Fiction

Review: The Dinner by Herman Koch

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5

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The Dinner tells a tale of the dark side of normal. The book totally disturbed me, and I think it was supposed to.

You know how Hannibal Lector disturbed everyone, and no one would ever admit to admiring him, but you just know there are people out there admiring him? Well, Herman Koch made me stand in terrified awe of Paul and Claire Lohman, and their son Michel. And they admired each other for the same reasons I was freaked out.

Paul and his arrogant politician brother Serge, along with their wives, meet at dinner to discuss a crime their teenage sons committed together. One family wants to admit the guilt; the other wants to hide the crime. Instead of working out a solution among the four, Paul and Claire bully their way to protecting their son.

I couldn’t love this book because the nature of the crime and the coverup was too disturbing for me. But I appreciated the brilliance of the plot development, the psychological thrill ride, and the deliberate writing. So often Koch intimated something without spelling it out: instead of reading that the neighbor is a pedophile, we read that Michel and other boys often go to the single male neighbor’s house to sit on the sofa, drink Cokes, and listen to music together. Koch employed this technique often – and I appreciate the effort it takes to describe a situation so precisely that the hints and circumstance tell so very much more than a stark statement of fact.

If you like dark journeys into the disturbed corners of the human mind, join the Lohmans at The Dinner.

-Calliope

P.S. Remember to follow this blog and comment on the Giveaway post to be entered into our August giveaway of Pivot Point and The Sea of Tranquility.

Buy It Now The Dinner

Review: It Had to Be You by Jill Shalvis

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imageAli Winters is having a rough day. She discovers that her boyfriend is cheating. Said boyfriend dumps her before she can dump him. She was living with her now ex-boyfriend, who didn’t renew the lease on the house, which now leaves her homeless.

Luke Hanover is not having a good day himself. He was in charge of the investigation of multiple murders, with the prime suspect being a prominent senator. The case ended with the death of the senator’s aide and the senator killing himself. Luke is using all of his vacation time to return home to Lucky Harbor and to be left alone.

Unfortunately, Ali is still at his house when he goes home. Feeling bad for her situation, he allows her to stay. Soon, he is helping her investigate who stole the 50K that Ali is accused of stealing. Also, he is dragged into investigating smaller crimes that his grandpa’s friends need help solving.

It is always fun to visit the small but lively town of Lucky Harbor. I enjoyed watching Ali and Luke circle each other and eventually give in to their lust. I liked seeing that lust develop into something more. Ali and Luke both have some baggage involving their families that they must overcome.

The outcome of the books in this sweet, funny and sometimes sexy series is always predictable but thoroughly enjoyable to read. There is sequel bait with Luke’s two friends, Jack, the firefighter and the mysterious, unseen, military man, Ben. I look forward to their stories and revisiting Lucky Harbor.

This is the 7th book in the Lucky Harbor series but it can definitely be read as a standalone. It’s a great entry to the series because it’s the start of a trilogy within the series. The next book features Jack and Ali’s friend, Leah.

ARC provided by publisher via NetGalley.

~Thalia

Buy It Now It Had to Be You (Lucky Harbor)

Review: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin (Translator)

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windupHow does one review a Murakami book? First I will start by saying, this guy is way too smart for me to grasp all of what he writes. Having said that, I think there was a time in my life that I would have grasped a lot more, but perhaps that time for me has passed….I think to truly appreciate all he expresses in a book that one must read his work over and over. If there is ever a book that you wish to have a dog-eared copy of, with passages underlined 3 times in bold pen, Murakami’s works would be it.

Part of my problem trying to absorb (and this is an author you *really* do absorb…He words sink into your bones, into your very tissue…one does not simply read Murakami, if you do, you are not doing it right….)Murakami is that I often get so enthralled with a single passage that my mind must stay and linger there for a great deal of time. Never mind that I have tried to continue on reading, my mind is still caressing a single passage over and over….so in effect, I often find myself having to go back and re read parts of the book….

Now this book. Many questions are asked here…and in true Murakami style, he leaves much to you, the reader, to decide the answers…I often get aggravated with authors that do this, but not with Murakami. He always ends the books in the only way possible to end them!

Yes, he has the moon and the stars in this book. He has good and evil. He has mysterious women….and he has a very simple, ordinary man, faced with what he knows in his heart to be true, even though everyone and everything is saying different. I think this book had a beautiful, fairy tale ending to it. It was so suspenseful in parts (I usually don’t get my heart pounding so fast as this book did!)….How far would you go for love? How much faith could you put in what your heart knows to be true, even though you mind tells you it is not? Finally, the question is asked is all you gain in the end worth the price you pay to stay true to your own self?

