A Bitter Truth by Charles Todd – Book Review

May 212012

A Bitter Truth by Charles Todd
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks

This is the third book in the Bess Crawford series. I previously reviewed the first two books, A Duty to the Dead and An Impartial Witness.

Newly home on Christmas leave, Bess finds a woman huddled on her doorstep, a huge bruise spreading across her face. Bess is not one to ignore anyone in trouble, so she invites the woman – Lydia – in and even agrees to return home with her, to act as a buffer between Lydia and her husband. While staying with Lydia’s husband’s family, a family friend also staying at the house is found mysteriously dead after accidentally spilling a huge secret. Suddenly everyone, including Bess, is a suspect and Bess’s involvement in the case could make her a potential victim as well.

Bess always seems to get herself in these situations in a slightly improbable manner and this is no exception, but the plot of A Bitter Truth actually seemed more plausible than the first two. Certainly the appearance of Lydia on Bess’s doorstep is quite coincidental, but Bess’s actions from that point on are all completely in character and believable. Who, when under suspicion for a murder, would not look further to try to clear their own name and determine the true culprit?

The Bess Crawford series continues to be one in which I gobble down each book as I get to it and look forward to the next book. The sad thing is that after the next book, I’ll be all out of Bess for the time being. Recommended.

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Source: Purchased.
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The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson – Audiobook Review

May 182012

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson, narrated by Tim Kang, Josiah D. Lee, and James Kyson Lee
Published in audio by Random House Audio, published in print by Random House

Synopsis:

From the publisher:

An epic novel and a thrilling literary discovery, The Orphan Master’s Son follows a young man’s journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and eerie spy chambers of the world’s most mysterious dictatorship, North Korea.

Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother—a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang—and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will be no return.

Considering himself “a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,” Jun Do becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress “so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like.”

Thoughts on the story:

Jun Do’s story is, at times, a bit of a tangled web, particularly as part of The Orphan Master’s Son is narrated by a voice over the loudspeaker that broadcasts to all North Korean citizens, and part comes from the point of view of a prison interrogator. It is not that Jun Do is an unreliable narrator precisely, it is that the nature of narrative in North Korea is, by definition, unreliable. This becomes increasingly evident during Jun Do’s time with Sun Moon, as identity and reality shift based on what people allow or force themselves to believe. Jun Do knows that power of belief and blind obedience better than most, having been an orphan who was not really an orphan, and thus he is one of the privileged few who is able to make this quirk of North Korea society work for him – at least for a time.

It is this contemplation on reality in North Korea that makes The Orphan Master’s Son so very brilliant. At the same time, however, Johnson has also created a story that keeps the reader interested, even before this theme becomes so strongly apparent. From Jun Do’s time as a state-mandated kidnapper of Japanese citizens, to his time manning a radio on a fishing vessel, his inclusion on a diplomatic trip to Texas, and then finally his relationship with Sun Moon, every aspect of Jun Do’s life offers the reader tantalizing and often horrifying glimpses into life in North Korea.

Thoughts on the audio production:

The best part of this audio production is that it uses multiple narrators to fully differentiate between the multiple points of view in Johnson’s story. Kang is the primary narrator, telling the majority of the story from Jun Do’s point of view. Lee and Lee voice the loudspeaker and the interrogator, giving additional definition and clarity to the story. I must say that none of the narrators completely wowed me, but all were solid narrators and they told the story adequately and in an interesting manner.

soundbytes picture Overall:

I might lean slightly towards recommending this in print over audio, but the audiobook also works perfectly well. Either way, this is definitely a book to pick up.

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I’m launching a brand-new meme every Friday! I encourage you to review any audiobooks you review on Fridays and include the link here. If you have reviewed an audiobook earlier in the week, please feel free to link that review as well. Thanks to Pam for creating the button.

