BookBrowse | Book Reviews and Recommendations

Reviews by Sandi W.

Power Reviewer

If you'd like to be able to easily share your reviews with others, please join BookBrowse.

Old Newgate Road
by Keith Scribner

our past can predict our future (2/6/2019)

This is one of the better novels I have read that relates to men. A story of three generations, son, father and grandfather, all different. But all still trying to move through the guilt of the past.

Although I thought that this book started off a bit slow, it took no time …more

Waiting for Eden
by Elliot Ackerman

genius of consciousness (2/6/2019)

Given the time to think about this book for the last two days, I have changed my rating from 4 stars to 5 stars. Not many books get this rating from me, but in afterthought I truly believe that this book should be one of them.

Such a sad book. Sad, from the narrator of the …more

An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good
by Helene Tursten

just a little devil (2/6/2019)

What a charming little book. Translated from Swedish, being made into a TV series in Sweden, I feel cheated that we are not also getting it in the United States.

Eighty-eight year old Maud is just a little devil. Set, and solitary, in her ways and always looking for the …more

The Hiding Place
by C. J. Tudor

Authors second book... (2/6/2019)

For those unaware, this book has a second title - The Taking of Annie Thorne.

This is the second book written by C. J. Tudor. I was very quick to secure a copy of it because I liked The Chalk Man so well. Sadly, I must say that the two books are very dissimilar.

I liked this …more

The Lost Man
by Jane Harper

imagination and brilliant storytelling (2/6/2019)

How refreshing! Just a really nice novel with a general fiction story line. Set in Australia, in the very outback, with minimal characters and subtle plot surrounding a family. The novel speaks of love, relationships, heredity, loss and endurance. Of how things are handed …more

The Affairs of the Falcóns
by Melissa Rivero

Heart wrenching... (1/7/2019)

Unsettled, desperate and heart wrenching, this story takes us into the lives of one undocumented immigrant family. Afraid to go home and afraid to stay, the Falcons are left living off family, struggling to find work, learning the language, avoiding crime and fitting into …more

The Dinner
by Herman Koch

A cold, horrendous act of violence (12/6/2018)

3.75 stars

Man, what a crappy family. Each person in this group of people has a problem, and one that supersedes the problem that they are all drawn together to solve. There is not one character in this whole novel that is likable. Some of their actions are very …more

Three Things About Elsie
by Joanna Cannon

Grabbing Premise, fizzeling story... (11/14/2018)

A study in aging - the loneliness, the loss of memory and the secrets kept for years.

Florence Claybourne has fallen in her apartment. She lives in a retirement home and she knows she will soon be found. As she lays on her floor she begins to relive the secrets of her past. …more

A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl
by Jean Thompson

bleak and sorrowful (11/14/2018)

This was a book that I probably would have set down, if it were not that I was reading it with a group. But because I was, I forged on, and am now fairly happy that I did.

The first half of this book was frustrating. I felt the characters were shallow and basically portrayed …more

Where the Crawdads Sing
by Delia Owens

The author gives you the visual, the characters give you the familiarity (11/14/2018)

Seldom does a book leave you with a warm and completed feeling. Especially one revealing a murderer in its closing paragraphs. But this is the book that managed to do just that.

Delia Owens introduces you to a wonderful list of characters. Then she sends them on their way to …more

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America
by Beth Macy

Macy humanized this story... (11/14/2018)

For me this was a book that needed a bit of time, after reading, to be able to review it. The author Beth Macy is a favorite author of mine. I enjoy the way she lays her information out. Every book I have read by her was about a vastly different subject, but all were …more

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls
by Anissa Gray

Paying for regret... (11/5/2018)

Relationships - terrifying! And when they are relationships between a Mother and her daughter they become even more confusing, more highly emotional and possibly more devastating. Then add in relationships with siblings, runaways, lies and prison and you have this amazing …more

Force of Nature: Aaron Falk Mystery #2
by Jane Harper

Five start out...four return (10/30/2018)

Jane Harper has done it again. Staying in the Australian vein, again engaging with Detective Aaron Falk, this second book of the series is another great who-done-it. Her first book, The Dry, was exceptionally good, both in story plot and writing. This second book is also …more

The Winter Soldier
by Daniel Mason

Starts slow and builds up speed.... (10/6/2018)

I had a lot of trouble getting into this book. I felt it read like a foreign dictionary. I was disappointed. I so liked Mason's book The Piano Tuner and was excited to get a chance to read this one. I had so much trouble starting this novel that I almost set it aside. I …more

A Ladder to the Sky: A Novel
by John Boyne

A life in chapters... (10/6/2018)

This may be book that you will love to hate, or hate to love? Boyne did a fabulous job on the three separate chapters. He pulled them all together by high-lighting one person, Maurice Swift. Each chapter told by a different person, each chapter a different period in life, …more

Sold on a Monday
by Kristina McMorris

Sincer, Absorbing, Historical read... (8/29/2018)

Great historical story set in 1931 Pennsylvania. Based on the research of a factual picture showing a sign selling 4 children on a stoop in Chicago in 1948 - the desperation of just one family. McMorris, after following up with the children in that picture and learning of …more

Vox
by Christina Dalcher

Possible - maybe... (8/29/2018)

Now this is my type of science fiction. There were no aliens, no grotesque monsters, other world planets or space travel. Just a super unnatural futuristic twist on every day life. What can happen in the years to come? What happens when you ignore what is happening? When …more

The Travelling Cat Chronicles
by Hiro Arikawa, Philip Gabriel

For the love of the cat... (8/28/2018)

Such a great little read - light, but with so much moxie. You can read this and see a light little humorous cat loving novella or you can read it as strengthful, inspiring, message-giving prose.

Narrated in part by Nana, the cat, we see life from both Satoru's view and also …more

Sometimes I Lie
by Alice Feeney

OMG! What did I just read?? (7/15/2018)

OMG! What did I just read?? This book pushed me to keep turning pages. And with each page I turned it became more confusing and less clear - but I could not put it down! Just when I thought I might be beginning to understand - ZAP! - another twist that took me right back to …more

Clock Dance: A Novel
by Anne Tyler

Strong, practical and magical... (7/15/2018)

Anne Tyler happens to be one of my favorite authors. She can take a can of beans and make a whole meal out of it. Very talented author who writes about the everyday, often mundane parts of every mans life. I have always found her character development to be strong, her …more

BookBrowse Book Club

The Jackal's Mistress
by Chris Bohjalian

From the New York Times bestselling author of Hour of the Witch, a Civil War love story of a Confederate wife and a wounded Yankee.

About Discuss
Dream Count
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A searing new novel from the bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists, exploring four women's desires.

About Discuss

Members Recommend

The Antidote
by Karen Russell

A gripping dust bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town.

Read the Reviews
The Dream Hotel
by Laila Lalami

A Read with Jenna pick. A riveting novel about one woman's fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

Read the Reviews
Fagin the Thief
by Allison Epstein

A thrilling reimagining of the world of Charles Dickens, as seen through the eyes of the infamous Jacob Fagin, London's most gifted pickpocket, liar, and rogue.

Read the Reviews
Raising Hare
by Chloe Dalton

A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, and loss through one woman's friendship with a wild hare.

Read the Reviews
Jane and Dan at the End of the World
by Colleen Oakley

Date Night meets Bel Canto in this hilarious tale.

Read the Reviews
Girl Falling
by Hayley Scrivenor

The USA Today bestselling author of Dirt Creek returns with a story of grief and truth.

Read the Reviews

Who Said...

Not doing more than the average is what keeps the average down.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

B O a F F T

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.