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Reading wednesday

    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

    December 22, 2021
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    I’ve been on a roll lately with some outstanding fictional reads. And if you are in need of a last minute gift for a reader on your list – go buy this book now! Here is my book review The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.

    Amor Towles

    I loved Amor Towles book A Gentleman In Moscow. So when I kept seeing his new novel The Lincoln Highway pop up on Oprah, The Today Show and the NY Times Bestseller list I knew I needed to read it. It’s nothing like Gentleman in Moscow as far as a storyline. But Towles ability to create the most lovable and likable characters is at its best in The Lincoln Highway.

    Not only will you love the character development, but the raucous adventure that takes place in the plot will have you unable to put the book down. You’ll be laughing and worrying, shuttering and rolling your eyes. It’s a big adventure – a mix of This Tender Land, Huckleberry Fin and Peter Pan.

    Beginning in the Middle

    The story begins in the middle. Because as we learn from precocious 8-year old Billy, all stories are best when they begin in the middle. And so we begin on the day in June 1954 when Billy’s brother Emmett is released from a juvenile detention camp.

    Emmett and Billy have lost their father to cancer, and their farm has been foreclosed. All they have is each other and Billy proposes they head west on the The Lincoln Highway in search of their mother who left them eight years before.

    But when two stowaways from the juvenile detention camp turn up in Billy and Emmett’s barn, the westward plans are put on hold as the foursome finds themselves headed to New York instead. This is the middle of the story where the real adventure begins.

    The adventures of Emmett, Billy and the stowaways Wooly and Duchess will include jumping freight trains, meeting vagrants, finding lost friends, FAO Schwartz, a “Professor”, getting beat up, a missing Studebaker, a suspicious “circus” and much more.

    Fun and Well Written

    Each chapter of this book is told from the point of view of the sensational characters and follows the misadventures through their eyes and differing perspectives.

    This is a story of belief, perseverance, luck and circumstance and starting over when you can. I hope you enjoyed my book review The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.

    *****Five stars for The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.

    Read last week’s review Mary Jane

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    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

    December 15, 2021
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    This is the feel good book of the year. I loved it and couldn’t put it down. Here is my book review Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

    1970’s Baltimore and the world is changing, but fourteen year-old Mary Jane is stuck with her prim and proper parents. Mary Jane’s parents spend most of the time at “The Club”. But Mary Jane begins to see through the facade of her privileged community. Mary Jane realizes how her life, her family and her neighborhood shuts out those who are not white, rich, protestant or respectable.

    When Mary Jane takes a summer babysitting job for a local doctor’s family who have just moved into the neighborhood, she has no idea how much this job and this summer will change her life.

    Mary Jane’s mother agrees to the job because a doctor of course is respectable. But what Mary Jane learns and her mother doesn’t know is the house is one of disarray. Take out food, un-bathed little girl and messy and disorganized; Mary Jane’s eyes are open to how the other half lives. She learns the “doctor” is a psychiatrist who is spending his summer treating a drug addicted famous rock star and his even more famous movie star wife. Mary Jane will be introduced to the world of sex and drugs and rock and roll, and will come out the other side an entirely different person.

    This funny and sweet coming of age story has many raucous moments, fun and fabulously developed characters and a plot to rival Daisy Jones and the Six. Read this book. It is hilarious while being believable and perfectly depicts the era and the changing views of society at the time.

    *****Five stars for Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau.

    Read last week’s review Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

    My current read The Lincoln Highway

    I hope you enjoyed my book review Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau. We love it when you pin and share our book reviews.

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    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger

    November 17, 2021
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    One of my all-time favorite books was by William Kent Krueger This Tender Land. But I had never read any of Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series. So now I have. Here is my book review Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger.

    Each of the books in Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series stands alone. You don’t need to worry if you haven’t read any of the many previous books. Lightning Strike is a fantastic novel all on its own.

    We are introduced to Cork as a 12-year old boy in the summer of ’63. Cork’s father Liam is the local sheriff in the small Minnesota town of Aurora on the shores of Iron Lake. Long simmering prejudice quietly eats away at this town between the Native American Ojibwa people and the rest of the population of Aurora and the surrounding region.

    When Cork stumbles upon a dead body at the sacred Native site known as Lightning Strike, Sheriff O’Connor will need to use every resource he can muster to decide if this was a suicide or a murder. Cork also sets out on his own to find answers as those living on the “rez” close ranks and those living in town point fingers, and the town’s richest man accuses everyone but himself.

    This is a wonderfully laid out crime novel with a message of truth and justice in a coming of age story. Cork and his family, and everyone in this novel must grapple with a battle between their heads and their hearts.

    I hope you enjoyed my book review Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger

    Read last week’s review The Warmth of Other Suns

    My current read The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris

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    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman

    November 3, 2021
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    After listening to a few books on Audible about Greek Gods, the Trojan War and a lot bravado…I was in search of something a bit softer. And I definitely found in in the sweet, sad and funny book, a debut novel. Here is my book review The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman.

    The Garden of Small Beginnings

    Although I am a writer, I do not write humor. Writing funny is hard. And it takes a very special talent. And Waxman nailed it in this sad story. This, her debut novel, is not about a funny plot…but she excels at dialogue that brings the reader right into the moment with hilarious quips and chatter. A big shout out too for the Audible reader Emily Rankin. She was a great.

    Lilian is a widow, a young mother with two small girls and a talented illustrator. For the past three years she has struggled to regain her footing in life after she witnesses the death of her husband in a car accident. She doesn’t believe she has the right to ever be happy again. She sees any future happiness as a slight to her husband Dan’s memory.

    New Beginnings

    But when Lilian’s employer asks her to take a gardening class in preparation to illustrate a vegetable gardening book, Lilian is thrust back into the social setting she has abhorred for three years. Here she meets an eclectic group of individuals each with their own mysteries and compassion, talents and foibles. The diverse group soon becomes close friends as they plant and bloom, and Lilian becomes even closer friends with the instructor, Edward Bloem. Edward’s family owns the European Bloem Seed Company the company Libby is illustrating the book for.

    Well of course there are many twists and turns, happy and sad moments and lots of plants and flowers as the gardening class individually and as a group all find their passions and small beginnings.

    I really enjoyed this book and definitely recommend it on Audible too. I hope you enjoyed my book review The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman. I look forward to what she does next.

    *****Five Stars for The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman

    See last week’s review of Rain Shelters and Ghost Gods by Jan Walker.

    My current read The Descendents

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    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review Rain Shelters and Ghost Gods by Jan Walker

    October 27, 2021
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    This book was written by a local author in the town where I live. I was asked to read this book, which sometimes can be a little tricky…but not this time. I really enjoyed this unique story. Here is my book review Rain Shelters and Ghost Gods by Jan Walker.

    Location

    I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and on the Kitsap Peninsula. And, as you probably know, I also LOVE Hawaii and spend as much time there as possible. So when I realized this story was based in these two locations I quickly was intrigued.

    Rain Shelters and Ghost Gods

    Walker creates a well-developed cast of characters who befriend Eve Sorenson on the island of Oahu when she arrives to care for her dying aunt. Aunt Meg has lived on Oahu for thirty years. Her seventy-year-old body is failing her, and she asks Eve to care for her in her end of life. But Meg is no push-over…she calls the shots and Eve who adores her is up to the task, including writing her aunt’s memoir.

    But Eve has left a complicated list of catastrophes behind back home on the Kitsap Peninsula when she answers her aunt’s call to come to Hawaii. Everything from an accusation from a student, a 15-year old son with usual 15-year old problems, a jerk ex-husband and a deep sadness for the recent loss of her father and the family home she grew up in.

    Spirits and Ghost Gods

    On Eve’s first day in Oahu she goes to the Lyon Arboretum at the University of Hawaii where she encounters a white dog. The dog leads her to a man who has fallen into a ravine and is injured and near death. After the rescue the dog has disappeared. Was the dog real? Or a spirit to help her find the man? Are the dancing lights around the man Hawaiian spirits? Are the tiny Menehuna forest people present and involved in the rescue? And why does Eve keep seeing her father’s eyes in the man’s face.

