I listened to Themes and Variations during the 2020 lockdown. This grouping of short stories was just the ticket to get me out of whatever anxiety I was feeling that day. Like all of David Sedaris’ books, I was laughing out loud and the time passed quickly without me noticing it. I’ll also note that […]
Reasons to Trespass on The Trespasser Not since Cassie Maddox in The Likeness have we had a female detective in the Dublin Murder Squad series and Tana French delivers with Antoinette Conway. She is smart, snappy, and doesn’t take anyone’s crap. She was just what I had been hoping for. Never fear, we still have Stephen […]
Review: I purchased Everything I Never Told You on a whim. When I walked into Barnes & Nobel I only had eyes for Little Fires Everywhere. However, I am usually hesitant to splurge on a hardcover by an author I’ve never read before. Therefore, I reached for Celeste Ng’s début novel. The plot of Everything […]
Review When I started The Girls in the Picture my knowledge of Mary Pickford was slim to none and Frances Marion even less so. Like the women in the novel, I was going into uncharted territory. In the era of #Metoo a novel about women being discriminated against because of their sex and not potential […]
First Impressions The first sentence in The Grownups by Gillian Flynn includes the words “hand job”. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. What direction will the story take? To be frank, it was a turn-off. Impressions While Reading The Grownups was odd, to say the least. An unnamed psychic who knows how to […]
First Impressions Lady Susan was a Jane Austen novel I had not yet read. With the recent release of the film Love & Friendship, thought this would be as good a time as any. Impressions While Reading Lady Susan, one of Austen’s novellas, was as witty as ever but it did take me a while […]
First Impressions I have always enjoyed Melanie Benjamin’s novels, as retellings and fictionalized accounts of famous persons has always been a soft spot of mine. Thus, I went a little fangirl when I saw Melanie Benjamin was coming out with a new novel. In the past, the novels had focused on a female lead, this […]
Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis to Paris and his baby was kidnaped. That’s the gist of my knowledge of the Lindberghs. Much has been researched/documented on Charles Lindbergh but what about Lucky Lindy’s co-pilot, his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh? Like her first two novels, Melanie Benjamin gives us a look at a […]
My family has gone away for Christmas every year since I was little, and each year there seems to be one book that is floating around the airport. Last year while waiting for connections everyone was reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63 (including myself) this year, it was Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. Gone Girl seemed to appear […]
All of Lexie’s roommates were creepy, Abby appeared to know more than she lets on almost acting like a know-it-all Donna Reed, keeping everything orderly, watching all her ps and qs. Justin, is a squirrelly little thing, jumping at the slightest noise and willing to please. Raphael, really fades into the background, and sometimes I […]