Although its subtitle implies that THE BOYS IN THE BOAT is about the American eight-oar rowing crew in the 1936 Olympics, the book is more than that. It's mostly about what led to the formation of the crew. Also, the story is made personal by its concentration on one of the boys, Joe Rantz.

If THE BOYS IN THE BOAT was fiction, I wouldn't have enjoyed it. That's because the whole thing is so unlikely: Joe overcame such odds in his personal life. None of the boys came from money when they suddenly emerged from Seattle, a city few were familiar with then, to beat the prestigious Eastern schools (e.g., Yale and Harvard). The boat and the boys dealt with several disadvantages in Germany, both before and during their races, only to beat their competition. None of this story would be believable if I didn't know it was true.

Throughout this book, juxtaposed against Joe's and the boys' story, is Hitler's creation of the fictional Germany that he wanted to present to the world during the Olympics there. As he hides the real Germany, the US ignores him, and the boys and other athletes just work on getting there.

When the story was over, I didn't want it to be over. So I read the end notes. You'll probably do that, too.

ACROSS MANY MOUNTAINS: A TIBETAN FAMILY'S EPIC JOURNEY FROM OPPRESSION TO FREEDOM by Yangzom Brauen is made up of descriptions of one Tibetan family’s progression through different cultures, beginning in Tibet before the Chinese invasion and ending in Switzerland until they do a complete circle and return to Tibet many years later after the Chinese allow them back in. Each culture the family moves to is more technologically advanced than the last. This book is about their ability to cope in each new culture and how they view Tibet on their return. At least, that’s what I thought Brauen intended.

Actually, only two members of the family, the mother and daughter, make it all the way. The daughter’s daughter, Brauen, did not make the journey as the title and cover picture imply. She was born and raised in Switzerland but likes to call both Switzerland and Tibet her countries. Although she did go to Tibet with her mother, brother, grandmother, and Swiss father many years later, their return wasn’t permanent.

But the book doesn’t end there. Maybe it ought to. Instead, it continues. Notice, I say the book continues, not the story. That is because my impression was that the continuation was another story, that of Brauen’s protests against oppression of Tibet and her hope that Tibet not be forgotten.

I have a problem with books that have no dialog, with unemotional, impersonal descriptions of people and things. That’s how this book is, especially in its first half. It contains so many details it drags. Details should enhance a story. But here they mostly don’t because the author tries to cover too much.

This is the risk I find in most nonfiction. Although I prefer nonfiction over fiction, most nonfiction fails for me because most authors don’t know how to write it other than to state the facts.

Although the second half of this book is better than the first, it, too, is made up of many impersonal descriptions. I was never made angry, sad, touched, or happy for anyone.

This book has received many favorable reviews on amazon.com and goodreads.com. Maybe you should believe them and not me. Maybe you will be able to manage to keep your mind from wandering. But I think that will be a trick.

After reading three undesirable books in a row, I hit gold with Alice LaPlante's TURN OF MIND. It's not a happy book. It may even break your heart. But it's well written, and its subject matter, at least some of it, hit home and should concern anyone who has a mother.

TURN OF MIND is such a unique literary thriller. It is told from the point of view of Dr. Jennifer White, a 64-year-old orthopedic doctor who specialized in hand surgery. White is now unlicensed because she is suffering from dementia. (Sixty-four seems like early onset to me, but what do I know?) Some days are better than others, but it's getting progressively worse, horrifyingly worse.

White's good friend and neighbor, Amanda, has been murdered. Also, for some reason, four of her fingers have been removed in a surgically precise way. Of course, this points to White. But two other members of White's family, her son Mark and daughter Fiona, both adults, also may have had reason to murder Amanda.

Throughout TURN OF MIND, we learn more and more, through White's sporadic remembrances, about Amanda, Mark, and Fiona. Who is guilty of Amanda's murder, and why did they do it? Why were her fingers removed? Does White ever remember?