Source: Library.
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All Woman and Springtime by Brandon W. Jones – Book Review

May 152012

All Woman and Springtime by Brandon W. Jones
Published by Algonquin Books, an imprint of Workman Press

Il-sun and Gi are North Korean orphans, factory workers, and best friends despite their differences. Gi is somewhat introverted, loyal, a math wizard. She is the kind of girl who always produces more than her quota in the factor, doing her duty for the Dear Leader, but always willing to share her extras with Il-sun, a girl who rarely meets quota and has the gall to spit on Dear Leader’s portrait when alone in the dark. Unlike Gi, though, Il-sun is beautiful, and her beauty covers a multitude of sins. The fact that she is also naive and an orphan, though, makes Il-sun’s beauty dangerous, and the two girls end up smuggled into South Korea and sold into sexual slavery, where they are particularly vulnerable thanks to their North Korean brainwashing.

Mr. Choy took on a hard, stern look, the hint of a dangerous rage rippling across his eyes. It was a look that said his friendly, accommodating exterior was a thin crust over a far more volatile core. He smiled wryly and said, “If you refuse to work for me, I will have no choice but to hand you over to the American army, who will rape, torture, and kill you. Of course the choice is yours.” –p. 161

All Woman and Springtime is beautifully written, both in prose and plotting. The story is almost immediately engrossing. Particularly effective is Jones’s method of occasionally switching to the point of view of more minor characters, whichever is currently most important to the story. This does not work in all narratives, but in All Woman and Springtime it adds layers of depth to the story, by highlighting the variety of North Korean mindsets and situations. In fact, Jones does a wonderful job in general giving his readers a background to the North Korean cultural setting without becoming overly didactic. He walks a line well, giving enough information to those who have little or no knowledge of recent North Korean history beyond the death of Kim Jong Il but not succumbing to an info dump that will bore readers who have done further reading on North Korea.

In addition to the rich setting, Jones has created realistic and well-rounded characters who will stay in the reader’s mind for some time to come. Not only does All Woman and Springtime give readers a peek into the lives and vulnerabilities of some North Korean woman, but Jones’s story and characters are so compelling that the story becomes universal. Very highly recommended.

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Source: Publisher.
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Objects of My Affection by Jill Smolinski – Mini Review

May 102012

Objects of My Affection by Jill Smolinski
Published by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

Lucy Blooms’s life is falling apart, but at least it isn’t cluttered. She recently lost her job, and her teenage son’s drug addiction cost her both her boyfriend and the house she had to sell to fund his rehab, and now her son won’t even speak with her. To make things worse, Lucy is now bunking with her best friend’s preschooler. Really, the only bright spot in her life comes from her new potential job. As the author of a not-so-bestselling book on organizing called Things are Not People, the one thing she feels that she might be qualified to do is organize. Unfortunately, her new client isn’t so much a packrat as a hoarder, and a very difficult one at that.

Objects of My Affection is a very engaging book that is easy to keep reading. Although Lucy can be frustrating at times, she is generally a character who is very easy to relate to, and the story that Smolinski has crafted keeps the pages turning.

For more information, see my piece on Objects of My Affection for SheKnows.com.

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Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones – Book Review

May 092012

The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones
Published by Harper Books, an imprint of HarperCollins

Sterne has been thrown into disarray. It is Emerald Torrington’s twentieth birthday and guests will be arriving any minute, even as her stepfather is off bargaining with business men beneath their status in order to keep Sterne in the family. If this was not all dramatic enough, shortly after their guests arrive, the Torringtons receive word that there has been an accident on a nearby rail line, and their house is being commandeered to house the survivors. The somewhat snobby family is not particularly happy about opening their house to third class passengers when they have a celebration happening, and so the small group is ushered into the morning room and all but ignored. The number of passengers seems to keep climbing, though, and they are getting increasingly frustrated with their inability to move on, and with the lack of contact from the Railway. It is the appearance of an old acquaintance of Mrs. Torrington’s from amongst the rabble, though, that really sets the evening awry.

The Uninvited Guests has a bit of a slow start, partially because Emerald and her family are not particularly appealing characters. They are overly proud and extremely concerned with their station in life, which certainly does not promote empathy. They spend a fair amount of time ridiculing the guests they have invited and worrying about showing off their greatness at the party, while simultaneously worrying about losing their grand estate and all that it represents. If you keep reading, though, the plot begins to slowly sneak up on you, and before long you will not want to close the book.

