Reviews by Janice P. (South Woodstock, VT)

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Leaving
Leaving: A Novel
by Roxana Robinson
Deep and Real (12/10/2023)
I could not put this book down once I started, so swiftly does Roxana Robinson draw us into the lives of her two protagonists, long-ago lovers in their youth who meet by chance in their "golden years." Sarah is divorced, Warren is unhappily married, both have adult children …more
A Council of Dolls
A Council of Dolls: A Novel
by Mona Susan Power
Powerful Reading (7/4/2023)
This absorbing novel is narrated by three generations of Native American girls and their cherished dolls, who "speak" to each of them out of their own suppressed inner wisdom, guiding and protecting them, absorbing the racial trauma that the girls cannot yet comprehend. …more
Moonrise Over New Jessup
Moonrise Over New Jessup
by Jamila Minnicks
Could Separate Be Equal? (12/26/2022)
This striking picture of the Civil Rights movement, from a Southern black perspective not so far included included in the mainstream white-dominated narrative, raises that question through the compelling emotional struggle of Alice Young, who flees a plantation-minded, …more
The Poet's House
The Poet's House
by Jean Thompson
The Lives of Poets (6/15/2022)
This is a novel for anyone who loves poetry—a bildungsroman that begins when a capable, bright but insecure young woman accidentally falls in love with poetry. To her great surprise: Carla is convinced she's not college material, not a reader let alone a writer. While …more
Heartbreak
Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey
by Florence Williams
A Helpful Grasp of Grief (11/17/2021)
Chances are that if you're reading this review, it's because you, too, are struggling to cope with some type of loss.

After "three decades of togetherness… I would be facing an uncertain future without the partner I'd had since I was 18 years old," Florence Williams begins …more
Honor
Honor
by Thrity Umrigar
More Than a Gripping Story (9/14/2021)
I've been a fan of Thrity Umrigar's fiction since the 2006 publication of The Space Between Us. A Mumbai native who emigrated to the US at 21, her novels all explore the various "spaces" between us—caste or class, religion, race, above all gender—within the social context …more
At the Chinese Table
At the Chinese Table: A Memoir with Recipes
by Carolyn Phillips
A Feast (6/21/2021)
This riveting memoir of the author's lasting love affair with China—with its history, culture, cuisines, and with the man who eventually became her husband—is the liveliest portrait of a nation I've ever read. Carolyn Phillips went to Taipei straight out of college to learn …more
Hieroglyphics
Hieroglyphics
by Jill McCorkle
Palimpsest (6/21/2020)
"Palimpsest" might be a better title for this novel which alternates between four characters retrieving their memories at different points in time: some are recent, some buried, some "reread" in light of new experiences. Two of the characters, Frank and Lil, are a longtime …more
Afterlife
Afterlife
by Julia Alvarez
Life Itself (4/8/2020)
At one point near the emotional climax of this profound, lyrical novel, Antonia, who has recently retired and has just lost her husband, ponders how often a milestone in her life has been marked by a major public tragedy. The publication of Afterlife (the first adult novel …more
Small Days and Nights
Small Days and Nights: A Novel
by Tishani Doshi
A Poet's Novel (12/11/2019)
Tishani Doshi is a poet. So it's not surprising that she brings a poet's craft to her first novel, one that unfolds in vignettes of vivid sensual detail and emotional resonance, and that tell a story in the way a lyric poem does— indirectly, through small moments drawn, …more
D-Day Girls
D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II
by Sarah Rose
Worth the Effort (3/25/2019)
Sarah Rose puts her purpose boldly in her subtitle. Her well-researched profiles of six of the 30 female operatives the British Special Operations Executive sent to Occupied and Vichy France, as Resistance organizers, suppliers, saboteurs, makes a strong case for the …more
A Ladder to the Sky
A Ladder to the Sky: A Novel
by John Boyne
A Guy You'll Love to Hate (9/6/2018)
In A Ladder to the Sky, would-be famous writer Maurice Swift will stop at nothing to advance his name, to the point of appropriating the work of others. That's no plot-spoiler—it's the point made by the book's clever cover design. The question for readers quickly becomes, …more
A Place for Us
A Place for Us
by Fatima Farheen Mirza
A Triumph (3/27/2018)
I'm in awe of Fatima Farheen Mirza. At 26 she has written a novel that --in its depth of psychological insight and its breadth of ideas--takes its place alongside the greatest from the past two centuries. Her portrait of an Indian-American Muslim family of five, each …more
The Milk Lady of Bangalore
The Milk Lady of Bangalore: An Unexpected Adventure
by Shoba Narayan
A Disappointment (1/6/2018)
The author is a naturalized US citizen who returns with her husband and family from their privileged lifestyle in midtown Manhattan to her native India, to introduce the children to their heritage. She befriends Sarala, a local vendor who sells fresh raw milk from her own …more
The Heart's Invisible Furies
The Heart's Invisible Furies: A Novel
by John Boyne
The Heart's Invisible Furies (6/29/2017)
John Boyne is simply one of the great writers of our day. He's best known for one of his children's novels, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, but I think he deserves to be better known for his many novels for adults, including The Absolutist and A History of Loneliness. Boyne' …more
The Barrowfields
The Barrowfields
by Phillip Lewis
Like Father, Like Son, But.... (2/21/2017)
Henry is named for his father, resembles his father, and takes after his father, a book lover from childhood, an eccentric, gentle man of melancholic temperament, lively imagination, and occasional sly wit. Both love storytelling, the piano, the solitude of nature.

Like his …more
All Is Not Forgotten
All Is Not Forgotten
by Wendy Walker
All is Not Forgotten (10/17/2015)
A tenth-grade girl is brutally raped and tortured; as she lies sedated, her parents are given a choice that opens the fault line in their own marriage: whether or not to use a memory-erasing drug treatment that will spare her PTSD and a difficult recovery, but will also …more
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