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Reviews by Cathryn Conroy

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Love and Ruin: A Novel
by Paula McLain

Slow-Moving Story That at Times Is Brilliant and Convincing, Except When It's Forced and Artificial (4/18/2023)

This is a novel that feels like a biography…that is, if biographies were written in the first person. This is a novel that also feels like a history book…that is, if history books were written in the first person.

Written by Paula McClain, this is a novel about Martha …more

Into the Water: A Novel
by Paula Hawkins

A Scary and Intriguing Literary Thriller! And Quite the Mind-Challenge to Figure Out the Mystery (4/18/2023)

Written by "The Girl on the Train" author Paula Hawkins, this is part psychological thriller and part who-done-it, and it's one of those books you won't be able to put down once you start reading it.

Taking place in Beckford, a small river town in England, the story focuses …more

The Underground Railroad: A Novel
by Colson Whitehead

Gripping and Intense: It Is Impossible to Read This Book and Not Be Profoundly Moved (4/18/2023)

The best way to describe this remarkable book by Colson Whitehead is: gripping and intense. The plot is so gripping that it will keep you turning the pages long past your bedtime, and it's so intense that if you do dare read it before sleeping, the vivid descriptions of …more

Beloved
by Toni Morrison

The Plot Will Break Your Heart, But the Writing Will Make Your Soul Sing (4/18/2023)

The plot of this book will break your heart, but the writing will make your soul sing.

Masterfully written by Toni Morrison, this is a book that is destined to be a classic and still avidly read generations from now. While it is the story of a runaway slave named Sethe, it …more

The Library Book
by Susan Orlean

Compelling, Gripping, and Absolutely Fascinating! Few Nonfiction Books Are So Readable (4/18/2023)

When libraries burn, it is more than a building and its contents that are aflame. It is our ideas, our beliefs, our culture, our history, and even our very humanity that is also caught up in the inferno. The largest library fire in the United States occurred on April 29, 198 …more

The Dutch House
by Ann Patchett

Oh, This Book! It's Magnificent! Read It. Savor It. It's Very Special. (4/18/2023)

Oh, this book! This book! This is one of those rare books that I not only enjoyed from the first sentence to the last, but also it touched my heart and soul in a way I always hope will happen with each book I read but only rarely does.

Magnificently written by Ann Patchett, …more

Winter of the World: Book Two of the Century Trilogy
by Ken Follett

Great Literature This Is Not. But Great History It Is. In Fact, It's a First-Rate History Lesson. (4/18/2023)

Great literature this is not. But great history it is.

This is a first-rate lesson in history—from 1933 to 1949 with most of the emphasis on World War II—told with real facts and imaginary characters in a plot-driven novel that will place you, the reader, on the ground in …more

The Chelsea Girls
by Fiona Davis

An Inspired Story That Is Interrupted by Too Many Eye-Rolling, Soap Opera Moments (4/18/2023)

Oh, this book is such a dichotomy! Much of it is absolutely wonderful, if not inspired, but just enough of it is an eye-rolling, soap opera that these melodramatic moments distract from what could have been such a powerful novel.

It's 1950. The United States won a war, the …more

Next of Kin: A Novel
by John Boyne

This Is One of Those Rare Novels: A Literary Delight with a Page-Turning Plot (4/18/2023)

This is one of those rare novels that has all the components of great literature as well as a gripping, page-turning plot. Irish author John Boyne, who is one of my favorite writers of all time, has penned an extraordinary story filled with twists and turns that will keep …more

Clock Dance: A Novel
by Anne Tyler

An Endearing and Enthralling Tale About the Families We Create to Fill Our Hearts (4/18/2023)

This is not your typical Anne Tyler book—until suddenly, it is.

Anne Tyler has a rare gift among writers in that she can perfectly capture the minutiae of life, providing a close-up look at those tiny details that add up to something very important. In addition, she creates …more

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive
by Stephanie Land

Powerful and Heartbreaking: It's Impossible to Read This Book and Not Become More Compassionate (4/18/2023)

This is a hard book to read. Let me amend that a bit. It is an engrossing, gripping, and frightening book to read. It is hard to read not because it is difficult to understand or written in a mind-boggling way; it is hard to read because it is heartbreaking. It is also one …more

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
by Andrew Sean Greer

Impossible, Implausible Plot, But It's a Boldly Imaginative Story and Very Much Worth Reading (4/18/2023)

Even though this book is most definitely not science fiction, the only way to truly appreciate it is to suspend your belief in reality. Be prepared to enter a dreamlike world and just go with it. That said, this literary time-travel novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author …more

American Dirt: A Novel
by Jeanine Cummins

A Suspenseful and Terrifying Thriller That Doubles as Current Events (4/18/2023)

This is a quick-to-read, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants thriller by Jeanine Cummins that tracks in often gruesome detail the path of a mother and son as they migrate from Mexico to the United States to escape a brutal drug cartel that wants them both dead. While most …more thrillers are sheer fiction, this one is not. Oh sure, the characters are fictional, but this is no fantasy. It is all too real, and as a good novel will do, it powerfully depicts what is happening over and over and over again every day in Mexico and on the border of the United States. This is fiction doubling as current events.

Lydia and Sebastian lead a charmed and somewhat affluent life in beautiful Acapulco. He is a top journalist, she owns a successful bookstore, and together they have a precocious 8-year-old boy, Luca. But when Sebastian publishes an exposé on the kingpin of the local drug cartel, he and 15 members of his family are brutally executed in Lydia's mother's backyard during a quinceañera celebration. Lydia and Luca miraculously escape, and now they must flee because this cartel is still out for revenge—and will stop at nothing. This book is the story of their trek to the United States, and the suspense and action never let up. (Advice: Don't read this before you go to sleep. It will haunt your dreams—and not in a good way.)

