Goldengrove by Francine Prose

Here’s another coming of age story. This time the protagonist is Nico, a 13 year old girl who just lost her sister in an accident. How she deals with her own changes & the grief that surrounds her family is the basis for the story. I liked most of this book. Prose seems to understand grief & its power to bring together & also divide people. Nico’s friendship with her sister’s boyfriend is interesting & then creepy, yet plausible. But near the end of the book something goes astray. The last two chapters seem tacked on, much like the room additions of their house in the book. Nico never helps her father with his book in the way I felt she should. I don’t want to say too much & ruin it for future readers, but I was let down at the end.

What the Dead Know By: Laura Lipman

Quite a good read.  The story was written in a format I am very fond of;  jumping back and forth through different times.  You get to know the characters, or do you??  There are quite a few twists and turns that made me want to keep reading this book.  From the very first chapter, I was intrigued and interested in learning who the protagonist truly was.  I found all the characters to be intriguing even though I did not like them all, I still wanted to hear their stories.  I will definately read other books by this author.  ***  submitted by: bnbookgirl

Still Missing

I must say I was eager to read this book, but, I was soon disappointed. It just didn’t grab my attention or keep it. I found the characters likeable and I kept rooting for the boy, but this was not one of the greatest stories I’ve read. I thought it was going to be more suspenseful and haunting, but I just wasn’t wowed. It was like so many other books I have read, predictable. I will give Beth Gutcheon another try as I have heard great things about her, this one was just not a page-turner for me.  Submitted by artful4mysoul **1/2

The Missing by Tim Gautreaux

I just finished The Missing & I was actually sad when it was finished. I fell in love with the characters & story in the first pages. Gautreaux’s novel follows the life of Sam Simoneaux (aka Lucky,an ironic nickname) as he weaves his way through life after being orphaned as an infant. In the aftermath of WW1, Lucky has the unfortunate task of dismantling bombs & grenades on the old battlefields. His regiment accidentally bombs an orphaned young girl’s village & he takes it to heart, accepting responsibility.

Then on his return home, everyone (including himself) blames him when he is unable to prevent the abduction of a little girl from a New Orleans department store. He decides to work with the girl’s parents on a riverboat as it works it way up & down the Mississippi, while he searches for clues to her disappearance. The crew & performers on the dance boat provide a wealth of funny & tragic characters. Simon must also confront various backwoods clans along the river bottoms. These characters are scary Eventually he needs to face the death of his own family & deal with the idea of revenge.

About half way in the book, Lucky makes another bad decision. I thought come on, can he really make this many bad decisions? Then, as I digested parts of the book, I thought of people I know & love & some of the repeat mistakes that they make. Yes, some people really do continue to make bad decisions. I highly recommend this book & will be looking forward to more titles by Mr. Gautreaux.

Waiter Rant: Thanks For The Tip-Confessions Of A Cynical Waiter

I came late to this party & arrived through the back door by reading the book before the blog, http://waiterrant.net/. “The Waiter”, now outed, but previously anonymous, shows us all the fun, frightening, & hilarious aspects of waiting tables in the New York area. Anyone who has earned a living waiting tables or even toiled in the service industry will sympathize with him. Customers behaving badly seem to provide the most laughs. I like the way he straddles his duties on the front line with them & manages to keep his cool with the people in the kitchen when things so astray. His writing is good & if you start to follow his blog, you can see it evolve over time. He goes from just telling stories of restaurant drama to relating these stories to his world view. I hear he’s working on a new book about tipping & I look forward to it.

The Cure of Death by Lightning by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

A family drama taking place on a small Canadian Farm in the midst of WWII.  This book is told by fifteen-year old Beth who encounters many strange and quirky people from her own family members to friends and neighbors.  Filled with Indian legends she gets from a friend from the nearby reservation.  Beth also shares home remedies and recipes she gets from reading her mother’s scrapbook.  This book is a coming of age story filled with a plethora of quirky characters from Filthy Billy who suffers from having his soul taken over by a coyote, to Coyote Jack who sneaks around watching Beth and hiding in the bushes.  Beth’s father is a violent man who is a danger not only to his family, but also to his friends and neighbors.  This book intertwines legend, myth, and reality to make a truely engrossing read.  I look forward to reading other books by this author.   ***

