Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capo Crucet

January 24, 2024

Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capo Crucet

Recent high school graduate Ismael Reyes (aka Izzy) is searching for a life plan. His original intention to be a Pitbull impersonator falls through when he receives a cease-and-desist order from the artist's attorney, so he decides that his next best option is to become a gangster by imitating the fictional Cuban gangster Tony Montana from the movie Scarface. He enlists his high school friend Rudy to be his sidekick (and briefly becomes involved with Rudy's beautiful sister Julisa), and the two begin planning their new life of crime. Meanwhile, there is a female orca (calling her a killer whale or Shamu is not PC) named Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium who has somehow begun influencing Izzy's thoughts and dreams. While Izzy pursues his goal of gangsterdom, he inadvertently begins asking dangerous questions about his mother, who drowned after they left Cuba on a raft.

Life imitates art in this edgy contemporary novel/fantasy that has been described as the offspring of a marriage between the movie Scarface and the novel Moby Dick. Possibly due to his youth, possibly due to his circumstances, Izzy fails to recognize the dangerous people he is already associating with, even though all the signs are there. There is plenty of dark humor in this quirky read as Izzy stumbles his way through life.  Honestly? Things probably would have worked out better for Izzy if he had tried to emulate Joe Montana rather Tony Montana.

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

Al Pacino as the gangster Tony Montana in the movie Scarface

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

January 17, 2024

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

While her family is picking berries on a farm, a Native American child goes missing. Her family searches for her desperately without success. In alternate chapters, one of the little girl's brothers and a child named Norma tell the story of a family dealing with incredible loss.

A slow moving character driven story that asks the question, how much are we shaped by our heritage and culture? I found the storyline to be predictable - by the end of the third chapter, I was pretty sure how the story would unwind. Sad, filled with various types of loss. This would be a good book club choice since there are many topics to discuss. Will appeal to readers who enjoy Jodi Picoult or are in the mood for a good cry.

Pickers on a blueberry farm

Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang

January 16, 2024

Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang

After he was caught with another man, Old Second left his village in rural China and went to Mawei City to work at the clothing factories. At the local workers' cinema, he found other men like him, and he also met Bao Mei, who worked at the cinema selling tickets. But being gay is illegal in communist China, so as the oppression grows, Old Second marries Bao Mei and they leave China for the United States. They settle into New York's Chinatown and find a community of men like Old Second, gay men who have married women to provide a cover story for themselves and hide in plain sight.

A complex story that revolves around a set of inter-connected characters, each with their own story and shared emotions: grief, loneliness, shame, sadness, desire. There is a lot to absorb here: the shame and oppression that gay men are subjected to in both China and the United States; the loveless marriages that their wives tolerate; emigrating to the U. S. and living in poverty while trying to survive and stay under the radar. A difficult story to read but wonderful writing and language.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

New York's Chinatown

Fast. Feast. Repeat. by Gin Stephens

January 15, 2024

Fast. Feast. Repeat. by Gin Stephens

Excellent introduction to intermittent fasting, with a guide to getting started as easily as possible, along with what to expect, frequently asked questions, and encouragement from other IFers.

It's January, so we are all working on making positive changes in our lives. I first became interested in IF after a conversation with one of my nephews. He is getting married in 2025 and both he and his fiancee want to look and feel their best. There are many print and online resources for IF, but this is one of the best, least intimidating guides I have found. I will be giving Gin's plan a try starting this week. If you're interested in the more science-y aspects, look for books by Dr. Jason Fung.

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

January 6, 2024

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

Lucy and Savannah were best friends, until the night that Savvy is murdered, and Lucy is found wandering the streets covered in Savvy's blood. Because of a severe head injury, Lucy has no memory of what happened, so her friends and family immediately suspect that Lucy killed Savvy. She relocates to Los Angeles and starts a new life, until a popular podcast called "Listen for the Lie" announces that their next season will investigate Savvy's murder.

So many lies here. There is a lot going on: we have an unreliable narrator who has no recollection of events due to a head injury; the small town of Plumpton, TX, is a twisty little place, with everyone focused on projecting the image that life is perfect, when in reality, everyone is having an affair with everyone else; a couple of men that everyone loves are actually very violent and abuse their partners regularly. I hated Lucy's parents for automatically believing the story that Lucy's lying husband was telling - they also did not see that Lucy received proper care for her injuries (my mother would have been the same way, more concerned what the neighbors and the people at church would think, and telling me not to make a fuss). As one of the characters notes, people always prefer to believe a man's version of events. Grrrrrrrrr. This is a good mystery with well-developed characters - not sure it was necessary to toss in all the adultery and domestic abuse.

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

A small town in Texas - don't be fooled by the polite, perfect surface appearance

The Wager: a Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

January 4, 2024

The Wager: a Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

HMS Wager sailed from England in 1740, part of a convoy that was sailing for Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America. The ship wrecked off the coast of South America, and the surviving crew members were marooned on a barren island that came to be known as Wager Island. But dissension rose among the survivors, and the crew split into two parts, both groups with a plan to escape the island and return to England. In 1742, the remnants of one group washed up in Brazil. They were hailed as brave heroes and returned to England in 1747. But then three officers from the Wager arrived in England in 1747. They told a much different story, insisting that the other crew members were not heroes but mutineers. And there began a story of they-said, they-said.

