Leave No Trace - Review

Leave No Trace  🌟🌟🌟
by Mindy Mejia
Published September 4th 2018 by Atria/Emily Bestler Books

This was a comp copy from the publisher that I was thrilled to read since I enjoyed the author's first book so much.  She has a writing style that is easy to understand and get sucked into.  She also develops her stories slowly and methodically.  Unfortunately, this one moved too slowly in the beginning for me and became repetitive when Luke was in the care facility and acting out quite violently in his attempts to get back to his sick father somewhere in the wooded Boundary  Waters area of rural Minnesota. I guess I was hoping to know more about the father and son missing for ten years, and less about the young woman speech therapist, whose story did not seem credible.  The ending chapters tied it together, and even that had parts not entirely believable. 

 This took me a long time to finish so I wish it could give it a higher rating than 2.5 stars, so I'm  rounding up.   

Not Her Daughter - Review

Not Her Daughter   🌝🌝🌝🌛
by Rea Frey
Published by St Martin's Griffin August 21 2018

Has she been stolen...or rescued?

Amy has a five year old daughter, Emma, and the two of them are like oil and water in their very damaged relationship.  Amy is physically abusive because Emma is a contentious brat.  Emma is contentious because she knows her mother doesn't love her.  Nothing good can come from this continuing in the same manner.

Sarah is an innocent bystander, a successful business woman, who has witnessed  firsthand the awful parenting of Amy.  Having been abandoned by her own mother at the age of eight, she compares her own feelings with what she believes Emma is experiencing.  One night when Amy locks Emma out of the house with no dinner, Sarah takes Emma and thus starts a kidnapping investigation and a series of close calls for Sarah and Emma on he run.  Emma, of course, is now the perfect child being with someone who actually cares about her.  

I couldn't stop thinking about these people even after long stretches when I wasn't able to get back to my reading.  The author had me caring about what was going to ultimately happen.  Were Sarah and Emma perhaps too perfect together?  Maybe.  Was Amy the ultimate mother from hell with not a single redeeming quality and no regrets for her actions?  Hell yes!

Toward the middle and onward there were a few plot holes and I thought what happened in Chicago was not at all believable, but overall this made for an addictive read. 

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for my copy.  

Providence - Review

Providence  🌟🌟

by Caroline Kepnes  

Published June 19 2018 by Lenny

The first two books by this author, You and Hidden Bodies, were 4 star reads for me, and I thought them clever and sort of fun.  This book started out strong, has a good cover, and then instead of fun became just silly.

Childhood pals Jon and Chloe  are devastated when tragedy strikes -- Jon is kidnapped by a substitute teacher, held in a basement in an induced coma for four years, and then set free as an experiment of the sub teacher.  The experiment somehow gave Jon super powers which I won't go into, and I wish the author hadn't either.  There is also a good chunk of pages devoted to H.P. Lovecraft books and Lovecraft devotees.  I didn't know who he was before so had to look him up.  Monsters.  Imaginary places and made-up words no one can pronounce.   No thanks.  

By the end, the number of times that Chloe and Jon almost met up, or were in the same place without seeing it, or dialed each other and then hung up -- it became repetitive, drawn out and silly.  A disappointment to me.  I know Kepnes can write, though.  The chapters told by the detective were really quite good.  Maybe he should have a book of his own  

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher.

Country Dark - Review

Country Dark    🌟🌟🌟🌟

by Chris Offutt

Published April 10 2018 by Grove Press

So much to love in these few pages, Tucker being the main thing. He's a Korean War veteran, hitching a ride home, saving a girl from being raped by her uncle and then marrying her, making a life for them and their children by boot legging.  The writing is spare but still manages descriptions that give you all the visuals you need to imagine their small house in backwoods Kentucky, the wooded setting, the ruts in the road leading through the hills, and all the struggles endured.  You see the good in Tucker as well as the bad.  The bad gets him into trouble, and the good saves his hide time and time again.  After all, he goes off only when he needs to protect himself or his loved ones.  I can't say I agree with some of the things he did  but he knew how to survive (in Korea, in prison, and in the hills) and did it well, better than most.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher.