Once the night begins to fall apart, the reader gets caught up in Jones’s story, wondering if he or she has guessed correctly as to just what is going on with the guests and just what about this man from Mrs. Torrington’s past has her so upset. The Uninvited Guests was wisely kept to under 300 pages, much more might have made the characters hard to swallow, but at this length the storytelling was tight enough to engage the reader in the events of this bizarre evening.

Recommended.

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Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller – Book Review

May 082012

The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Iris Dupont doesn’t particularly want to move to the small town of Nye, the name of which sounds like a negation. Her parents, though, think that leaving Boston and the memory of her best friend would be best for Iris, perhaps she’ll even start talking to her imaginary friend, who takes the guise of dead newsman Edward R. Murrow. Her new prep school, Mariana Academy, is all about status and popularity, which doesn’t fit Iris very well. Nor does it fit her favorite teacher, Mr. Kaplan who teaches freshman biology, but spends more time pushing his students to become ‘extremophiles’ than talking about Mendel. Both Iris and Mr. Kaplan quickly find themselves caught up in the storied Prisom’s Party, a secret society that is stalking Mariana’s halls.

The Year of the Gadfly is told in two time periods from three different perspectives. Iris and Mr. Kaplan both narrate the present, although Mr. Kaplan takes frequent trips down memory lane to his own time as a student at Mariana. The third point of view comes from Lily, an albino girl who is the daughter of the former headmaster of Mariana. Iris is now living in Lily’s room, but Lily’s point of view focuses on her own time at Mariana, where she was a classmate of Mr. Kaplan’s – and his brother’s girlfriend.

Three points of view, two time periods, the semi-ghost of Edward R. Murrow, a mysterious secret society – it sounds like Miller threw everything she could think of into The Year of the Gadfly. Upon reading the description, a reader can’t help but imagine that this must be a disjointed and overly ambitious story. Surprisingly, though, it all fits together as perfectly as a puzzle. Each piece, instead of detracting from the story, is necessary to get the whole picture. Iris is a highly entertaining protagonist, but Mr. Kaplan and Lily end up being developed just as well as she is, and their stories swirl together beautifully.

The Year of the Gadfly is a wonderful debut for Jennifer Miller. Between the characters and the mystery, you won’t want to put it down. Highly recommended.

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Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

An Uncommon Education by Elizabeth Percer – Book Review

May 022012

An Uncommon Education by Elizabeth Percer
Published by Harper Books, an imprint of HarperCollins

Naomi is a young girl when her father has a heart attack at the Kennedy house museum. Terrified at the prospect of losing him, Naomi’s determination to become a doctor – specifically a heart surgeon – is solidified in the hours at the hospital that follow. Also thanks to her father, that path to medicine goes through college at Wellesly, due to his obsession with Rose Kennedy and what she might have been, had she attended Wellesly as she had dreamed. There is still more growing up to do before Wellesly, and a brief encounter with Teddy, a boy who would be her dearest friend, breaks Naomi’s heart when his mother moves him away and breaks off communication between the two of them. It is in her second year at Wellesley, when Naomi joins a Shakespeare society called the Shakes that Naomi finally begins to come into her own.

I have mixed feelings about An Uncommon Education. I cannot say it held my attention particularly well while reading it – at least until Naomi joined the Shakes – but it was one of those books that stayed with me after I finished it. I appreciate it more in hindsight than I did at the time. Naomi is a vulnerable and realistic character, whose coming of age is fraught with quiet drama and loss. An Uncommon Education does get off to a strong start, giving the reader a good feel for Naomi and her father and presenting an emotionally charged situation very early on with Namoi’s father’s heart attack. What really lost me was the section with Teddy. Their friendship was more than anything because they were both shy and lonely, without other friends, and in close physical proximity to one another, being neighbors. I understood better why Teddy’s mother disliked Naomi than why Naomi and Teddy were such good friends in the first place. And although Teddy’s story was somewhat tied back in later, I don’t feel that his storyline really added anything to An Uncommon Education. I would have been content to skip almost straight from Naomi’s father’s heart attack to her enrollment in Wellesly.

