Thursday, October 12, 2017
The Blog Has Moved!
This blog has moved! Please read about great books at our new website: https://sclsnj.org/read-listen-view/recommendations/
Friday, October 6, 2017
Artemis by Andy Weir
Jazz doesn’t want much from life. She wants an apartment with a bathroom and a real bed instead of the coffin-like structure she currently sleeps in. She wants to somehow make things right with her dad after the major screw up she made as a stupid teenager. But she needs to make money to make her dreams come true. She has a legitimate job, and her lucrative sideline as a smuggler, but it’s not enough. When a job with an amazing payday comes her way, even though it is dangerous and extremely illegal, she leaps at the opportunity. Now she just has to figure out how to pull this job off without getting caught and deported to Earth. Yes, Earth. Jazz lives on Artemis, the first city on the moon, and she loves her home, she’s never known any other, and she’ll do everything she can to protect it and stay there!
Of course there is a lot of science in this book, just like there was in the author’s bestselling first book The Martian, but there are no potatoes and the heist takes center stage here. It reminded me of the heist movies like The Italian Job but on the moon which lends its own special quirks to the action. It was great to see such a diverse cast of characters and that Artemis is set to Kenyan time with all passenger, goods and tourist transport leaving out of Nairobi.
Jazz is a criminal with a strict moral code and I certainly hope that this book is only the beginning of her story. Place your holds now -- this book comes out November 14th!
Unraveling Oliver by Liz Nugent
Oliver Ryan writes extremely popular children’s books and his wife Alice illustrates them. They seem to have the perfect relationship until he is arrested for beating her so badly she lies in a coma and the doctors are doubtful she will ever awaken. Oliver had never hurt Alice before. This book is the story of why he suddenly became so horrifically violent.
Told from the perspectives of many characters including Oliver who is as bewildered by his violence as anyone else, the story of Oliver, for it is his story that drives him to this act, is slowly unraveled as each person tells what they know. Altogether a complete picture of the man that no one truly knew is revealed.
This book won the Irish Book Award’s Crime Novel of the Year and it deserved it. I didn’t like Oliver, even when I learned about the awful childhood he endured, but I still felt some sympathy for him when I looked at his life as a whole...but then I didn’t again. I’m sure any reader will go back and forth as they learn more and more of his life. This is a great book on audio since each of the different characters that lend their perspectives to the story has a different reader. And they all have great Irish accents to really put you in the place and immerse you in the story. This one will stay with you for a long while.
Dirty Dancing at Devil’s Leap by Julie Ann Long
Avalon Harwood is having a really bad day. Rather than deal with life at the moment she flees to her safe place. Home. Her childhood home in Hellcat Canyon, California. She knows she should be managing her startup tech company with her brilliant boyfriend but he can handle the responsibility for a while, especially since he’s the one she can’t deal with at the moment. Soon after she arrives home she finds out that the mansion down the road (next door but still far) is going up for auction the following morning. She was only in that house once and she has mostly fond memories of Mac Coltrane, the boy who spent his summers there until he broke her heart into a million pieces. So, naturally she goes to the auction the next morning and outbids all the competition. She’s thrilled that the property comes with the groundskeeper for the rest of the year until she meets the groundskeeper, who also happens to be the man she outbid: Mac Coltrane.
This is a romance so you know these two are going to get together at the end, but it’s such a fun time. There are always misunderstandings in romances that drive me nuts because most of the time if the two characters just had a conversation the next two hundred pages of hurt feelings wouldn’t be necessary. In this book the misunderstanding happened a decade or so ago when they were teenagers so they are trying to heal old wounds as well as get to know each other once again. The knowledge they have of each other from the past works well to ramp up the banter and practical jokes the two play on each other as Avalon tries to get the house ready to resell and Mac does his best to convince her to sell it to him.
I really enjoyed the chemistry between these two and if you’re looking for a contemporary romance this is a really fun one. This is the third in the series so there is more to like where this one came from!
