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Reviews by Stephanie K. (Glendale, AZ)

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The Bog Wife
by Kay Chronister

Bogged Down (8/9/2024)

The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister is a depressive chronicle of the twisted lives of the Haddesley family of West Virginia. After their father's death, the adult children attempt dysfunctional coping with one another and the outside world, much of it to little avail. How each deals with habit and habitation is the subject of this novel, which I believe would appeal to those who like dark, gothic fiction. The Haddesleys' sideways approaches to life and its silent terrors remind us all that we're more like them than not. The family cranberry bog seems to be a euphemism for what happens to everyone as they wend their way through life. Misunderstand or defy the bog and you risk not only your sanity but your very physical existence. This is what each family member has to endure and comprehend in his or her own way.

The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl
by Bart Yates

A Life Review in Twelve Chapters (5/4/2024)

The Very Long and Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl by Bart Yates was a very different and intriguing read for me. Normally not the type of book I'd select to read, I found it delightful the way the author began at age eight and concluded at ninety-six in revealing Isaac's unusual life. Although living an admittedly "ordinary life," he survives such traumas as an avalanche, naval battle, civil rights riot and earthquake to tell his tale of American family life. I couldn't help admiring someone--if only a character in a book--who was so resilient and steadfast no matter what life threw at him. Through each challenging event, Isaac remains humble and nonplussed, not considering himself a hero or even someone worthy of praise. Readers will certainly enjoy this tale, as I did, of an extraordinarily regular person shining during the very irregular occurrences of life.

The Funeral Cryer: A Novel
by Wenyan Lu

Mourning With the Mourner (2/12/2024)

The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu is an intriguing and profound look into the life of a professional mourner in rural China. This unnamed person is shunned by most because of her unique profession and actual becomes an outcast of her own village. I found this novel to be very different in both its subject matter and its approach to life, death and grief. A friendship with a local barber demonstrates to her the static nature of her marriage but also the possible way she can break out of societal structure and discover personal happiness for the first time.

Although the foreign nature of its premise made it difficult at first to get into, The Funeral Cryer provided a look into an alternative culture that most Americans don't get to see. I'm glad I had the chance to.

Help Wanted: A Novel
by Adelle Waldman

Selling Retail Lives (12/30/2023)

In "Help Wanted," Adelle Waldman cuts close to the quick in detailing the struggles of retail workers in a big box store. As a former retailer myself, I identified with many of the emotions the characters were attempting to work through. This novel gave me a mild case of the "cold dreads" as I vicariously faced what each of the workers were facing in their personal and professional lives. It was a good take on the realities of life in retail, which at times can be like trying to run through mud.

The Stone Home: A Novel
by Crystal Hana Kim

Hidden Horrors Brought to Light (11/11/2023)

Crystal Hana Kim's the Stone Home is a poignant fictional account of "reformatory school" atrocities committed in 1980s South Korea. The novel resonates deeply with today's hot-button topics of child abuse and wartime brutality. Anyone with an interest in hidden history and its resolution, not to mention finding solutions to human trafficking and forced birth, will find it both truthful and horrifying in its implications. Although written about a time long ago, the feelings and issues presented are timeless in nature. The book demonstrates, above all, that people are people, no matter what their circumstances, ethnicity or history.

Above the Salt: A Novel
by Katherine Vaz

Above the Ordinary Novel (9/8/2023)

Above the Salt by Katherine Vaz acquaints us with Madeirans John Alves and Mary Freitas, two refugees from the Catholic and Protestant conflicts who flee to the U.S. This lyrical, poignant story relates in touching detail how John and Mary are separated time and time again yet reunite several times. Set during the time of Abraham Lincoln's ascent to the Presidency and the Civil War, it ties in the suffering of two individuals with the angst of an entire nation. Readers will laugh and cry at the humanity and the depravity of the characters in this story.

