Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler is a novel about a small town girl in her early 20’s who comes to NYC and lands a job as a backwaiter at New York’s most popular restaurant, which is hard to believe to start with. The novel spans the course of her first year in New York where she has an awakening through sex, drugs, and food. I didn’t love this book as much as the critics did, but I thought it was a…
Cleopatra’s Shadows is the debut novel by Emily Holleman. It is historical fiction based on the lives of Cleopatra’s lesser known sisters, younger sister Arsinoe and older half-sister Berenice who became the first Queen to rule Egypt alone in a thousand years. Interesting from an historic perspective about Ptolemaic Alexandria, yet Holleman never drew me in enough to care deeply about any of the characters in the book, and there was not enough written about the larger picture outside the…
Sweet Salt Air by Barbara Delinsky is set on an imaginary island off the coast of Maine.Two childhood friends who spent Summers there growing up reunite after not seeing each other for ten years. They come together to work together on a cookbook based on island food, rich with local recipes including somewhat magical herbs that are an island secret. Secrets are uncovered and both women’s lives changed forever by what they discover during this Summer. Delinsky is a great…
Gena/Finn by Hannah Moskowitz and Kat Helgeson is a book I read solely because of the title. Written entirely in blog posts, texts, emails, messaging, and journal entries, its a modern take on friendship in the digital age. Two fangirls, Gena and Finn, short for Stephanie, meet online while writing about their favorite show, whose characters are more real to them than people they actually know. What starts out as a funny book, becomes surprisingly heavy as these girls get…
After Alice by, Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked, tells the story of Ada, a friend of Alice’s who’s briefly mentioned in the original work. Ada goes in search of Alice and finds herself tumbling down into Wonderland and into her own adventure. Alice’s sister Lydia, meanwhile is above ground and not too worried that Alice has disappeared while in her care. Its a wonderful and inventive new take on a familiar story with some added characters and new twists and…
The High Mountains of Portugal is the new novel by Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi. It is told in three parts. Starting at the turn of the 20th century a young man grieving for his wife and son sets forth in one of Europe’s first cars on a quest into the mountains of Portugal. Forty years later, a Portuguese pathologist, and devotee of Agatha Christie mysteries, finds himself drawn into his own mystery. Another fifty years on we…
Loving Eleanor, The Intimate Friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok, by Susan Wittig Albert is historical fiction based on the lives of these two extraordinary women and their decades long relationship, hidden because of the times and because of Eleanor’s position as First Lady. Researching over 3000 letters written back and forth between the two, Albert has written a beautiful book illuminating the lives of these very fascinating women, and full of historic details of the times. A worthwhile…
Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, Memoirs from the Living Heart of a Mayan Village by Martin Prechtel is a memoir of Prechtel’s time in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala where he was initiated as a Shaman. The book is at times fascinating and at other times tiring and hard to follow because of Prechtel’s writing style. However, the Mayan language is rich and poetic and informs their way of life; if you are interested in Mayan culture it is a worthwhile read.
At the Water’s Edge is the new novel by Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants. This book is set in Scotland during WWII where a privileged young American man who cannot serve in the war drags his new wife and best friend to hunt down the mysterious Loch Ness monster. Gruen weaves an intricate story, where nothing is as it seems to be at the beginning. As we watch all the characters develop and grow before our eyes, the…
In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust, A Graphic Novel adapted by Stephane Heuet, is a wonderful book to introduce the reader to Proust’s epic work. The artwork is beautiful and the story comes alive. I have not read Proust before, and at times I found his writing absolutely brilliant, and other times tedious; it is not necessarily to my taste. However, I loved reading it in graphic form, in fact I most likely would not have…