book review: Cemetery Road by Greg Isles

New favorite book opening!

I never meant to kill my brother. I never set out to hate my father. I never dreamed I would bury my own son. Nor could I have imagined that I would betray the childhood friend who saved my life, or win a Pulitzer prize for telling a lie. All these things I have done, yet most people I know would call me an honorable man.

Caught my attention right away.

This book had a lot of twists and turns, general intrigue and —-very unfortunate adult content. I’ve never read this author before and he really held my attention in some of the opening action sequences—which are SO difficult to write. For example, a sequence of swimming across the freezing Mississippi River with a group of friends on a careless dare was truly riveting. The sequences relaying his experiences as a war journalist were also captivating and felt authentic.

Unfortunately, because the content involves a betrayal (an extramarital affair) the content descends and there were a lot of parts I didn’t read. I felt like the really compelling layers of inter-connected mysteries could have existed without that. Disappointing. The final question of “who fathered this child” can be asked without showing the reader.

Book review: bridge to haven by Francine Rivers

I literally hated every single thing about this book. I only finished it because it’s by one of my top-three-favorite authors. Honestly, I was so angry reading it that I think my motivation to finish was I felt like I had to finish the fight I was having with Francine Rivers. Bailing on reading would have been the equivalent of walking away from a fight I was morally justified in winning because the other person was so, so, SO SO very wrong.

A friend of mine told me that I need to stop reading books that have anything to do with foster care, and he’s right. Because people get it SO WRONG and it breaks my brain.

SPOILERS AHEAD BUT THIS BOOK IS GARBAGE SO DON’T READ IT

Let me summarize this hideousness. Druggie woman delivers a baby under a bridge (book title) in a town called Haven (also book title). Town pastor strong-arms his wife into being foster parents when she’s terminally ill. Wife dies. Husband/dad bails on the foster child but keeps his biological son. The foster daughter gets adopted by someone else—a family (who by the way wanted the baby from the beginning but he made a commitment to this child and then bailed when things got hard!!) who have a daughter her age; they were best friends but as sisters are endlessly competitive. The pastor’s biological son and the foster/adopted daughter continue their intimate sibling relationship as they grow but the pastor cuts off contact saying essentially ‘it’s too hard’ and ‘I want her to bond with her new dad.’

Ok, so now they’re grown up. The girl has a series of horrifically abusive relationships with men (one of which includes a man forcing her to have an abortion against her will when she gets pregnant). So she comes back home now (she shaved her head because she’s edgy) and runs into her foster brother at a restaurant and “falls in love” with him who of course has “always loved her.” Wait, I’m sorry, what? GROSS GROSS GROSS. And the crazy thing is, we’re supposed to ship them—like the author isn’t using this to emphasize her male-relationship issues. But wait, there’s more. The girl’s biological mother re-appears (she’s successful now, by the way, and beautiful), and starts a relationship with the boy’s dad (the pastor, one who bailed on being the girl’s parent).

Hold it because I’m still not to the worst part. The kids get married (ew!), but the girl is still uncomfortable with his father who abandoned her (gee, go figure). But it’s ok because there’s like a big snowstorm and this huge healing moment for the family and SURPRISE the big healing at the end isn’t from her finding a safe, intimate male relationship with her brother-husband (which is gross anyway) — no no no — it’s from the father-in-law that she’s finally accepted is her “true father” and that the abandonment is what was best for her (EXCUSE ME?) and SHE STARTS TO CALL HIM DADDY AGAIN. HER HUSBAND-BROTHER’S DAD. SHE’S CALLING HIM DADDY.

I honestly had to wash my hands after reading this; it was that heinous.

book review: the great alone by kristin hannah

I’m REALLY glad I read this in early 2019 so that I don’t have to say Beartown and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry were no longer my favorite books of the year. They can stand proudly in 2018. BUT this book was AMAZING. Standing at my “favorite book of the year” for 2019 (unless somehow there’s something even better ahead) is Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone.

I did not love The Nightingale, but this story’s protag Leni had me from page 1. This girl is the daughter of a very PTSD-burdened Vietnam vet and a former-rich-girl hippie (who’s a little too attractive for her husband’s preference). There are so many memorable moments in the complex relationship between Ernt and Cora, but the most telling was a conversation Leni overhears where her parents confess they are each other’s “heroin”—and how as the girl ages, her perception of what it means to love vs. need another person means. Her own experience with young love is captivating because her fear and confusion change the way she perceives other people’s affection.

Leni’s story is both tragic and empowering. The setting of the most-remote-of-the-remote outskirts of civilization in Alaska is stunningly beautiful and also terrifying. I learned so much about that place alongside the main character… you really feel the constant pressure of living in an environment where everything wants to kill you. And in Leni’s case, it isn’t just the weather or the wild animals.

A lot of really great minor characters bring this story to a high level of reality. This is a weird description, but it felt like if this book was a movie, all the minor characters would be played by huge A-list stars. Even the people who only showed up once or twice were hugely impacting and memorably written. Each of them was a big plus to making the world of the book so immersive.

The father’s descent left my feeling hugely conflicted as the reader. I wanted so badly for Leni’s family to heal but feared (no, knew) they never would. The writing gives you such a good picture of the victims of domestic violence but also the victims of PTSD. It was heart-wrenchingly beautiful to read. Not that the author ever excuses the terrible things that are done, but it felt like the opposite picture from Jack’s story on the great TV show This Is Us. Like one little nudge in the wrong direction at a vulnerable time… you’re left with an awful sense of “what if.”

While giving the warning that there are a lot of potential triggers for readers (characters experience domestic violence, loss, anarchy propaganda from a colony of crazies)—I highly recommend this story. What an experience to read and enjoy. This is far more than a ‘coming of age’ story or even a ‘man vs wild’ story of defeating the untameable Alaska wilderness. It’s not really a “how I overcame my crappy start in life” bit, either. It is all that, but much more, and with a sweet love story to boot.

book review: the expats by chris pavone

In my secret life where I am a spy, I am Kate Moore. She’s a stay-at-home mom with a little bit of a, ahem, unique backstory. She used to work for the CIA. This book basically tells the story of why it’s “used to.” Hint: she has a husband and two kids now and maybe that was a hard balance.

This book had a lot of great individual sequences (a ski accident told in moment-by-moment, tumbling detail was particularly memorable for me). There are a lot of palpable details of the settings, which gave it the feel of a fun international-spy-James-Bond film: rich colors, smells, music, fabrics, foods.

The relationship between Kate and her husband was the hook to this story. There’s an element of Mr. & Mrs. Smith here, where you watch them learn about each other, but also some very normal parenting moments. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of her two worlds. Dexter is a super nerd, specializing in bank cyber security... or is he? [cue dramatic music]

Downsides of the book were some random (very fleeting) scenes of violence and sexuality, as well as the ending. I won’t spoil anything and I’m ALL for twists but this one felt like it had one too many twists. The man-behind-the-man-behind-the-man-behind-the-man is ok, but not one more. But it didn’t ruin the book, I just rolled my eyes a couple times. Also there’s some timeline jumping (i.e. five years ago, two years ago, last summer), which was a smidge harder to follow than I think it should have been.

Overall, I laughed a bunch, and I liked watching Kate’s conflict when she tries to live a normal life and finds herself constantly questioning everyone’s motives. She has a firm “I will never investigate my family” policy that she finds herself increasingly questioning. It’s an intriguing premise, especially when the family’s beautiful flat in Luxembourg has a perfect view of the prime minister’s office balcony. [cue dramatic music]

book review: the nightingale

This was my first time reading Kristin Hannah, and I think I did myself a disservice. Having just read The Alice Network, a lot of the would-be surprises of this novel were lost on me. Although this one focuses on WW2 instead of WW1, it’s still about a network of (mostly) female French spies. So some of the shock-and-awe of ‘what? a lady can be a spy?’ felt a little overdone.

My philosophy of reading is generally that this is my free time, my hobby, my form of entertainment. So I can be sad and difficult (i.e. Beartown) but please don’t leave me feeling like I wasted my time being depressed just to get more depressed. That was this book I’m sad to say. I skimmed like the last 50 pages just to finish it after such a long commitment. The ending was a big let-down, and I think I was supposed to be surprised by a twist that I anticipated from (literally) the third page of the novel.

My first issue with this book is the exhausting “she’s the most beautiful woman any person has ever seen” character. 1,000 UGHS. That’s almost enough to make me quit any book, even a romance (which I don’t generally read), but when the book is supposed to be about war…. you’ve got to be kidding me. This leads to a HUGE host of problems, namely that I’m supposed to believe that this women—who stops men in their tracks at a hundred yards with her beauty—never gets hurt by any of the occupying soldiers over a multi-year period? Sorry, but I don’t buy it. War is hell, right? (Don’t worry, we get to read the disturbing scene of her sister’s assault, though. Bleh.)