Thursday, September 28, 2017
The Witchfinder’s Sister by Beth Underdown
Alice is forced to return to the village of Manningtree after her husband is killed in a work accident in London in the early 17th century. Her mother recently passed but she was once close with her younger brother, Matthew Hopkins, but hasn’t seen him in five years and is a little nervous since she will be reliant on him for her wellbeing. Alice has reason to be concerned. Matthew is now an associate of the powerful and influential in the village and has started writing down interview transcripts and evidence gathered at the homes of unpopular women in the village accused of the murder of livestock and people through witchcraft. Alice is stunned to discover not only her brother’s methods but how far his reach has extended. When she is forced to help him gather evidence Alice knows that even being the witchfinder’s brother is not enough to protect her from the growing madness in the countryside.
Alice is the narrator of the story which works well because she has background on the town and Matthew but is ignorant of his life and his community standing in the past few years. She tries to see the young boy she knew in the man she relies upon, but as the mistreatment and atrocities he condones pile up she finds herself growing more concerned for those she cares about and herself.
Matthew Hopkins was a real person whose interrogations resulted in the jailing and hanging deaths of many, many women. Even though the novel is loosely based on what little we know about Hopkins’s life, the author took some liberties including adding a great gasp right at the end. Anyone who has an interest in the Salem Witch Trials (Hopkins’s methods were used in America as well) or the hardships faced by women dependant on relatives in past centuries will want to read Alice’s story.
Friday, September 22, 2017
The Gargoyle Hunters by John Freeman Gill
It’s 1974 in New York City and the city is falling apart. Really! There are pieces crumbling and falling off of buildings compelling young Griffin Watts, thirteen years old, to start wearing a batting helmet as he walks to and from school. Griffin and his family all lived together in a brownstone until his mom and dad separated. Now he lives with his mom, sister and a bunch of boarders, hard luck cases, that his mom seems to collect. Griffin misses his dad so finds him in his warehouse/loft in TriBeCa, some weird section of the city where the streets make no sense but people swear is coming back. There he learns about his dad’s love (read: obsession) with the architecture of the city, especially its gargoyles. Griffin is thrilled to help his dad and friends on their late night expeditions to save the city’s history before it is demolished even though he’s pretty sure it’s not all totally legal. It is exciting.
Griffin learns a lot about the architecture of the city (which as readers we do too) but also a lot about life. He begins to understand the broken relationship between his parents and all the ways his parents aren’t so great at being parents. He also forms and loses friendships and grows into the man he will become. Over every aspect of his life there is always his relationship with his father.
Since the author is coming to talk about his book at the LVSC fundraiser in October I felt I should read it and took out the book and audiobook. I’m glad this event encouraged me to pick this one up because I really enjoyed it. I was skeptical about the audiobook because it is read by the author which can either be a good thing, or a disaster. In this case it was an extremely pleasant surprise. New York City comes to life through the author’s penned and voiced words. His characters are fully formed people ready to walk off the page and down the street. I felt like the author was Griffin telling me his story and I have a funny feeling the author wrote a lot of himself into young Griffin.
Pick this one up and walk the city in the 70s; it was really fun remembering how awful it was compared to what, for example, Times Square is now!
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
On a stormy night back in 1936 on a shantyboat docked in the Mississippi near Memphis, the five Foss children await the return of their parents. Their mom is pregnant with twins and the midwife urged their father to bring her to the hospital; these births are beyond the midwife’s capabilities to deliver. Soonafter the children are forcibly taken from the boat to the Tennessee Children's Home Society with promises that they will be reunited with their parents soon. It is an awful place where the children suffer abuses at the hands of the adults and fellow residents. It is also where the Foss children are given new names and after some time new families.
In the present day Avery Stafford returns home to South Carolina to help her father, the senator, who is recovering from treatment. She loved her legal job in the capitol but finds herself being groomed for a senate seat she isn’t sure she wants and engaged to a man she isn’t sure she wants either. A chance encounter at a nursing home causes Avery to dig into her family’s past uncovering secrets the well placed Stafford clan may wish to keep silent.
This book will tug at your heartstrings, especially when you realize that the Tennessee Children's Home Society was a real place. Children were taken from their parents, separated from their siblings, and parents who did manage to track their children to the Home were unable to get them back, with dubious legalities as the excuse.
If you enjoyed The Orphan Train where the past met the present you’ll really enjoy this story.
Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
Aviva Grossman was in college when she went to work for Congressman Levin in Southern Florida as an unpaid intern. She had a head for politics and was getting a degree in Spanish Literature as well to help her communicate with her future constituents when she ran for office one day. But a string of bad decisions which resulted in a scandal about her relationship with the married and considerably older Congressman shattered her political aspirations. She became notorious in Florida, as infamous as Monica Lewinsky except on a smaller scale; but when you blog about your congressional internship experience, about everything, once it’s on the internet it is forever. Every prospective employer or voter can call up the past with a simple Google search so Aviva makes some big changes.
Jane Young is a successful event planner in a small town in Maine. She plans events of all types, but most often she is called upon to be a wedding planner. Her and her daughter have a good life, but when Jane is called upon to run for mayor her former life comes back to haunt her.
Told in four sections, most in the present day, by four different characters: Aviva’s mom, Congressman Levin’s wife; Aviva (telling the story of what happened back then; her bad choices are made all the more obvious since it is told in Choose Your Own Adventure format with only one path, the path she chose, available to read) and Ruby, Aviva’s/Jane’s thirteen-year-old daughter. Having different points of view shows the same events from different perspectives as well as filling in the gaps so readers get to know the whole picture.
The novel shows how bad choices early in life can affect your future and how your youthful indiscretions are now accessible by the world if they are recorded online. It’s frightening how permanent the internet is and how damaging; as a teenager or young adult can we understand the ramifications of what we post online? Why is it that the young female involved in these scandals is vilified yet the male, established in whatever profession, seems to always get through the ordeal more or less unscathed? While this novel doesn’t pose any answers it does give a voice to the women behind the questions.
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker
Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker
Reviewed by Chris, Business Librarian at Bridgewater
In Cork Dork, Bianca Bosker, an average person with an average person's understanding of wine (that is: barely any), decides to not only educate herself on the subject, but to do so in such a thorough manner as to pass the Certified Sommelier exam.
In the process, Bosker takes it upon herself to learn whether or not wine tasting is an actual skill or just a scam. She tests herself on every wine she comes across and joins exclusive wine-tasting gatherings. She even has her brain scanned to see if it differs from that of a layperson's when tasting wines.
Through it all, Bosker discovers that she is opening her world to flavor. She tastes and smells dozens of other things to prepare her palate for the inescapable comparisons of wines to things like fruits or other food and non-food items, but she also learns to really taste things. Taste and smell are the two least studied senses, and are historically seen as less important than sight, hearing, or touch. The training is not just theoretical -- she also does a few stints at high-end restaurants to learn the art of wine pairing.
Bosker does get in enough practice to eventually take the exam, and I won't spoil the results for you. She learns a lot more about life than just about wine while doing so.
A quick and engaging read. Recommended for those who love wine, food, or want to know what the big deal is about either.
Monday, September 11, 2017
If the Creek Don’t Rise by Leah Weiss
Sadie Blue is seventeen, pregnant and a newlywed of fifteen days bleeding from a head wound on the floor of her trailer thinking she should have never gotten that Roy Tupkin to marry her. She knows if she stays she and her baby are going to die, but she doesn’t know yet what she’s going to do about it.
The book begins with Sadie Blue and ends with her but in the middle are stories told from different residents of Baines Creek, North Carolina all mentioning Sadie in one way or another. We get to know the local preacher, his bitter sister, the new schoolteacher from a fancy private school who feels she finally has found her purpose and the local crone who knows everything about the plants and residents of her corner of the mountains.
In structure the book is reminiscent of Olive Kitteridge but the style is completely different. Fans of spare writing like that of Wiley Cash will enjoy this debut author’s style. It is distinctly southern with the cadence and slang lending to the narrative instead of jarringly detracting from it. A poignant glimpse into Appalachia in the 1970s.
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Alan Conway, a terribly difficult author to work with but the star in the catalog for the small publishing house Susan Ryeland works for, just submitted the manuscript for his ninth Atticus Pünd novel. She adores the novels as much as she dislikes the author, and the author dislikes his character, so she is thrilled to spend her weekend reading the newest installment. But things don’t go as planned. Susan needs to turn her talents from editing mysteries to solving them if she plans on keeping her publishing house in business!