More than that, the reader sees the story as a dementia victim, one who is getting progressively worse, would see it. White's remembrances are always confused, and she can never articulate them, at least not so they are understandable.

What will become of White?

My only criticism of this book is its lack of quotation marks. There is no good reason for this. LaPlante italicizes when someone other than White is speaking. It was sometimes difficult for me to tell whether White was speaking or thinking. In my opinion, quotation marks add to a book's readability, and it is rude for an
author not to use them.

TURN OF MIND is LaPlante's first. She wrote it a few years ago, so you may have already read it. If not, do.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN is not what I was expecting. I expected a book about a teenager who committed a mass school shooting. But WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN is also about life with an evil child.

This is the mother’s tale told from the beginning—the very beginning—of that child. She writes it as a series of letters to her husband. So, throughout the book, the reader is kept guessing about where her husband is now.

But the mother’s story isn’t just descriptions of life with Kevin. Each of her letters is long on psychology and philosophy, too.

The mother’s big question: whose fault was it? Certainly, the reader has to wonder whether the mother’s own attitude contributed to Kevin’s evil nature. But it seems to me that the father was even more at fault. I think, as a matter of fact, he was a big part of the problem.

And then there’s Celia. She doesn’t appear until later in the book, but she serves to emphasize Kevin’s God-awful evil.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN is probably a five-star book. I give it only four stars, though, because the evil is so difficult to read that I had to put the book down often.

EVERYONE BRAVE IS FORGIVEN is about bravery. Most of the book takes place in England at the start of World War II and before the United States joins them.

Mary wants to join the war effort right away so is assigned teaching duties. Later she joins her friend Hilda as an ambulance driver. London is a dangerous place to live, and they choose to volunteer for even greater danger.

At first I found these chapters to be too young adultish, especially those about Mary's romance with Tom, a school administrator. But the chapters about Tom's roommate, Alistair, after he joins the army are excellent. These kept me going for about 100 pages, until I loved it all. (That is in spite of Mary's strange family. They are very rich. Mary's father never appears. Her mother seems untouched by the war. Neither parent seems to care much about Mary. Sometimes she lives with them, sometimes not. That doesn't seem to concern them, even when she is only 18.)

EVERYONE BRAVE IS FORGIVEN shows us the hardships of the beginning of World War II not only to the English military but also to English citizens. What a relief it is to them when the US arrives.

UNBECOMING is a novel I forgot I had among my many to-read piles until I came across it at a used book sale. Then I remembered going to see Rebecca Scherm at an author event in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2016. So, better late than never, I read this novel and am so pleased.

Grace is a troubled girl who befriended and fell in love with Riley when they were still in grade school. She found, in his family, a family for herself to love and, more importantly, to love her. Grace particularly loved, and loved being loved by, Riley‘s mother.

As Grace grows older, she finds she is attracted, more and more, to deviant behavior, stealing. By the time she and Riley are in their 20s, because he loves her so much, she eventually pulls him in, too. When the two of them concoct a scheme to steal millions of dollars worth of items from a historic home in their Tennessee town, it is their plan for Grace to move overseas, where Riley will later join her. At the same time, though, she plans to meet Riley‘s friend overseas. And what a tangled web she weaves!

There is a lot more to the story, but I hope I haven’t already told you too much. Scherm leads you to conclusions you will not expect and may not even like. But you sure should like the story better because she does.

This makes me anxious to read another book by Scherm. But I searched the Internet and could find no information about her since 2016. I finally did find a sentence and some book ratings she wrote in 2020 on Goodreads.com. I hope that means she’s coming out of hiding.

Five stars again for Chris Bohjalian. I have read nearly all his books, and most are five-star, some four. This one, THE LAW OF SIMILARS, is a book he wrote nearly 20 years ago.

Leland is a deputy state prosecutor. He is also a widower with a four-year-old daughter. For what appears to me to be psychological reasons, he develops a sore throat that just won’t go away. This leads him to Carissa, a homeopath.

