The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

A Review by Maggie:

Don Tillman is a genetics specialist, highly intelligent able to memorize anything in a very limited time.  He is very literal---sort of an Amelia Bedelia type.  He does have personality issues and is on the Asperger’s spectrum scale and is riddled with OCD.  When he decides he needs a wife he creates a 16 page questionnaire so he can weed out wrong types---ie vegans, smokers disorganized people and women that are habitually late.  He has the results sent to his only friend Gene so he can weed them.  He gets few responses but when Rosie arrives in his office he presumes she is a result of the survey.  However, she meets none of the criteria—she smokes , is always late and worst she is an almost vegan (only eating sustainable fish).  Rosie is meeting with don for another reason his genetics expertise,  She wants to find her biological father---as the ones she call Dad is a personal trainer and certainly not the type of man her brilliant  deceased mother would choose to mate with----She has Don checking all her mother’s past beaus.  She is sure she will find DNA that matches hers.  Hilarity ensues as the search for the match takes them to two continents.

In the meantime the only respondent to Don’s questionnaire is a champion ball room dancer---she wants only to meet fellow dancing experts.  No problem Don believes that he can learn anything from reading about it and practicing----he borrows a skeleton from the anatomy lab to learn how to dance----it also comes in handy at a later date when he things he might have a sexual encounter.  Simison skills are such that this is funny not prurient.  He is an imaginative writer and easily provokes laughter in the reader.  Things get wound up to the reader’s satisfaction.

If anyone has read this book tell me why the author keeps referring to his dead sister that dies from a medical mishap.  

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

I enjoyed The Husband’s Secret very much.  Moriarty tells a good story and keeps you turning pages –compulsively.  She creates three women characters, Cecilia Fitzpatrick, Tess Curtis and Rachel Crowley and fleshes each of them out with compelling back stories.  The story starts with Cecilia (an annoyingly perfect person) discovering a  sealed letter addressed to her from her husband with the ominous TO BE OPENED IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH . John Paul is out of the country when Cecilia finds the letter and he implores her to not open it.  However,  his unexpected early return makes Cecilia very suspicious and she loses the battle with herself and reads the letter.   John  Paul’s  secret is life changing . Tess’s husband has a secret as well he has been having an affair with her favorite cousin.  Rachel Crowley is searching for the person who killed her daughter in a hit and run twenty years ago.  Moriarty takes us through these women’s lives and loves and suffering and weaves them all together in a most believable way.  I enjoyed this book so much I immediately checked out The Hypnotist’s Love Story I enjoyed it even more than Husband.  Try Liane Moriarty she has a realistic view on modern marriage and relationships and tells a good story in a compelling manner---she is not just ‘chick lit’

The Good House by Ann Leary

A Review by Maggie:

Hildy Good is a recovering alcoholic and a real estate agent in  a fictional  New England town.  She is a descendant of a witch that was hung in Salem and because of this connection she claims to be clairvoyant and many believe she is--- However, Hildy is fooling everyone is town with her supernatural skills and her continued sobriety (not).  Hildy knows the townspeople  well and is successful with her business as she has lived here her entire life.  When she sells an expensive  home to beautiful newcomer Rebecca McAllister the two form a bond of friendship which proves a downfall  for both.  This book is not a page turner but  enjoyable and the writer does well with her description of small New England towns and   she creates interesting quirky characters.  I liked Ann Leary’s  memoir  An Innocent, A Broad   very much and that is why I picked up this book.  The Good House is being made into a movie with Meryl Streep playing Hildy .

Cover of Snow by Jenny Milchman

Review by Maggie:

Cover of snow really grabs you in the beginning; it starts with the suicide of Nora Hamilton’s beloved husband Brendan. He leaves no note and it is a mystery why he would commit such an act with such a happy and fulfilled life. Nora is a home restorer and Brendan was a policeman and they seemed to have it all.  Although as the story goes along it is amazing how little Nora really knew her husband or his family. It is set in a small town in the Adirondacks and one really feels the cold and the snow. She establishes an overall feeling of menace----one keeps reading to see what criminal activity is afoot in the small town. Many quirky characters are introduced that seem to have evil motivations but they do not move the story along since there is minimal character development.

By the time I was about half way through I had lost interest as Nora was not especially likeable and the author seemed to be filling the narrative with unnecessary side trips. However, I did finish and found the ending unsatisfying. Milchman sets us up to feel much more was happening in this town and corruption aplenty and it was not the case. This novel is a debut and I think the author is off to a good start but this for me was a ‘thriller that did not thrill’.