Devil Makes Three: A Novel
by Ben Fountain

The Devil's In the Details (8/21/2023)

Devil Makes Three by Ben Fountain is an impressive and rich novel largely centering around Matt Amaker, an American scuba entrepreneur. Matt has the great misfortune of being right in the center of a Haitian coup that displaces Aristide as President. When his livelihood is stolen by the rebels and he's beaten senseless, Matt is forced to look elsewhere for sustenance. While treasure hunting with his best friend Alix could net him a fortune, it could plunge him into the depths of trouble with the new government, the rebels, and a greedy and vicious cartel also looking for treasure.

Digging Stars: A Novel
by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

A Young Woman Searches for Her Father and Herself (7/9/2023)

From bespangled Saharan nights to frozen Manhattan days, Rosa's life is, in essence, a search for her father. While she does indeed know his real identity and goes to visit him, his life with a new wife and son is a mystery to her. In the midst of devoting herself to her father's beloved Bantu geometries and Indigenous astronomies as her life's work, she encounters obstacles in dealing with his puzzling current life and personality. Rosa comes to understand herself first, and only much later--after his death--does she truly comprehend what her father's career and life actually encompassed. As with all of us, she discovers the good and bad, positive and negative, in her family's history and in herself, learning and evolving along the way even when she doesn't mean to. A coming-of-age novel, it demonstrates the tricks and traps of growing up between two very distinct cultures and families.

Panther Gap: A Novel
by James A. McLaughlin

Panther Spirit and Drug Cartel Violence (3/14/2023)

Panther Gap by James A. McLaughlin is a wild ride to a deceptively quiet, remote Colorado ranch. Hippie-spirit Bowman and his academic-track sister Summer grow up knowing there's more than what meets the eye in their idyllic existence. Behind the scenes, their family has amassed shocking wealth, and their secret inheritance brings a frightening array of suspicious characters and cartel operatives into their young lives. Bowman utilizes psychedelic rites and Summer ecological knowhow in an attempt to rescue their ranch from a selloff. What the siblings fail to realize is that several powerful drug cartels in the area are far more interested in offshore funds, at the expense of Summer's and Bowman's lives. Their story becomes more involving and fascinating as the chapters roll on, and the last few contain more than a couple of nail-biters. The author ties up the many loose ends very effectively at the conclusion and he has us genuinely caring for the welfare of his well-drawn characters.

The Critic's Daughter: A Memoir
by Priscilla Gilman

The Function in Dysfunctional Family Love (1/9/2023)

Ms. Gilman's work efficiently and sensitively categorizes the rise and fall in a family's fortunes, both in the literal and metaphorical sense, through the eyes of the eldest daughter, Cil. As well as taking us through her family's chronological history, it was more satisfying yet to wend our way through their emotional history. Anyone at all interested in Broadway or specifically musical theater will find this biography a charming accompaniment to a trip to the theater.

Ghost Season: A Novel
by Fatin Abbas

Heartbreaker That Goes Soul Deep (11/16/2022)

Ghost Season will grab you immediately with its five main sympathetic characters, four of them Black and one white, who eke out their lives in Sudan. I loved it for its raw honesty and grit in relating how each, though very different, intersects with the others in a dance of both hatred and love. The conclusion was unexpected and jarring, yet it was a fitting finale for these humble but shining characters. This book provides complete immersion with its unique setting and unusual cast.

In the Time of Our History
by Susanne Pari

This Book Appeals to Anyone With a Family (9/1/2022)

The Jahani family, exiles from the Ayatollah's Iran truly is Every Family, foreign-born or not. This would be an excellent novel for book clubs to discuss, and simply for individual readers to ponder, how we end up and stay in or leave the families we originate in. I didn't want to leave the Jahanis but instead wanted to keep on reading about their many adventures and misadventures. They represent not only Iranians trying to make their way in life, but all of us as we bumble through indelicately. The Jahanis demonstrate that we are all exiles in one way or another, but we march on regardless.

