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 15: Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've read a few of these type of books, I was or am poor and this is my story. So I didn't expect much from this one, figured another in that vein. Yes, that's what this book is --one woman's story about struggling, being poor, and trying to find a way to make it work for her and her daughter.

There was only a brief amount of information before she got pregnant, then the decision to move away from her boyfriend's trailer after having their baby. He was becoming increasingly volatile and emotionally abusive. Imminently after her boyfriend's she went to live with her Dad and Step-Mom, but they were struggling too, Stephanie had to do it on her own.

Already on government assistance she took what work she could, yard work and cleaning houses. Most of the book is about cleaning houses. There's also the little details of how she got through day by day, especially when something major happened, like her car being totaled by a teenage driver.

This is a book about being poor and struggling to get beyond it, trying to not just survive, but find a way out. There were a few poignant lines about how being poor too often looks like it is a crime "the crime being a lack of means to survive". There is assumption if you are poor you do drugs, or used to and don't know how to stay off them, and you must keep bad company.

One thing Land was also struggling with was lack of affection and connection to someone besides her young daughter. Her friends were in a different phase and didn't understand her poverty, they disappeared out of her life. She ached for companionship.

This was a well written book. I did wish for a little more about her background, something a little more broad. Also the ending seemed rushed, and not fully explained. It is a book about just a few years of her life and well, it felt like it needed just a little more.

Review 14: Tap Out: Poems

Tap Out: Poems by Edgar Kunz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This collection of poetry may have brought me back to reading poetry books again. I loved this book.

I was drawn to this book by the cover. Those hands. They tell a story that I wanted to read.

These are not your typical poems, they are more prose than not. They are mini-stories. We find recurring characters. This book is masculine. He deals with his Father, Brother, his friends, and we know the person speaking is a man.

This is blue collar working class. This is gritty. This is getting out and moving on and wondering, did you do the right thing?

I loved this book.


Thanks to the Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy prior to publication.

Review 13: Beautiful Bad

Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I entered this book with very little information on what it was about, except I knew it would be a "thriller". At first I was surprised by the two girls, Maddie and her best friend Joanna, living abroad in out of the way countries: Bulgaria and Macedonia. Soon Maddie meets her future British husband at a fund raiser. I started to think we'd have Eastern European travel type story, no the reality of the book was quite different.

The book starts in "present time" where there was a domestic disturbance, a 911 call. When the police arrive there is blood, lots of blood.

Then we go to ten weeks before and start counting down towards the present, interspersed with the story line of back when Ian and Maddie first meet. Ian was in the British Army at the time there was instant attraction. In the countdown to present time we learn early on Ian has a hard time with what he's seen being a soldier, and Maddie seems to have anxiety about many things, which started after he head being smashed. The story of how that happened is part of the mystery, the other part is what happened that made that 911 call necessary.

There is a lot of shifting, between time lines, and we have Ian's perspective a few times, although not many, it is mainly Maddie's. Her friend Joanna plays and important role as well, since she was a good friend when Ian comes into their lives, yet not in the present time living in Kansas. I wished to hear from Joanna.

I had several problems with the book. The shift in time lines wasn't a problem per se, but it was distracting at times. There was a continuity error, later in the book. Hopefully this has been fixed (I read an advance review copy). Seemed like there was some repetition, and yes the book was longer than it needed. It felt that cutting out some of the material would have been a tighter, better book. Another problem for me was Joanna. Her story was important but we get so little of what was going on, it was frustrating. And then there was Maddie herself. It felt so off her behavior while younger, then even when she goes back home to New York.

Finally was the ending, which I will not reveal anything. I will just say that it seriously downgraded the book for me. The telling wasn't necessary, and then added more strangeness really. In the end we may find out who these characters are, or not. It felt actually unresolved. Perhaps the characters weren't fully developed on the page. I just left unsatisfied in so many ways.

This is being billed as the "2019 Thriller of the year", but I think it missed the mark by a long shot. Certainly there will be some people who enjoy this book, just not me.



Thanks to Park Row Books/Harlequin and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 12: Virgil Wander

Virgil Wander by Leif Enger
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Virgil Wander is the main character, who, as the book opens, is just recovering from an accident where his car flew off the road and into the freezing cold Lake Superior. By sheer good luck a friend saw the accident and dove in to save Virgil from certain death and instead only being concussed. Recovering from the concussion takes time, if not the rest of his life, one thing he was struggling with was the loss of adjectives, slowly some would come back.

The small town, Greenstone, Minnesota where Virgil lives is a unique place with bad luck. The people seems unique as well, for the most part, but not all. The book is quirky, lighthearted really but the situations that occur, death or possible death always looming is not light.

Virgil is the owner of the small run down theater that also runs in the red, so he works for the city as a clerk. One of the main people is Rune, an older man who loves to make and fly intricate kites. He came to Greenstone to find out about his son he recently found out he had, the mother had never told him and Rune only find out upon her death. Rune's son is a famous in a tragic way, a minor league baseball player turned neon sign makers, who disappeared in a small plane never to be heard of again. Since he had some fame the story was somewhat known.

Overall the book was well written. It took me a little while to get into the book, quite a while. It may have been easy to just put down and not get back to. The book is more about a character or characters, not plot driven. Yet it flowed along, more around mid-point than near the beginning where it's easier to keep you hooked to the story.


Thanks to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book, even though I ended up reading the print copy from the library where I work.