In short order (ridiculously short order, in my opinion), Leland falls in love with Carissa (or maybe mistakes sexual attraction for love). He is so overwhelmed by this love (attraction) that he ignores all ethics of his profession when she is investigated for the murder of one of her other patients.

For a book to merit five stars, it must be unputdownable, and this one is. Even though I say that Leland doesn’t think with his brain, it’s still a darn good read.

While many people will feel THE EXILES is a five-star book and while I would have felt the same several years ago, my taste has evolved. I didn’t love it. I liked it, but I don’t have the heart to give it just three stars. It was such a nice, if somewhat predictable, story.

After Evangeline’s father dies, she becomes a governess in early 19th-century London. But after she has an affair with the adult son of the household, she ends up pregnant and in Newgate prison. From there, she is shipped with other prisoners to Australia.

On board, Evangeline meets Hazel, a midwife and herbalist. It is Hazel, not Evangeline, who plays the largest part in this story.

But this book is also about a third female, Mathinna. She is an Aboriginal child, taken on a whim to live among white people.

I read that this is to be made into a TV series. It is sure to make great television.

DAISY JONES & THE SIX may take some getting used to at first. It is not in a novel's usual format. Taylor Jenkins Reid's intention was to write a novel that comes across as a documentary. But understand: this is a novel, fiction. It took me about a quarter of the book to decide I liked it.

Something else that may lead to misunderstanding is the cover. That is a picture of Daisy Jones, but the book is really about the whole band, including Daisy. It would have been nice to see, instead, the back cover of their hit album.

Every band member, including Daisy, tells their story. A few others, such as the writer for ROLLING STONE and The Six's manager, also chime in.

Daisy is a fabulous singer. The Six is a fabulous band. But, until they get together, neither has a hit song much less a hit album. Together they are magic.

But just about everyone in the band, especially Daisy, has problems they deal with. Probably, their biggest problem is all their drinking and drugging. They tell us about what they accomplish in spite of the problems and what brings them down because of them.

Somehow, Reid made me like this story a lot in spite of its format that I didn't like at first. I would suggest, though, that she include at the front of the book a list of characters with who each is.

If a book doesn’t grab you by page 50, you shouldn’t feel bad for abandoning it. But SO BRAVE, YOUNG, AND HANDSOME should grab you right away with Leif Enger's typical writing style. However, I found that this book doesn’t live up to its promise.

Monte Becket is an author. He has written a bestseller, and everyone is anticipating what comes next. But he doesn’t have it in him, whatever “it” is. So he leaves his ever loving wife and child to join his neighbor, Glendon Hale, who is headed for Mexico. Glendon wants to apologize to the wife he left there many years before, and Monte wants to find "it."

What follows are chapter upon chapter upon chapter of unlikely events. This is how Monte gets from here to there, and the heck with his wife and child, who want him home. He ends up in California, where Glendon‘s wife has remarried and settled with her new husband. (It doesn’t spoil the story to tell you that.)

The book bored me to tears. I did not care about any one character. The whole thing is just plain silly. It felt like reading a comic book.

Read THE FALLING WOMAN. I enjoyed it, and so should you.

A jet with 123 people on board has experienced turbulence and crashed. Only one person survives, the unknown and unaccounted for ”Falling Woman," who somehow survived the fall of several miles to earth and walked away.

But this book is only partly about her. THE FALLING WOMAN is also about Charlie, the National Transportation Safety Board investigator assigned to find “The Falling Woman.”

"The Falling Woman” is Erin. She is dying of pancreatic cancer and wants the rest of her life to remain private. So she goes into hiding.

We read about Charlie’s frustrations and Erin's misgivings. We follow both their stories and, on the one hand, want Charlie to locate Erin and learn her identity while, on the other hand, we root for Erin and her wish for privacy.

How can both of them get what they want?

Lisa Jewell is one of my go-to authors. In other words, I can trust I will like her books before I even know a thing about them. In the case of WATCHING YOU, though, I was initially afraid I made a mistake, that it was just going to be another MY DARK VANESSA by Kate Elizabeth Russell, a book I did not enjoy.

But I should have known better. Yes, it does involve a handsome, charismatic male teacher. And, yes, there is the suspicion that he preys upon young girls. But this is a murder mystery, a who-done-it.

The story begins before the text begins, with a picture of an actual diary entry of a student who states she is in love with her teacher. Then the text begins with a murder investigation on March 24 and interviews with various suspects/witnesses on March 25. But most of the book is flashback beginning in January.

The flashbacks continue moving forward to March 25. Who had reason to commit the murder? Lots of people. So who did it? It’s possible that you’ll guess it before the end but not likely.

Two of the suspects/witnesses are a crazy lady and a lonely boy, who watched the neighbors the whole time. Thus the comparisons to “Rear Window” (although I would compare it to THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW.) And thus the title.

Although I was pretty sure I would disagree with the majority of other readers who said that THE NIGHTINGALE by Kristin Hannah is an excellent book, I can now honestly tell you to believe it. I had read two other books by Hannah and was not impressed, so I doubted that she had it in her to write like this. I was wrong.

This book has been reviewed so much already, it is sufficient to say that it is a piece of historical fiction that highlights the remarkable women of France when the Germans occupied that country during World War II. The story concentrates on two sisters, one based on an actual person, the other based on the lives of many women in France at that time.

So many books have been written about World War II, you may tend to avoid reading more. But this is one you don't want to miss.

THE HALF WIVES is the excellent story of a former Lutheran minister, Henry, his wife Marilyn, his lover Lucy, and his eight-year-old daughter by Lucy, Blue. The entire book is a day in their lives, the anniversary of the birth and death of Henry’s and Marilyn’s child. The predicament they are in is obvious and is seen, chapter by chapter, through the eyes of one of these characters or the other.

That is what makes this book great. Stacia Pelletier presents all the various viewpoints and makes you understand and care about each character, even as they seem to be working against each other.

At the same time, there are problems with the way Pelletier has chosen to present the story. This has downgraded the rating that I give it.

First is the lack of quotation marks. Quotation marks were invented to aid readability. That is, quotation marks make it easier for the reader to understand. It is, therefore, rude of a writer not to use them. Pelletier doesn’t.

Second, as each chapter is written from the viewpoint of one of the characters, Pelletier has chosen second-person presentation. As a former technical writer who used the second person regularly and properly, I do not understand why she uses it in fiction. It put me off.

The entire story leads to what the reader thinks is an inevitable end. I was disappointed when I finally got there. The end leaves the reader to guess. I guess you can write it yourself however you like.

While you will find THE DEARLY BELOVED shelved among many other novels, this one should stand out. It is character-driven, which can be a good sign, but plenty of authors get it wrong. Cara Wall doesn’t.

THE DEARLY BELOVED is about four people, James and Nan, Charles and Lily. James marries Nan, a devoutly religious daughter of a minister. Lily reluctantly marries Charles. James and Charles become ministers and preach together for 40 years. Each of these four people is examined over 50 years.

Character-driven novels always run the risk of becoming boring. That is partly because they often contain little or no plot. This could be said of THE DEARLY BELOVED, but Wall has included in it topics that other novels shy away from such as discussion of faith in God (and lack of it), living with a mentally deficient family member, and good marriages that endure. Her careful analyses and well-written dialogue will keep you engaged.

Don’t believe any fewer-than-four-star reviews of THE WITCH ELM by Tana French. It really deserves five stars for its many layers and thoughtfulness. Maybe they just don’t get it.

Toby has always been a lucky guy. Then two burglars break into his apartment, steal a few things, and beat the living daylights out of him. But he lives. So people say he is, again, lucky.

The worst of Toby’s injuries is to his head. Some readers may not realize that his limp and other physical manifestations are results of his head injury. But Toby's messed-up brain is also controlling his memory and language skills.

Because of all this, Toby is having to deal with a new life. His thoughts are constantly going here, then there, then there. Plus the reader can see signs of PTSD all over the place. But he doesn't look as bad as he is.

