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If We Were Villains
If We Were Villains
by M. L. Rio
If we were villiana (3/18/2017)
4.5. A small elite school, a theater program that is only about Shakespeare, seven friends, seniors, together from the beginning, strong, intense friendships formed. Oliver, our narrator, one of the seven, just released from spending tempers in prison. How did something so …more
The Barrowfields
The Barrowfields
by Phillip Lewis
The Barrowfields (2/18/2017)
As soon as I started reading I was intrigued and pulled into the story. The house, this gorgeous, spooky sounding house, a house with a tragic past, now home to a young Henry, his sister Threnody, mom and dad, Henry the elder. A man in love with literature, music, wanting …more
Mercies in Disguise
Mercies in Disguise: A Story of Hope, a Family's Genetic Destiny, and the Science That Rescued Them
by Gina Kolata
Mercies in disguise (11/17/2016)
Having a neurological disease is challenging, I live with one, but having a neurological disease that no one can diagnose, that has no treatment, no cure is terrifying. Having the symptoms of both Parkinson disease and Alzheimer, the inflicted slowly degenerate until death …more
North of Crazy
North of Crazy: A Memoir
by Neltje
North of crazy (6/15/2016)
Didn't like this one too much, at least not the first half. My favorite parts were about the natural settings in Wyoming. Despite her wealth her life was certainly not ideal, but many people's aren't. The writing was good, especially in the second half, very descriptive. …more
Heat and Light
Heat and Light
by Jennifer Haigh
Heat and Light (5/22/2016)
Long time readers of this author knows that she doesn't shy away from difficult subjects, instead she tackles them head on. In this one she return to Bakerton, Pennsylvania whose glory days are gone. One know for their Bakerton coal, the town is now in its death throes. …more
If I Forget You
If I Forget You
by Thomas Christopher Greene
If I forget you (5/1/2016)
A common enough plot, Henry and Margo meet in college, fall in love. Henry is from the working class, Margo from the very wealthy. Something happens and they are forced to separate. Seeing each other twenty years later, many truths come to light. So what happens next?

This …more
The Best Place on Earth
The Best Place on Earth: Stories
by Ayelet Tsabari
Best place on earth (4/11/2016)
Another great grouping of short stories, the first story, Tikkan, absolutely blew me away and it kept going from there. Set in Israel these stories feature people coming from other countries in the Middle East and some from even farther away. In one story a group of …more
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos: A Novel
by Dominic Smith
The Last Painting of Sara (3/29/2016)
1600s, Holland, Sara is the first woman admitted to the artist's guild. Her husband was a painter of landscapes, but at that time woman were expected to paint only still life's. After a terrible tragedy changes the fabric of their family, Sara paints a landscape. This …more
The Book of Memory
The Book of Memory
by Petina Gappah
Book of Memory (3/3/2016)
Interesting premise for this well written book. Memory is an albino black, convicted of the murder of the white man who raised her. Given the death sentence she waits, incarcerated in the maximum security prison in Harare, Zimbabwe. She is our narrator and this is her story. …more
Sweetgirl
Sweetgirl
by Travis Mulhauser
Sweetgirl (2/10/2016)
The first thing I noticed about this book was how wonderfully it was written, the words and the plot just flowed aimlessly. Nothing was forced, it was all as natural as a story being told to one person by another. Another thing was the location, grit lit in Northern …more
The Silence of the Sea
The Silence of the Sea: A Thora Gudmundsdottir Thriller
by Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Silence and the sea (2/9/2016)
A luxury yacht, repossessed from its crooked wealthy owner sails from Lisbon to Iceland. On the dock waiting is an older couple and small child, they are waiting form the rest of the family. But when the yacht arrives it is empty, no people, no apparent bodies. Thora is …more
The Blue Line
The Blue Line
by Ingrid Betancourt
the Blue line (2/7/2016)
3.5 This book goes back and forward in time, a structure that I usually don't like but which worked for this book, at least until the end. A vivid and graphic description of the torture and violence that was Argentina in the seventies, the military coups and the disappeared. …more
Be Frank With Me
Be Frank With Me
by Julia Claiborne Johnson
Be Frank with me (2/6/2016)
Frank is the definitive star of this story and seriously I can't remember the last time I have enjoyed a character more. Frank, is nine, going on forty in some ways, yet emotionally still a child. He is smarter that a ridiculous amount of the population and loves old movies …more
Tuesday Nights in 1980
Tuesday Nights in 1980
by Molly Prentiss
Tuesday Nights in 1980 (1/19/2016)
New York, on the cusp of 1980, the changing art scene of Soho before it became officially known as Soho. Following the lives of three individuals for the next year: Lucy in her early twenties coming from Idaho to experience life in a big city, James who after college has no …more
Fallen Land
Fallen Land
by Taylor Brown
Fallen Land (11/20/2015)
Violence amidst great beauty. Two amazing young characters, Callum and Ava, and a wonderful trusty horse named Reiver. On the run from bounty hunters under the mistaken notion that Callum had killed their renegade Colonel. Nearing the end of the Civil War, there is much …more
Thirteen Ways of Looking
Thirteen Ways of Looking: Fiction
by Colum McCann
13 ways of looking (9/1/2015)
As soon as one steps into these stories, it is apparent to readers of McCann that you are entering a world only he can create. He notices the little things in life, and in simple but brilliant prose relates these to the reader. It is this talent that lets readers thoroughly …more
Best Boy
Best Boy
by Eli Gottlieb
Best Boy (8/28/2015)
As soon as you start reading you enter the mind and thoughts of fifty something Todd Aaron, an autistic man who has lived at the Payton Living Center for a good portion of his life. The wonderful and sometimes strange ways he looks at things and people. One cannot help but …more
The Beautiful Bureaucrat
The Beautiful Bureaucrat
by Helen Phillips
Beautiful Bureaucrat (8/26/2015)
I just finished this and am still not sure of what I read. A fever dream, a hallucination, possibly a nightmare, maybe all of them? All I know is that I started reading this and was hooked, wanted to find out what was going on.

Josephine and Joseph move to the city from the …more
Infinite Home
Infinite Home
by Kathleen Alcott
Infinite Home (8/23/2015)
For years, Edith has offered a home in her Brooklyn Brownstone, a building that her now dead husband, Declan, had bought for them after they were married. Their daughter left home for Haight Ashbury he seventies and hasn't been seen again, their son, the villain of the …more
The Tsar of Love and Techno
The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories
by Anthony Marra
The Tsar of love (8/20/2015)
I loved his first novel and though this is a book of short stories, I loved this one too. It is not often that one can read a book of shorts, connected thought they are and feel like one has indeed read a whole novel. This one starts with a censor in the 1930's, under …more
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