The Best of Youth by Michael Dahlie

Review by Maggie:

Henry Lang is a rich young man and a fine person but in spite of his money he does not have self confidence. He does not fit in with the Brooklyn post-grad crowd.  He has no luck with females and does not have male friends. Henry contributes a large sum of money to a start up magazine Suckerhead in the hope he will be one of the gang and the magazine will publish his short stories. Such is not the case his short stories are rejected by the magazine by form letter. 

 He is interested romantically in his fourth cousin but she does not return his feelings. Henry spends lots of time with Abby and visits her rich aunt at her Vermont farm. He loses visiting privileges when he is responsible for killing a herd of fancy goats worth at least a million dollars. Things do not go smoothly for Henry.

After many rejections from literary magazines he is happy enough to take a ghost writing project with an ironclad contract for silence for movie star Jonathan Kipling. However, when the book becomes a huge seller and everyone thinks the star is a wonderful writer Henry is upset as Jonathan is a dreadful writer and a sleazy person to boot. Jonathan took  advantage of Henry’s beloved cousin Abby and gets her pregnant and then abandons her-----Henry is nothing if not loyal as a way of getting back at Kipling’s caddish behavior  he tells the press he is the ghostwriter behind the Kipling book. Naturally he is sued and loses most of his fortune-----however, and this would only be true in novels---Henry feels okay once he learns that Kipling was sued by Abbie and she now has most of Henry’s money lost in the contract dispute. It all sounds rather boring but Michael Dahlie is a very good writer one enjoys the read and wants to see what happens with the hapless Henry.   

Threats by Amelia Gray

Review by Maggie:

Threats by Amelia Gray is weird but compelling. The first page is ominous and one wants to read on to see what is up…. The title comes from threats that David keeps finding in curious places like the sugar bowl, silverware draw and in his dirty laundry.  He has no idea of the origin of these threats.  Nor do we.

 It is a simple story with few characters albeit all total loons. Chico an odd detective, Shelly  a character that spends her time in the laundromat folding clothes, Marie a pseudo psychiatrist that has an office in David ‘s garage of which he was not aware, it seems  before Frannie’s departure  arrangements were made with Marie for the “office space.”  Aileen who was a wacky coworker of the presumed dead wife Frannie.  A few other strangers drift in and out of the narrative.  None of them very involved with the story but they appear mostly to make us aware of what a screwball David is-----however, he is nutty enough without being surrounded by loons. 

David lost his wife under suspicious circumstances.  Chico, the detective assigned to his case, seems to have been involved with the family many years ago before the death of Frannie.   It would seem that David’s mother had killed his sister and was in an asylum but David only says that his mother left the family and moved to a home for women.  It is speculative since nothing is made clear in Threats.

David was once a dentist and lost his license it is implied by filling a tiny baby’s tooth buds.  He has kept all his old dental xrays and finds comfort in sleeping on them.  We never know what happened to Frannie or much about her except she was tall and gangly.

Did I mention this is  a bizarre story I wanted to finish the book to see how she wrapped it up---well she does not wrap things up and I am just as confused as to what happened as I was when I started reading.  She is an engrossing writer with an active imagination.

Fell the Angels by John Kerr

Fell the Angels by John Kerr is a  murder mystery based on a true story, the Charles Bravo murders in the mid 19^th century.  It is a novel involving deception and greed and a bit of passion.  Cecelia was from a well to do family but she had made a bad marriage to a brutal alcoholic.  The only way she could separate from him and still appear respectable was to go to a type of spa.   Once there, she found she liked the atmosphere and promptly started an affair with the married director.  While this sounds scandalous she was separated from her husband and the doctor’s wife had been institutionalized for many years.  However, once Cecelia’s  affair became public her reputation was ruined.  It was thought the only way to save her from complete social oblivion was for her to marry well.   Her second husband was willing to deal with her sullied reputation since he himself had an affair that resulted in a child.  Plus her attractiveness to him was enhanced by her fortune.  Cecilia was forward thinking and canny, she took advantage of a recently enacted law where she could go to keep her fortune if the marriage did not work.  Charles was presented with a pre-nup to sign.   Charles was not pleased but he was a shady character and perhaps had a plan to get her fortune in another manner.  Spoiler alert—The marriage was only 4 months old when Charles became very ill with a mysterious illness and after lingering for three day he dies.  The original murder on which the story is based is never solved but author Kerr neatly wraps this one up.  This is an enjoyable and fast paced novel.

Maggie

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Firmin by Sam Savage

Review by Maggie:

If you like the sound of an anthropomorphic rat and who does’nt ???? Read Firmin by Sam Savage.  It is subtitled the story of a metropolitan low life.  Firmin was born in a Scollay Square bookstore in a nest made from a shredded Finnegan’s wake .. who knows what the author is saying about Joyce.  His mother, Flo was a promiscuous tosspot —his twelve siblings would turnout to have similar tendencies.  Firmin was saved from that fate by being number 13 of her twelve teats.  His sibs learned to love the taste of liquor…  that was mostly what they got when they tried to take nourishment from  mum.  By the time Firmin, the runt of the litter,  got his chance for a snack the others were  passed out from the liquor and milk was available. While his siblings were foraging for food at the nearby adult theater, slurping up spilled beer and dropped popcorn, Firmin was exploring his bookstore.  He learned a love of literature by at first ingesting it and then realizing he liked reading lit better than eating it...

Firmin has charm and is funny and sad.  This little novella is delightful and a tale for anyone who loves literature.

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Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

Review by Maggie:

This is a book about people that live on a tropical island.  The island is engaged in a civil war so all the men and the teachers have left the island.  Mr Watts is a white man who has chosen to stay on the island.  Mr. Watts is considered eccentric by everyone that encounters him.  He walks about hauling his wife in a cart and wearing a red clown nose.  One day he announces he will take over educating the children.  He begins his teaching by reading to the children every day and the book he uses is Great Expectations by Dickens.

The children have very unpleasant lives and spend each day with the sounds of guns in the distance. They love learning about this Pip character.  Mr. Pip, as Mr. Watts  is now called, has a unique teaching style.  Besides reading from the island’s only book he has the older ladies come in and tell the children stories about what they have learned in life.  It is a way for the ladies to get to know Mr Watts/Pip as some of the islanders are very suspicious of him.

War soon comes much closer than just the sound of gunfire and soon soldiers are swarming the area and killing villagers .  The soldiers believe there is a conspiracy afoot on the island led by Mr. Pip.  The villagers cannot convince the soldiers that he is just a fictional character from a book since they cannot provide the soldiers with the book.  It had been stolen from the schoolhouse and inadvertently destroyed.  Daily survival in this place is the objective. 

This does not sound enticing and when I picked up the book to read I thought I am not going to read this.  However, it was a great read and I used it for a book discussion and it was enjoyed by all and provoked good discussion.
~Maggie

Defending Jacob by William Landay

I seldom  read courtroom dramas, they seem rather boring and full of legalese.  I like books with few but well developed characters.  I do not know why I read Defending Jacob but am glad I did.  Character development was basic and while we know little about anyone in the book and what we do know does not make the people likeable.   

A teenager is stabbed and killed in an affluent suburb and the only evidence is a thumb print.  Soon the print is traced to the local DA’s son Jacob and he is arrested and put on trial for murder.  The trial proceeds and the author keeps us guessing if the teenager is guilty of murdering his classmate.  While Jacob is socially dysfunctional that does not make him a murderer.  After his arrest the police are convinced they have the right suspect so they do no more investigating.  A bizzare happening and a written confession helps Jacob beat the rap and the family decides to take a celebratory vacation to get away from the town where the whole family has achieved pariah status—They go off to the Caribbean where it would seem all are having a great vacation when a young woman that has befriended Jacob disappears.  No more.  This book has a surprise ending----Good read.
~Maggie

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Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan

Grace Winter is a newlywed and probably a widow.  Grace thought she was going to live a life of privilege; that was her plan and instead she is fighting for a place in a lifeboat.   She was on an ocean liner in 1914 when an explosion blows her world to hell.  Survivors in the boat have to make alliances,  they are crucial and might determine who lives and dies.  Hardie, the only crew member on the lifeboat is at first seen as a savior and the one capable of saving them.  He is able to grab fish from the sea and he puts himself in charge of water rations. The boat is overloaded and people must be sacrificed for the greater good.    As days go on and people are more desperate Hardie is seen as evil and the decision is made to let him go overboard---hard choices must be made.  This is a story that makes one wonder what one would do to survive.  The story is all told from Grace’s perspective and any action takes place in the boat as people fight for their right to live. 

