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Reviews by Diane C. (Nashville, TN)

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Fly Girl
Fly Girl: A Memoir
by Ann Hood
What if... (4/12/2022)
Many young people long to travel the world, but perhaps none so passionately as aspiring flight attendants. What is it like to thrust aside college plans and follow your travel lust? As Hood describes in this excellent memoir, it's a tough path in many respects. But for her, …more
True Crime Story
True Crime Story: A Novel
by Joseph Knox
What is real here? (11/2/2021)
Who to believe, when even the author appears as an unreliable character? A girl goes missing from her college. Seven years later, a writer pieces together the story through interviews with an assortment of friends, family members, police and others. It's very twisty, with …more
The Girl Before
The Girl Before
by JP Delaney
Many facets (12/9/2016)
As others have noted, this novel seems to be headed in one direction, but then smoothly morphs into something else. For me, it started as a bit of a contrived setting for two women to be sexually enthralled by the same man. The narrators, Jane (now) and Emma (then) are …more
Underground Airlines
Underground Airlines
by Ben H. Winters
Alternate history? (8/29/2016)
A black man earns his freedom by making a deal with the devil in this present day thriller, built on the premise that slavery still exists in parts of the United States. Victor, as we know him, is an expert at retrieving runaway slaves and other persons wanted by the …more
The Forgetting Time
The Forgetting Time
by Sharon Guskin
Both fantastical and logical (12/16/2015)
Guskin's debut novel deals with a subject that's hard to wrap my head around - memories of a past life so vivid that they have survived the mysteries of death and birth. But she captures readers with believable emotions and well-plotted rational. The two main characters, …more
Everybody Rise
Everybody Rise
by Stephanie Clifford
Fun for some readers (4/3/2015)
Evelyn never captured my heart, and so my perception of the book is that it ran a bit shallow. For me, it read like a series of shenanigans that got progressively difficult to witness. The writing, however, is crisp and literate. Clifford has a terrific ear for dialogue as …more
Brutal Youth
Brutal Youth
by Anthony Breznican
Pow! (5/16/2014)
St. Michael's High School has blithely ignored the "good-natured" hazing of freshmen by upperclassmen, even as the tortures become intolerably cruel. We are introduced to the school as a frazzled, defeated freshman climbs up to the roof, pushing statutes of the saints over …more
In Praise of Hatred
In Praise of Hatred
by Khaled Khalifa
Growing up in the wrong place at the wrong time. (2/23/2014)
The author made a powerful decision by leaving the narrator nameless. In some ways, she is always the "other" that we cannot know, but at the same time she is everywoman. Her situation - growing up isolated, deeply repressed by religious beliefs, surrounded by liars - is …more
Bitter River
Bitter River: A Bell Elkins Novel
by Julia Keller
Whole Lotta Twisted Going-ons (7/4/2013)
Bell is as tough as the mountains that cradle the small town of Acker's Gap, where she serves as County Prosecutor. Hell, there sure is a lot of criminal activity in that place! You got a young girl murdered, some crazy guy shooting an elderly lady, and terrorist blowing up …more
The Sometimes Daughter
The Sometimes Daughter
by Sherri Wood Emmons
The Left-Behind Child (3/5/2012)
Sweet Judy's mother, Cassie, was a free-love, free-spirited hippie type. The kind of mom that would name her daughter (at least phonetically) after the song that was playing while she gave birth in a tent at Woodstock. As a child, Judy adored her loving, dancing mother. But …more
In Search of the Rose Notes
In Search of the Rose Notes: A Novel
by Emily Arsenault
Claiming the truth (6/5/2011)
The friendship between Nora and Charlotte began on the first day of kindergarten, and by the time the girls are eleven they have developed a mutual history that lacks mutual respect. At least that is the viewpoint of Nora, who narrates this story that twists between three …more
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