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Reviews by Cathryn Conroy

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The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11
by Garrett M. Graff

To All the Unsung Heroes: This Is the Story of Ordinary People Who Did Extraordinary Deeds (4/18/2023)

This book will make you cry. A lot. As in, you had better have a tissue in hand when reading it.

While it is emotionally draining, this is such a vitally important book that I think everyone should read it. If you were alive on 9/11, you should read it. If you have children …more

This House is Haunted
by John Boyne

Goosebumps and Shivers! A Chilling Ghost Story for Literary Types (4/18/2023)

I think this book is brilliant! It is a chilling ghost story for literary types, complete with a cameo by Charles Dickens.

Written in the Dickensian style by the inimitable John Boyne, this gothic tale opens on a cold and rainy night in London in October 1867 when Eliza …more

All He Ever Wanted
by Anita Shreve

A Powerful Book! Deeply Disturbing Psychological Study About the Possessiveness of Marriage (4/18/2023)

Author Anita Shreve is such a surprise! While none of her books — other than the "Fortune's Rocks" series — can be said to be similar to the others, this one is a true outlier. And while it took me a good while to get into the story, once I did, I was mesmerized by it.

Quite …more

The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver

An Imaginative Work of Genius: A Must-Read Book (4/18/2023)

Oh, this is a sneaky book. As in, it starts out just fine — OK, but not fabulous — and then bit by bit it sneaks its way into your heart and soul. And then when you're going about the business of life, you'll find yourself thinking, "When can I stop what I'm doing and read …more again?"

This masterpiece by Barbara Kingsolver takes us deep into the jungle of the Congo beginning in 1959 when Southern Baptist preacher Nathan Price embarks on a risky missionary post in small village located on a smelly, crocodile-infested river on the edge of a lush, snake-infested jungle. He brings with him his Bible, his arrogant, holier-than-thou approach to saving souls, and his reluctant family: his obedient, meek wife Orleanna and teenage daughters Rachel, Leah, and Adah along with five-year-old Ruth May. To say they are wholly unprepared for such a primitive lifestyle is an understatement. Assimilating—from learning to cook on a wood stove to having to haul water for a mile—is a Herculean adjustment. Great tragedy strikes, and the lives of all six of the Prices radically change forever.

The book is divided into seven sections. Except for the last section, the first part of each is written by Orleanna looking back on their time in the Congo. Each of the other chapters is written in the first person by one of the four daughters. One of the things that makes this book such an imaginative work of genius is the distinct voice Kingsolver gives each of the girls. Once you get into the book, you will know just by reading the first paragraph of a chapter who has written it without even looking at the chapter heading. And each of girls' perspectives of the same life they are living is absolutely riveting—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious, and always poignant.

This is an intelligent, multilayered novel with vividly drawn characters that are so real they pop off the page. The detailed descriptions of the Congo are so remarkably realistic that I felt as if I were transported there along with the Price family. And the plot is riveting—not a page-turner as such, but I was fully engaged in it—as it zeroes in on the complex moral question that is the backbone of the book: Do white people — no matter how well meaning — have any right at all to invade a culture and attempt to change it? And what are the long-term ramifications of such audacity? (less)

Cutting For Stone
by Abraham Verghese

Reading This Book Is the Literary Equivalent of Being Swept Off My Feet! (4/18/2023)

Oh, this book! Reading it was the literary equivalent of being swept off my feet!

Masterfully written by Abraham Verghese, this is the story of identical, conjoined twins Marion and Shiva, born in Ethiopia of a disgraced Roman Catholic nun from India and a talented, but …more

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

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