Review 647: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Instead of writing some notes about the books I’ve read recently I went and read another one. Okay, this one is short, a novella, and better read around Halloween perhaps.

I won’t say much about this as so many others have done a great job, better than I could do…but one thing. I generally knew of the story going in, so the mystery of who was Mr. Hyde was already known. Yet I had the thought that this could be viewed as someone who becomes a meth addict, or drug addict of the chemical manufactured type.

Dr. Jekyll mixes up these chemicals, a white powder and some special salts, and he is transformed. In the story he is described as physically changed. There are some drugs where addicts become quite physically changed in appearance as well, thin, smaller, faces disfigured, and their personality changes as well, generally not for the better. Yet they do not usually go back to their old self, or perhaps only once they stop using, more or less. Perhaps not a perfect comparison but a thought of some similarities of today.

Happy to have finally read this classic. It's easily read in a day.

Review 629: Ludes

Ludes by Ben Stein
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is completely different than what I thought it may be. Many, many years ago I picked this up at a used book library sale, during a brief moment when I thought I’d like to be a psychologist someday. I believed this book was a psychological case study, something academic. No, it is not that.

This is a non-fiction account of a friend of Ben Stein's descent into drug addiction. Stein, who used to host a game show called “Win Ben Stein’s Money” and has appeared in films and such. He’s a writer as well, starting with the Nixon presidency. This book takes place shortly after the political writing ended and now in 1976 he’s writing for The Wall Street Journal, mostly cultural type pieces. Ironically he was the only one with any graduate work in economics on the editorial staff, yet he’s the one not writing the economic pieces.

Stein writes about his friend Lenny Brown, from their first meeting at The Wall Street Journal where Lenny tried to sell him on a financial real estate tax shelter deal on a cold call. For some reason the two clicked and they become friends. The book is a slightly autobiographical, but primarily a profile of his friend and his demise into becoming addicted to quaaludes, or ludes. Yet even here it takes a very good portion, about 40 percent of the book, before Lenny takes his first pill.

We learn all about Lenny’s life of selling and not quite making it, then he gets his break and is hired this guy Max in Los Angeles. Finally Lenny is living the life he always thought he deserved. Eventually Stein makes his way to Los Angeles too, now working with production companies.

The book is non-fiction, but all names have been changed, except Ben Stein’s and one other that is noted in the book. Yet it is written like fiction, recanting conversations and other minute details. Stein mentions how he knows these things, but there are moments when some of this must be fictionalized for the sake of the story and flow.

It's quite readable and quick, but a bit unusual really. I expect this is something that has become a bit obscure.

Review 616: A Gorgeous Excitement

A Gorgeous Excitement by Cynthia Weiner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Maybe a beach read?

Summer 1986, in New York City. Nina Jacobs, is working various temp jobs before starting college, and hopes to lose her virginity before leaving.

This place of New York City almost becomes a character. Nina meets a new friend in Central Park and they hit it off right away, and she introduces her to cocaine, for a gorgeous excitement. Nina is also dealing with her mentally ill mother, unwanted sexual attention, such as the smarmy hugs the doorman always gives, and yet hoping to snag Gardner as her first. Plus, what's going on with her childhood friends, not feeling so friendly towards her lately.

There is a lot going on in the novel, which kept it interesting.

Short notes here, perhaps more later....

Review 473: Crank

Crank by Ellen Hopkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Next month (April) a new top 10 of the most banned books will be coming out. I was looking over last year’s list, nearly all are young adult titles. This one stood out for a me a little, as it said the book was in poetry form. I was curious about the format.

So, I wanted to see what this was…read a preview then decided, okay let’s read a bit more, see how this goes, then read the entire book in one day.

This is one of those cautionary tale for teens against getting into drugs, particularly meth, which also goes by many other names. The main character reflects what happened to the author’s daughter, so it is more based on fact than fiction.

The daughter, Kristina, was sent to her father’s for a summer visit of several weeks, court ordered after nearly no contact for eight years. He lives in another state, she gets on a plane alone for the visit. Her father is negligent to an extreme.

Kristina comes home with a new personality, calls herself Bree to her new friends and has new habits, such as smoking cigarettes, kissing boys, and oh yeah a monster habit for meth. It’s a downward spiral from there.

And this brief summary is exactly what happened to the author’s daughter as well.

The poetry format was unique, and occasionally got in the way of the story-telling, but for the most part it was just a unique way to tell this story. A powerful book for sure.

Review 401: Father of the Rain

Father of the Rain by Lily King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A family story, or more to the point a father-daughter story. The story is told in three parts.

In the first part Daley is eleven and exposed to so much inappropriateness for her age, finally her mother cannot take the drinking so the parents divorce.

The second part is later, as an adult, 18 years later and Daley is about to embark on a significant career move with her boyfriend who gave up his great job to be with her. But a crisis develops, her father's life has fallen apart and Daley helps to get her father sober.

The last part is the shortest section of the book, and again years later, when the father is very ill. The phone call you don't want to get, your father is on his death bed, come say goodbye.

It was a decent story, but wouldn't say great. I question why there was so much of this exposing the child to sex and it not really coming up again later. Daley has a much older brother, who is barely in the book, and the mother is bit of a side character as well, really everyone is except the father and daughter. Perhaps there was too much focus there.

Review 236: Mary Jane

Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A charming book set in the 1970s, Nixon Era about a transformative summer for young teenage Mary Jane Dillard. She decides to get a summer job and looking after Izzy for the new family in the posh Baltimore neighborhood seemed perfect. Unfortunately, the Cone family isn’t the respectable family as her parents expected, starting with them being Jewish. Mary Jane’s conservative family and private school upbringing shielded her from so much, that when she heard about sex addiction, she assumed she was a sex addict, despite never even having kissed anyone. 

The Cone household soon included two more, a famous married couple, a tv star and her rock star husband who Dr. Cone treats for addictions. Mary Jane quickly overcomes being star-struck over the couple and ends up being the only adult in the house as no one else cleans or knows how to cook, although there is a lot of love. This love and affection are something Mary Jane is missing from her home, and didn’t even know it.

The book is surprising and has a touch of humor throughout. Little Izzy is such a delight! And I love how the book showed the growth and transformation of Mary Jane. The writing was deft and seamless so you are just immersed into the story, as it should be.

I listened to the audiobook, and it had a surprise at the end, an original song that is mentioned in the book, near the end. For this reason I would recommend listening to the audio as the best way to read this book.

Review 202: The Ice House

The Ice House by Laura Lee Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Scottish immigrant Johnny married well to a daughter of an ice plant owner. They get the plant and run it, now, years later are now facing shutdown due to a huge OSHA fine. Of course they are fighting it, but the lawyers haven’t found much to go on yet. Johnny and Pauline suspect there are people across the street dealing drugs, maybe making meth and caused the accident. So far there is nothing to prove this theory.

Meanwhile Johnny collapses due to a brain tumor, now he has to take it easy for two weeks before the surgery, no working. Perfect time to head to Scotland for a few days to see about patching things up with his son Corran, who now has little baby Lucy to look after. Corran's wife is in prison for drug trafficking and he is trying to keep clean. Working on the oil rigs in the North Sea helped, no way to get anything there, plus it's good money. But who will look after Lucy.

Although a little on the longer side, it didn’t feel like there was padding and something to be taken out, the story just unfolded naturally and that was the number of pages it needed to be said.

I enjoyed the book, decent book.

Review 130: The Book That Matters Most

The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Going into this book I actually didn’t expect much, and didn’t know what the book might be about either. In the end, I enjoyed it.

There are two story lines, one of a mom mourning a recently ruined marriage, her husband left for a past girlfriend. The other is of the daughter, off in Paris ruining herself with drugs and illicit love affairs. She allows herself to be literally a kept woman in an upstairs apartment, much like the attic. The older man gives her everything and what keeps her is really the drugs. She thinks she’s in love, but gets bored or something, then after striking up other relations with boys her age she gets repulsed by the man. Eventually she leaves, but nearly overdoses and luckily the boy had called authorities. She detoxes in the hospital then actually does quit the drugs once clean, ends up at a bookshop.

The main thrust for the mother is the new book club she joined. Her best friend, a librarian, runs the group and finally she has time and wants to meet other people, be involved. And she has her own affair, but this time with a young man, he started it. The book club chose the books that mattered most to them for each month read, rotating people, which had been chosen on the December meeting.

There is loss, of mother, of the marriage, of her daughter a little, but that becomes resolved. Yet it isn’t too sad. The ending wraps up neatly, too neatly actually.

I received a free copy of this book at a library conference. I was not required to write a review, but felt like it and, of course, the above opinions are my own.

March 18, 2020 – Started Reading

March 18, 2020 – Shelved as: own-read

March 18, 2020 –

page 28

 7.82%

March 19, 2020 –

page 100

 27.93%

March 20, 2020 –

page 194

 54.19%

March 21, 2020 –

page 242

 67.6%

March 21, 2020 – Finished Reading

Review 108: Ordinary Girls

Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Díaz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a surprising book. A memoir of growing up in Peurto Rico and Miami Beach, in an extremely dysfunctional family. Díaz’s mother and maternal grandmother both have mental illness and drug addiction. Her father seems more concerned with chasing other women, or something. It is her father’s mother that saves Díaz, her abuela. The book is lyrical and written well, in many ways amazing.

How do you survive poverty? How do you survive drug addicted mother, parents that split up? How do you survive a childhood where the mother is the child’s worst danger? Where babies are found dead, brutalized and starved, left in bushes by an uncaring mother and her lesbian lover. How do you claim your sexuality when you’re attacked by a child even?

Díaz is a strong writer. The book is not linear, and perhaps if the book was told that way it would be overwhelming. It was for Díaz in living her life, and at the end we, as well as Díaz are amazed she did survive. Not only survive, but thrive.

An amazing book, not an easy read, it is intense. It is also very much worth reading.



Thanks to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 97: Creatures

Creatures: A Novel by Crissy Van Meter
My rating:  3.5of 5 stars

This is a story about a woman who had utterly horrible parenting. Her dad is an alcoholic and drug user, actually makes his living my growing and selling a sought after strain of marijuana. Her mother has left, appears spontaneously but doesn’t stay long, nor often is in her daughter’s life. Yet somehow the two bonded. Another mother figure appears but even she doesn’t have the capacity to remain, but does something to help for a while. It’s surprising this woman, Evie, made something of her life. And it isn’t surprising she chooses a fisherman who is out at sea for weeks, or months, at a time to be her husband.

There feels like an undercurrent much stronger than the surface, but a rereading on my part would need to tease it fully out, and well, I didn’t enjoy the book that much. Certainly whales are at the center, and perhaps something about living on an island.

This book is a little bit odd, and not helped by the style. There is a constant shifting in time. You never quite know where in the timeline the story is from one paragraph to the other. Often it works, but sometimes not and it throws the reader, trying to place when, what is going on. If this is a book going to audio format I doubt it would work there, as you have less clues about the time shift.

If you’re someone who can enjoy pain in family dynamics and poor choices by parents, perhaps this will be a good book for you. The sentences can be beautiful at times, and that may be enough to carry you along.

Book rating: 3.5 stars

Thanks to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Review 64: Opioid, Indiana

Opioid, Indiana by Brian Allen Carr
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

This book was a good attempt at showing how a teenager deals with things he shouldn't have to. He is an orphan at too young an age and moved from caretaker to caretaker, the lastest being his mother's younger brother who is a drug addict. Our narrator, Riggle, never tells us the name of the town, instead naming it Opioid for all of the addicts.

The book takes place over about a week of time, and each day we get a little fable that his mom told him with using a hand shadow puppet they called Remote. I didn't like these asides. Also made it feel like the character is much younger than his 17 years, but that's understandable with his circumstances. He's had to take care of himself at too young of age.

During this week Riggle is suspended from school and he and Peggy (his uncle's live-in girlfriend) are trying, half-hardheartedly, to find the uncle. Riggle's only friend plays a small role in the story too, grounding us in the reality of kids living with the possibility of school shootings. There's a lot in this short novel, too much perhaps, and unfortunately a lot of it is lost.

There are interesting sentences and observations but somehow the book isn't pulled together well. It's hard to pin down exactly but the book didn't resonate with me. Perhaps for teenagers this will be a better read for them, yet I find it hard to call this young adult. (I did add the tag.) The book is grity and dark, but the language and main character does lend it to that YA genre. I wanted the book to work, but unfortunately, for me it didn't.

Book rating: 2.5 stars, rounded down


Thanks to Soho Press and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 52: Commute: An Illustrated Memoir of Female Shame

Commute: An Illustrated Memoir of Female Shame by Erin Williams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow! I am floored by the brave and honest truth in this book. Erin Williams tells an unflinching reality about herself and sadly many, many women. I can identify all too well with her story. Perhaps not to the degree but yes, had a few similar experiences, being taken advantage of by guys then feeling the shame. Finally women are talking about this openly.

I'm amazed at how forceful and direct this author wrote and illustrated her life story. She is unflinching and it is uncomfortable. It is what is necessary and needed. When the book comes out in color it will be all that more powerful.

I hope men will read this, but I have a feeling very few will, especially the men who do this, did this, who should see what their behavior does, and how it lingers years and decades later.



I received a free print copy of this book at a library conference. I was not required to write a review, but felt like it and, of course, the above opinions are my own.

Review 44: On Drinking

On Drinking by Charles Bukowski
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This is a compilation of poetry, essays and some interviews on everything Bukowski wrote on drinking. At points it become repetitive, as some of the exact same material is covered. Other moments give us his contradictions, or changes, hard to say. The timeline, or years aren't consistently mentioned.

There are moments where I laughed, but more where I cringed. He's a rough guy. And at times I wonder if this is Bukowski or just a role he is playing. The book was good, but could have been improved with not including every single thing. Perhaps choosing the poem, or interview that best represents the writing instead of all which ends with repetitions.

Book rating: 3.5 stars



Previously Read Charles Bukowski books:

• You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense (Poetry)
• (4 stars) August.1994
• Tales of Ordinary Madness (Poetry)
• (3 stars) October.1997

Review 21: Lights All Night Long

Lights All Night Long by Lydia Fitzpatrick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An amazing book, quite enjoyable and surprising. I didn't think this was going to be a mystery but there was a bit of that in this book. It was mainly about this smart Russian kid Ilya and his older brother Vladimir. They grow up in a small oil refinery village in Russia, a place where no one goes. Ilya, the smart one, learned English easily, and with some luck was able to go to the United States through an exchange program with the oil refinery company in Russia and one in Louisiana.

The book is split between Ilya's time in the U.S. and his time in Russia, mostly of the last year or so. Ilya loves and looks up to his brother immensely and when the book starts Vladimir is in jail in Russia. Ilya knows that the crime, three murders, were not done by his brother despite the fact that Vladimir confessed. Ilya become obsessed with trying to solve the murders even while in the U.S.

A new drug called krokodil appears in Russia and seems to explain much of Vladimir's behaviors, but there is more to it. The book reveals more and more as you read. My only complaint is that the book kept going after the reveal of who did kill the women. Sometimes it's a good thing to give a little more, an epilogue or coda, but actually I think it would have been left at a shorter point than it did.

Overall an good book. And while it is about teenagers I would not call this a YA book. Then again, I'm not of that age anymore.



Thanks to Penguin Press and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 16: Daisy Jones & The Six

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is out today and already has a huge fan following and tons of love, and for good reason. There is a lot to love in this book. Unfortunately, I wasn't someone who found it absolutely amazing. I enjoyed a lot of the book but I wasn't completely floored.

The book opens with an "Author's Note" which is the fictional author writing this biography of the music band Daisy Jones & The Six. It states this book is an attempt to portray why this band split up mid-tour during the height of their fame in July 1979.

The book is told as an interview style, which means lots of words and back and forth between the different characters. This is one of the problems, we are told the story not shown. As I got into the book I noticed that often there is one character saying the words for another, particularly with the two main people: Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne, saying each other's words. It started pulling me out of the story noticing this happening.

There was one point where the "author" interrupted the story and inserted herself even with disclaimer's and this section I thought was very awkward, it should have just been rewritten leaving the author out of it. I don't think anything in the story was gained by that move.

Personally I thought the story went on too long, dragged out when it could have been tightened up. I'm happy there was more than just Daisy and Billy, but even more with some of the other characters would have been helpful.

I can still recommend the book, it was fun. I loved the lyrics for their hit album provided at the end of the book. I read them before starting the read, then again in the middle and at the end. Plus, RandomHouse made a playlist on Spotify to listen to while reading the book. How awesome is that?

Book rating: 3.5 stars rounded up for the additional material

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

Review 9: Sugar Run

Sugar Run by Mesha Maren
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book was a disappointment. It was also a tad boring, surprising since the premise doesn't sound like that at all. The book starts with Jodi just being released out of jail after 18 years, early even, after killing her girlfriend Paula. The book slowly tells you the story of what led up to the shooting, was it an accident, or purposeful? The main part of the book is after she leaves jail. First she wants to Paula's brother, to save him, as they had always planned. Along the way she picks up a new girlfriend, Miranda, plus her three kids. With all five stuffed in Miranda's car they go back to her grandmother's land in West Virginia Appalachian mountains, to start a new life.

It sounds interesting, but it wasn't. It fell flat. Whenever there was a little action, it kept being interrupted by another chapter break. We'd switch to the current or past, when it went back to the action well now that was moved past it. There was so much focus on driving, pills and drinking, oh and smoking cigarettes, maybe this is what the book is about. I wanted more about the land, the connection to it, and the fracking or other mining taking it away. Some of that was here, but again, it was subdued.

I almost stopped reading several times, and perhaps should have, but I'm curious and would wonder if it got any better. Not really. Not all books are wonderful and the duds make better books stand out even more. Go ahead and skip this one.

Book rating: 2 stars


I received a free copy of this book at a library conference. I was not required to write a review, but felt like it and, of course, the above opinions are my own.