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

The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowring

May 12, 2023

The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowring

Dalton is a small town in Maine, where everyone is linked to everyone else: Bridget Frazier's parents own the lumber mill, the largest employer in the town; Bridget is married to police officer Nate Theroux and they have a new baby; Nate's mother Bev manages the local nursing home and is having an affair with library director Trudy Haskell (both Bev and Trudy's husbands know about the affair and choose to ignore it); Trudy is married to the town doctor; Rose Douglas is one of Dr. Haskell's patients and is in an abusive relationship with the father of her children. Then the sudden death of a town resident affects everyone living in Dalton.

Taking place over the course of one year, this is a quiet lovely book about interlinked lives that will break your heart. In a small town, everyone knows everyone else's business, public or private, or so they think. But you never really know what is going on inside someone else's life or marriage, no matter how perfect it looks from the outside. Readers who enjoyed A Quiet Life by Ethan Joella will enjoy The Road to Dalton.

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

Aroostook County, northern Maine

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

February 20, 2020

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Vanessa is a bright student who is seduced by her English teacher at a prestigious Maine boarding school.  Even while she was attending the school, rumors flew around about her and the teacher.  Many years later, a current student who has accused the teacher of misconduct contacts Vanessa, asking for her support.  The story line moves back and forth from the time Vanessa is a high school student to Vanessa at age 32, working a dead-end job as a concierge at a high-end hotel, still dealing with the fallout her experiences with the teacher as she comes to realize that it wasn’t a love story, it was exploitation.

This book made me furious.  Yet it is an important topic that needs to come out of hiding.

The teacher (Strane) made my skin crawl, he was such a slimy jerk who manipulated children, referring to it as "grooming."  He is so creepy that I had to skim over a number of the sections where he featured prominently.  Strane gives Vanessa a copy of Lolita to read – by this point, Vanessa is so under his spell that she sees it as a tragic love story, not as the story of a morally bereft pedophile who is sexually obsessed with a child.  Strane has so much control over her that she lies and takes the blame so that he can keep his job.  It takes Vanessa over 15 years to accept that the experiences traumatized her.

This is definitely not going to be for everyone, since there are repeated graphic scenes of statutory rape of an underage child.  While it is well-written and there are many cultural and literary allusions, it is also quite disturbing, and I sort of wish I could un-read it.  Vanessa and Strane debate about whether all girls mature at the same rate, and can a 15 year old be mature enough to have a sexual relationship with a 42 year old man – the answer is no, when you're a teenager, it’s the hormones talking – 15 year olds are NOT mentally mature enough to make that kind of a decision.  I'm pretty sure most 15 year olds (girls and boys) are infatuated with at least one teacher at some point.  I know I was, and it would have been devastating to have been abused that way by a teacher that I adored.

It’s been all over the news this week that the Boy Scouts of America organization has declared bankruptcy in order to protect its assets from the growing number of sexual abuse charges that have been filed against the organization (the cases number in the thousands).  What is wrong with so many men????  They can’t keep their hands off boys, they can’t keep their hands off teen-aged girls, they don’t understand the word “no” when it comes to adult women.

Despite accusations of plagiarism from another author (Wendy C. Ortiz wrote a memoir called Excavation was published several years ago and covers the same story), My Dark Vanessa is already hitting a lot of lists as a best book of 2020.

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an e-ARC in return for a review.

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

September 24, 2019

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

Olive, Again is a follow-up to Strout’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Olive Kitteridge.  Per the author, although she thought she was done with her, Olive apparently had more to say.  Like the first book, this one is a series of inter-connected narratives about the people who live in Crosby, Maine, and the surrounding towns. Since Olive is at heart a storyteller and collects and distributes information about the people she knows, the story format is particularly appropriate.  Picking up where the previous book left off, the story follows Olive through the next ten years of her life.  Even though she is well into her senior years, Olive discovers that surprising and unexpected things can still happen to her, and that it’s not too late for her to learn things about herself.

This is character-driven literary fiction that is much more accessible than a lot of literary works.  Olive is a wonderful creation, outspoken and crusty and selfish.  Her exterior shell shows signs of cracking as she ages and she becomes more accepting of others’ flaws.  Even though this is a sequel, you don’t necessarily have to have read the first book to enjoy this one. 

Side note:  My reading has been on the slow side this week.  I had a lot planned for the weekend including marathon reading, but my 11 year old golden retriever Asia developed a seriously drippy eye.  The vet referred us to a veterinary ophthalmologist (yes, there are all kinds of specialty vets), who diagnosed an indolent ulcer in her eye and did a procedure that removed the ulcer from her cornea (don’t get squeamish, the cornea has no nerves – when your eye itches or stings, it’s the eyelid that’s feeling it).  He sent her home with the “cone of shame” for two weeks, antibiotic drops, and some pretty good drugs.  She’s tolerating it but would really prefer to scratch the heck out of her eye.  Then a family interested in meeting my foster dog Scout wanted to come over on Sunday, which meant making the house presentable for strangers to see.  They liked him a lot and decided to take Scouty home with them, so I hope it works out for all of them.  Paws crossed.

Asia in the cone:

Scout the (former) foster guy:

Tell Me Everything by Cambria Brockman

August 22, 2019

Tell Me Everything by Cambria Brockman

Hawthorne College is a small liberal arts college in Maine, known as a mini-Ivy, catering to students from wealthy families who can't get into real Ivy League colleges due to poor grades or lack of connections.  Six students meet during freshman orientation and quickly become a tight group:

• Malin is a pre-law major from a wealthy Texas family, who tends to be a loner but tries hard to make friends and fit in;
• John is the athletic golden boy, wealthy, popular and sought after, who wants to major in finance and partying, studying as little as possible;
• Ruby is attending Hawthorne on a soccer scholarship and plans to study art history - she is the prettiest and most popular girl in the group;
• Max is John's cousin, handsome and intense, who suffers from panic attacks even though he comes from a wealthy loving family - he plans to study pre-med and become a surgeon;
• Gemma is from London and mixed race, the daughter of an American woman and a Pakistani diplomat, a theater major since she has a natural flair for drama - she is very insecure and infatuated with John, even though John and Ruby become a couple almost immediately; and
• Khaled, aka the prince, from extremely wealthy Abu Dhabi royalty, also planning on majoring in pre-med - he uses his wealth to draw the others close to him.

The six of them live together in a house that Khaled owns near the campus and are inseparable until their senior year, when cracks begin to appear.  By the annual Senior Day celebrations, they are slowly falling apart.  Secrets that have been carefully hidden come to light, threatening their futures and their friendships.

This was great summer reading, character driven but with a fast moving story line and good writing.  Will appeal to readers who enjoyed The Secret History by Donna Tartt or One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus.