Review 454: Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners

Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners by Gretchen Anthony
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I thought this would be a holiday related book, but it wasn't really. Instead we have a young lesbian couple about to have their first child. The mother, Violet, of the pregnant woman, Cersie, is a control freak. Cersie and Barb delay telling Violet of the pregnancy in order to not overshadow the retirement party for her father. So during a speech Violet hears of the baby and outright faints. In fainting she crashes and into things and ends up with a serious concussion.

Being a control freak and now having neurological issues is the set up for this book, which tries to be so humorous.  I think it was outrageous at times, but I hardly laughed. 

The only Christmas related thing was, well the main event the book started with was just before the holidays. And there is a Christmas letter that Violet writes every year which is peppered throughout the book to show history of their family.  

The book was okay, maybe some people would enjoy the humor more than I did. Perhaps this type of humor works better on screen, I don't know. I found it meh.

Review 349: Mad Honey

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book is told in two parts – one is with time going forward and the other timeline going backwards. I find it odd when a book is told backwards in time. The main story line is about a teenage romance, which ends up with the young girl dead. Most of the book is the trial, with the boyfriend being accused of her death. We are sure he didn’t do it, but maybe, and if not him, who or how did she die? So, a little bit of a mystery.

Like Picoult’s other books this one has a strong social awareness aspect, but it felt over the top with this one. Several times (three at least) we are told how and why a person is as they are, and it was too much. Once, maybe even twice if it was short, but no it went on, and this preaching at me really detracted from the book. I appreciate the thoughts and understanding behind the book, but it would have been a better story without this. The book itself seemed to be going on and on, and easily could have eliminated many pages.

I liked all the information about bees and honey contained in the book, that was a nice touch. There are many issues thrown into this book, which sometimes felt heavy-handed, but life can be like that too. Just wished for less lectures, and wished the authors trusted their readers more.

Thanks to Ballentine and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book. Although I did listen to the audiobook version of the book and the narrators did a great job.

Review 284: The Sunlight Pilgrims

The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not a fan of the ending.

It's the near future, although in the book that makes it 2020. A cold freeze is happening all over the world. Dylan recently lost his family of mother and grandmother and the only home he knew a tiny art film house in London. He goes north to Scotland to find this tiny trailer his mother bought. The main character turns out to be this teen girl Stella, who transitioned from a boy last year. It's a small town, all her previous friends beat her up one day, except one, who actually kissed her not long ago. Yet he seems conflicted. Stella's mother and a couple other characters fill up the book, and the cold. It's hard to believe they are surviving at these extreme cold temperatures. The writing is lovely, but there are gaps. And I really didn't like the ending.

Review 144: The Lions of Fifth Avenue

The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is told between two alternating time lines, around 1913 and 1993, and both take place around the New York Public Library. The early time line is when the library first opens, with Jack and Laura Lyons with their two children live in an apartment inside the library. Jack’s job is superintendent of the library and one of the perks is the apartment. Jack also is writing a novel, and Laura also has ambitions and joins the Columbia University School of Journalism.

In the more modern time we have Sadie Donovan who happens to be Jack and Laura’s granddaughter, and she works with the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library. Sadie is divorced and her relationships with men take up some part of her story, along with her family, an older brother, his wife and their kid.

There are many similarities between the two time periods, one of which is rare books are going missing from the library and no one can figure out how. Once Sadie learns the same happened during her grandparents time at the library, she wonders if they two are connected, and she becomes wrapped up in solving this mystery.

The frame of the book with the alternating time lines is the style of the author. It works well, and in this book the pacing is well done. Each time line leaves at a moment when you really want to know what happens next. There are some unexpected moments and of course some coincidences. I enjoyed this book and found it a good diversion, with a wonderful backdrop of a story.

Really enjoyed this book.