There is a saying that there are no atheists in a foxhole, and I'm pretty sure the same is true for a lifeboat. The Wager seems like it was a particularly unlucky, plagued by death, illness, superstition, constant storms, and strange accidents (maybe it was the name? Even though the Wager was named after a person, a wager is a bet). The survivors' saga reminded me of The Lord of the Flies. John (Jack) Byron, who eventually rose to vice admiral and was the grandfather of the poet Lord Byron, was a 15 year old midshipman on the Wager. Patrick O'Brian based his novel The Unknown Shore on Byron's journal from his time on the Wager. Recommended for history fans. (FYI, Cape Horn is at the tip of South America where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans converge, and the seas in this area are said to be like a giant washing machine).

Cape Horn, Chile

Three Boys Missing by James A. Jack

January 1, 2024

Three Boys Missing by James A. Jack

On Sunday, October 16, 1955, three boys from the Jefferson Park neighborhood in northwest Chicago went to a movie at a downtown movie theater. They never returned home and were found murdered two days later. James Jack was one of the original detectives assigned to search for the missing children, and he details the case. The investigators were under pressure to solve the case quickly - little did they know that it would take 40 years to bring the killer to justice.

I live just north of Jefferson Park and I know the areas in this book very well. This crime occurred in the pre-Internet era, and police work was very different in the 1950s than it is today. Now there are surveillance cameras everywhere and there have been great advances in DNA testing. It does seem like the police spent a lot of time chasing down pointless leads. A number of the officers had fixed or pre-conceived ideas about who committed the crime - one of the persistent ideas was that a gang of teenagers had killed the boys. Most of the suspects brought in for questioning were guilty of something, just not of murdering the three boys. One witness starts filming the scene and a police officer is disgusted and confiscates the film - they'd be shocked that in 2023, everyone has a camera on their cell phone and people record everything. With law enforcement agencies not cooperating or communicating with each other, it was a wonder than any crimes were solved.

Milwaukee Avenue where much of the action in the book takes place, in the 1950s

Best Books of 2023

January 1, 2024

Best Books of 2023 (plus some not-so-great books)

It's the end of 2023 and the start of a new year. There are loads of "best books" lists that come out at the end of the year. In 2023, I read 133 books. Some were outstanding, others not so much. My list is completely subjective, just my opinion. Some of the books that I didn't care for got rave reviews from other readers - sometimes that's why I didn't like a book, because it was so over-hyped I was expecting much more. Some readers are also influenced by reviews and think that because Publishers Weekly or some other major reviewing publication says it's a great book, it must be (no, it's not necessarily true). There were a lot of books that were just okay, but just because they didn't appeal to me, doesn't mean that it's not exactly what other readers want. Many but not all of these books were published in 2023 - a few will be published in 2024.

Here's to even more reading in 2024!

The best of 2023 (in no particular order):

• The heaven and earth grocery store - James McBride
• The covenant of water - Abraham Verghese
• Making it so: a memoir - Patrick Stewart
• The museum of failures - Thrity Umrigar
• The river we remember - William Krueger Kent
• Tom Lake - Ann Patchett
• Lady Tan's circle of women - Lisa See
• Flags on the Bayou - James Lee Burke
• The keeper of hidden books - Madeline Martin
• The postcard - Anne Berest
• Juno loves legs - Karl Geary
• Earth's the right place for love - Elizabeth Berg
• Hello beautiful - Ann Napolitano
• Clytemnestra - Costanza Casati
• The measure - Nikki Erlick
• Keeper of enchanted rooms - Charlie N. Holmberg
• What the dead know - Barbara Butcher

Honorable mention:

• The bandit queens - Parini Shroff
• Hang the moon - Jeanette Walls
• Excuse me while I disappear - Laurie Notaro
• Homecoming - Kate Morton
• Vampires of el Norte - Isabel Canas
• The maid's diary - Loreth Ann White
• Silver nitrate - Silvia Moreno Garcia
• The king's pleasure - Alison Weir

The not-so-great:

• Lessons in chemistry - this just didn't ring true for me, although it's gotten rave reviews and has been made into a television show on Apple TV. Generally speaking, I avoid books from celebrity book clubs (Oprah's, Reese's, GMA, etc.).
• The square of sevens - this is one the of few books that I didn't finish. I usually enjoy historical fiction but this book spent a lot of time explaining Victorian customs. I skipped to the last chapter, which neatly explained the previous 300 pages.
• The Jinn-bot of Shantiport - a retelling of the Aladdin story. The author tried unsuccessfully to marry the Arabian Nights and the Murderbot series.
• The house witch - based on the Amazon reviews, I expected this to be better than it was. If the author had cut out the lectures on political correctness that the main character delivers, the book would have been only 2/3 as long and much more enjoyable.
• The whispers - first we had girl fiction (i.e., Gone Girl), then there was woman fiction (i.e., The Woman in the Window), and now we have mommy fiction. Multiple characters repeat multiple times "you don't have children, so you can't possibly understand." I can live without this genre.
• The girls of summer - incredibly slow moving. Rachel, the main character, is TSTL (too stupid to live).
• The ferryman - the first half of the book is great, the second half is a complete bomb.
• Demon Copperhead - a heavy handed retelling of David Copperfield. Lots of people love this - I wasn't one of them.