Out of the Shadows by Joanne Rendell – Book Review

Sep 092010
 

4972918998 f62e4cee8a m pictureOut of the Shadows by Joanne Rendell
Published by NAL Trade, an imprint of Penguin

All her life, Clara’s mother has told her about their family’s alleged connection Mary Shelley, a story that Clara largely ignored. After her mother dies, though, Clare feels driven to discover whether her mother’s stories are true. And really, it is just as well that Clara has something other than just her work to occupy her, since her fiancé Anthony is extremely tied up in his research for a new cancer drug.

“Out of the Shadows” is the second of Rendell’s three books I have read, and I’m sold. I will absolutely be reading her first book, as well as whatever else she comes out with. Although her characters tend to be New York academics, her stories are not derivative , even of one another. In “Out of the Shadows,” Clara is a young woman searching for her identity and a way to connect with her mother and her past.  One of my favorite thing about Rendell’s books is that her protagonists’ romantic lives are secondary to the story, they are part of these women’s lives so they must inform the story, but they are not the main focus.

In addition to Clara’s storyline, Rendell also included small snippets of Shelley’s young life, up through her meeting of Shelley. Although I did not find these sections as engaging as Clara’s storyline, they did add a depth to the work as a whole and helped to give a feel for the woman about whom Clara was searching for information. This look at Mary Shelley’s life also gave “Out of the Shadows” more power when it began to explore many of the same themes as did Shelley’s seminal work, “Frankenstein.”

Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
 Powells.*
 A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from the 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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The Life You’ve Imagined by Kristina Riggle – Book Review

Aug 162010
 

4698130015 0bdd9802f5 m pictureThe Life You’ve Imagined by Kristina Riggle
Published by Avon A, an imprint of Harper Collins

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.
Misquoted from Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”

Living the life you’ve imagined is something that may be easier said than done, at least that is what Anna, Cami, Maeve, and Amy are finding out. Anna and Cami, best friends in high school who have grown apart as they aged, both find themselves back in Haven, Michigan at the same time. Cami’s boyfriend kicked her out after she stole from him to feed her gambling habit, sure she would use his money to win back her own money she had lost. For Anna, the return has more to do with grief than misdeeds. Her beloved mentor, August was killed in a traffic accident while she was talking to him on the phone, and her law firm insists upon bereavement leave, since she’s essentially useless anyway.

As a result of their return – and Cami’s lack of any income – the girls find themselves back in Haven and at the Nee Nance Store, the convenience store run by Maeve, Anna’s mother. Unfortunately, Haven is not one for them. They worry about the letters Maeve has recently been getting from her long-gone deadbeat husband, and the fact that her store is now slated for destruction by Amy’s fiance. As all four women’s lives get increasingly complicated, they must consider whether they are truly living the life they’ve imagined and, if not, what to do about it.

What a rich, messy, and real book Kristina Riggle has written!I was very surprised when she gave one of her characters a gambling addiction, because that isn’t something I’ve seen very often, but she pulled it off beautifully as one of Cami’s character flaws, without overdoing it and making it too seedy, it was just this glorious, real weakness she had, much like Maeve’s weakness for the husband who left her, the draw Anna had to her now-married high school boyfriend, or the formerly-heavy Amy’s fixation on appearance. And by the way, keeping Amy so relateable and giving her so much depth when she could have come across as simply very shallow? Absolutely fabulous.

I think that after “The Life You’ve Imagined” and “Real Life and Liars,” Kristina Riggle is going to be my official go-to for novels about the complications of everyday life. The tragedies that her characters experience are always so real, and never feel simply piled on, and their responses are absolutely true to life, messy, complicated life. What they experience is nothing that can’t be worked through, especially if they do it together, but neither is it something with a simply, pat answer. She leaves the reader with an ending tied up enough to satisfy, but not so much that it becomes unrealistic. Like in life, there are always a few more questions, a degree of uncertainty.

I highly recommend both this and Riggle’s debut, “Real Life and Liars.”

If you pick up a copy of this book, please join us on September 7th and 8th for an online book club discussion right here at Devourer of Book! I will have two copies of “Real Life and Liars” to give away to randomly chosen participants. If you review the book online, please leave a link on the Mr. Linky below.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from the 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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29 by Adena Halpern – Book Review

Aug 062010
 

4864950892 c5aeb25001 m picture29 by Adena Halpern
Published by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

Growing old sucks.

At least that is what Ellie Jerome thinks. She is turning 75, but she sincerely wishes that she wasn’t. She does everything possible to not look 75, and she doesn’t, but looking like she’s in her 50s or 60s doesn’t really do it for her. Ellie wishes she was young and glamorous, like her granddaughter Lucy, a 25-year old fashion designer. At Ellie’s party, when her daughter Barbara can fit only 29 candles on her cake, she decides to make a wish that she really could be 29, if only for one day. When Ellie’s wish comes true, she has no idea just how being young again will change her.

