Ladyslott

• Rated 4 stars

“Having read and enjoyed Gone Girl I decided to read Gillian Flynn’s back catalog. I’m happy to say I wasn’t disappointed. This woman can write dark books filled with a lot of twists and turns and very flawed human beings.

Libby Day was seven years old when her mother and two sisters were brutally murdered while Libby hid. At the trial she testified that it was her brother Ben who committed the crime and he is serving a life sentence for the crime.

It is now 25 years later and Libby is living off the last dregs of the money that had been donated to a trust for her when she was the sole survivor of the massacre. She doesn’t work and doesn’t know what she is going to do to survive. When a member of the “Kill Club”, a society that is obsessed with true crimes, contacts her she thinks she has found a way to make some easy money. They will pay her to speak at their meetings and buy artifacts associated with her family from her. They also don’t believe Ben is guilty. Slowly Libby begins to believe they may be right.

The book is told is alternating chapters; the present and the day of the murders. The storylines begin to converge, as Libby gets closer to the truth of that day – the “Dark Places” she never wanted to revisit.

This book is not those who like every thing neat and clean. A lot of the people are very unlikeable; including Libby who is very damaged, as I imagine many of us would be if we witnessed the slaughter of our family. The descriptions of that terrifying night are brutal and graphic. In the end there isn’t really a happy ending either, just a truthful one.

Flynn has become my newest author not to miss, although since I have now read all three of her books it’s going to be a while for a new one. She really gets into the twisted places in people’s head and writes mysteries almost as if they were horror stories, which in some cases they are. So, highly recommended if you like well written tales, but filled with darkness, then this is the book for you.
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Ladyslott wrote this review 8 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Two of my favorite books are Plainsong and Eventide, so I was glad to return to Holt County in Kent Haruf’s newest book, Benediction.

“Dad” Lewis has terminal cancer; he is at home being cared for by his wife of 50 years, Mary. His daughter Lorraine has also come home to be with her family. Most keenly felt by all is the absence of Frank, the son who has been estranged from his family for decades.

This book is simplicity itself. The writing is spare but beautiful. There is very little plot; this is the story of a man reflecting on his life sometimes with joy often with regret. It is filled with those people who Dad has touched in his life, in good ways and bad. It is also a depiction of small town life, where everyone really does know your name. Neighbor’s who call in to say their goodbyes, who come to help Mary care for her husband.

This is a sad book, but not a book drenched in sorrow and unhappiness, nor is it overly sentimental. It is almost matter of fact in its portrayal of Dad’s death and how those left behind must go on with their day-to-day lives.

While not as good as Plainsong, this is nonetheless a wonderful book to read, especially if you like simple, evocative writing.
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Ladyslott wrote this review 8 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 2 stars

“I loved Snow Falling on Cedars, so when this book came out I bought it. And it sat on my shelf for ten long years, until a reading challenge got me to pick it up. I wasn’t missing much.

I’m really at a loss as to what to say about this book. It had an interesting premise; a non-Catholic young woman has a vision of the Virgin Mary in the forest while picking mushrooms. She is a homeless girl, abused as a child and selling mushrooms to get by. She also isn’t averse to getting high off other mushrooms. Her visions begin to be the talk of the area and soon it’s a national sensation, with people camping out hoping to share in this religious experience. The question is, are the visions real or a hoax. Unfortunately by the end of the book we know little more than we did at the start.

It’s hard to like a book when you don’t like any of the main characters, especially the protagonist of the book, Anne. While a certain amount of sympathy is engendered after learning of her difficult life, she just isn’t a likeable character. Neither is the priest who befriends her, the ‘friend’ who manages her – only to her own advantage, nor any of the other myriad characters in the supporting cast. There is violence against women, sexual situations of the most violent and unpleasant nature and people that you never want to meet in a dark alley. The author seems to be obsessed with both masturbation and menstruation since these events cover copious amount of pages. I did not care one whit about anyone and when I got to the penultimate conclusion I couldn’t believe how much time I wasted. Do yourself a favor, don’t read this book.
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Ladyslott wrote this review 8 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Sometimes one needs to kick back and read a book that is light, entertaining and a quick and easy read. This book was a perfect candidate.

A Poisoned Season is the second book in the Lady Emily series, cozy mysteries set in Victorian England, with a little romance thrown in.

Lady Emily has ended her year of mourning for Philip, her husband of only a few months. She isn’t looking forward to the “London Season” at first, but then she begins to be cut by society because of her affinity for learning and independence. Her flirtation with her late husband’s best friend is heating up and to top it all off a pretender to the Throne of France, a self -proclaimed descendant of Marie Antoinette, is causing quite a stir in London. Is he the real deal? And what to make of the cat burglar who is breaking into homes and stealing items that once belonged to the French Queen? And who is the mysterious man sending Greek poetry to Lady Emily?

This was a fun romp through the mores of Victorian England, when being alone in the same room with a man can ruin a woman’s reputation, and many proscribed rules of courtship must be stringently adhered to. As Lady Emily becomes drawn into the various mysteries her life is put into danger and she realizes that there is a spy in her home, determined to ruin her standing in Society. Determined to find the answer to the crimes being committed Emily relies on her wits, and slowly unravels the threads tying the crimes together.