The second problem with this beauty is the James Bond paradox (a name I just invented). Attractive people wouldn’t make good spies because they draw attention and make you remember them. Hot dudes like Daniel Craig and stunning women like Jennifer Garner (thinking of Sydney Bristow, Alias) aren’t forgettable. So the most beautiful woman in the world would be memorable—hence, the exact OPPOSITE of what you want in a spy.

Most annoyingly…. the author cannot decide what she thinks family is. There’s this huge drawn-out slogging family saga happening with abandonment and how you will always still love a father who has mistreated you for 25 years… and then also that you can let go of a child who was “just” adopted and you’ll both be better off…. and then also that it’s ok to lie to your husband about who fathered your child because ‘family is more than biology’…. What? The author can’t pick a line on what she is trying to say!

Final point of irritation: falling in love in three days with a man who doesn’t speak to you at ALL… so deeply in love that you are still waiting for him years later. Um… no.

Bottom line, meh. I feel mean, but The Nightingale wasn’t for me.

BOOK REVIEW: us against you

Let me start by saying that I LOVED the novel “Beartown.“ This sequel was good, but (unlike Beartown) left me sad. Although Beartown deals with some extremely sensitive issues, the ending was uplifting. This one is darker and deals with some more of the super-grit that Beartown sort of “yadda-yadda-yadda-ed”, to add a Seinfeld reference.

Serious spoilers below if you haven’t read Beartown but no spoilers for this book.

So, Beartown ends with an epilogue that is many years ahead—and it is so inspiring. A girl who has been through a rape is shown, years in the future, faced with the opportunity to ruin the life of the man who assaulted her. Instead, she rises above, happy and secure in her own life, not excusing him—she simply leaves him with the opportunity to come clean on his own. It’s not a fix-all, because the rapist never serves time, and we all know there’s no ‘fixing’ life for the survivor of rape. All she can do is go on living and surviving each day. But, having read the book, its an insanely satisfying conclusion. You get to see that the girl has moved forward (not moved on) and is living her life on her own terms. The man, on the other hand, has man demons still to face. It’s empowering and probably a lot closer to reality than another ending might have been.

I don’t imagine any rape victim feeling like ‘oh good’ with their assailant ends up in jail. Sure, it’s what the man deserves, but it isn’t like the woman ‘feels better’ and is somehow ‘unraped’ now. Anyway, my point is that Beartown ends in an unexpectedly uplifting way.

In contrast, Us Against You takes us into the bog. The book opens immediately after the events in the previous book (far before the flash-forward epilogue I mentioned), so you watch these characters you have grown to love live through the tough parts. It’s very difficult. In some senses, you got to avoid watching the everyday toll their daughter’s pain takes on her parents, watching her younger brother experience enormous amounts of secondary trauma… we got to skip all that. Us Against You makes you walk that everyday, dirty, painful journey with them. Kira and Peter and Leo have awful discoveries, awful lessons, and awful awakenings in this book. It’s relevant, and it’s a really valid, true-to-life story for each of them, but so sad.

The saddest thing about Us Against You is that it takes a pretty hard left turn to focus extensively on a homosexual relationship between a student and teacher—that the author almost condones. He gets as close to the line of saying ‘it’s ok’ as he can without ever saying ‘it’s ok’. And that is very hard to read. The idea that a seventeen-year-old student *looks* older cannot possibly excuse what’s happening. I feel like the author thinks that if he acts like all the hate is centered on just the bigoted ‘homophobes’ that we will forget its a twenty-five year old and a seventeen-year-old. I did not forget, nor excuse. It doesn’t make me homophobic to say/feel/know that relationship is unacceptable. That relationship IS unacceptable. And the author’s incessant “it’s no one’s business who you sleep with” from every likable character in the series rings VERY empty and hollow. These kinds of statements undermine so much of his message from the first book (about rape) by smacking the reader in the face with his blatherings about ‘love’ between these two “men” when one is legally a child and—worse—his student.

Bottom Line: A really powerful story, but with a very different message than Beartown. It saddens me that the author would choose to blur such a strong anti-rape message (and, really, an anti-abuse-of-power message) from the previous novel with an adult-minor relationship.