The Family Izquierdo: A Novel
by Rubén Degollado

Family That Could Be Yours (7/31/2022)

The Family Izquierdo relates the story of how a curse put on them by a jealous neighbor both divides and unites the family members. Each chapter is a piece of the puzzle told by a different Izquierdo and encompassing a different period in the family's history. The chapters are both intriguing and even shocking, and you'll hate leaving the Izquierdos when the book ends.

Fruiting Bodies: Stories
by Kathryn Harlan

Fruitful and Lush (5/8/2022)

I'd definitely recommend this book to read and discuss, particularly for any book club interested in diversity and inclusivity. Fruiting Bodies is a unique and stunning collection of stories so cohesive it reads like a novel. Though each chapter tells an entirely different coming-of-age tale, the reader is left wanting more of the individual stories and their vivid characters. I hated to have the book end, and I haven't felt that way in a long time! I've read lots of short story anthologies, and it's rare as a reader to enjoy all of them so thoroughly.

Some of It Was Real
by Nan Fischer

Belief and Doubt in a Psychic's World (2/18/2022)

Sylvie Young's doubt that she's a "real" psychic gives Thomas Holmes plenty of salacious fodder for his next journalist effort which "has" to be spectacular, or he's fired. Their background traumas form a strange admixture with their career clashes and personal agendas as they both fight yet give into romantic love. In Thomas' mind, she's a psychic vampire, much like the so-called "medium" who fleeced his mother into bankruptcy. Is Sylvie just another phony or the real deal? As Sylvie tries desperately to reassure herself and the world of her integrity, Thomas does all he can to tear her down. Who or what will triumph in this war of the wills?

Activities of Daily Living: A Novel
by Lisa Hsiao Chen

Wonderfully Crafted Story (1/4/2022)

Ms. Chen does an excellent job of keeping two storylines, the Project and the Father, going at the same time. At times running on parallel tracks, these two elements converge beautifully to relate a lush tale of reality, fantasy, grief and fleeting moments of happiness. Having gone through similar challenges and sorrows, I can say confidently that the author portrays the experience of them transparently and with brutal honesty. This book will touch and satisfy the former or current caregiver who really does care. Having a Project in the author's sense of the term truly does preserve your sanity and keeps you alive to complete "It," whatever the It may be.

Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey
by Florence Williams

A Heartbreaker to Read and Mull Over (11/5/2021)

This book about love lost in the form of rejection and subsequent divorce is a timely and compassionate approach to heartbreak. I think most every adult alive, male or female, divorced or not, can identify with being told to take a hike and the effects this has on them mentally, physically and spiritually. Having been both a bookseller as well as a library assistant, I can truthfully say that this book belongs as a welcome addition to any professional or personal shelf. The author not only deftly steers us through the shoals of her own breakup, she also helps us to see the why and how of relationship toxicity and the way we may most quickly and efficiently recover from such devastation. Her honesty concerning her own mistakes and misgivings is refreshing and encouraging. Read this book to learn how to become functional and whole again following a bad breakup.

The Latinist: A Novel
by Mark Prins

Scholarship, Passion, Suspense and Obsession (10/7/2021)

Tessa, an American scholar, begins her academic career at Oxford unaware of the dangerous games she's playing with Chris, her brilliantly flawed British mentor. While at first she has the cushion of Chris's wife Diana and her lover Ben to keep them safely apart, both Ben's and Diana's sudden departures wreak havoc in the form of obsessed and unrequited love. For anyone ever delving into literary academia, Tessa's and Chris's story leaves the reader fascinated yet terrified. Within the background of ancient history and archeological digs, their thoroughly modern relationship will seem both familiar and odd as professor and student circle around each other, one cunning and the other innocent, only to shockingly do an about-face. Anyone intrigued with dead languages, ancient mysteries and the workings of overwrought minds will find this one of their new favorite reads.

Reviews by Stephanie K. (Glendale, AZ)

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