This was a quite enjoyable historical mystery, peppered with fictional as well as real characters and the romance between Lady Emily and Colin Hargreaves is moving along at a nice pace. After reading the last page I was ready to move on to A Fatal Waltz book 3 in the series which is already downloaded to my Kindle. Alas a stack of library books stand before it, but I will get there!
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Ladyslott wrote this review 9 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

2 of 2 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 5 stars

“This book is built on a very simple question; “What Would You Do?” and then proceeds to delve into the consequences of the action taken.

Tom and Isabel live a simple and secluded life on Janus Rock, the lighthouse island between the Southern and Indian Oceans. Tom seeks the seclusion of the life of a light keeper as a way to help him deal with the horrors he has seen on the battlefields of The Great War. He lives there for several years, alone until he meets Isabel on shore leave and soon they are married and living alone on the island. They have a happy life, until Isabel suffers several miscarriages and the still born birth of a son. When a boat runs ashore on the island, with a dead man on board and a screaming baby found still alive a decision is made that will have consequences for many more people than just Tom and Izzy.

This book is beautifully written, from the descriptions of the island and life in such seclusion, to the despair of a mother losing her children, to the unbreakable bond between mother and child. It also addresses the lengths some will go for those they love, despite their better judgment.

I could not put this book down; it was one of the most heartbreaking books I have read in a very long time. Even when I began to see where the book was heading I couldn’t help but wish for a better outcome. What seems a simple choice can destroy more than one family, as well as other loved ones, including the one person you never meant to hurt at all.

At the end of the book I thought many times about the “what if’s” and how things could have ended so differently. And the very end of the book had me in tears. This is Ms. Steadman’s debut and all I can say is wow and Ihope she has another book as compelling as this one in the works.


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Ladyslott wrote this review 9 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

2 of 2 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 4 stars

“Jackson Brodie, Kate Atkinson’s flawed yet likeable in spite of himself retired detective, is back in book four in the series and it’s as entertaining as the first three.

Atkinson’s mysteries are quite complex and this one is no different. Events begin in 1975 when two police officers find a dead body and a child who had been in the home with the body for three weeks. Skip ahead to the present day where Jackson Brodie is looking for the birth parents of a child, now an adult; we begin to believe she is that same child. In addition we have Tracey Waterhouse, one of the police officers who was on the case in 1975. Now retired and working security in a mall Tracey makes a spur of the moment decision that will somehow connect all of the pieces of the puzzle the author introduces.

This book requires patience; it is told from multiple viewpoints and frequently switches back and forth to different time periods. It isn’t hard to read however, there is humor, especially when dealing with the story of the dog Jackson somehow ends up with. It does bring forth some of the characters from previous books, but the author does a good idea of giving you just enough information to follow the story line that involves them. There are a few red herrings and some interesting twists and in the end it all comes together; perhaps not perfectly, but realistically.

The book is rated 4 stars in comparison to her other books Case Histories and When Will There be Good news which I thought were slightly better. Still a four star book from Atkinson is head and shoulders above most other books out there.
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Ladyslott wrote this review 9 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“So a description I read said this was “a gloriously funny novel of sibling rivalry” and I thought “well I could use a laugh”. I’m sorry to say I don’t believe I laughed once. Shook my head a few times maybe, but laugh – no I did not.
It’s not that this is a bad book, but it isn’t a very good book either. I am pretty ambivalent about the entire story and am sure a few months from now it will fade from memory entirely.
In a nutshell the three grown Coffey children, for varying reasons, have all moved back home to try and straighten out their lives. Mom Weezy is an empty nester with what appears to be no life outside of worrying about her children. Dad Will mostly hides in his office and has virtually no part in the storyline.
If you weren’t told at the start that these five were a family you wouldn’t know it. Claire is approaching 30, has ended her engagement and has chosen to live in the apartment she shared with her boyfriend, an apartment she cannot afford and therefore pays all her bills with a credit card and has acquired a boat load of debt, so back home she goes. Martha is an RN who has given up nursing to work at J. Crew as a manager. It is very clear that Martha has extremely poor socialization skills, so she too is living at home. Will is a college senior with a beautiful girlfriend, Cleo, who has a distant relationship with her mother. The two of them move into the basement when they run into a bit of ‘trouble’, and so all three kids are home and all the old sibling stuff rears it’s head. And we spend a year with some of the most annoying, whiny people ever. They all seem to be very concerned about Will ruining his life, when in actuality he is the only one who is confronting life straight on and dealing with the upheavals.
This book was 353 pages and felt twice as long. The writing was okay, the story was okay but I never connected with any of the characters and didn’t much care what happened to them, except maybe Will and Cleo, they were the only people that seemed to have some clue about enjoying life. Didn’t hate it, didn’t love it, which makes it a solid 3 star, it was okay read. And I never did figure out who "The Smart One" was.”