This is an engrossing debut.
~Maggie

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To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal

Judith Blunt is from a broken home.  She decided as a teen to live with her father, a college professor and she moves from Vermont to Nebraska where she meets Willy Blunt.  He is a carpenter in his mid twenties.  When her father thinks maybe she is maybe going to settle with Willy rather than pursue an education he pulls strings and gets her admitted to Stanford. After some violence connected with Willy’s work she decides maybe getting out of town is wise.  She goes off to California abandoning her great love and does not look back until she is a middle aged woman.

She seems to have a good life and a happy marriage but when her daughter rejects the bedroom set that Judith had as a child she decides to rent a storage unit to keep it.    At any rate,  she goes off the rails and decorates the storage unit like her teenage bedroom bringing back teen memories of her lost love Willy.  She also has suspicions that her husband might be having an affair.  Judith hires a detective to find her old beau and buys a throw away cell phone to receive private messages and spends time in her storage unit/bedroom.  Once Willy is found, Judith decides what she needs is to reconnect with Willy.  She makes some arrangements for someone to cover her work and makes excuses to her husband and off she goes to Nebraska to see Willy Blunt and find what he is up to---  obviously not a good idea. She reconnects with Willy and they revert to their teenage selves.   I  will say no more as I am getting into spoiler territory.  The story is told in alternating chapters Judith as a teenager and Judith as an adult.  The characters are well developed and while I enjoyed the read I did not like the people at all.
~Maggie

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An Unexpected Guest by Anne Korkeakivi

This is a graceful novel about an elegant American wife of a British diplomat that is posted to Paris.  It all takes place in a single day when Clare Morehouse, a capable hostess, is having the most important dinner in her husband’s career----her gracious entertaining will determine if her husband gets the coveted assignment to be the ambassador to Dublin.  Her husband thinks this is exactly what  Clare wants since she is Irish American.   Clare is ambivalent about the assignment  because of a youthful passion that had her involved with an IRA member.  She had unwittingly transported both guns and money for the IRA cause.  Clare keeps her cool in her preparations for the perfect dinner---dealing with a cantankerous cook, an ineffective housekeeper, a call from her son’s prep school headmaster telling her he was being suspended and encountering her IRA guy that she thought dead.  Enough already, but as she is waiting for her dinner guests she sees a terrorist on the television that is suspected of an assassination that day.   Clare knows that he is not the assassin since she was giving him directions to a doctor’s office when the assassination took place. Does she contact the police and risk her husband losing his new assignment? 


This sounds melodramatic but it is not.  It is a well written and a delicious read and Clare is a well developed and likeable character.
~Maggie


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Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick

If you read Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick you know that he writes very sinister fiction---Reliable was a debut novel and a tough act to follow.  However, Heading Out to Wonderful is just as compelling and equally dark. 

 
Charlie Beale arrives in Brownsburg with two suitcases---one full of knives ,the other full of cash.  We do not get any back story to why or how he accumulated the cash.  But he soon gets a job and he is the best butcher ever---so we know why he has the knives.  He soon falls in love with the wife of the richest man in town, Boaty’s wife Sylvan Glass---Sylvan was not her birth name but we are never told that as it would be according to her, unbelievable.  Many questions are never answered:  Where did Charlie come from?  What is his background?  What about family and why did he take a five year old for his meetings with Sylvan?  Charlie also has a problem being contained in a house and prefers sleeping on the ground by his river land. 


In spite of unanswered questions and unreasonable behaviors this is a great read---unputdownable.
~Maggie


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Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl is a page turner with well developed characters.  The story is told from alternating his/her points of view.   Nick and Amy Dunn are a couple downsized from big New York City jobs and they return to Nick’s down at the heels hometown for a new lease on life. Nick and Amy are about to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary when Amy goes missing.  Amy has left behind an extensive diary and clues to her disappearance.  Also, Amy is the child of famous authors, and as the star of  their books, the national media is interested in her disappearance.  As the diary is read and the clues followed, Nick realizes it is all an elaborate hoax and that Amy is setting him up for her murder while everyone else including Amy’s parents are thinking he killed her.  We soon find out that Nick was not the ideal husband and Amy far from a good wife.  Amy is not only a bad wife but a diabolical person.  I hope I have not given away too much.  I do not want to ruin an excellent read for you.  There are no draggy parts and one changes sides from Nick to Amy---as to who was the wronged party. 