Sorry but I need to keep the plot of this one vague because I want you to be as surprised at the directions this book takes as I was when I read it. I can tell you that you’ll be getting two books for the price of one -- the Atticus Pünd manuscript set in a sleepy village in 1955 very reminiscent of Hercule Poirot and Susan Ryeland’s investigation in the present.
If you are an audiobook listener add this one to your list. Each “mystery” is read by a different reader. A man voices the manuscript while a woman voices the editor’s investigation. It really made the book within a book work even better than it could on the written page; which isn’t saying too much because this is a well plotted mystery in every way.
If the author ever wants to start a series he should turn to writing cozy mysteries like Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers because he has the style down perfectly. Mystery fans of any type of mystery will adore this book.
The Weight of Lies by Emily Carpenter
Forty years ago Frances Ashley wrote Kitty the book that would propel Frances, and eventually her daughter Megan, into the public eye for decades to come. In Kitty a young girl murders her best friend and wrecks havoc on the lives of those around her at the hotel her parents own on a Southern island. Kitty is a cult classic inspiring the Kitty-cult, obsessed fans who visit the real world locations from the novel, since the novel is loosely (we think) based on the truth.
Megan has never felt close to her mother and Frances’s recent actions put even more distance between the two. When the idea to write her own book, what life was like growing up as the daughter of Frances Ashley as well as to research the real story behind Kitty, oddly enough a book Megan has never read, she embraces the idea. Revisiting the island her mother worked at as a hotel maid while writing her breakout novel Megan is a guest of Dorothy Kitchens, the real life inspiration many assume for Kitty. During her stay, digging into the secrets of the past, Megan uncovers information that makes her look at her relationship with her mother, her sense of identity and the long ago murder in a new light. Will Megan finally discover who killed the young girl all those years ago? And will the murderer strike again to keep their secret safe?
At the heart this is a book about identity. What groups we identify with, how we envision our place in the world, who we choose to align ourselves with and why. Megan has lived a sheltered life, and she’s self aware enough to know it, but her investigations into her own life through her mother’s past brings her face to face with herself and how she chooses to identify herself.
Fans of psychological thrillers will find a lot to enjoy here; a great choice both on audio and in print -- I went back and forth between the two to see what would happen next!
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker
Three years ago two teenaged sisters disappeared. Dr. Winter was the bureau psychiatrist assigned to the disappearance of Emma and Cass Tanner. The case has haunted Dr. Winter for the past three years, she always thought their mother showed signs of narcissistic personality disorder and was somehow involved, but she could never find any evidence. Then she gets the call that Cass just returned home telling of an island off the coast of Maine where she and a pregnant Emma were taken to and then held at all this time. Emma didn’t escape with Cass because she refused to leave behind her young daughter and now Cass is desperate to find her sister and her niece.
Dr. Winter is shocked by Cass’s return and not completely convinced by her story. As the days go by and the interviews continue Dr. Winter is pretty sure she knows what really happened to Cass over the past three years; but is she right and can she prove it?
Wendy Walker proved she can write great psychological thriller with All is Not Forgotten last year and she has another great story here. It seems a little slow to start, but the stage needs to be set. From the beginning the story seems weird, but there is nothing that can be pointed at as being particularly off, in all the stories Cass tells and the evidence that is found only a few things send up flags to Dr. Winter and we’re right there with her as she figures out what happened to the Tanner sisters. If you like twisty, strange and disturbing psychological thrillers Wendy Walker needs to be on your to read list.
The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal
Nora is the research assistant for a Vancouver PI and is doing her best to keep her head above water. After a horrific incident in her past she fell into the bottle but has been sober for years. She has made a life for herself; she even has a dog. Her life doesn’t seem like much to outsiders or her sister, but Nora is basically content illegally living in the basement of her office building saving up for better times. She’s starting to think she may have enough savings to start looking for an apartment when the distraught parents of a missing teenager contact her to meet with them. They aren’t looking for her boss, they want Nora’s help. Through a paperwork mishap years ago they have always know the name of their daughter’s birth mother, Nora Watts, and they think their daughter may have been searching for the mother who gave her up for adoption when she disappeared.
