Essie’s Evangelical Christian family is the subject of a reality television show that draws an audience of millions. Essie is also seventeen and pregnant. You just known Essie is smart and capable and compassionate enough to blow her family’s cold, carefully orchestrated world apart and man, you just want so badly for her to do it. […]
General fiction
The Missing Pieces of Sophie McCarthy by B.M. Caroll
The writing in this book reminds me a great deal of Liane Moriarty; no wonder Liane provides a recommendation on the cover. Though the end of Sophie McCarthy is gripping, it’s less of a thriller and more an exploration of one devastating accident and its consequences, from several perspectives. Sounds a little Truly Madly Guilty, doesn’t it? But […]
Half Moon Lake by Kirsten Alexander
Half Moon Lake is an elegantly written, deeply unsettling and riveting read about two missing boys and the corruption of wealth. The story is apparently inspired by that of Bobby Dunbar, who was the subject of a podcast by This American Life. Louisiana, 1913; Sonny, a four year old boy from a family of means, disappears while playing […]
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Reese Witherspoon’s book club choices are a bit hit and miss; this one’s a miss. It’s billed as a murder mystery but the mystery remains unresolved, to the extent that we’re never even sure if there was a murder. The author gives the main character a happy ending and then just kind of forgets about […]
The Children’s House by Alice Nelson
This beautifully written novel by Australian author Alice Nelson shows what good can come when damaged people take care of one another. Constance, a Rwandan refugee, disappears one Christmas, abandoning her two year old son with Marina, knowing she feels more love for him than Constance ever can. Marina lives in a large brownstone in Harlem, […]
November Road by Lou Berney
The casual manner of the frequent and brutal killings in this novel is slightly disturbing, but then a number of the characters are mob hitmen. It is New Orleans in 1963, and Frank Guidry knows too much the role of the mob in the assasination of President Kennedy. He’s loyal to his mob bosses, but […]
Gorsky by Vesna Goldsworthy
Unlike most book lovers, I’m not such a great admirer of The Great Gatsby. For all its poetry, Gatsby has a cold heart and therefore failed to move me. Plus, the narrator is boring and Daisy is a twit. Gorsky is brilliant update of Gatsby and it’s so much more compelling. Gatsby/Gorsky is now a Russian billionaire who […]
