The author did a good job taking a real-life occurrence, a dance hall explosion in her hometown, and turning it into an interesting novel. I liked that she used the different viewpoints of the people who survived the explosion and those that loved the ones who didn't survive, to tell the story. The characters were very believable and I found a few quite compelling. My only criticism is the ending, which I found a bit too "happy." Otherwise, a worthwhile read.

In “Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden,” Zhuqing Li tells the story of her two aunts, sisters whose lives are irrevocably changed by China’s political revolution in the 20th century.
Hong, a skilled surgeon, uses her talents to improve the lives of Chinese peasant women. But she is caught up in Mao’s Cultural Revolution and must leave her family and career to spend years in a reeducation camp in the countryside. Her sister, Jun, a teacher, finds herself stranded on the island of Tawian and unable to return to her family on the mainland. She must make herself a new family in her new country. Li’s excellent writing makes reading “Fragrant Garden” a very pleasurable history lesson. And the woman’s stories are truly inspirational.

How do you mend a broken heart? Florence Williams asks that question when her decades-long marriage runs aground and then shatters. Because she is a science journalist, she takes the question to the experts. I was amazed at how many scientists are investigating how heartbreak affects our physical and mental wellness. Florence takes their findings and advice and applies them to her own life. She meditates, experiments with mind-altering drugs, takes nature trips and meets people in all stages of heartbreak survival. The book is filled with interesting insights. For me, things bogged down a bit when she described her river trips, but maybe that's because I'm not so much an outdoors person. Overall, it was a great read. In the end, she discovers that time does indeed heal all wounds.

What would the world of music, dance and theater look like today if Black Americans had been able to showcase their talents on a level playing field with white Americans? That question kept popping into my head as I was reading Caseen Gaines’ excellent “Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way.” Gaines tells the story of “Shuffle Along,” the first all-Black musical to succeed on Broadway, and its creators, musicians Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, and comedians Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles. It’s also a story of how these brave men, and women, faced down blatant racism. There are many examples: Black soldiers were not welcome in the U.S. military during World War I, but were invited to fight beside side-by-side with French soldiers; to please white audiences, Black performers had to further blacken their faces with burnt cork; Black singers weren’t allowed to perform songs that were considered too slow, too romantic or “too white.” Add “Footnotes” to the stack of books that should be required reading for all those who seek to better understand the roots of inequality in this country. And kudos to Gaines for elevating these Black performers and their achievements beyond mere historical “footnotes.”

Anyone who has ever experienced loss (and that's most of us), will be moved by Laura Imai Messina's beautiful "The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World." What makes this novel about dealing with grief most amazing is that the phone booth at the center of the story actually exists, and that thousands of people every year pick up the "wind" phone to speak to their deceased loved ones. Messina's characters are kind and gentle as they try to come to terms with their loss and move on to laugh and love again. It filled me with hope. A book for this season.

Nguyen Phan Que Mai's "The Mountains Sing" is a heart-wrenching story of three generations of women devastated by war. In the same vein as "All Quiet On The Western Front," we learn about the Vietnam War from the prospective of the North Vietnamese, our "enemy," and discover again that war hurts all, and that there are no winners. I was especially awed by the strength, courage and intelligence of Tran Diet Lan, the matriarch of the Tran family. She shares her story with her young granddaughter, Huong, whose father has not returned from the war and whose mother is traumatized by her own war experiences. There is no one in the family not touched by the evils of war. But they have such strong love for each other. "The Mountains Sing" is truly inspiring.

Thank you, Louise Callaghan, for preserving the story of Abu Laith in "Father of Lions: One Man's Remarkable Quest to Save the Mosul Zoo." It is wonderful to read how people who love animals can all come together to save them, especially during a conflict that puts their lives at risk. But this story is about more than animals. It's also about how the people who lived in Mosul endured the fighting and destruction of their city. It gives the reader a much-needed prospective on life in a war zone.

Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal" actually made me feel better about growing older and, eventually, frailer. Just knowing that there are people like him that are trying to make longer lives better lives gives me great comfort. This book should be in every home. And now I want to read his other books, too.

If I were rating Marisa Silver's "Little Nothing" on her beautiful writing, her expansive imagination and her compelling characterizations, I would rate this novel Four Stars.
But although I found the writing compelling, when I finished the last page, I just felt muddled. What was she trying to tell me? Pavla is born a dwarf, then becomes a wolf-girl, then a wolf, then a woman. She is loved by Danilo, in all her manifestations. But is he mad?
Is this a fairy tale or a nightmare?
Maybe this novel requires another reading or two.

The first time I read “News of the World,” I breezed through it because I couldn’t wait to find out how the story ended. The second time I read it (which was immediately after the first), I slowed down to savor the details I had missed the first time and to luxuriate in Paulette Jiles' lush language. It’s that good.

"The Weight of Ink" (gosh, I love that title) is weighty with plot and weighty with words at 560 pages. Especially in the first chapters, I felt that tighter editing would have benefited the reader. Having said that, it's really just just one small complaint for an otherwise excellent book of historical fiction set in seventh century London.

The story has everything: the Inquisition, the plague, strong female characters, love both lost and found, philosophic debates and a mystery. I loved the women in this book and the way in which they refused to smother their intellect for the sake of society. Anyone who enjoyed "The Red Tent" will want to read this story.

Rachel Kadish is a gifted writer. I look forward to her next book.

What kind of society values sons so highly that desperate women dress their daughters in pants and raise them as boys? And what happens to those daughters when they reach puberty and suddenly have to live as women in a society that demands that they be clothed from head to foot and never appear in public unless accompanied by a male family member?

Jenny Nordberg explores these questions in her thought-provoking book, “The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan.”

Nordberg introduces us to these “bacha posh,” women who live or have lived as men, and we discover that this practice is not specific to Afghanistan or Islam or even to the 21st century. The reasons for bacha posh are cultural, religious and financial, an offshoot of a patrilineal society in which a woman’s sole purpose is to bear a son.

I could hardly put Nordberg’s book down. It is, above all, enlightening. And at other times depressing and infuriating. “The Underground Girls of Kabul” shows how women are oppressed in one of the most war-torn countries in the world, but it also reveals how many women in Afghanistan are trying to push back against the oppression and find freedom for themselves and their daughters.

Favel Parrett’s “When The Night Comes” is a pleasant enough read, but it could have been a great one.

As I was reading, I kept thinking, “This reads like a collection of essays.” So I was not surprised to discover in the Author’s Note that a number of pieces within the novel had been published as short stories.

Many authors have successfully turned short stories into novels. Louise Erdrich comes to mind. Parrett’s novel has good bones. She just didn’t flesh out the characters enough for me.

“When The Night Comes” is about a young girl, Isla, who moves to an island with her divorced mother and brother. She develops a deep kinship with Bo, a cook aboard the Nella Dan, an Antarctic supply ship, who is also her mother’s boyfriend.

Readers get to know Isla and Bo well, but the other characters are too one dimensional. We learn very little about Isla’s mother or what happened to her parent’s relationship beyond a thrown plate of beef stew. We don’t know how her mother met Bo or why their relationship ended. I had more questions than I had answers. Time for a prequel?

We get a more complete look at the Nella Dan and its crew. It is these stories of life aboard ship, its pleasures, dangers and tragedies, that Bo tells Isla. There are dangers in her life as well, and soon they are kindred spirits, both trying to make their way in the world as best they can. They share a short time together, but it’s enough to change them both.

Next on my reading list is Parrett’s critically acclaimed debut novel, “Past the Shallows.”