An Uncommon Education is Percer’s first book, and I think that she has great promise as a novelist, considering that she can write a book that stays with you, but I think that An Uncommon Education could have used some stronger editing and direction.

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Source: Publisher.the
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd – Book Review

Apr 302012

An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks, an imprint of HarperCollins

This is the second book in the Bess Crawford series. I previously reviewed the first book, A Duty to the Dead.

Transporting injured troops back to England is one way to temporarily escape some of the horrors of war, although bringing home grievously injured men has horrors of its own, particularly when the men have been disfigured. One such soldier is Meriwether Evanson. Horribly burned in a plane crash, Meriwether is on suicide watch, but seems to be buoyed by the thought of his wife, whose picture he keeps pinned to his uniform. After looking at Marjorie Evanson’s picture pinned to Meriwether’s coat for days, Bess Crawford has her face basically memorized and cannot fail to recognize the woman when she runs into her at the train station, even though Marjorie is sobbing and pleading with a man who seems completely uninterested. Bess is headed back to France and war, but before long the news reaches her that Marjorie was murdered later that same day, and Meriwether killed himself with grief. Having witnessed the teary scene at the train station, Bess feels involved, and is determined to find out who murdered Marjorie.

The Bess Crawford series is really shaping up to be a good one. In An Impartial Witness, we once again find Bess pulled into a situation in which she never intended to find herself. After A Duty to the Dead, it is not surprising that Bess can’t bear to sit on the sidelines and simply trust that everything will get sorted out. She shows herself to be strong and smart, if occasionally not as cognizant as danger to herself as she should be. The highlight of An Impartial Witness, though, may be Bess’s back and forth relationship with Simon, her father’s right hand man. Their relationship is one of mutual respect, and his support for her intelligence and skills is particularly attractive considering the book is set in 1917. He is protective of Bess without being smothering or infantalizing her. I have to say, I really, really hope there’s a romantic relationship between them in the future, because I adore their interactions and am not sure that many other men would fully accept and support the strong woman Bess is.

If I wasn’t participating in Book Club Girl’s Book Time with Bess readalong, I probably would just read the rest of this series straight through, but I’m trying to hold off so I can participate in the discussions more fully. Still, I’m looking forward immensely to the third book, A Bitter Truth, and the soon-to-be-released fourth book, An Unmarked Grave. Highly recommended.

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Source: Contest run by publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

I, Iago by Nicole Galland – Book Review

Apr 252012

I, Iago by Nicole Galland
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks, and imprint of HarperCollins

Over the years, Iago has earned himself a reputation in Venice as someone who tells the truth at all times, no matter the cost. This is hardly flattering, Venice is built upon deception and at most half-truths, but for Iago truthfulness has often been a godsend, getting him out of scrapes from childhood to his career in the military. His honesty also helped him woo his wife, his lovely and beloved Emilia. His reputation is most helpful, though, when Venice brings in a new man to head up the army, General Othello.

Most leaders of the Venetian army – indeed, most soldiers – are not Venetian, but Othello, a man of African origin, is more foreign than most. He is referred to throughout Venice as Othello the Moor and seen as a sort of novelty. The elaborate and deceptive Venetian practices frustrate him, and Iago’s honesty is a welcome respite from the drudgeries of society. As such, he quickly promotes Iago to ensign and treats him more as a good friend than as a subordinate. Iago is a jealous man, however, and when Othello begins to show genuine interest in people other than Iago and Emilia, Iago begins to plot to return himself to what he sees as his rightful place in the general’s esteem.

Othello is not one of the Shakespearean plays that I have read. I was aware of the Venetian setting, and the love affair between Othello and Desdemona, reviled by those around them at least partly for the elements of racial miscegenation. Of Iago, I knew only that he was the villain, not even what he had done to be considered such. It is always questionable whether classic retellings such as I, Iago will work well for readers who are less familiar with the source material, but Galland manages to create a story that stands well on its own, without prior knowledge of Othello being necessary. By virtue of being able to tell you how it holds up if you are less than familiar with Othello, I of course cannot accurately say how it stands up if you are familiar with the play, but it does seem that Galland has stuck closely enough to the sketches of the plot that I, Iago will succeed for those readers as well.