Nora would like to kid herself that she hasn’t thought about her daughter since she gave birth, but she has (especially since Nora woke up after a six month coma to find herself very pregnant with little memory of the events leading up to the discovery of her battered body by a hiker.) Nora’s really mad because she gave the baby up knowing the child would have a better life than with her and now she finds out the child, a teenager, has run away from home before. What kind of life did she give her daughter when she gave her up? Will Nora be able to find her? What if the mystery surrounding her daughter’s disappearance has bearing on Nora’s past?
This is a dark and gritty novel with a heroine that you at turns empathize with and dislike. She doesn’t always make good decisions, but when her backstory is revealed her attitudes and choices make more sense. As the layers of the mystery are peeled back as a reader you begin to feel the paranoia alongside Nora: who are her friends, who are her enemies and why do they want her daughter?
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
The Breakdown by B. A. Paris
Cass Anderson lives in a beautifully idyllic hamlet in England and is married to a wonderful man. She loves her job teaching, but she is looking forward to her long summer vacation. At least she was. On the last day of school, during a horrific storm, she takes a windy desolate road through the woods to her home. On the side of the road she sees a woman in a car and assumes she is broken down. Cass pulls over but the woman in the other car makes no attempt to ask for help so Cass drives home with the intention to call for help for the other driver when she arrives home, just in case. But Cass forgets to make the call and the next day she hears about a murdered woman on the radio; the woman in the car is dead. Even worse, once the murdered woman’s identity is made public Cass realizes she had lunch with the woman the week before.
Cass feels extremely guilty for forgetting to call, but it seems to be only one in a long string of things she has been forgetting. Her mother died of early onset Alzheimer’s a couple of years before and Cass is afraid she is suffering from the same illness. She is seeing things that aren’t there, things aren’t where she left them and items start arriving at her door she has no memory of ordering. It looks like Cass is headed for a breakdown herself.
Picking up the book you know going in this is a thriller so you are waiting for the shoe to drop. And it comes down with a crash! You really get into Cass’s head and understand why she feels that she is slowly losing her mind. Then again, you know the genre of the book you are holding, so you always have that little bit of doubt.
The book starts slowly but everything builds up to the amazing conclusion that will have you cheering out loud. This is a great book, please do yourself a favor and stick with it. You’ll be thrilled that you did.
Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips
Today Joan and her four-year-old son Lincoln decide to visit the zoo. Lincoln enjoys the play areas away from the main section of the zoo so he can play with “his guys” like Thor, Predator and Captain America. It’s a typical fall day. Lincoln doesn’t want to leave and Joan needs to encourage him towards the exit. But what were those popping noises Joan heard before? And why are they continuing? As she nears the exit, sees the people on the ground, and glimpses a man with a gun, she knows that today is not like any other day she has ever experienced. She needs to keep her wits about her and do all she can to keep her son safe. Her tired, hungry son who doesn't really understand the danger they are in.
I typically don’t like when readers act out the voices of children, but this reader really brought Lincoln to life as a four-year-old boy. When he spoke too loudly or started getting grumbly I understood, he’s a little kid! The reader kept that part of the story alive for me. That said, I switched over the print (thankfully I had both) because I was getting really anxious listening, and needed to know what happened next and I can read so much faster.
I’m not a parent so maybe a parent would like the ending more than I did? I understood the direction and message the author wanted to convey, but I didn’t like the execution of the ideas. I really enjoyed the first 90% of the book but the ending fell flat for me. Again, could just be me and the bulk of the book is a really great read.
The Child by Fiona Barton
The skeleton of a newborn is found by a crew at a construction site on the outskirts of London. Reporter Kate Walters finds a small article in a competitor’s newspaper about the discovery and it starts firing questions in her mind, most importantly, who is the child?
The book has four narrators: Kate; a mother whose newborn was stolen from a hospital decades before; and both the mother and daughter who at one time lived at the property where the skeleton was discovered. You know that all four women are tied to the baby in one way or another but it doesn’t become clear until the end.
Each chapter has a different narrator, and therefore a different point of view, and on the audiobook each of the four narrators are voiced by a different actor. This is a character driven thriller, you really get to know these four women and what events in their past have made them the people you meet in the opening pages.