Ladyslott wrote this review 10 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 1 stars

“I was not a huge fan of Twilight, I really disliked the concept and I thought the writing was terrible. Shiver makes Twilight seem like Shakespeare.

The idea here is almost identical to Twilight; pretty girl becomes infatuated with a young man who happens to be a werewolf. She had loved him when he was a wolf, not knowing he was also a young man. He is equally obsessed with her. Her parents are oblivious to anything their daughter does, to the extent that she actually lives with said “wereboy” in her bedroom – for weeks. When she does tell them about Sam he inexplicably lives with the family. It goes downhill from there as far as storyline.

The writing was just over the top, with our young man writing really bad song lyrics in his head. At one point he describes himself as a leaking womb and I was dumbfounded by that metaphor. Overly descriptive writing that was often laughable. Characters that had great potential to bring some tension to the storyline are disposed of or never heard from again. And like the gorgeous Edward of the aforementioned Twilight we have constant commentary and descriptions of Sam’s yellow eyes.

Of course the biggest plot hole, which at first seemed clever, was the fact that when the weather turned cold is when our shape shifters turned into wolves. Once the weather turns warmer they shift back into humans, and are only able to remember vague parts of their lives as wolves; except for Sam who remembers Grace, mostly by her scent. The big question is, why live in Minnesota? I was thinking this as I was reading by the pool in Florida where it is never really cold! When you turn into a human – move, to any southern state or Hawaii maybe. Don’t stay in Minnesota dreading the return of winter. It was just too hard to get over that gaping hole in logic.

So read this if you want a fairly boring story about teenage love and angst. Better yet – dare I say it? - Read Twilight.”

Ladyslott wrote this review 11 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 5 stars

“Some books are filled with non-stop action and if that is what you like this is not the book for you. This is character driven and slow moving. It’s a book where nothing much seems to happen, but in truth a lot is going on.

In the small community of Shirley Falls, Maine a hate crime has been committed. There has been an influx of Somali people into the mostly white community and tension is in the air. When Zachary, a teenager from a well-known family, plays what he thinks is a funny prank, things quickly go awry. Soon this prank has evolved into a national incident, a hate crime with the possibility of serious consequences for the young man. When his mother calls on her two brothers to come home and help her we are drawn into the lives of this family over the course of a year.

While the storyline involving Zachary and the ramifications of his act are the center pole of the story it is the relationships between the siblings that are the heart and soul of the book.

Jim is the elder brother and Bob and Susan the younger siblings are twins. Their relationship has been strained over the years; their father died when they were young and one of them has been blamed for the accident that took his life. That one day informs the rest of their lives.

This is a beautifully written character story of the way family can pull us together and tear us apart. Through the crisis of Zach’s arrest we become privy to the details of the three siblings life. Jim is the high-powered attorney with the beautiful wife and perfect family. Bob is the affable brother who is very liberal and works as an attorney in Legal Aid, quite the opposite of Jim. Susan is the one who, unlike her brothers, never left home and is the one who seems completely adrift in the world. Little by little the characters reveal themselves to us, as we learn more about their lives. Everything gets turned around again when one sibling makes a confession that changes everything for the siblings. While Zach’s case eventually comes to an end, the changes in the Burgess family are just beginning.

I love character studies and I loved this book. I enjoy subtle storytelling and stories about the love/hate relationships siblings often have with each other. I especially enjoyed the writing; in many places it reminded me of the simple yet beautiful writing of Kent Haruf and his Holt County series. Without seeming to try Elizabeth Strout can reveal a community as well as a family by slowly entwining their stories. One of my favorite books this year.
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Ladyslott wrote this review 13 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this book. On the one hand it’s a well-written look at family relationships in varying connections; siblings, husbands and wives and parent and child. On the other hand it’s very dark, with really unlikeable characters and some improbable scenarios.

The story takes place during the course of a dinner at a very exclusive restaurant. Two brothers, Paul and Serge and their respective wives Claire and Babette are having a night out, but it becomes clear that this is anything but a casual dinner. There are undertones and hints of something very serious involving their children, cousins that seem to have done something very bad and most likely of a criminal nature. The book is told through the voice of Paul, who seems rather staid and unremarkable. It soon becomes clear that Paul has secrets that are slowly revealed and lead to the questioning of his reliability as narrator.

At the start of the book I was very engaged and felt that this would maybe turn out to be the psychological thriller that was advertised. The story soon became bogged down in so many details of the dinner and the restaurant that the suspense slowly drained away. I really didn’t need to know the name of every dish and drink ordered, descriptions of the manager, the serving people, the owner and how the food was prepared, ad nauseum. I found it peculiar that people would leave the table for what seemed like long periods of time and nobody remarked on it. It just started to get tiresome, waiting for something, anything to happen. By the time things to start to happen it’s a just a little too late and I didn’t care very much.

While the book does provide some interesting topics to contemplate, including the lengths a parent will go to protect a child, for me it was a slog to get there and in the end I found the resolution a little unbelievable.
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Ladyslott wrote this review 2 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink )