Reviews by Stephanie K. (Glendale, AZ)

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The Original Daughter
The Original Daughter: A Novel
by Jemimah Wei
Origins in the Original Daughter (3/8/2025)
The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei is a chronicle of a "first" child who has trouble reconciling with the second one, another daughter. Many will be able to identify with being the "original" (elder) child in the family until a usurper for the parents'/grandparents' …more
The Dream Hotel
The Dream Hotel: A Novel
by Laila Lalami
Nightmares In the Dream Hotel (1/2/2025)
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami is a frightening glimpse into what terrors an authoritarian government could visit on its citizens. Its main protagonist Sara unwittingly falls into a waking nightmare when she's arrested for having a dream (which are monitored by the state) …more
The Bog Wife
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 …more
The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl
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 …more
The Funeral Cryer
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 …more
Help Wanted
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 …more
The Stone Home
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 …more
Above the Salt
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 …more
Devil Makes Three
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 …more
Digging Stars
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 …more
Panther Gap
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 …more
The Critic's Daughter
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 …more
Ghost Season
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 …more
In the Time of Our History
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 …more
The Family Izquierdo
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 …more
Fruiting Bodies
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 …more
Some of It Was Real
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 …more
Activities of Daily Living
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. …more
Heartbreak
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 …more
The Latinist
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 …more
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