Book of the Month: February 2018

Offered Books:

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

The Philosopher's Flight by Tom Miller

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

Still Me by Jojo Moyes

Selected:

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

Others Purchased:

None - yet

With most books, I prefer either a good ghost story or a good mystery - very few (in my experience) weave the two together in a way that satisfactorily resolves both plot lines.  Of the many I have read, I'd say only Bag of Bones by Stephen King managed the feat.  But The Broken Girls by Simone St. James comes pretty damn close.

The mystery part concerns the sister of our main protagonist: Fiona Sheridan.  Her sister was murdered twenty years prior and Fiona has never felt that the true story came out - even though a man was tried and convicted for the murder.  Using the excuse of the restoration of Idlewild Hall, Fiona revisits the area where her sister was murdered and begins to re-investigate the event.

Idlewild Hall is also the setting of the continual flashbacks to 1950: a place where 'troublesome' girls are sent, we follow the budding friendship between four of the girls living there and the lead-up to one of them disappearing.

The ghost story is present in both - predating the 1950 segment by many years - and factors into both storylines, giving the reader three intertwining plots that, thankfully, don't get too confusing.  In fact, the way St. James weaves these various plot threads together is one of the standout aspects of the novel, and the main reason it was read in almost a single setting.

The mood of the novel is dark and sad, with little to no moments of levity.  Despite this, St. James keeps it from being dour, with enough character development and action to keep the reader engaged despite - for obvious reasons - refusing to 'lighten' the novel as it tackles its subject matter.

I really liked this novel.  While one of the three storylines doesn't quite wrap up in a way I found satisfactory, it's a brisk read with more than enough to keep me entertained as I made my way through it.  In fact, just writing this review makes me want to go back and reread it!  So it is a definite recommend.

4 out of 5

Author Links:

Simone St. James

Book of the Month: January 2018

Offered Books:

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas

As Bright As Heaven by Susan Meissner

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

Two Girls Down by Louisa Luna

Selected:

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas

Also Purchased Read:

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

Red Clocks, by Leni Zumas, follows four women in a small Oregon town.  In this fictional United States, the Personhood Amendment has been passed: granting full rights to embryos, thus outlawing abortion and IVF and affecting all of the women in some way.

This is a hard book to start.  While each of the women being followed (The Biographer, The Wife, The Mender, and The Daughter) have their stories intersect with the other women, it takes awhile to get to that point and the 'setting the stage' part of the book can feel choppy.  I didn't find this part hard to get through, but numerous others have, so fair warning to those interested in reading this.

The characters are all well-written, though I wish a bit more was done with The Mender than what we eventually get, but I feel that none of them are standout characters that will draw the reader back to this book.  They're all believable, but are missing that big cathartic moment in their stories that satisfies the average reader.  To me, the best character is the Biographer, and I almost wish that the book had focused on her exclusively while still allowing the intersection with the other characters.

The plot is a good one, if slightly underdeveloped.  Zumas gives the readers enough information to explain the state of the world, but not enough of how it happened and how it has been maintained despite affecting all women in the United States.  There is even enough pressure to force Canada to assist the US in preventing women from traveling there for access to abortion/IVF without a thorough explanation of why the country feels the need to do so.

This book doesn't quite fall into the 'could've done more' that The Power does, but it does feel like a large part of it has been left out - and that lost part is what keeps the book from being great.

I'd recommend it, but it's not a novel I see many going back to.

3 out of 5

The Woman in the Window follows Anna Fox, a woman who recently underwent a traumatic event and now suffers from severe agoraphobia.  While stuck in her home she witnesses a crime happen in one of her neighbor's houses, but isn't sure she can even believe her own recollection of what happened and desperately tries to figure out what she witnessed.

I'll get this out of the way:  I don't understand why this book became the hit that it did.  It's not a terrible novel by any means, but I fail to see what made it so exceptional to so many.  While the character of Anna Fox is great - I eagerly await the movie to see how Amy Adams portrays the character - so much of what happens requires more than just the suspension of belief.  I won't go into details to avoid spoilers, but the 'reveal' was only a surprise because of how implausible it was for them to do what they did.

Which is a shame, because the character of Anna Fox is great.  There's so much character there, and the way Finn writes her is amazing.  However, this leaves almost every other character either underdeveloped or barely developed enough.  The neighbors who house she witnessed the event in are the best off, but not enough for them to linger.

Structurally, the story does something that I absolutely hate: hides a major detail of a character (in this case, Anna) that we should know far earlier than we do.  There's no reason to deprive the reader of this information - anyone with the slightest bit of intelligence knows the Something Important happened that we aren't privy to - other than for one of several 'reveals' that only serve to prolong the story.

Despite all these criticisms, it is a solid book, just not a great one.

3.5 out of 5

Author Links:

Leni Zumas

Book of the Year: 2017

Book of the Year Finalists:

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance by Ruth Emma Lang

(See the Semi-Finalists)

Winner:

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

My Top 5:

1) The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

2) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

3) The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

4) The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

5) Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker

HM: Final Girls by Riley Sager

So, in making my selections for my favorite books of the year, I didn't have the largest selection to choose from, having only read 12 from 2017 (13, if I get around to The Chalk Man).  Given the relatively low number, it was mostly a matter of eliminating them one by one until I had my top 5.

The first to go was Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich, which I did not enjoy at all.  Next to go was Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips, then The Power by Naomi Alderman - two books I finished but didn't feel terribly positive about.

Chemistry by Weike Wang and Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong were eliminated together, as my opinion for both is about the same - liked but did not love.  The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman was the next to go and was the first hard cut to be made, as I really enjoyed that book.

The dread sixth place spot took me quite awhile to make a decision on: All the remaining books would be amongst my favorites for 2017: depending on the day you asked me, 1-3 and 4-6 could shift dramatically.  Ultimately, I placed Final Girls by Riley Sager at sixth, though it was hard to remove it.

Once Final Girls was cut, fourth and fifth was a battle between The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne and Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker.  Though I feel the ending of the former dragged a bit, it was a much more ambitious than the latter, which ultimately lead to Emma in the Night taking the 5 spot and The Heart's Invisible Furies at 4.

I mentioned it above, but deciding between the remaining 3 was a much more arduous task than I expected.  A month from now I might switch them around, depending on my mood.  I decided to lay the books out and think on which I would be most likely to reread when given the chance.  The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid was the last I theoretically reached for in this exercise, so it got third.

Second goes to Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, as it was not the first I wanted to reread when confronted with my top 3 - but only by a hair.  The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty was what I initially reached for, and I cannot argue with that selection:  Though both books are amazingly well written, The City of Brass has that extra bit of magic about it (fitting, given the plot) that I know will keep me going back to it again and again in the future.

So that's my top 5 (and really, a ranking of all the books I read for that year).  I may revisit this in a year or so to see if my feelings change - hopefully with some more books to be considered.

2017 Book of the Year Semi-Finalist List

December 2016:

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

January:

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney

February:

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

March:

Dead Letters by Caite Dolan-Leach

April:

American War by Omar El Akkad

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

May:

The Leavers by Lisa Ko

Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane

June:

A Million Junes by Emily Henry

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Finalist)

July:

Final Girls by Riley Sager

August:

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne (Finalist)

The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh

September:

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Finalist)

Sourdough by Robin Sloan

Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (Finalist)

October:

Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance by Ruth Emmie Lang (Finalist)

The Power by Naomi Alderman

No books from November 2017 made the semi-finalists.