BookBrowse | Book Reviews and Recommendations

Reviews by Claire M. (Wrentham, MA)

One Death at a Time
by Abbi Waxman

One Death at a TIme, Two for the Road (12/5/2024)

One Death at Time wears its heart on its sleeve. The story opens into a group discussion where intimate details of personal struggles are brought forward in fits and starts, the propulsive beat of the plot begins to build momentum and never stops. In fact, half the action …more

Everything We Never Knew: A Novel
by Julianne Hough

Living Her best Life (7/21/2024)

Alexis Cole has a problem. She's on the verge of 30 and she's achieved everything she'd worked for, save one. On the night of her latest triumph, she experiences a moment of connection with a stranger that lifts the lid on the repressed trauma of her formative years.

Hough …more

Help Wanted: A Novel
by Adelle Waldman

Help Wanted (1/9/2024)

Someone is going to be promoted at Town Square. When that happens, other positions will undoubtedly open in whichever department spawns the new store manager. In the warehouse department known as Movement the smart guess among team members is their manager, Meredith, will …more get the coveted spot. The question is, who from the team will then replace Meredith?

Adelle Waldman knowledgeably sets the scene behind the sleek sales floor of a major corporate retail chain. From the moment the doors hiss open revealing the gritty backside of the store we are in another realm entirely. Over four days leading up to the corporate visit to select the new store manager, we meet the members of the disparate backroom team: the old guys, the lead workers on the conveyer, the thrower, the newbies, and lower-level supervisors, all looking for a lucky break. They keep the sales flowing by unloading goods and stocking shelves in the early hours leading up to store opening. As Meredith positions herself to gain the coveted promotion, she pressures team members to complete each unload on tight time limitations. Tension mounts as they learn they will be interviewed by the corporate reps about their boss. Do they support Meredith or undermine her?

The opportunity to advance doesn't come along often. Chapter by chapter Waldman introduces the lead workers grappling with their individual hardships, hopes and dreams. The golden ticket of promotion could mean new stability in the lives of a lucky few. Workers become allies encouraging and coaching one another, while scheming for their own ends. Can they succeed?

Contemporary economic realities of profit and loss play out on multiple levels in Waldman's insightful novel. In her compassionate rendering, each character's desperation and motivation are foregrounded in contrast with that of the others. The formerly faceless workers behind the scenes become individuals we can invest in. Who will win promotion?

Suspense mounts as the decision day approaches. The numbers in columns on a spread sheet have become human chess pieces. Who will advance and who will be sacrificed? Waldman shows us how "making ends meet" for workers in the retail economy depends on more than hard work alone. Global market fluctuations, downturns that limit hiring and layoffs that bleed the remaining employees add up to business practices that impact individual workers and families every day.

If Town Square sounds like a national brand in your town, you are on target. Reminiscent of Last Night at the Lobster, Stewart O'Nan's 2008 novel of employees at the closing of a Red Lobster restaurant, Help Wanted depicts the emotional life of a retail community that will rise or fall on the resilience of its members. (less)

Day: A Novel
by Michael Cunningham

Virtuoso Art (10/5/2023)

Day: A Novel delivers on so many levels it seems to effortlessly fall onto the page. With poetry and skill Michael Cunningham's writing draws the reader into the extended family of Isabel and Dan, revealing the intimate concerns of each family member. Navigating the space …more

The Continental Affair: A Novel
by Christine Mangan

Star-Csee rossed Lovers? (6/22/2023)

Following on her successful debut, "Tangerine", Mangan writes another mashup of brooding characters, literary references, exotic locales with sweeping vistas, and the lurking menace of evil intent.

Within the confines of prolonged overland travel, antiheroes Louise, …more

The Montevideo Brief: A Thomas Grey Novel
by J. H. Gelernter

A Brief Yet Absorbing Binge Read (3/30/2023)

The latest serial installment of the adventures of Thomas Grey delivers on all counts. Impeccable historical research shapes the escapades of the Crown secret agent with high seas encounters in the Age of Sail. Grey is a naval marine captain attached to the War Department …more

Dinosaurs: A Novel
by Lydia Millet

Survival Depends on This (10/17/2022)

A jewel of a book, Dinosaurs is a novel of a carefully shaped life. Gil keeps a low profile, calling little attention to himself amidst a showboat culture. He uses his powers for good, and therefore has the leisure to notice. He makes a quiet study of the life around him. …more

Klara and the Sun
by Kazuo Ishiguro

In the Age of Enlightenment (2/14/2022)