This is a great read and a suspense novel a bit different from usual fare-----loved it.
~Maggie

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Europa Editions

Europa Editions is a publishing company founded in 2005 and based in New York.  It publishes European authors in translation.  The books are all the same size paperbacks and have publisher’s name and a stork logo on the front cover.  The first translation they published was  Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante  I had read and enjoyed it  The first best seller they had was The Elegance pf the Hedghog by Muriel Barbery but I still took no notice of this publisher.  I thought I was just lucky finding these good reads.                    

I was reading An Accident in August  by Laurence Cosse and enjoying it when I realized it was a Europa Publication. Then I started paying attention and realized I have never come across a boring one.  According to Wikipedia The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky is the 100^th publication of this company.  The company publishes about 20 titles a year.  I have read another title by Alina Bronsky and enjoyed it.  Will read her latest.  My favorite read from last year is an Europa Publication A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth.

~Maggie

Heft by Liz Moore

Review by Maggie:

Arthur Opp is nearly 600 lbs and has not left his Brooklyn brownstone in nearly ten years.  Fortunately for him he owns his home and has a trust fund that enables him to have all the food he wants delivered to his home.  Although he was always misfit he was an academic before becoming a recluse.  He kept up a correspondence with a former student but has not heard from her in years.    Out of the blue he gets a letter and she wants to visit with him----Arthur feels he must warn her about his living conditions (he has not been upstairs in his house in many years climbing stairs is too difficult) but he welcomes the idea of being back in touch.  She has secrets of her own---one being she has a teenage son-----

Soon Arthur has cleaning lady that he develops a friendship with and we then hear of his back story.  In the meantime, the novel alternates between Arthur’s life and the tale of  Kel the teenage son of his former student.  It is easy to like Arthur and I found his sections more interesting than Kel the teenage boy.   It is a very compelling read----one cannot help but like Arthur.
~Maggie

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The Women by T.C. Boyle

Review by Maggie:

If you liked Paris Wife you will love The Women by T.C. Boyle.   Boyle takes a look at the scandalous life of Wright through his wives and mistress----he had three wives and Mamah Cheney the woman he left his first marriage for----This book is told through the eyes of a Japanese intern who arrives at Taliesin to apprentice with the master.  In his first week there Wright has the intern peeling potatoes. The author uses the experiences of the women, Kitty his first wife, who even though she bore him six children gets very little attention in the book, Mamah the tragic mistress, Maude an opiate addict and Olga his exotic last wife. . .

Wright lived an unconventional life and his public life was always tied to what was going on in his tempestuous private life.  

This is an excellent read---I liked it much better than Loving Frank by Nancy Horan which came out about the same time.   Wright led such a colorful life driven by his appetites and huge ego and his refusal to conform to societal norms he makes a wonderful subject for novelists especially one as good as Boyle.
~Maggie

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Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens

Review by Maggie:

Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens is a good read but not as enjoyable as her first novel Still Missing.  However, I have heard from many people that they liked it better than her first.  I would be interested in hearing your opinion.  I thought it could use some editing and that it went on for about 100 pages too long. Telling the story through her therapy sessions she is able to convey a sense of stress. This is an effective story telling method that worked well in her first novel. Sara, her character, is an adoptee who is eager to find her birth parents. When she does find them it is a disaster. Her mother wants nothing to do with her and Sara does not want her father to know her. Character development is nil so there is no one that we like. The character we learn the most about is the serial killer father and we end up finding him sympathetic. This book lacks suspense and is bit predictable.

As she did in Still Missing she has the surprise fiend at the end.  As I mentioned before, some patrons are telling me they liked it better than her first novel---what do you think?

~Maggie

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True Things About Me by Deborah Davies

This is a story about a nameless, childless, single homeowner ( I think we are told about the house so we know that she was once a responsible person).  She has a job at the benefits bureau and in her capacity as a counselor she encounters a handsome ex con---- within a half hour she meets him in a parking lot and has mindless sex with him.  From that time on she is in thrall to him.  Her behavior is wrong and self destructive but she cannot stop herself.    Ms. X  is in such a compulsive cycle she stops going to work  and neglects her family and only friend.    He steals from her and even beats her and she is totally controlled by him.    We are not given any background on him and do not understand her addiction.  We just read on as Ms. X descends to the gutter.  It is a offbeat story but very readable.

~Maggie

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