What Happened - Review

What Happened  🌟🌟🌟🌟
by Hillary Clinton
Published September 12 2017 by Simon & Schuster

Great book on audio, narrated by HRC herself.  Following are just some notes I made while listening to her tell me What Happened.  Not really a review, just a few thoughts and lots of quotes (actually more than a few as I got a little carried away, sorry!):

In the days following the 11-8-16 election, what I call "The end of the world as we know it," dozens of women apologized to Hillary for not voting. A woman forced her daughter to come over in a restaurant and apologize for not voting.  Hillary wanted to throttle her, or at least say, geez ya just have to vote!  But she did neither, composed and polite as she is. 

....

Her marriage really does sound solid although maybe unusual.  I think they're best friends and good for each other.  I am always wondering about that.  Almost died laughing after learning that they actually watch the Good Wife together!  Can you say... irony?

....

"I did my best 

It wasn't much

I couldn't feel

So I tried to touch.

I've told the truth

I didn't come to fool you.

And even though it all went wrong

I'll stand before the Lord of Song

With nothing on my tongue 

But Hallelujah  

"I'm not giving up and neither should  you."

Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton, Saturday Night Live  Nov. 2016.  

....

"I thought I'd  be a damn good President," a quote from HRC.  😭

....

HRC on Women's reproductive rights:

Texas has Defunded Planned Parenthood and refused to expand Medicaid, and maternal fatalities doubled between 2010 and 2014. Six hundred  women have died in TX, not from abortions, but from trying to give birth.  The number of teenagers having abortions actually increased when support for family planning was cut -- in one county up 190% between 2012 and 2014.

....

"Well-behaved women seldom make history."  Laurel Thatcher Ullrich

....

" When any barrier falls in America for anyone, it clears the way for everyone." HRC  

....

Those damn emails!  They occupied so much time during the election  and they do so in this book too.  Glad she explained the whole thing so well - I wish everyone would read at least that part as it's  well worth it.

....

Those damn Russians.  If you make it through  the email part, hold on to your seat because next:  The Russians are coming!  All I kept thinking was "What a freaking $h*itstorm!"  Lots of people to blame all around for doing essentially NOTHING once the extent of the Russian interference became common knowledge.

....

I thought this a very worthwhile way to spend my time. 

Eagle & Crane - Review

Eagle & Crane A Novel 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
by Suzanne Rindell
Published July 3 2018 by G. P. Putnam's Sons

I love this author and this book was a fantastic read.  I'll read anything she writes after The Other Typist, which had me bewitched but also bewildered.  Eagle and Crane fortunately skips the bewilderment and goes straight to endearment and heartbreak.  

Two boys, one a Japanese American, the other white, grow up on the same section of farmland in pre - World War II California.  Their common age and venue make friends out of them despite their families' histories.  Eventually they join a flying circus together and spend some time away from home learning to be stunt men and pilots.  Their friendship hits some bumps but nothing like when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and the war and internment camps are in their backyard.  Oh, and there is also a young woman involved.

To avoid spoilers I'll simply say that the ending has some nice twists, one you might see coming or not, which is always a good thing.  The characters and the story, adventures and history galore, will stay with me for a long time to come.  

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher.

The Last Cruise

By Kate Christensen 
Published July 10 2018 by Doubleday 
🌟🌟🌟⭐

3.5 stars rounded up.

If you have no desire at all to ever embark on a cruise ship, this book will reaffirm that notion.  If you have cruised and want to go again, you may change your mind after reading this book.  I am firmly in the first category since I suffer from motion sickness.  Now I also suffer from fear of being stranded in the middle of the ocean with no power, no crew, diminishing food supply, and a chance of rain.  For these passengers on the final voyage of The Isabella, at least there was plenty of wine and whiskey.  

The Isabella is being decommissioned or whatever you call it, and this one last voyage from California to Hawaii will be reminiscent of the good old days, in both music and food.  We get to know the musical quartet, from Israel, and one of the chefs, Hungarian, plus a couple of the passengers, Valerie and Christine.  The crew has discovered that they're  all being fired by the cruiseline once in Hawaii, and it's  not going over well.  Valerie is there to write about the dynamics of a crew made up of diverse cultures and their treatment by corporate, and then her story turns into something much larger in scale when the crew quits.  Christine is the light of their cruiseship lives, but she doesn't know if her own life, her marriage to a farmer, is what she wants.

So much going on here yet I had no problem keeping up with all the names and places.  The ending might make you angry or sad or confused, depending on how you take it.  My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley.