Devourer of Books » Contemporary Fiction

The Smart One by Jennifer Close – Book Review

May 152013

The Smart One by Jennifer Close
Published by Knopf, an imprint of Random House

Okay, so, I love Jennifer Close’s The Smart One. In fact, it was my Bloggers Recommend pick for April. First, a little about the book (from the publisher):

Weezy Coffey’s parents had always told her she was the smart one, while her sister was the pretty one. “Maureen will marry well,” their mother said, but instead it was Weezy who married well, to a kind man and good father. Weezy often wonders if she did this on purpose—thwarting expectations just to prove her parents wrong.

But now that Weezy’s own children are adults, they haven’t exactly been meeting her expectations either. Her oldest child, Martha, is thirty and living in her childhood bedroom after a spectacular career flameout. Martha now works at J.Crew, folding pants with whales embroidered on them and complaining bitterly about it. Weezy’s middle child, Claire, has broken up with her fiancé, canceled her wedding, and locked herself in her New York apartment—leaving Weezy to deal with the caterer and florist. And her youngest, Max, is dating a college classmate named Cleo, a girl so beautiful and confident she wears her swimsuit to family dinner, leaving other members of the Coffey household blushing and stammering into their plates.

As the Coffey children’s various missteps drive them back to their childhood home, Weezy suddenly finds her empty nest crowded and her children in full-scale regression. Martha is moping like a teenager, Claire is stumbling home drunk in the wee hours, and Max and Cleo are skulking around the basement, guarding a secret of their own. With radiant style and a generous spirit, The Smart One is a story about the ways in which we never really grow up, and the place where we return when things go drastically awry: home.

And here’s what I had to say about it:

Weezy’s parents always said that she was “the smart one,” but it is hard to feel brilliant when all three of your adult children have returned to live at home. In her sophomore novel, Jennifer Close creates a vivid and realistic portrait of a not always functional, but still loving, family and explores both the parent–child relationship and adult sibling rivalries.
Jennifer Karsbaek, Devourer of Books
Pre-order now: Indiebound | Amazon

Editor’s Pick – I just love Close’s ability to insert laugh-out-loud moments in a book otherwise filled with some very serious life events. It is this balance that makes her work truly special. – Jen

A few additional thoughts:

As someone who also loved Close’s debut novel, Girls in White Dresses, one of the appeals of The Smart One for me was that it seemed to be the next step in adulthood. In Girls, everyone was pretty much young and single and out on her own. In The Smart One, Claire starts in this place, but ends up taking a step that many would consider backwards: moving back in with her parents.
Weezy’s mother is wonderful and horrible at the same time. She says some pretty terrible things, but she is totally the elderly relative that you either have in your own family or have met at a friend’s family dinners. She is so life-like that you can’t help but laugh in recognition.
If you read Girls in White Dresses, know that this is a bit more of a conventional style. The point of view switches from character to character, but in a more traditional way, less jumping around.

Buy this book from:
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.

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight – Audiobook Review

May 102013

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight, narrated by Kristine Hvam
Published in audio by Harper Audio, published in print by Harper Books, both imprints of HarperCollins

Synopsis:

In the middle of a hugely important client meeting, Kate gets a call about her daughter. Amelia, always an exceptional student and a good kid, has been accused of cheating on an English paper and is being suspended. By the time Kate arrives at the school an hour later, there are emergency vehicles everywhere and Amelia is dead after ostensibly jumping off the roof. Kate is bereft at losing her daughter and finds herself overwhelmed by her grief, until she receives an anonymous text claiming that Amelia did not jump. As Kate begins to investigate her daughters life, she realizes just how much Amelia had been keeping secret from her, and becomes increasingly sure her daughter did not commit suicide.

Thoughts on the story:

Reconstructing Amelia alternates between Kate’s point of view after Amelia’s death and Amelia’s leading up to her death. Amelia’s sections in particularly are heartbreaking because she is a great, funny girl with some serious problems that are really not her fault and knowing that her story is going to end with her tragic death is often very difficult. I actually found myself hoping she had committed suicide or that she had fallen off the roof by accident because I just couldn’t bear the thought of anyone killing her. The way this whole thing is plotted worked very well for me. Kate’s discoveries often connect with what Amelia is going through in the alternate chapters, but not so much that anything feels redundant. It is overall a very well put together story.

Thoughts on the audio production:

This is the first time I’ve listened to Kristine Hvam in a full-length production and I was very impressed. She introduces slight variations in her voice to differentiate between Kate and Amelia, so that even if you miss the chapter tag of the character and date you can still figure out easily which character’s point of view you are in (even without the fairly obvious context clues). About the dates in the chapter titles, though… That was the one thing that didn’t work for me as well consuming this as an audiobook versus a print book. I did not pay enough attention to the dates when I heard them that by the next time around I could remember what they were, and audio of course makes it more difficult to go back and check. Luckily both story lines progress in a linear fashion, so the only real issue was not knowing quite how much time elapsed over the course of the story.

Overall:

Loved! This is a good one if you want to cause some obsessive listening. The book is well put together and the narration is top-notch. Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio*
Indiebound: Audio*
Downpour Audio

soundbytes picture

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.

Sound Bytes is a meme that occurs every Friday! I encourage you to review your audiobooks 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.

The Other Typist by Susanne Rindell – Book Review

May 072013

The Other Typist by Susanne Rindell
Published by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, an imprint of Penguin

As a typist in a Prohibition-era New York police station, Rose Baker holds a certain amount of power. After all, whatever is in the reports she writes up is taken as gospel truth in prosecuting criminals. It is about as much power as a single woman who grew up in an orphanage can have in 1923. But then Odalie enters the precinct and Rose’s life. There is something about this woman, something that inspires gossip and stories. Something about Odalie also inspires friendship and devotion in Rose. As their relationship continues, Rose’s world begins to change and it might never be the same.

Oh, I don’t know what to tell you guys about The Other Typist except that it is AWESOME. You can tell very early on as Rose reminisces about her time with Odalie that there is something off, both with the relationship and perhaps even with Rose herself. What follows is an absolutely tantalizing story, all twisty and turny and amazing. The first third of the book I read over a few days, but the last two thirds I read in all but a single sitting because once it gets going it gets going like whoa.

I can’t say too much more without spoiling the book for you, but OH MY GOSH GO AND READ IT.

Highly recommended, as if you couldn’t tell.

Buy this book from:
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.

Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer – Audiobook Review

Apr 052013

Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer, narrated by Angela Brazil and Stephen R. Thorne
Published in audio by AudioGo, published in print by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Synopsis:

I would probably use about a billion words to try to describe this and the publisher’s description is SO pithy and perfect, so I’m just going to use that:

Loosely inspired by Robert Lowell and Flannery O’Connor, this absorbing, charming novel brings us into mid-century New York and the lives and letters of two writers– their intense friendship, their discussions of writing and art and faith, and their bittersweet romance.

Thoughts on the story:

Frances and Bernard is a fairly contemplative book, the musings of (and repressed affection between) Bernard and Frances. I’m not entirely sure how I would have felt about this in print, I’m not sure it would have held my interest initially. Luckily the narrators were enough to keep me entertained at that point, and later Bauer’s story itself becomes emotionally involving enough to captivate me. I was surprised at the sheer volume of their discussion of their Catholic faith and equally surprised just how intrigued I was by all of their discussions, from the personal, to the religious, to the literary.

Thoughts on the audio production:

Angela Brazil and Stephen R. Thorne? Perfect. PERFECT. This is an example of fabulous casting, both narrators fit their role perfectly, and since nearly the entire book is a letter written by one of them or the other, the dual narrator format works incredibly well.

soundbytes picture Overall:

Frances and Bernard is a quietly lovely epistolary novel and the narration elevates the audio to another level entirely. Highly recommended.

For more, please see my review for Audiofile magazine.

Buy this book from:
Powells: Print*
Indiebound: Print*
Audible.com

Source: Audiofile Magazine.
* 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.

Sound Bytes is a meme that occurs every Friday! I encourage you to review your audiobooks 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.

Life after Life by Kate Atkinson – Book Review

Apr 012013

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Published by Reagan Arthur Books, an imprint of Hachette

It is 1910 and one of the snowiest nights in memory in England when Ursula Todd is born. Unfortunately, little Ursula is not long for this world, dying almost before her mother even realizes she has been born. Luckily for Ursula, she is born again, the same day to the same family, and this time with another result. So Ursula is born time and time again, as she succumbs to the perils of early 20th-cenutry life but is repeatedly granted another chance, as if her life is building towards some grand purpose.

So, basically Life After Life is brilliant. It isn’t immediately apparent, especially as the child Ursula dies repeatedly. The first hundred pages or so can be difficult for parents, as it almost seems a catalog of everything bad that can happen to a kid. It is when the Spanish Flu hits Ursula’s household that Atkinson’s dark comic genius shines through. It is also at this time that the reader realizes that Ursula is semi-aware of what is happening to her. From that point forward, Ursula dies with a little less frequency and the intricacies of cause and effect are writ large on her life.

To call Life After Life an absorbing book would be to undersell it. It is an astonishingly good novel, one I could not stop talking about during and after reading it. It is also an innovative look at the way our choices – as well as events beyond our control – shape our lives, and how the smallest change can make a huge difference.

Life After Life is the book that everyone is going to be talking about for the rest of the year, and it absolutely deserves that honor. Very highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
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.

Hand Me Down by Melanie Thorne – Audiobook Review

Mar 222013

Hand Me Down by Melanie Thorne, narrated by Ali Ahn
Published in audio by Recorded Books; published in print by Plume, an imprint of Penguin

Synopsis:

Life has not been easy for fourteen year old Elizabeth Reid and her sister Jaimie. Things got better for awhile once their mother left their abusive, alcoholic father. The man she brought into their lives next, though, was worse. Terrance is a convicted sex offender who has been jailed more than once for the crimes of exposing himself to and assaulting women. Although Liz’s mother swears up and down that Terrance poses no threat to her adolescent daughters, the lascivious looks and glancing touches he gives Liz tell her otherwise. Worse still are his threats that if Liz pushes back too hard on his flirtatious advances he will turn to her sister. It is almost a relief when Terrance’s parole officer decides that he can have no unsupervised visits with the girls, meaning he can no longer live in the same house as his stepdaughters. The only problem is that Liz’s mother chooses her new husband over her daughters, leaving the girls’ housing to the whims of friends and family.

Thoughts on the story:

With Hand Me Down, Thorne has created a story that draws in the reader immediately. Within less than half an hour of starting the audio, I was tweeting about how incensed I was on behalf of the main character, because the adults in her life put her in such a terrible position. Liz’s mom, in particular, is barely worthy of the title. Thorne does explore her backstory a bit, so that the reader can get an idea of what may have made her so monumentally stupid in this situation, but it isn’t so much that I ever really gave up hating her for her willful blindness. The hate didn’t make me dislike the book, though. On the contrary, the hate just showed me how completely invested I was in Liz’s story, and I, well, devourered Thorne’s story.

Now, yes, the protagonist is fourteen. No, this is not a young adult book, although it certainly has crossover appeal. Why is this an adult book? Well, partly because that is just how it is marketed. Partly also because the setting makes Liz more a contemporary of mine (perhaps even older than me), rather those of kids who are teenagers today. It also just feels as if it was written with an adult audience in mind, which is sort of an intangible quality, but there nonetheless.

Thoughts on the audio production:

I was quite impressed with Ali Ahn’s narration. She does a fabulous job differentiating between voices young and old, male and female. Her portrayal of Elizabeth in particular is quite moving. My only qualm about the audio production is that there were occasionally slightly odd pauses, seemingly the result of imperfect editing. The pause would seem as if the scene had ended, but it would quickly become clear once the narration resumed that the same scene was still ongoing. This happens just a handful of times so it isn’t enough to impede the overall enjoyment of this production – particularly with Ahn’s masterful narration – it is just enough to notice.

soundbytes picture Overall:

A moving book paired with an equally moving performance, Hand Me Down is a fabulous listen.

Buy this book from:
Powells: Print*
Indiebound: Print*
Audible.com

Source: Author.
* 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.

Heft by Liz Moore – Audiobook Review

Mar 152013

Heft by Liz Moore, narrated by Kirby Heyborne and Keith Szarabajka
Published in audio by Blackstone Audio, published in print by W.W. Norton

Synopsis:

From the publisher:

Former academic Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and hasn’t left his rambling Brooklyn home in a decade. Twenty miles away, in Yonkers, seventeen-year-old Kel Keller navigates life as the poor kid in a rich school and pins his hopes on what seems like a promising baseball career—if he can untangle himself from his family drama. The link between this unlikely pair is Kel’s mother, Charlene, a former student of Arthur’s. After nearly two decades of silence, it is Charlene’s unexpected phone call to Arthur—a plea for help—that jostles them into action.

Thoughts on the story:

Heft is very well-written with great characterization. It is also unremittingly depressing for quite awhile. Both Arthur and Kel just have bad thing after bad thing happen to them. It seems they have so little in their lives that is good that it can be hard to take. Still, Moore has created compelling characters and difficult as it is to stay with them, it is also hard to turn away.

Thoughts on the audio production:

(Note: the original version of this review had the narrators’ names reversed)

Keith Szarabajka is an incredibly talented narrator, and he performes Arthur’s role magnificently, not to mention the amazing range of disparate voices he gives to those with whom Arthur came in contact. I was less enthused by Kirby Heyborne’s performance. He does a technically good job, but Szarabajka is a hard act to follow. In addition, it is a bit difficult to believe Heyborne as a teenager when he was born in 1952. He is able to affect a fairly youthful voice, but a teenager he is not. Perhaps other people aren’t bothered by this in audiobooks, but it drives me batty. I am much more able to accept a vaguely adult sounding child, but a maturely voiced teenager pulls me right out of the audiobook.

soundbytes picture Overall:

I think I might have preferred this in print, so the sadness didn’t go straight into my ears, but Keith Szarabajka’s performance is worth a listen.

Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
Indiebound: Audio/Print*

Source: review.
* 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

Sound Bytes is a meme that occurs every Friday! I encourage you to review your audiobooks 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.

The Crooked Branch by Jeanine Cummins – Book Review

Mar 112013

The Crooked Branch by Jeanine Cummins
Published by NAL Trade, an imprint of Penguin

Majella always assumed she would fall into motherhood as easily as she has fallen into everything else in her life. She has never NOT been a success and has no reason to think that having a baby would be any different – until an extremely long labor throws off her birth plan and forces her to have a c-section. From that point on, Majella is plagued with doubts and fears, including a horrifying vision of dropping her baby. Majella has a strained relationship with her own mother, and now she is beginning to think that she is genetically predestined to be a bad mother – a theory that is supported by a diary she finds in the attic, which seems to show sometime terrible done by an ancestor of hers.

That ancestor is Ginny Doyle. Before the Potato Famine hits Ireland, Ginny and her family seem to be in fairly good shape. In addition to their potatoes they have a wheat crop and a small vegetable garden. Even when the famine first hits, this is enough that her family can pay their rent and even have a bit to eat. When the blight spreads and the famine fails to end, the Doyles begin to face the same starvation as their neighbors. Ginny’s husband heads to America in order to try to make money to send home, but when she doesn’t hear from him months after he leaves, Ginny must do whatever it takes to feed her children – even if it means leaving them alone.

YOU GUYS SO GOOD. Seriously. I have no idea how Cummins took a storyline about modern motherhood – complete with postpartum depression and a quite impressive potty mouth – and successfully married it with a storyline about a mother doing what it takes to get her family through the Great Potato Famine. Typically in dual time period novels one story is primarily in service to the other, but in The Crooked Branch both stories are equally important, equally well-drawn. Okay, but if there are two equally strong stories and they are so different there must be discord between them, right? WRONG! Cummins makes the theme of family the primary concern of the novel, and with the familial connection between Majella and Ginny it all just WORKS.

The Crooked Branch is a wonderful book that I strongly recommend not only to readers, but also to anyone who wants to write a dual time period novel. Readers, enjoy; writers, study.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Author.
* 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 Ice Cream Girls by Dorothy Koomson – Audiobook Review

Mar 082013

The Ice Cream Girls by Dorothy Koomson, narrated by Robin Miles, Charlotte Parry, and Tim Gerard Reynolds
Published in audio by Recorded Books; published in print by Grand Central Publishing, an imprint of Hachette

Synopsis:

The only thing that Serena wants is for nobody to find out about her infamous past. She has a lot to lose: a good job, a husband, two children. At least she has a life, though, Poppy, recently released from prison, has nothing. Their lives could not be more different, but they do share something important: having been accused, as teenagers, of the violent murder of the man who was sleeping with both of them. Now that Poppy is out of jail, all she wants is to clear her name, even if she has to drag Serena down to do it.

Thoughts on the story:

The Ice Cream Girls was a slow start for me, but as soon as Koomson started divulging information about Serena and Poppy and their affairs with Marcus – a man who is initially Serena’s teacher – I became drawn into the train wreck that was those relationships. It is, at times, almost painful to see how Marcus draws the girls in and tightens the metaphorical noose around their necks. In the novel’s present, the most compelling thing is Serena’s fear of losing her family and the life she has created.

Thoughts on the audio production:

Both Robin Miles and Charlotte Parry did a good job with this narration, although Miles’s performance is the more poignant of the two. Tim Gerard Reynolds, however, seems completely miscast as Marcus. Marcus comes across throughout the book as smart and slick, able to tamp down his more brutal tendencies when it best suits him. Reynolds’s performance portrays him as gruff and mean, and seems to completely ignore his more suave tendencies. Luckily, Reynolds is really just a cameo appearance for the last ten minutes or so of the audio.

Overall:

The Ice Cream Girls is a very compelling book with good narration, but parents of teenage girls – or anyone who has been in an abusive relationship – may want to approach with caution.

soundbytes picture For more information, see my review for Audiofile Magazine.

Buy this book from:
Powells: Print*
Indiebound: Print*
Audible

Source: Audiofile Magazine.
* 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 Comfort of Lies by Randy Susan Meyers – Book Review

Feb 272013

The Comfort of Lies by Randy Susan Meyers
Published by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

Only five years ago, Tia was desperately in love with a man she was sure loved her back. When Nathan found out about her pregnancy, however, he left her, imploring her to get rid of the baby. Unable to bear aborting Nathan’s child, but also unable to imagine herself as a competent mother, Tia settled on adoption. Now, when the latest set of pictures come in from her child’s adoptive parents, Tia cannot help by think of Nathan, and the fact that he knows nothing about their daughter. On a whim, she decides to copy the pictures and send them to Nathan, where they intercepted by his wife, Juliette.

Juliette had, somewhat, forgiven Nathan when he confessed his affair, but learning that he has a daughter is more than she can handle. Desperate to see this little girl who is part Nathan, Juliette searches her out, and finds her adoptive mother, Caroline. Caroline is just as – or perhaps even more – damaged as Tia and Juliette; she is a deeply introverted person who glories in her research-based career. Interacting with a young child is simply not natural for Caroline, and although she loves her family, she worries that she is constantly failing as a wife and mother.

By opening with Tia announcing her pregnancy and Nathan immediately leaving her, Meyers makes her story immediately engaging, while also providing the perfect set up for the novel as a whole. Everything that happens in The Comfort of Lies stems from this very moment, and Tia’s subsequent decisions to have her baby and give her up for adoption. I loved the way Meyers brings all three women together through one act of infidelity and one little girl. She does not pretend that things will be easy between these women, but writes interactions tinged both with real emotions and with grace.

The Comfort of Lies is a beautiful book about the things that tear us apart and how they can bring us back together. Recommended.

Buy this book from:
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.

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