In the near future when societies are further stratified by genetic engineering, parents are compelled to make decisions about medical invention to alter their children. With the delicacy of a skillfully wielded scalpel Ishiguru extracts a tale from myriad tangles of social …more

The Latinist: A Novel
by Mark Prins

The God and the Maiden (10/2/2021)

Sharply drawn character studies are interwoven in the The Latinist with mutual desire, intense ambition, and dangerous obsessions. The refined life of Oxford dons and their PhD proteges is an object of scrutiny as much as the fragments of ancient words and the bones of …more

Daughters of Smoke and Fire: A Novel
by Ava Homa

COMING OF AGE UNDER DURESS (7/31/2021)

Leila and her brother Chia are on their own from young age despite living with their parents. The preoccupations of daily oppression of society force each family member to preserve their own survival his family. As a child Leila learns the rules of female behavior inside …more

The Last Train to Key West
by Chanel Cleeton

Weekend Express (3/3/2020)

Romance and danger are locked into Chanel Cleeton's travel-case for the Labor Day Special to Key West. The glamour of train travel is interlaced with the desperation of late Depression-era politics. Danger lurks at every turn as we meet 3 plucky heroines who rise to the …more

Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins
by Katarina Bivald

Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins (12/2/2019)

Here's another multigenerational novel from Katarina Bivald whose The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend championed community spirit and reinvigoration. In her latest tale four friends are reunited in their hometown after many years apart. The story of their friendship …more

Red Letter Days
by Sarah-Jane Stratford

Seeing Red (10/2/2019)

Evoking the Eisenhower years in the writers' colony that was Greenwich Village of 1955 NYC, the reader is quickly drawn into a nightmare. Our television writer heroine is struggling to be taken seriously in her profession and pay her way, while also shouldering …more

Ellie and the Harpmaker
by Hazel Prior

Please, may I have some more? (4/3/2019)

Tucked into a corner of Exmoor in South West England, Dan's workshop is full of exquisite harps. Ellie writes poetry and carries her journal on walks in the forest. Their chance encounter is classic girl meets boy. In this tale of lost souls, children who are dreamy and …more

The Last Year of the War
by Susan Meissner

Prisoners of War (10/28/2018)

When the deeply felt friendship of teenage girlhood is challenged by the circumstances of global war, adult responsibilities to family and country become a crucible. Meissner skillfully guides the reader through the historical reality of internment and repatriation, …more

Paris Echo
by Sebastian Faulks

Echo, Hera and Zeus (8/7/2018)

In the multi-layered Paris Echoes the reader is immersed in the lives of past and present generations, their intersection aided by the visual spectacle of the storied City of Lights, redolent with the life of its occupants. Temporary residents, Hannah and Tariq, participate …more

The Travelling Cat Chronicles
by Hiro Arikawa, Philip Gabriel

Cat's Eye View (5/5/2018)

The cat-human bond challenges old notions of the aloofness and even indifference of cats. In this charming tale of cat and man, each have lessons to teach and learn together. They pass their lessons on to those whose lives they touch in gentle prose to soothe the soul. …more

The Days When Birds Come Back
by Deborah Reed

The Eternal Return (11/13/2017)

This is a novel of deep interiority. The characters June and Jameson are avoiding their past and have a detached relationship with their present reality. Trauma can do that. A fog of gloom hangs like the grayness of the Pacific Northwest that permeates the senses of the …more

Never Coming Back
by Alison McGhee

Words With Family (9/6/2017)

Words are wrapped around the heart of Clara Winter, sometimes they squeeze her so hard her heart races dangerously, threatening to tear her apart. Tamar Winter says little, explains less and is determined to do things her way, keeping her reasons to herself. How can a …more

Seven Days of Us: A Novel
by Francesca Hornak

Home Sweet Home (5/16/2017)

Author Hornak is a sharp observer of everyday modern life, as her popular column in the Sunday times attests. In Seven Days of Us her focused lens is pointed at each member of the Birch family in turn. Enforced togetherness, a component of any popular holiday, will resonate …more

BookBrowse Book Club

Becoming Madam Secretary
by Stephanie Dray

New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Dray returns with a captivating novel about an American heroine France Perkins—now in paperback!

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A Map to Paradise
by Susan Meissner

From the USA Today bestselling author of Only the Beautiful. 1956, Malibu, California: Something is not right on Paradise Circle.

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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.

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The Husbands
by Holly Gramazio

The Husbands delights in asking: how do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options?

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