Of course there are many other aspects to this book…Far too many for me to try to explain or even understand, but this is what will stick with me from this book for a long time…..

as is true with any Murakami novel, you should travel this journey yourself to experience all he has to offer….and remember, you *must* stop and enjoy the scenery…the desalination of his books are only that…the end….the true magic lies in just getting there…..

~Urania

Buy it now The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel

Review: Covet, by Tracey Garvis-Graves

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Let me start out by saying a few things. This is my first book by Ms. Garvis-Graves. I have On the Island, but haven’t read it yet. I figured if everyone raves about it, I should, but I haven’t gotten around to it. So when I saw this book, I assumed if everyone likes the other ones, this would probably be similar and I’d like it also. Know what they say about assuming??

I know what the word covet means. I just never read the description or reviews. I just assumed I knew what it was gonna be like. And plus I really liked the cover. I mean, with a gorgeous cover like that, it can’t be bad, right?

I think I may have jumped the gun a bit.

Chris and Claire were struggling in their marriage and they didn’t know what to do. He spent more time away from his house than he did living in it. He misses his wife and kids, but after a year of unemployment, this job is the only thing keeping them afloat. He’s willing to do anything to support his family, but he doesn’t realize the cost of being away.

Claire loves her husband, but is lonely. She meets Daniel, a local cop, and starts a friendship with him. At first, it was all innocent, but after a while lines were getting fuzzy and that was hard to read. She finds herself thinking about Daniel and spending lots of time with him.

I’m not a fan of any kinds of cheating, emotional or physical. So I almost didn’t finish it. I had to take a break for a while.

The intermingling stories of their friends and neighbors were a nice touch. You saw a glimpse into the lives of others that you realize could be your neighbors or friends. It was very believable. I think that’s why it was difficult to read. It’s something that happens more times that we even realize.

I will say this, it does have a HEA, but you have to get through some hard situations to get there.

I received this ARC for an honest review.

~Melpomene

Buy it now Covet

Review: Always Watching by Chevy Stevens; Narrated by Joyce Bean

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16044953 Chevy Stevens’ debut novel Still Missing surprised me and kind of blew me away with how much I loved it. Her second novel, Never Knowing was almost as good so I was really looking forward to Always Watching, her third novel. I chose to get the audio book because I love to listen to them.

There are many narrators I love and rarely do I find one that I hate. Joyce Bean was just kind of meh. I found her to be too monotone almost immediately but figured that the story would outweigh the narrator. I was so wrong.

Nadine is a psychiatrist who works in the lockdown ward of the psychiatric hospital. She is treating a young woman who had spent time with a cult when that triggers her own unhappy memories from the time she was with the same cult. She uncovers some nasty memories that she was unaware of and her life kind of spins out of control from there. Her own daughter is a homeless runaway. Nadine tries to put all these pieces together.

There is very little I liked about this book. The plot felt contrived and forced from the beginning. There wasn’t one character I really felt anything for – I didn’t feel one way or the other about anyone in the book. Honestly, I just wanted the book to be over. There is a “mystery” of what the uncovered memories will reveal but it was obvious to me. There was a mystery throughout the book dealing with the cult leader and his nefarious ways. But my overwhelming feeling was I don’t care.

I found Nadine to be whiny, I really disliked her daughter and her brother was annoying.

As I got further into the audiobook the narration got worse and worse to me – the monotone in the beginning got worse. The only reason I finished it is because I loved the author’s first two books so much.

If someone else read and liked it please let me know what I was missing out on!

2 stars for the book. 2 stars for the narration.

~ Clio

Review: The Great Santini by Pat Conroy

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4 stars

After reading The Prince of Tides, I wanted more literature by Pat Conroy. Yes, I said literature. Because that’s how good Conroy’s writing is. He puts so much good stuff into a story that by the time you’ve wrapped your head around it all, he’s punched you in the gut with something unexpected. Conroy uses a lot of fancy vocabulary, so have a dictionary nearby. Sometimes my built in Kindle dictionary doesn’t even have the words he uses.

The Great Santini is about a military man whose ego is so huge that he lives to overshadow his military corps, his airplanes, and his family. He is a mean son of a gun, and his family loves him and hates him, knows him and knows nothing about him.

