Review: Land of Milk and Honey

Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Review: Crank

Crank by Ellen Hopkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Review: The Great Divide

The Great Divide by Cristina Henríquez
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While overall I did like this story, I wasn’t blown away. I found there were too many characters and not enough depth. While the backdrop is building the Panama Canal, we actually don’t see very much of it in the story. (Okay, there is the digging, but this really is not the focus.)

Instead the story is about the people in Panama at that time, and their personal story. Many people went there because of the this grand project, while a few people are locals. For those Panamanians their story helps to highlight the changes to their country.

In the novel, a few of the characters have some resolution to their immediate problem, but for others we don’t have that, instead only to infer. One character introduced very late in the book has no resolution and makes me wonder why was that person there anyway? Perhaps that is nitpicking, but that felt like the author was trying to be all encompassing and the book would be stronger less.


Book rating: 3.25 stars


Thanks to Ecco, Harper Audio and NetGalley for an advance audio review copy of this book.


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Review: The Mysterious Life of the heart

The Mysterious Life of the heart by Sy Safransky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The writing is of a good quality throughout. The introduction says the selections when read front to back follow a journey. There is a sense of that, with more innocent and new love in the early selections, with later in love type love, following a terminal illness or death.

Overall the entries felt more geared towards the sad part of love. The love being focused on here is romantic love just about exclusively. Other types of love do seep into the stories, but it is the pairing up that is the theme.

Perhaps it was my wish for more on the new love, the joy of love and less on the disaster of love, and the pain of love lost. Yet I’m not sad to have read these stories and essays, and the poems interspersed were just right. Of course, with all collections a few were more enjoyable than others.


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Review: The Mysterious Life of the heart

The Mysterious Life of the heart by Sy Safransky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Review: The Great Divide

The Great Divide by Cristina Henríquez
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Review: Between Before and After

Between Before and After by Maureen Doyle McQuerry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A dual time-line story from the early 1900’s in Brooklyn and the modern time in San Jose, California in 1955. The point of view is of the mother Elaine, with Molly the daughter in the other. This is billed as young adult, which made me a little more forgiving for the book.

Molly is curious about her mother’s past, as she doesn’t speak about it. Some snooping found some things such as old photos, but her dad’s words to his wife when he left sparked her imagination: “Bury your past before it buries you.”

Molly figures one best way to find out about her mom is through her Uncle Stephen, but then he gets distracted by a mystery of a miracle.

It sounds like a mystery, also set up like that, but it was so obvious what was going to happen, or discovered, that I can hardly call it a mystery.

Elaine’s timeline is hard, her mother and baby sister die from the Spanish flu. Her father in mourning turned to drinking heavily and being more absent than at home. So, Elaine had to quit school to keep the house together and get a job, she becomes the missing mother to her brother Stephen. Luck landed her a job reading to a blind elderly man in a fancy house. The job barely covers their rent, at least Pop still provided a little money as well, but most of Elaine’s and Stephen’s meals come from the Gossleys.

I found the book okay, not really a page turner and maybe a little slow. Perhaps a young person wouldn’t see the obvious “mystery”. The author’s note at the end mentions her grandmother died from the 1918-1919 pandemic, leaving three children behind, her father being ten years old. They lived in Brooklyn, and this setting became the spark for the book.


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Review: Between Before and After

Between Before and After by Maureen Doyle McQuerry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Review: Fever

Fever by Deon Meyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.25 stars
Good, but a bit too much with the violence aspect.

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Review: American Spirits

American Spirits by Russell Banks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book rating: 3.75

Russell Banks is a good storyteller. These are three stories that are located around the same area, a small town in Northern New York state. They are dark, full of troubled people. Banks certainly knows how to quickly draw a character.

There are three stories: Nowhere man, Homeschooling and Kidnapped. My preference is for the middle story, Homeschooling.

Can't say I fully enjoyed these stories. All were bleak and did not come to happy conclusions. The first the main character is unhappy about how he sold off the land that had been in his family for generations and gets into a feud with the man who had purchased it.

Homeschooling concerns itself with a family that just moved into the town, well more about the neighbors, a lesbian married couple who adopted four siblings who are of a different race. The new neighbors are concerned about how the children are being treated.

The last Kidnapped are descendants of the town's founder, Sam Dent. The elderly couple are kidnapped by some Canadian drug lords and their grandson who they raised is their hope for being released. Their grandson Stevie perhaps is autistic, not sure, but he is different and never had any friends while growing up.

Somehow a MAGA hat made its way into each story as well. Not clear why except to point out the political position for some characters, although politics really didn't play into these stories. There is an undertone of poverty, but really everyone is getting by okay with some doing better than others.


Thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book. And to Penguin Random House Audio for an advance audio copy.

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Review: American Spirits

American Spirits by Russell Banks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book rating: 3.75

Russell Banks is a good storyteller. These are three stories that are located around the same area, a small town in Northern New York state. They are dark, full of troubled people. Banks certainly knows how to quickly draw a character.

There are three stories: Nowhere man, Homeschooling and Kidnapped. My preference is for the middle story, Homeschooling.

Can't say I fully enjoyed these stories. All were bleak and did not come to happy conclusions. The first the main character is unhappy about how he sold off the land that had been in his family for generations and gets into a feud with the man who had purchased it.

Homeschooling concerns itself with a family that just moved into the town, well more about the neighbor's, a lesbian married couple who adopted four siblings who are of a different race. The new neighbor's are concerned about how the children are being treated.

The last Kidnapped are descendants of the town's founder, Sam Dent. The elderly couple are kidnapped by some Canadian drug lords and their grandson who they raised is their hope for being released. Their grandson Stevie perhaps is autistic, not sure, but he is different and never had any friends while growing up.

Somehow a MAGA hat made its way into each story as well. Not clear why except to point out the political position for some characters, although politics really didn't play into these stories. There is an undertone of poverty, but really everyone is getting by okay with some doing better than others.


Thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book. And to Penguin Random House Audio for an advance audio copy.

View all my reviews

Review: American Spirits

American Spirits by Russell Banks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book rating: 3.75

Russell Banks is a good storyteller. These are three stories that are located around the same area, a small town in Northern New York state. They are dark, full of troubled people. Banks certainly knows how to quickly draw a character.

Can't say I fully enjoyed it, and usually with Banks there is a big payoff and here I'm not immediately seeing that. I can tell Banks is making a point about some of these people. Possibly the stories weren't finished, this is published posthumously.
Anyway, just my initial thoughts, perhaps more later.



Thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book. And to Penguin Random House Audio for an advance audio copy.

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Review: Dayswork

Dayswork by Chris Bachelder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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