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Reviews by Laura P. (Atlanta, GA)

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L.A. Women
L.A. Women
by Ella Berman
Not my cup of tea (3/1/2025)
I did not enjoy this book. It's the story of two L.A. women, both writers and friendly with one another,, who find themselves engaged in a jealousy-fueled competition on the career front. All of the major characters - the women, their partners, their business associates -- …more
The Adversary
The Adversary: A Novel
by Michael Crummey
NOT my favorite (12/28/2023)
I have such mixed feelings about this book. The writing, particularly the descriptive language, is powerful, and the character development is superb. The characters, however, are despicable. There are three "Avengers" in the story, which is set in the early 18th century in …more
Daughters of Shandong
Daughters of Shandong
by Eve J. Chung
A Study in Perseverence and Family Dynamics (11/1/2023)
A fictionalized version of the author's family history, Daughters of Shandong is set during the Chinese Revolution (1948 - 1960) and traces the story of the wealthy Nationalist Ang family. When their town of Zhucheng is threatened by the Communists, the father of the family …more
Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain: A Love Story
by Vesna Goldsworthy
Culture Clash (1/13/2023)
Milena Urbanska is a "red princess," the daughter of the vice president of a Soviet communist satellite, enjoying relative privilege in her home country. When a friend asks her to serve as a translator for a British poet who is accepting a minor prize, she falls in love and …more
Moonrise Over New Jessup
Moonrise Over New Jessup
by Jamila Minnicks
A Different View (12/4/2022)
Jamila Minnicks's new novel looks at the Civil Rights Movement from a different perspective. Set in an independent all-Black town in Alabama, Minnicks posits the arrival of Alice Young, a young woman fleeing an abusive white landlord in another town whose bus ticket runs …more
The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise
The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise
by Colleen Oakley
Road trip! (10/4/2022)
Colleen Oakley's Thelma-and Louise-tinged road trip novel involves two quirky characters -- 58-year-old Louise Wilt has just been released from rehab after hip surgery, and needs some help around the house. 21-year-old Tanner Quimby, a Northwestern University women's soccer …more
Free
Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History
by Lea Ypi
Defining "freedom" (11/9/2021)
In December 1990, when the "Velvet Revolution" came to Albania (the last of the Stalinist socialist governments in Eastern Europe), Lea Ypi, now a professor of political theory at the London School of Economics, was 11 years old. She experienced the transition from …more
Smalltime
Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob
by Russell Shorto
Smalltime (2/23/2021)
Author Russell Shorto, whose oeuvre is narrative history, accomplishes three things with his latest work. First, he presents an engaging narrative history of a small town mob unit operating in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, from World War II until the 1960s. The star of this …more
The Big Finish
The Big Finish
by Brooke Fossey
THe BIg FInish (10/11/2019)
Eighty-eight-year-old Duffy Sinclair and his roommate Carl Upton consider themselves lucky to live at Centennial Assisted Living -- it sure beats the less upscale nursing home across town. Staying there depends on good health and good behavior. The behavior part gets …more
Yale Needs Women
Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant
by Anne Gardiner Perkins
First Steps (7/5/2019)
In the fall of 1969, Yale admitted its first women - 575 of them - to its undergraduate college.The pressure came from male students who were selecting coed universities in preference to the all-male Yale, and the school feared losing its preeminence to other elite schools. …more
House of Stone
House of Stone
by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma
House of Stone (12/15/2018)
Narrator Zamani, an orphan himself, attempts to attach himself to a family (Abednigo and Agnes) with whom he boards and whose 17-year-old son has recently disappeared. His approach seems to be to collect the family history and adopt it as his own, so he becomes a surrogate …more
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls
by Anissa Gray
Family dynamics (10/6/2018)
Anissa Gray's family drama focuses on the Butler family. When their mother dies and dad, a traveling evangelist, is largely absent, oldest sister Althea takes over. Then Althea and her husband Proctor are imprisoned following a food stamp and charity swindle, and younger …more
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby
by Cherise Wolas
Not My Favorite (5/27/2017)
This was not the book I expected based on the First Impression description. The Resurrection of Joan Ashby tries to do too much,employing too many stylistic devises. The writing is confusing, inconsistent, and wordy. Part 1: Joan of the title is a writer, author of two …more
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
by Kathleen Rooney
Lillian Boxfish is one cool lady! (9/18/2016)
Kathleen Rooney's novel-styled-as-a-memoir tells a story inspired by the life of poet and ad-woman Margaret Fishback, who was in fact the highest-paid female advertising copy manager in the world in the 1930s, during her career at R.H. Macy's in New York City. Lillian …more
Les Parisiennes
Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved, and Died Under Nazi Occupation
by Anne Sebba
Les Parisiennes (7/6/2016)
Anne Sebba's history of the German occupation of Paris, seen through the eyes of its women, has much to recommend it. The book is extensively researched, using both primary and secondary sources, and covers the impact of the Paris Occupation by the Nazis from a variety of …more
Frank & Ava
Frank & Ava: In Love and War
by John Brady
Frank and Ava (8/5/2015)
Frank and Ava recounts the story of the "relationship" of two celebrities who come off as shallow, self-absorbed, impulsive hedonists demanding loyalty from others but unwilling to offer the same. While there are plenty of interesting books written about such people, this …more
Her Name Is Rose
Her Name Is Rose
by Christine Breen
Her Name is Rose (2/6/2015)
When Rose's adoptive mother Iris Bowen faces a breast cancer scare, she decides she needs to fulfill a promise to her dying husband: she goes looking for Rose's birth mother.The search leads her from Ireland to Boston and back again, while Rose, a student at the Royal …more
A Fireproof Home for the Bride
A Fireproof Home for the Bride
by Amy Scheibe
A Fireprrof Home for the Bride (12/22/2014)
Amy Scheibe's tale of racial and ethnic discrimination in the upper Midwest of the 1950s is a great read for the last 100 pages - but the first 267 are a slog, poorly paced with wooden characters and little plot direction. Is it a coming of age story? A love story? A murder …more
Mating for Life
Mating for Life
by Marissa Stapley
Mating for LIfe? Maybe (3/13/2014)
Mating for Life is something of an ironic title for this novel, since it's something none of its characters seem to do very well. And are there characters! Meet hippie folksinger mom Helen, her three daughters (all by different fathers, none of whom married mom), their …more
Doing Harm
Doing Harm
by Kelly Parsons
Medical Malpractice (11/4/2013)
Dr. Steve Mitchell has the world by the tail until, overconfident, he makes some serious mistakes that play into the plans of a killer working his hospital. The book's strengths: Author Kelly Parsons, a doctor, knows what he's talking about , so the medicine is convincing, …more
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