Singing Boy By: Dennis McFarland

An interesting story about the different ways people deal with personal grief.  A boy and his mother deal with the death of his father and her husband.  Throw into the mix the best friend and it makes for an interesting story.  Sarah, the mom, retreats into her own world while leaving Harry, her son, to get by on his own.  Neither know how to deal with this overpowering feeling.  It is an intriguing look into the intricacies of grief and sorrow.  It is not the best book I have ever read, but, I found many similarities in my own grieving process.  I think it is a good book to let people know that everyone must deal with this in their own manner despite all the suggestions they are given by other family, friends, and others who cross our path.  I give this book ***.  Submitted by: Artful4mysoul

1776 by David McCollough

I’m pretty sure I am one of the last “history buffs” to have read 1776. This is probably one of David McCollough’s most popular books.  McCollough has eight titles, many of them have hit the bestseller lists, and two of them even won the Pulitzer.  So it was with great expectancy that I lunged into the book head first.

I was disappointed.  It’s not like it was a bad book.  It’s not like I regretted reading it.  It certainly wasn’t a waste of time.  It’s just…(oh man, here comes the nerd in me)…it wasn’t long enough.  It wasn’t thorough enough.  It was a little too basic.  It was a little too DaVinci Code and not enough War and Peace.  He went just deep enough in to the subject to whet my appetite but left me wanting so much more.  With the size of Truman and John Adams, I was pretty sure that this was going to be a much deeper, covering newly discovered information, detailing more of what the average soldier went through.  In my mind it was supposed to be so much more than a synopsis of the year, but it wasn’t.  1776 has been built up to be so much and it just didn’t live up to my lofty expectations.

The book covers, as one might suspect from the title, the year 1776.  It starts towards the end of 1775 and covers the excitement that was the siege of Boston.  After detailing the Continental Army’s driving the Redcoats out of Boston, we follow Washington and his generals’ decision making process as they decide what to do next.  McCollough does discuss the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but not much.  The book briefly covers the Declaration being read aloud to the soldiers and their immediate reaction.  We then wrap it up with explanations and narratives of the “defense” of New York and the eventual retreat from the area all the way from New York to Pennsylvania.  The year ends on a slight positive note before digging in for the winter.

I really want to say I loved this 1776. It received so much hype and the topic was so promising, it just missed.  I was just a little too abbreviated for me.

Slow Way Home by Michael Morris

One of the best books I have read in awhile.  This book deal with the custodial rights of grandparents.  I was surprised by the vast number of grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. (2.5 million)  This book follows  Brandon, a young boy who is not dealt a great family hand.  The mother is irresponsible and always hooks up with men who are losers.  Inevitably, Brandon ends up living with his grandparents and from their the story takes many twists and turns.  It is interesting to watch him grow through all of the changes that take place in his life.  He meets characters along the way, some quirky, some religious, some with good intentions, and some with bad intentions.  Morris is a great developer of characters.  I really grew to appreciate Brandon’s plight and was rooting for him to end up with the people who really cared for him.   I have read A Place Called Wiregrass, also by Morris, but this book far exceeds that one.  This novel would be a great book for book clubs as there is a plethora of issues which could be touched upon. I would give this book ****.

Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva

Gabriel Allon is back and this time gunning for a Russian drug and arms dealer who will stop at nothing to make the all-mighty dollar.  In Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva, the always mysterious Allon per usual hunts down evil doers in between restoring paintings.   All the old gang is back in an exciting new novel that takes the reader throughout privileged European towns and paradisaical (I’ve been waiting to use that word) Mediterranean villas.  That’s pretty much all I’m going to say in terms of a summation of the book.

Here’s my take.  This a good book.  I enjoyed it.  It continues the Gabriel Allon character and story in an entertaining and exciting way.  My only hangup with this book and series is that the story lines are starting to get just a little formulaic.  There weren’t any suprises.  It’s not near to the level of a James Patterson series, don’t get me wrong, but I while I don’t know exactly what the plot twist is going to be, the series is starting to become predictable.  I hope that in the upcoming installments Mr. Silva is able to bust through this.  As a stand alone book, this is a great book.  As a whole, this series, and character, are one of the best to be found.  I frequently tout Mr. Silva as one of my favorite fiction authors.  With that said, it’s time to shake up the series a bit.  Maybe it’s time to release a book or two that are not in the Allon series.  Maybe what I just said is a form of literary blasphemy, but it’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.