I’m not into military stories or historical novels, but this book held my interest anyway. There may have been more pages about the Marine Corps, but there was more substance about the lieutenant corporal’s family. They held together while I held my shoulders tense knowing there’d be some abuse in this book. Conroy also comments on coming of age, racism, classism, education, sports, poverty, and the fraudulence of southern charm.

I enjoyed The Great Santini. I didn’t love it as much as The Prince of Tides, but it’s an excellent study in the relationship between a father and son. Even if I did predict the ending. 😉

– Calliope

Buy It Now The Great Santini

Review: The Dirty Streets of Heaven (Bobby Dollar #1) by Tad Williams

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DirtyI’ve been wanting to try Tad Williams for a while now. I just kept putting it off. I am not opposed to fantasy writers. Some of my favorite books are from this genre. However, for whatever reason, I am always intimidated by them before I start. Perhaps I am afraid the story line will be too foreign for me to follow. Perhaps it is because so many of the great fantasy reads are volumes upon volumes of novels…whatever the cause of my hesitation, once I start I am fine….after all, a great story is a great story no matter the genre….and the fantasy world has some totally amazing storytellers. I have always heard that Tad Williams was one of these amazing storytellers….

Having said all of that…some parts of this book were actually very good….however, other parts were just bad….no, not just bad, but very bad! I might give Tad Williams another go, but I don’t think it will be with this series….I do like how Bobby was loyal in the end…not only to his own self, but also to a friend….So Williams gets full props for the main character. The rest of the story is where it fell short for me. It was not exciting. It was not original. I could pick out dozen of instances where certain characters reminded me of another from some other series, by other writers. I knew who the culprit was almost from the start and I know it was supposed to come as a huge shock…..I also thought the same “action packed monster scenes” were very repetitive and hence, very boring…maybe this was all my own fault as I had very high expectations of Williams. Hearing about the subject of the story excited me. It sounded original. It sounded exciting. It sounded so unique and I was expecting not only to be blown away by it, but refreshed by it as well. I mean seriously, even the title was fantastic to my mind! I was super excited going into this book…..I wanted to finish it a full run, excited to hit my next book…..that didn’t happen….I felt as if I hit a brick wall reading it. I lost all interest about halfway through….I found reasons to either put the book down and find more interesting things to do, or a strong desire to just skim over pages and pages to get to the ending I knew was waiting for me.

The one thing I did learn from reading this novel is that even an original concept can end up being told in a very unoriginal way.

~Urania

Buy it now The Dirty Streets of Heaven (Bobby Dollar)

Review: Geoducks Are for Lovers by Daisy Prescott

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So. This book made me laugh and made me cry… but not until 80% through. The characters were fleshed out and awesome… but they didn’t DO anything until 50% through. Daisy Prescott nailed the landscape in the Pacific Northwest setting… but repeated the same details in every chapter.

Maggie invites a group of friends to her island cottage home before they celebrate a big school reunion. Maggie is surprised when Gil – former best friend and crush – shows up. They spend their time together exploring whether they should start a relationship now, 20 years later.

Cute plot for a rom-com. But it took so very long to get to the plot that I just couldn’t enjoy the book. I was bored for the first half, waiting for something to happen. This was a 2-star book until the 3-star end.

-Calliope

Buy It Now Geoducks Are for Lovers

Review: Tell the Wolves I’m Home (Revisited) by Carol Rifka Burnt

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“I thought how that was wrong and terrible and beautiful all at the same time.”
― Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I’m Home

This quote is exactly how I felt about this book. There is no doubt that this will go down as an all time favorite of mine. What a powerful read for me. I want to go out and buy multiply copies and give it to all the people I love. I want to hand out copies to complete strangers. I want just one person to read it and then turn to me and say, “I understand what this book means to you, I feel it too.”

I usually start a book and it’s easy enough for me to tell if I am going to like it or not. I can tolerate an okay story if the writing is “quote worthy.” It’s no secret to anyone that knows me that I can get lost in words if the author writes them in a lyrical way. This book was no exception. I fell in love from the start. This book sang to me! As I read along I loved the writing I was witnessing. Yes, I was not just reading words on a page….I was feeling as if I was present in Brunt’s imagined world. However, at the same time, I thought, this is a really a pretty cool book and I’m really enjoying it, but there’s no way I will be able to review it. The story was too hard to put into words. Many times, as a book goes along I lose some of my passion for it. As I went further along in this book, I was surprised to find that my love for the book was not easing off. In fact, my love for it was growing in leaps and bounds. My despair at trying to figure out how to start a review also changed. Now the story wasn’t too hard to put into words, it was simply too big! How could I encompass all the emotions that this book evoked from me and put it into mere words?

“Proof that there are worlds and worlds and worlds on top of worlds, if you want them to be there.”
― Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I’m Home

Brunt has masterfully given us so many stories on top of stories here. Is this a story about the ignorance of AIDS in the 80’s and the assumptions people made born out of that ignorance? Is this a story of family rivalry? Or of family love? Is it a story about the bond between sisters? Is it a coming of age story of a single young girl? Or is it the story of two lonely people that find a way to hold on to one another to overcome life’s grief? Is it about courage? Or sorrow? Loneliness? Acceptance? Regret? Acceptance?

“She was wired into my heart. Twisted and kinked and threaded right through.”
― Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I’m Home

Brunt has somehow taken these separate amazing stories and twisted and kinked and threaded them right through the reader’s very heart and made them into one…..how does one do that? How is it possible for this to be a debut novel? Surely there must have been bit of magic involved!

What strikes me most about this book is just how well Brunt was able to capture what being a teenager was like for me. I felt as if I had traveled in some time machine….that I was transported back to my own life as a teenager….forced to re-live all those thoughts and fears I had. I remember all those same feelings that June and Greta were feeling. The self-doubt. The selfishness of not being able to see the world beyond how it affects me. Ultimately this was June’s story and we only had her viewpoint to follow. This story could have read so differently if it had been Toby or Greta’s voice that we heard. Some parts of me wish it had been the type of book that was told from multiple viewpoints. That feeling came from my own personal greed. I was so able to climb inside the character of June. I wish I had been allowed to also climb further inside the characters of Greta and Toby as well. How different my life might had been had I been privy to their thoughts and insights at the time…it really is something when an author is able to transport you to another place and time….to make you feel as if you are no longer a reader, but instead, you are present, living this story, just as if it were your own…..

Please don’t let all the hype and the great reviews of this book deter you from giving it a chance. Sometimes you run across a book that not only lives up to all the hype….to a book that truly deserves all the hype….sometimes you also run across that a book totally and completely captivates you and takes you by surprise…..

This is that book! Read it! I dare you to!

~Urania

Buy It Now Tell the Wolves I’m Home

Review: A Mercy by Toni Morrison

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mercy“She learned the intricacy of loneliness: the horror of color, the roar of soundlessness and the menace of familiar objects lying still.”
― Toni Morrison, A Mercy

“I dream a dream that dreams back at me”
― Toni Morrison, A Mercy

With quotes such as this how can one not just love the book that they are from? I am the type that can fall in love with a book because of one sentence. This however was not that book. Maybe it was too short to come together for me….maybe I just don’t like Toni Morrison’s writing style….but this just can’t be! I mean it’s THE TONI MORRISON! I’ve wanted to read her forever and I really, REALLY, R E A L L Y wanted to love this book, it was my first experience with her…….I usually love beautiful poetic writing styles! Why couldn’t I fall in love with this book?????????? Why!!!!???

Honestly, truth be told, I just didn’t feel the story. I didn’t connect with the characters. I didn’t feel respect….I didn’t feel fear….I didn’t feel love…I didn’t feel sacrifice….I didn’t feel regret….I didn’t feel sorrow. There just wasn’t a basis for it. Sure, I knew I was supposed to feel these things. I knew exactly what I was supposed to feel and who my sympathies were suppose to lie with…I knew who I was meant to despise….however, I felt no more emotion for one character than another. I barely cared at all. I just wanted it to end….and it wasn’t even that long of a book. Maybe I needed more character development. Maybe I needed more details. I know the words were there…..there is no doubt that Morrison writes in a beautiful lyrical way….it’s just that in this story….well….it was almost as if Morrison sat down and penned a few great sentences. Sentences full of promises….and THEN and only then did she try to build a story around them. I wanted her to write a story first AND then write beautiful sentences to tell that story….I realize that to some they will think that sounds foolish and silly….that there might not be a difference….a story is just a story, but this is what I thought when I was reading the story….and it’s still what I think after I have finished it.

I want to give Morrison another try. I *really* want to read “The Bluest Eye”…..but I’m afraid that no matter how much I know that I am supposed to love Toni Morrison, that she just might not be the writer for me…..sigh….I seriously HATE when that happens, don’t you?

~Urania

Buy it now A Mercy