I expected that “29″ would be a fun, light sort of book, based on the title and description. And it was, of course, but there was also a surprising amount of depth throughout the book, but particularly in the end. One thing that I thought Halpern did particularly well was to keep Ellie consistent as a 75 year old woman in the body of a 29 ear old. By that, I mean that she kept Ellie in the mindset of a woman raised in her generation, while allowing her a bit of adaptability and keeping her mindset from becoming just a gag.

While it may not be my favorite book I read all year, it was definitely well-written and engaging. Recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from the 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.
 Women's fiction  9 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , ,

The Stuff That Never Happened by Maddie Dawson – Book Review

Aug 032010
 

4855525122 bc6187640c m pictureThe Stuff That Never Happened by Maddie Dawson
Published by Shaye Areheart Books, an imprint of Random House

Every life is bound to have some regret, and Annabelle McKay’s life is no exception. She loves her husband Grant, of course, but she also loves Jeremiah, a man from her past. Now that Grant and Annabelle’s children are gone, either off to college or married and expecting a child, she isn’t sure exactly what she and Grant are doing together. He’s distant, more interested in his book than in Annabelle. The growing gulf between them leads Annabelle to think more and more about Jeremiah, and what might have been. She promised Grant twenty-six years ago that they would never speak again of what was between her and Jeremiah, but they just may have to confront it sooner rather than later.

I thought this was a very good debut novel. Dawson does a good job weaving past into the present, and developing Annabelle’s character while simultaneously developing the plot. I might have liked to see more depth for the men in Annabelle’s life, but since we were seeing everything from her perspective and she didn’t have a very good grasp on them herself, so it would have been unrealistic for us to have a better understanding of Grant or Jeremiah.

I got frustrated with Annabelle from time to time, because she certainly made some bad decisions, but I also empathized with her to a certain extent, because she often felt trapped by the circumstances of her life. Not trapped in the sense that she had no choices, but trapped in the sense that she was not where she wanted to be and she wasn’t sure that she knew how to change her life.

The writing, characterization, and story were all quite good, but “The Stuff That Never Happened” fell ever so slightly short of ‘love’ for me. I would, however, recommend this for fans of literary women’s fiction.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from the 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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Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin – Book Review

Jul 222010
 

4817431400 4ff8f91462 m picturebookclub2 pictureHeart of the Matter by Emily Giffin
Published by St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of Macmillan

When Nick has to leave in the middle of their anniversary dinner, Tessa doesn’t really mind. That is, after all, the price of being married to a pediatric surgeon: when other families have emergencies, their family often loses his attention. This time, though, his attention isn’t just lost for an evening. Things have been a little difficult at home where Tessa feels less than fulfilled as a stay-at-home mom and they have two small children, and Nick finds himself drawn to Valerie, the single mother of his newest patient, Charlie.

This is my first experience with Emily Giffin. In the past, I have passed over her books due to the pastel covers. They looked like just the sort of chick lit that I don’t enjoy. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised when I actually opened “Heart of the Matter.” I really liked her style, characterizations, and writing in general. I thought that having both Tessa and Valerie narrate the book was a good decision for this story, as was telling Tessa’s story in the first person and Valerie’s in the third, which made it easy to immediately tell who was speaking since both narrators were women in similar places in their lives.

Although I was impressed by Giffin’s writing, I’m still somewhat conflicted about “Heart of the Matter” overall. The premise seems to be that Tessa was at least equally responsible with Nick and Valerie for her husband’s cheating, which is a somewhat reprehensible idea to me. Tessa’s earlier broken engagement for Nick and the fact that her brother cheated on his once-fiancee with the woman who is now his wife, along with her father’s cheating on her mother when she were younger also adds to this interpretation. Valerie knew she was doing wrong the entire time, but never actually bothered to put the brakes on what was going on with her and another woman’s husband. Of course, Nick is the one who actually had a responsibility to Tessa and his family to remain faithful. I really wish that he had been one of our narrators as well, so we could have gotten a better idea of what he was thinking.

If the cheating doesn’t bother you, then I recommend “Heart of the Matter,” but if it is a hot button topic with you, I don’t think you’ll like how Giffin approaches it, so stay away.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from the publisher for my participation in the SheKnows Book Club.
* 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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 Women's fiction  17 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , ,

The Icing on the Cupcake by Jennifer Ross – Book Review

Jul 022010
 

4716641261 f05315c05f m pictureThe Icing on the Cupcake by Jennifer Ross

Ansley Waller is the perfect – but mean – Dallas sorority girl, kind of like a bitchy version of Elle Woods from Legally Blonde. Then her fiance, Parish, dumps her. He has finally seen her mean streak and he doesn’t like it. Now Ansley’s world has collapsed. She’s going to graduate without a man and, horror of horrors, have to get a job. She’ll never live this down in rich Dallas society. After a good deal of moping with her mother who is allegedly her best friend, she decides to get away from the people in Dallas who know her humiliation. To achieve this, she’s moving to New York to live with her rich grandmother who she’s never met because Ansley’s mother and grandmother are estranged.