Thanks to Dutton Books/Penguin Group and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 117: Iphigenia Murphy

Iphigenia Murphy by Sara Hosey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Being 15 you don’t seem to have a lot of options. Yet the main character here, Iphigenia Murphy decides to change things. Her home life is full of abuse. If she isn’t ignored she’s being hurt in many different forms. Iphignia, or Iffy, has a plan and carries it out. She leaves to go look for her mother, her drug addicted, mentally ill, homeless mother that is likely living in Forest Park. So Iffy buys a tent, sleeping bad, food and other supplies and goes to live in the park as well, to find her mother.

Along the way Iffy meets other people and creates a new, weird life living in this park. No it isn’t safe, and she gets a benefactor who is worried about her and the dog Iffy adopts.

The time line in the book isn’t long, although three months in the life of a teenager is longer than it would be for me. Living in a tent in a park would definitely make it longer.

The people Iffy meet are other people who have problems as well. They have a fast bond and quickly trust each other. Perhaps this is what it’s like when you’re homeless, or seemingly without anyone else who cares about you.

Iphignia definitely had a hard life, but she changed it, actively figured out a way to change it, albeit in an unusual way. She is a strong young woman that grows stronger during the book.

The writing is decent. It felt like the book was stumbling a little in the beginning, but by the time Iffy was staying in the park for a while it picked up and the book read better.

This book feels like it may be for young adult, but it also is a troubling book. Then again sometimes teens are facing tough situations.



Thanks to Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

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 57: Stay and Fight: A Novel

Stay and Fight: A Novel by Madeline Ffitch
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

What attracted me to this book was the aspect of self-reliance and living off the land. There was a little of that, but the three main women seemed to have no real clue how to do that successfully. The first person we meet, Helen, came from Seattle, checked books out of the library to read and reference. The other two women were from the area in Appalachia, had history of the place, but didn't seem to do much better. And do they ever argue.

At several points I considered not continuing because the three main women characters do fight. I didn't like them, nor the arguing. The book is written from different POV's one for each of the women and Perley, the child.  The young boy is raised by the three women, and I loved his character and I stuck with the book.

The title of this book fits so well, the fighting then staying with each other, and my own experience with the book, staying and fighting through the discomfort. This is not the easiest book to read. Yet I found at the end of the book it paid off. I'm happy to have stayed with the book.

Book rating: 3.5 stars


Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 56: The Glass Woman

The Glass Woman by Caroline Lea
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a quick read! This book took hold of me and wouldn't let go until the end. Caroline Lea certainly wrote the tension right. Yet I didn't feel that the characters were true to themselves throughout the book.

This was an atmospheric book. Set in 1686 in Iceland during the last few months of that year. We have Rosa who is newly married and her husband that demands and expects with harsh looks, but doesn't hit. Yet Rosa cowers.

This is a time of changing religions, the old ways must be put aside now known as a crime of witchcraft with a punishment of burning. Yet the comfort is hard to let go.

All is not as it seems on the surface. There were a few turns in the story I found were nearly unbelievable. Perhaps I was expecting too much. Certainly it read fast, yet my experience felt discordance with portions, which amplified at the end.


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.

Review 37: Mrs. Everything

Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was looking forward to reading about the dramatic change for women over the past several decades. Loved this focus on women, work outside of the home, and expectations. It is there throughout the book, but at times subtle, then later in the book it becomes the beat of the pounding drum.

I didn’t mind that nearly everything happened to these two sisters, yet there was oddness in it as well. The characterization of Bethie and her drug use did not ring true. In fact her character overall I understood the least. The novel focused on more depth for Jo, and at times way too much (sexual) detail that didn’t propel the story forward.

As the novel progressed, time would jump, then we’d look back over those past years. It was an odd way to present these two sister’s lives. We had more exposition than action and jumping forward then back then forward was awkward, then became predictable style.

The book was good in parts, but overall not stunning for me.


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



Previously Read Jennifer Weiner books:

All Fall Down (3 stars) - June.2016

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.