me, because if someone is a villain, a hero or a hot mess, I want the back story, or at least a few clues. But since this is told as a "tale" vs. a navel-gazing novel, I felt it still worked. And there's still plenty of raw emotion and underbelly to keep you riveted. At least I thought so. If you're looking for a synopsis, don't rely on the book jacket -- that little blurb is stupid and useless, and it doesn't do the story justice AT ALL. Goggle the plot of The Winter's Tale, because that's really what this is all about with a lot of really cool imagery, awesome (yet subtle) humor, and amazing observation about the human condition. One of my favorite truths toward the end of the book (not a spoiler):

"And the world goes on regardless of joy or despair or one woman's fortune or one man's loss. And we can't know the lives of others. And we can't know our own lives beyond the details we can manage. And the things that change us forever happen without us knowing they would happen. And the moment that looks like the rest is the one where hearts are broken or healed. And time that runs so steady and sure runs wild outside of the clocks. It takes so little time to change a lifetime and it takes a lifetime to understand the change."

Chinese Cooking for Diamond Thieves

by Dave Lowry
4 out of 5 stars

At times it felt like the author was trying a little too hard to make his characters clever, and I agree with others who felt there was a distinct lack of character development overall, but this was still a fun read with likeable peeps and really mouthwatering descriptions of food, behind-the-scenes views of Chinese cooking and, as an added bonus, a little martial arts to boot. OK, the martial arts bits were not mouth watering, they were just entertaining. The fact that our hero is Caucasian is also a pleasant twist, especially when he artfully navigates his way through (or against) Chinese culture and tradition both in and out of the kitchen.  Lowry is a journalist and food critic, and this shows in his writing; his knowledge of the Chinese language(s), the restaurant scene, and nuances of food prep and technique are really interesting. What I missed were mental and emotional details that drew the two main characters together as well as any real depth to the personalities of the supporting cast. Also, the diamond thief part of the plot seemed a little far fetched and not very fleshed out, but what do I know. I usually order sesame chicken at Chinese restaurants too.