I was able to figure out what was going on very early in the story, but I still wanted to keep reading to find out how it all came about. My one issue is that there is some DNA testing in the book and the science didn’t really make sense which may have been a good thing because I kept doubting that I truly did figure out the plot!
Friday, July 28, 2017
The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne
About fifteen years ago Helena emerged from the marshlands of the Upper Peninsula in Michigan where her family lived in her entire life. It was then that she discovered the truth about the world, and about her father Jacob. Helena’s mom lived in the marsh with her father for over a decade, years she would never get back with her family, years from which she would never recover. Helena’s mom was fourteen when Jacob kidnapped her and brought her to the cabin, only slightly older when she became pregnant. Helena grew up in the marsh never knowing much about the world outside the marsh, her reading materials were National Geographic's from the 1960s, and never knowing that her mother was a prisoner until mother and daughter realized they had to leave. Jacob, nicknamed the Marsh King by the media, was captured after two years on the run and sentenced to a lifetime in prison.
Twelve years after her father entered prison Helena has started over. No one knows who she once was, not her husband or their two young daughters. But then the unthinkable happens. Her father escapes from prison. Helena knows that the only one who can possibly capture the Marsh King is the Marsh King’s Daughter.
The narrative alternates chapters between the life in the cabin and Helena’s present day life. It was a good way to work up to the events that made Helena flee the cabin and the father she adored, while at the same time working up to the present day meeting between Helena and her father. Needless to say you are on the edge of your seat as the book nears its conclusion!
If you are at all interested in wilderness survival this will appeal, even if you know you never want to live off the grid this is a glimpse as to how life would be with limited provisions and no electricity. This is also a fascinating character study of three people living in isolation; and a daughter growing up outside of society and how difficult the transition to the “real world” is for her after she leaves the marsh.
I really enjoyed this book but those that are a little squeamish may want to skip the audiobook and stick to print; you can skim print, you’re listening to every word on audiobook. I’ll admit I was flinching on more than one occasion, but it was such a great story I just kept listening and listening to find out what happened.
Final Girls by Riley Sager
Quincy Carpenter is a Final Girl. She is the sole survivor of the Pine Cottage massacre when all her college friends were brutally murdered by an escaped psychopath. (I did laugh when I found out Pine Cottage is in the Poconos, but having stayed in a cabin there I can picture the scene. Not sure I’ll be staying anywhere near there again though…) Thankfully Quincy can’t remember any details of the night the knife-wielding maniac slaughtered her friends and injured her, but there are a few people that find it curious (and convenient) that she can’t remember anything.
Quincy is one of three Final Girls. Lisa Milner survived a sorority house massacre and has devoted her life to helping women overcome their problems and the horrible things they’ve experienced. Samantha Boyd is the third, surviving a killing spree at a hotel in Florida, but she disappeared years ago out of the public eye. Quincy is shocked to find out that Lisa is dead, apparently by suicide, and soon after Samantha comes out of hiding and shows up on her doorstep because they are the last two Final Girls and need to stick together.
I want to say more, but anything I say will mess up some of the reveals of the book. This psychological thriller takes the typical slasher movie ending of one girl standing and writes the “what happens after the cops come” part of the story. There were a few twists I didn’t see coming and I really liked how the author kept switching my opinion of who was the evil one of the piece. You get to know these Final Girls and how damaged they are after their ordeals, but also how strong they really are.
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Sycamore by Bryn Chancellor
Almost twenty years ago Jess Winters disappeared from Sycamore, Arizona. A woman recently relocated to the area is on a walk when she discovers skeletal remains. Everyone assumes that Jess has finally been found but the discovery of the body brings memories of events happening around the time of her disappearance to the forefront of everyone’s minds.
This isn’t a mystery or a thriller. This is a character study of a small town dealing with events, including the disappearance of a teenager, and how these events have a ripple effect across the entire town. I especially liked the construction of the novel; short chapters which could each be a short story telling the underlying story of the town. It was interesting to see how an event that doesn’t even really touch certain people changes their lives in such dramatic ways.
A good choice on audio and in print -- I found myself going between both formats to know what was going to happen next.
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