Much from the first book I read by Brené Brown (I Thought it was Just Me) is repeated here, but it’s “packaged” in more easily accessible chunks. The information is good, but it feels like it glosses the surface in a way that feels a bit too commercialized. (I suspect that’s my take based on…
“Hello, Wendy. I’m home.” And so it felt to this Stephen King fan—coming home. So perhaps that was to a creepy, sinister home, but one, at the same time that was as familiar and comfortable as some old sheepskin slippers. It had been perhaps twenty (at *least* fifteen) years since I read some King. Having…
What an interesting book written by a gifted writer! I told a friend that I was reading Bonk, a book about the science of the study of sex. She, an academic, heard in my description that I was reading a book about gender or relationships or some such. Me, too much of a literalist, explained…
Reconstructing Amelia suffers from having been compared too much to Gone Girl. Gone Girl, it is not. But it’s not bad. It entertains—enough. And it is well written—enough. Reconstructing Amelia is a mystery, not-quite-thriller, told in the new style of piecing together a full story from different perspectives. The problem, though, is that the delivery…
“If enough of us make small changes in our lives, we will see big changes.” “Change doesn’t require heroics. Change begins when we practice ordinary courage.” I learned about this author, Brené Brown, from several people. It’s almost as if I was *supposed* to read her work, but the Universe knew that I didn’t pick…
The Untethered Soul has good things to say. And they are pretty basic. Admittedly, for the researcher/scholarly writer I am, I had difficulty at times with the lack of references, research, data, etc. But this isn’t about that. This book, instead, is about depth and getting along in life. As I read this book, I…
What a gifted writer! Ron Rash brings to life a compelling story in his novel “Serena.” It is unlike most of the novels I read, this being set in depression-era North Carolina. But its language paints so detailed and so colorful the setting that no matter the topic of the story, I am certain I…
If I Stay brings a deep, poignant look at a life on the edge—the edge of living and the edge of ending. Although written to cover just a day or so in Mia’s life, most of the story involves Mia thinking back on her past, brief as it is for this girl, just a high…
There is something to be said for a book when you finish a chapter and turn the page and realize only then that you just finished the final chapter in the book. Upon turning that final page of Crazy Rich Asians, I exclaimed out loud at that moment. I’m still debating whether I feel good…
A Hidden Madness, a memoir of a law professor with bipolar disorder, rambles a bit too much, grossly overuses exclamation marks, and fails to show that many of his professional struggles are simply part of legal academia and not necessarily mental illness. However, it also provides a great service of highlighting the problem of stigma…
And the Mountains Echoed is an enjoyable, albeit at times confusing, read. Hosseini writes beautifully, and you easily feel the emotion, passion, and tension of each character’s story. The frustration comes in the blending of several people’s stories. As each narrator changes, sometimes in first person and sometimes in third, I felt a hurdle, more…
Entertaining enough if all you need is a diversion. Ana’s age, I can buy, but not Christian’s. The story’s arcs become a bit tedious after a while. Still, though, it does provide a diversion. And sometimes, that’s all we need from a novel.
Joe Hill—yes, he has a different last name, but no doubt he will for a long time be identified as Steven King’s son. And he does not disappoint. NOS4A2 is an excellent tale of suspense, horror, and imagination. It weaves stories together with a thread of “inscapes,” taking the reader down dark paths of darker…
The Dinner is an enjoyable read–written as events unfold over the course of a dinner between two couples at a fork in their road of life. It’s quite interesting, to be inside of someone’s thoughts over the course of a formal, if not pretentious, dinner—-the random asides and thoughts back as the events and conversations…
Book Two in the Fifty Shades series is still a basic read for some frivolous entertainment. I’m not sure if there was less explicit material here or if the first book was so overloaded, it didn’t stand out in the second round. Either way, the characters developed a bit more, which was welcomed. At the…