There is a bit of a slow start to I, Iago. The first hundred or so pages are introducing you to Iago’s character throughout his childhood and early military career. They do give a very good shown-not-told foundation to who exactly Iago is and why he will later act the way he does, but there isn’t terribly much that happens, so they don’t move particularly quickly. Once Iago meets Emilia, and soon thereafter Othello, the story picks up to the point of becoming a page turner.

In I, Iago, Galland takes the reader into the psyche of a man who has been reviled for the past 400 years. You will likely still not agree with the actions he takes, but at least you will understand his motivations. Recommended.

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Source: Publisher, via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Another Piece of My Heart by Jane Green – Audiobook Review

Apr 202012

Another Piece of My Heart by Jane Green, narrated by Jane Green
Published in audio by Macmillan Audio, published in print by TK

Synopsis:

Andi has always wanted a family, to be a mother. When she finally gets married at thirty-seven, she is delighted that her husband Ethan already has children she can love – although she does hope to have one of her own as well. Ethan’s younger daughter, Sophia, is a dream, and Andi can love her as if she was her own. His older daughter, Emily, on the other hand, sees Andi as an interloper come to steal her father, and wants nothing to do with her. In the wake of her parents’ divorce and her father’s remarriage to a woman she hates, Emily has become a holy terror. She breaks curfew, drinks, and does drugs. Unfortunately, she also has her father wrapped around her little finger, so no consequences ever stick to her.

The real crisis for the family comes one night when Emily ends up arrested for underage drinking, and Andi discovers that she is pregnant. It is unlikely Andi will ever have children at this point, so it seems that this might just be the answer she is looking for. Of course, with Emily, nothing is ever easy.

Thoughts on the story:

The entire first section of Another Piece of My Heart is in third person, from Andi’s point of view. Something odd happens in the second section, though. More characters begin to get a voice, including Emily, whose story is told in first person. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book before where a first person narrative was introduced 1/3 of the way into the book, and I must say it confused me, as I thought that Andi was the main character. Eventually, though, it works, because as the story progresses it was equally important that the reader understand Emily’s thought process, and leaving her in third person like everyone else might have made that difficult, subsumed her as a more minor character.

Another Piece of My Heart is incredibly engaging, particularly as Green begins to show the tension between Andi and Emily from both women’s perspectives. Emily continues to come off as a spoiled, petulant brat, but that is less obnoxious as the reader delves deeper into her psyche and understands better just how and why she is so damaged. I do think that it needed better editing, however. Another Piece of My Heart weighs in at 400 pages or almost 14 hours of audio, and it would have only improved the book to have cut out about 50 pages. In addition, Green’s British background showed through from time to time, as her thoroughly American characters occasionally spouted Britishisms that you certainly wouldn’t expect to hear from Californians

Thoughts on the audio production:

It really, really did not work for me to have Green narrate. As authors narrating their own books go, she is not bad, she expressed emotion well, and clearly had a good feel for Another Piece of My Heart, as she wrote it. However, and this is a big however, the book is set in California with an all-American cast. Green is British. It threw me for a loop to have a British accent coming out of the mouths of these Californian characters, it simply didn’t work. It also drew attention to the aforementioned Britisisms in the text. I’m actually not sure I would have noticed them, had I been reading, but hearing them in a British voice caught my attention immediately.

soundbytes picture Overall:

If you’re going to check this out, I would probably recommend print.

Another Piece of My Heart is the SheKnows Book Club pick for April. If you’ve read it, join us for a discussion on Jane Green’s Facebook page from 8-9 pm Eastern on Thursday, April 26th.

Buy this book from:
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Source: Publisher.
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Older Entries

Devourer of Books

A Bitter Truth by Charles Todd – Book Review

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson – Audiobook Review

All Woman and Springtime by Brandon W. Jones – Book Review

Objects of My Affection by Jill Smolinski – Mini Review

The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones – Book Review

The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller – Book Review

An Uncommon Education by Elizabeth Percer – Book Review

An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd – Book Review

I, Iago by Nicole Galland – Book Review

Another Piece of My Heart by Jane Green – Audiobook Review

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