Wow, “The Icing on the Cupcake” has one of the least likeable protagonists of any book I’ve read in recent memory. Ansley was a whiny, bitchy spoiled brat. Beyond that, the plot was fun, but far fetched and much too easy. Ansley wants to open a cupcake shop? Sure! She’s got her huge trust fund from her father that was supposed to help fund her first year of marriage. Easy peasey! There also seemed to be a gigantic plot hole around Ansley’s mother. The two of them are supposedly best friends who need to talk on the phone multiple times per day, but weeks and weeks seem to pass without them ever speaking with one another. Also, Ansley, if your feet hurt walking around New York in your impossibly high heels, maybe you should consider buying some damn new shoes.

Even with all of this, the inventive and delicious-sounding cupcake recipes almost made it worth it to want to slap Ansley for 2/3 of the book. Yum. I’d buy cupcakes from Ansley, even if I would never want to have any other interaction with her.

If you aren’t bothered by spoiled rotten protagonists, this book could definitely be fun (plot hole around the mother aside), but it won’t be good for a relaxing day around the pool if Ansley’s ridiculousness annoys you enough to cause your blood pressure to shoot up.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received for 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.
 Women's fiction  17 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , ,

My Name is Memory by Anne Brashares – Book Review

Jun 182010
 

4706417875 5b5211cf5d m pictureMy Name is Memory by Ann Brashares

Lucy feels a strange connection to the mysterious Daniel, a young man who joined her high school class for their senior year. Daniel completely ignores her, though, no matter what she does. Until the end of the school year, when Lucy and Daniel find themselves alone together in a classroom, where he starts talking about remembering something and calling Lucy Sophia.

Although it seems that he has been ignoring her, Daniel thinks about almost nothing besides Lucy. Not only does he think about her, he remembers her. He remembers the first time he saw her, thousands of years ago, and every time they’ve come in contact in the years and lives since then. Daniel is one of the rare people who actually remembers what has come before from life to life. Not only that, but he has the ability to recognize other souls from body to body, which is how he knows the soul which is now Lucy throughout the millennia.

“My Name is Memory” is the first in a new trilogy from Ann Brashares. I have to say, I’ve been having a lot of trouble with the first book in trilogies lately.  This one followed much the same pattern. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very good book. Daniel and Lucy are both complex and compelling characters, and the plot is very inventive and kept me interested. It is just that the first half of the book is a bit of a slow start. This really isn’t surprising, since it is setting up three books worth of plot. Towards the end of the book, though, the pace really picks up. By the end of the book, I couldn’t wait until the next book in the series comes out. I will be reading the rest of this trilogy, without question; I cannot wait to see where Brashares takes Daniel and Lucy’s story.

Recommended, but be warned that it starts off a bit slow – it is worth it, though!

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from Lydia at Penguin.
* 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.
 Women's fiction  24 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

The One That I Want – Book Review

Jun 022010
 

4662387308 bd9eb866d6 m pictureThe One That I Want by Allison Winn Scotch

Tilly Farmer is living her ideal life. She is married to her high school sweetheart and still in touch with her best friend from high school who is, in turn, married to her high school sweetheart. Plus, Tilly works at her old high school as a guidance counselor, where one of her major responsibilities is helping to plan the prom, one of her favorite events of all time. Life is going swimmingly; she might even possibly be pregnant, although it is far too early to tell.

But then she runs into an old high school friend working as a fortune teller. Instead of giving Tilly a reading, she says she is going to give her a gift, the gift of clarity. Suddenly, Tilly begins seeing bits and pieces of things before they happen. Bad things. Things that upset the idyllic life that Tilly is leading. Things that force her to decide what she really wants out of life.

I read Allison Winn Scotch’s last book, “Time of My Life” last year and now I’m convinced that picking up one of her books guarantees me a good read.

I think my very favorite thing about Winn Scotch’s books – at least the ones I’ve read – is the way she works in something slightly mystical and yet still somehow manages to keep the book firmly grounded in reality. In “The One That I Want,” Tilly is getting what basically amounts to premonitions, in “Time of My Life” Jillian basically gets sent into an alternate version of her life. Although some of the plot elements are fantastical, I get just as caught up in these women’s lives as if I knew them in real life.