    This encounter will build the plot of this book that explores the Hawaiian myths and legends; the idea that our paths and choices may not always be our own; and how finding family and friends in the most unexpected places can change our lives forever.

    Healing

    The well researched and written Hawaiian historical and cultural information in the book meld beautifully into the plot of this story. I particularly liked how the book discussed life and death, afterlife and how different cultures view passing differently. I also enjoyed the healing nature of both Meg’s end of life journey and Eve’s emotional one with her beloved aunt and her son.

    An overriding theme in the book is the role flora plays in both the Hawaiian and the Pacific Northwest lifestyle.

    Surprise

    You won’t find this book on Reese Witherspoon’s list of the Oprah Book Club…but don’t let that put you off. Like the characters in this book the unexpected things we find when we aren’t even searching are sometimes the best. That is the way with Rain Shelters and Ghost Gods.

    I hope you enjoyed my book review Rain Shelters and Ghost Gods by Jan Walker.

    ****Four stars for Rain Shelters and Ghost Gods by Jan Walker

    See last week’s review of Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson

    My current read The Women in Black

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    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson

    October 20, 2021
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    This is a really great book, especially for me growing up in the Pacific Northwest, where when I was a child logging was still very much a way of life. Here is my book review Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson.

    The year is 1977, the place Damnation Grove, California, where for generations fathers and sons have cut the Redwood timber for the Sanderson Timber Company. Rich Gunderson and his wife Colleen eek out a living but Rich wants more for his wife and young son.

    Colleen, who has experienced eight miscarriages also is searching for more…another baby, and better communication with her husband. Colleen’s unconventional sister Enid seems to drop out a baby everytime she turns around and Colleen finds the unfairness of it all stiffling.

    Daniel, a former boyfriend of Colleen’s arrives in town to research how the decades of herbicide spraying is contaminating the soil, the water and the people. Loggers and their families scoff at the research, saying if the herbicides were dangerous the government wouldn’t allow them to be sprayed.

    But when bees die, children are born malformed, cancer runs amuck and Colleen has another miscarriage, she begins to believe in the message Daniel is trying to spread.

    Set amidst a changing time in the lumber industry and in our country, Damnation Spring is a story of a vanishing way of life, family and tradition, big money and bribery and of course, the beginnings of the EPA. Told through the eyes of Rich, Colleen and Chub in believable and beautifully written chapters, Damnation Spring is a book you won’t be able to put down.

    *****Five stars for Davidson’s debut novel, Damnation Spring. I hope you enjoyed my book review Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson.

    Read last week’s review Run by Ann Patchett

    My current read The Warmth of Other Suns

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    Reading Wednesday

    Book Review Run by Ann Patchett

    October 13, 2021
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    This is one of Patchett’s older novels, published in 2007. It’s another gem I found in my neighborhood’s “little library”. Although not my favorite of Patchett’s work, I did enjoy this family story. Here is my book review Run by Ann Patchett.

    There is a lot going on in this book. Beginning with a statue of the Virgin Mary, a family heirloom cherished for it’s family resemblance. But is the story behind this family piece true?

    Bernard Doyle is the former Mayor of Boston. He has one biological son, who has been in and out of trouble, and two adopted sons who are brothers. They are also black.

    Four years after adopting Tip and Teddy, Doyle’s wife Bernadette dies. He is left to raise the three boys. Sixteen years later, on a cold snowy night, Tip is nearly killed when he steps out into the path of an oncoming vehicle. He is saved by a bystander who pushes him out of harms way. The black women named Tennessee, is seemingly a stranger. But as the story develops we learn she has much to do with this family, and knows everything about them.

    Tennessee’s daughter Kenya is taken in by the Doyle’s while her mother is in the hospital. And it becomes clear that Kenya and Tennessee are family to Tip and Teddy. How will this tale come together? A few unique twists at the end I did not see coming, but in true Patchett fashion she weaves a story of family and faith, race and politics and particularly how close the have’s and the have-not’s live in a world of invisible people. I hope you enjoyed my book review Run by Ann Patchett.

    ****Four stars for Run by Ann Patchett

    Read last week’s review of A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

    My current read Rain Shelters and Ghost Gods.

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