While this is not great literature—it's a straight-up thriller and nothing more—it does waken the typical American reader to better understand the dangerous and terrifying plight of many Mexican migrants, and for this I applaud Jeanine Cummins.

About the bruhaha over "American Dirt": I have read a lot about the objections some Latinos have to a white woman writing this story—one who now lives in New York City and grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. Yes, not many authors—of any ethnic descent—will get the star publishing treatment Cummins has received. And I do appreciate that inequity. Still, Cummins did extensive, years' long research for this book to make her characters and plot as authentic as possible. Many (many!) novelists write outside their lifestyle, and that is perfectly acceptable provided the research is done. To say that only a Latino/Latina can write a book like this is just not reasonable or even advisable. That said, this controversy has made me want to read more books by Latino/Latina authors, especially Luis Alberto Urrea. (less)

The Guest Book
by Sarah Blake

This Is a Really, Really Good Story That You Won't Be Able to Stop Reading! (4/18/2023)

What a book! This engrossing and ingeniously plotted three-generation family saga will take you back to a time and place of incredible wealth, gracious manners, and deeply-guarded secrets.

It's 1936. While the rest of the country is in the depths of the Great Depression, …more

Shipping News: A Novel
by Annie Proulx

An Intelligent Novel with Exquisite Writing. This Is a Book to Be Savored and Treasured (4/18/2023)

Oh, the writing! This book by E. Annie Proulx takes place primarily in Newfoundland. Even in the summer it's cold. And windy. I don't know how she did it, but Proulx's exquisite writing mirrors the iciness of the barren land. If ice and snow had a writing style, this would …more

Washington Black
by Esi Edugyan

An Adventure Story Like No Other! (4/18/2023)

Magnificently written by Esi Edugyan, this is an adventure story, albeit a highly unlikely one. Just suspend your sense of reality, and go along for the magical ride. And what a ride it is!

George Washington Black (nicknamed Wash), age 10 or 11 (he doesn't really know), is …more

Little Gods
by Meng Jin

This Is a Strange Story with a Cumbersome Structure, But It's Also Beautiful and Compelling (4/18/2023)

Oh, this is a strange little book. It's also strangely beautiful and strangely compelling.

Who ARE you…really? Ask that question of anyone who is close to you, and you'll probably get different answers. That's because we are perceived differently by different people. And …more

Such a Fun Age
by Kiley Reid

An Important Message About Prejudice and Forgiveness Wrapped Up in a Fabulous, Intriguing Story (4/18/2023)

This book grabbed me on page one and never let go. It's a riveting page-turner not because it's a thriller or a whodunit but because it's a compelling story about people…people who are acting up, while trying to do the right thing for all the wrong reasons—and utterly …more failing.

Longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020, this is billed on the cover as a social satire about privilege in America. It's the story of two women—one White, one Black. One is the employer; the other is the employee. Alix Chamberlin is a privileged, wealthy, slightly dishonest mother of two adorable girls, who is used to getting her own way and always coming out on top. Her husband, Peter, is a local TV news anchor. So Peter can get a better job, they move out of New York City to Alix's childhood hometown of Philadelphia, and Alix mourns the loss of the big city. They live in a huge home in a prestigious neighborhood. Alix has a book contract, so she hires Elmira Tucker as a part-time babysitter for the girls to give her time to write. Elmira is Black, and even though she is a Temple University college graduate she is 25 and hasn't figured out what she wants to do with her life. She has no money and is about to lose her health insurance when she turns 26 in a few months.

The novel opens when Elmira receives a frantic call from Alix very late one night to immediately come get Briar, the two-year-old, and take her to the nearby grocery store for about an hour. Why? Peter (we find out later) said something very stupid on air, and their house got egged, causing one of the windows to break. Peter and Alix are calling the police, and they don't want their little girl to witness this. Elmira is all dressed up and out having a grand time at a friend's birthday party, but drops what she's doing to go get Briar, a precocious child whom Elmira dearly loves. While they are in the grocery store, the security guard confronts Elmira, accusing her of kidnapping Briar. A crowd gathers, and a witness named Kelley Copeland, captures the scene on his phone. It is this video that guides the rest of the story in ways that are hilarious, profound, degrading, shocking, and (finally) liberating.

Ingeniously plotted with superb pacing, this is a fabulous story with an important message about prejudice and expectations, deception and forgiveness, but one that is wrapped up in an intriguing storyline, brilliant (and sometimes blistering) dialogue, and colorful characters. Read it! (less)

Olive, Again: A Novel
by Elizabeth Strout

What a Treasure! This Is a Book About Life and Death That Is Filled with Wisdom and Grace (4/17/2023)

This is a 10-star book in a five-star world. With an imaginative structure, a riveting storyline, and incredibly vivid characters, this book by author Elizabeth Strout is one to read slowly, fully savor, and treasure.

This is the sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Olive …more

The Ice Queen
by Alice Hoffman

An Imaginative, Spellbinding Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups (4/17/2023)

This is a fairy tale for grown-ups. And quite a tale it is with the suffering heroine, the monster with whom she falls in love, and a desperately unhappy life that happily turns around.

As a little girl, our heroine said something almost every angry child utters at one time …more

BookBrowse Book Club

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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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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