Tilly was so incredibly satisfied with the way her life was going and so adverse to change that she could easily have been incredibly obnoxious. Instead, I found her incredibly sympathetic and felt that I could get inside her head sufficiently to understand where she was coming from and what had made her the way she was.

In addition to the great characterization, I also love the way Winn Scotch writes. She has lovely prose without being too poetic and long winded. In a time when I feel so many books are overwritten and too long, “The One That I Want” weighed in at a perfect length of 288 pages – enough time to fully work through all of the plot points, but not enough time to be overly long and lose my attention.

“The One That I Want” is fantastic, as is (it seems) all of Allison Winn Scotch’s work. I highly recommend this as a fun summer read.

I have three copies to give away in the US and Canada, but Allison also has a contest going on for those who buy the book by June 4th, so check it out! You can win lots of great prizes.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from the 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.

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Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman – Book Review

May 172010
 

4603556037 8d1cf465fd m pictureSaving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

CeeCee Honeycutt’s life in Georgia is tough. Her father is technically in the picture, but travels so much he might as well not be and her mother, well, is a little crazy. CeeCee’s mother Camille is obsessed with her life back in Savannah and her illustrious past as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. One day when Camille runs out of the house in what basically amounts to a prom dress, she does not return. With Camille’s passing, CeeCee’s father no longer feels that he can (or wants to, really) take care of her. Luckily, CeeCee’s Great Aunt Tootie comes to the rescue and whisks CeeCee off to Savannah to live with her.

Sweetest. Book. Ever.

Seriously.

So last Tuesday, I was having a terrible, terrible day. Nothing earth-shatteringly bad, don’t worry, but just a whole mess of annoying things, like only getting 3 hours of sleep and having to entertain a baby for 90 minutes while the REALLY flat tire on our car got fixed when we couldn’t just walk because it was pouring rain. So yah, not good.

But then, when we came home and Daniel went to sleep and I laid down on the couch and picked up “Saving CeeCee Honeycutt.”

It isn’t every book that can turn your day around, but “Saving CeeCee Honeycutt” did exactly that for me. It is a light read, but not insubstantial; sweet, without being saccharine. Hoffman has skill as a writer and CeeCee is a very engaging character. Not only is it a great book, it was the perfect book for me the day I read it.

I’m so happy that I had CeeCee to spend time with when I was having a bad day. Pick it up and hold onto it for the next time you need a pick me up.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from the 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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 historical fiction, Women's fiction  14 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , ,

The Threadbare Heart by Jennie Nash- Book Review

May 052010
 

4580339070 2e704c1449 m pictureThe Threadbare Heart by Jennie Nash

Lily and Tom have always had nearly the perfect marriage, which stands as the perfect foil to the multiple marriages of Lily’s mother Eleanor. Lily and Tom are committed to each other, Eleanor was happy to move onto the next man as soon as one is out of her life; Lily and Tom are perfectly content with their professors’ salaries, Eleanor has been known to marry for mutual financial and social benefit; Lily and Tom believe in love and choosing love, Eleanor believes love is basically a joke.

However, as Lily and Tom move into middle age, Lily starts to wonder if their marriage is as strong as everyone has always thought. It starts with Tom becoming angry with Lily for indulging in foods she knows are triggers to her debilitating migraines and admitting just how frustrated he is with her for not doing what she can to better control them. Next thing Eleanor knows, Tom is longing after an avocado farm in California, a purchase that would move them out of the Northeast and to California near Eleanor and their children. Once they arrive in California, Eleanor becomes reacquainted with a man who was once one of the more handsome boys in her high school class and she becomes worried about all the time Tom is spending with a young woman who works for the avocado grower’s association. Now Eleanor must sort out for herself what is and is not real in her life.

So I really liked this book, but OH MY GOSH! Stay away from plot summaries! The description on the back of the book is such a spoiler (I didn’t give anything too much away here)! You can obviously still enjoy the book if you know what is going to happen, but the events that are mentioned on the back of the book don’t occur until 2/3 of the way through the book. I assumed that said event would occur near the beginning and the majority of the book would be dealing with the aftermath, but that wasn’t the case at all.

Despite the fact that the back of the book had a major case of spoiler-itis, I thought this was a great work of women’s fiction. Although Lily was clearly the main character, Nash also takes us inside the heads of Eleanor and Lily’s son Ryan who is struggling with his young marriage. I loved how all three generations were struggling with questions of love and intimacy and how all had something to teach the others, even if indirectly. The questions raised by “The Threadbare Heart” in regards to whether or not love is a choice and the relationship between love and comfort or complacency were fascinating and I think this was a very well thought-out story.

A very thoughtful work of women’s fiction exploring real, everyday marriages and the themes of love and loss. Highly recommended.

In case you missed it, I’m giving away a copy of this book this week.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from the publisher at the author’s request.
* 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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