So this is the Toby who goes with his girlfriend to live with his dying uncle. While they are there, a skull is found inside the trunk of a tree in the garden, and later the police find more. Toby deals with detectives and gradual revelations from his cousins as they insinuate that he might be guilty of murder. He can't remember.

While all French's novels are very good, both in characterization and plot, THE WITCH ELM is one of her better ones. It is full of intelligent introspection, and it takes you places you don't expect.

You won’t understand the title of DEAR DAUGHTER until nearly the end, and in the end you’ll be left hanging. I haven’t decided how negative to feel about that. Maybe three stars isn’t enough. After all, I did enjoy it until the end.

Jane has been in jail for the past 10 years. She was convicted of her mother’s murder, but she doesn’t think she did it. She doesn’t remember. But she does remember finding the body and hiding in a closet while she heard someone say things.

Because evidence was mishandled in her case, Jane’s lawyer, Noah, gets her out after 10 years. She decides right away that she needs to find out who murdered her mother. So, on the basis of things she overheard while she was in the closet, she travels to a small town in South Dakota. And now Jane has a mystery to solve.

This entire book takes place in about a week. Everyone Jane meets in the small South Dakota town, with one exception, has lived there all their lives. That’s not very realistic, but just go with it. It’s a neat little mystery. I didn’t find it predictable at all, my problem with many other mysteries. So I enjoyed it.

But it left me hanging. I had too many questions in the end.

I can’t speak highly enough of THE RED LOTUS.

?If your preferred genre is thriller but so many books billed as "psychological thriller" don’t do much for you, if you want a literary thriller and one that is intelligent, THE RED LOTUS is for you. This book is a 5-star can’t-put-it-down read, and Chris Bohjalian obviously assumes his readers are smart.

Alexis, an ER doctor, and her boyfriend Austin, who works at the same hospital but on the administrative end, are visiting Vietnam on a bike tour. When Austin takes off for a solo bike ride but does not return by the appointed time, police in Vietnam begin their investigation. Soon thereafter Austin’s body is found, and a thrilling mystery begins.

Even after Alexis returns to the United States, the police captain in Vietnam continues his investigation. But Alexis can’t just sit and wait; she hires a private investigator to look into what happened and why.

Remember as you read this: almost no one is who they seem.

WHITE IVY begins when Ivy is a child. She is Chinese but wants to be white and hang out with the white crowd at school. When she spends one summer in China, at first with rich relatives, she develops a high opinion of herself and a hankering for the rich life. Back in the United States, she dates only white boys. Ivy has a crush on one boy in particular: Gideon.

Ivy and Gideon are pretty much at the center of this story. But so are Ivy and Roux (pronounced Roo), a Romanian who grew up in the neighborhood where she did.

As an adult, Ivy’s desires haven’t changed much. They’ve been amplified. She still wants Gideon and gets him to a point. But something isn’t right. She sees what she wants to see, and Roux is what she settles for when she can’t be with Gideon.

I read WHITE IVY while I was (and still am) quarantined because my husband has COVID-19 and I might have it. I had nothing to do but read. So I read this book more quickly than usual, taking breaks only to sleep. I wonder if I would have enjoyed WHITE IVY otherwise.

I came to detest Ivy. So will you.

Of the five Lisa Jewell novels I have read, I think THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS is probably my favorite. Not that it’s a nice story. You could definitely say it is sickening. But it is so absorbing and quite a page turner.

Libby learns that she has inherited a home worth several million dollars. But she also learns, little by little, what went on in that home and who her true family really is.

Libby hears about the rich family—mother, father, son, daughter— who lived there back in the 1980s. And she learns the story about another family who moved into their attic bedrooms— temporarily, they said. But the people upstairs stayed and stayed. Not only did they not leave, the father of the family upstairs, David, took control of the lives of everyone in the house.

So what does this have to do with Libby? Is she the baby left behind? She will discover all this and how she is related to these people.