The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
There’s a story in here somewhere but this book is so overwritten as to be unreadable.
Thank you, Netgalley, for the opportunity to read this e-book.
Category: book reviews
All These Perfect Strangers: Review
All These Perfect Strangers by Aoife Clifford
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I felt completely detached from this story. Clifford uses the clunky narrative device of having Pen, her character, write a journal as an exercise for her therapist. The story alternates between the present with her therapist, and the past, at university. I kept on waiting for the tension, and I kept hoping for compelling characters. None of that happened by page 60 so I gave up.
Thank you, Netgalley, for the opportunity to read this novel.
The Conjoined: Review
The Conjoined: A Novel by Jen Sookfong Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is not a thriller but I guess it’s been marketed that way to get more readers. It’s a family drama, and a darned good one. There are two dead girls in the freezer, but this novel isn’t a whodunit but more of a whydoneit. Jen Sookfong Lee builds a cast of very human characters, each having flaws and pretty much everyone longing for an elusive happiness and these individual pursuits combo into a deadly result. If you’re looking for a breathtaking pageturner a la Gillian Flynn, this isn’t it. But if you want to read a finely crafted novel about people who will seem so real to you that you’ll forget you’re reading a book, then pick this one up.
Thank you, Netgalley, for the opportunity to read The Conjoined.
Review: Real Food/Fake Food by Larry Ormsted
Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do about It by Larry Olmsted
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Larry Olmsted has an engaging and anecdotal style of writing that makes his book compulsively easy to read and it is oh so informative. I am on a quest now to find real and fresh parma-reggianno cheese and authentic and fresh olive oil. I am glad to know why ordering red snapper in a restaurant is a bad idea and why one should never ever dine in a sushi restaurant. It surprised me to read why Costco, Walmart and some of the other big-box stores are actually more reliable than restaurants and grocery stores when it comes to sourcing healthy seafood and meat.
While some of the food fraud is relatively harmless, like lobster sandwiches that contain no lobster but do still contain edible food (even seafood sometimes) there are other occasions when the substitutions have lethal consequences, like spices being extended with fillers, which can include ground peanuts and flour — ingredients that are lethal to those allergic to them.
Much of what Olmsted relates is alarming but it’s mitigated by the fact that he advises the reader on how to spot fake food and how to go about buying the real stuff. Eye opening and compulsively readable. If you eat food you need to read this book.
Thank you Netgalley and Algonquin Books for the opportunity to read a free e-edition in exchange for an honest review.
Book review: Fifteen Lanes
Fifteen Lanes by S.J. Laidlaw
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was an utterly absorbing novel that forced me to read it pretty much non-stop until I was finished.
Dual first-person narratives, both teen girls in Mumbai, but they couldn’t have come from more disparate circumstances. Noor is the daughter of a sex worker and the novel opens with Noor sleeping under her mother’s bed as men are being serviced above. Grace is a wealthy privileged student at a Mumbai International School. Both are bullied and shamed at their respective schools and their stories intersect when Grace volunteers at an NGO that assists the children of sex workers.
In less deft hands this story could have read like a sermon but S. J. Laidlaw writes with well-researched clarity and passion. Her portrayal of Noor’s appalling life circumstances is precise but never pandering. You’d think that any problem Grace could have would be overshadowed by Noor’s, but there’s actually a good balance. The systematic bullying that Grace suffers will be instantly familiar to North American teen readers. The juxtaposition of the two girls’ problems works very well.
I won’t tell you what the ending is, but I will tell you that it’s satisfying, and not in the expected way.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Better than Bond
The Dead Don’t Bleed by David Krugler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A rollicking enjoyable spy thriller set in Washington DC just as WWII ends. Lt. Voigt, a navel intelligence officer, goes undercover to solve the murder of one of his colleagues but soon stumbles upon something much bigger — a Soviet spy cell secreting bomb info from Los Alamos. Many unexpected twists and turns and some really great characters. A fun read.
Thank you Netgalley for providing the ARC.
The Hill: Don’t read this book in bed
Karen Bass has made a name for herself by writing well-researched and page-turning historical fiction from a post-WWII German teen’s point of view. What I love about her books is that she breathes life into bits of history that no one else is writing about and she does it with muscular aplomb and page-turning suspense.
The Hill is utterly different from anything Bass has written before. It’s a contemporary thriller about Jared, a rich spoiled teen whose plane crashes in remote northern Alberta, and Kyle, a Cree teen who witnesses the crash and comes to assist. The two protagonists are the same sex and age but that’s the sum of their similarities.
Jared survives the crash with just a concussion and his pilot is alive but injured. His cell phone has no service and he wants to get to the top of a nearby hill in order to light up a few bars on his phone. Kyle tells him that they cannot do that. It’s a forbidden place.
They go anyway.
There’s no cell service, and when they come back down, there’s no plane.
It turns out that by climbing the forbidden hill, the teens have slipped into a different dimension, and this alternate reality is a dangerous place populated with creatures from Cree legend. Now that they’ve slipped into this other dimension, how do they get out? Only by setting aside their differences can the boys puzzle that out and save themselves.
In less capable hands, the novel’s premise could be a disaster but Karen Bass anchors the fantasy element with such gritty, sore and smelly reality and such nail-biting terror that the reader has no choice but to be hooked.
I read this novel in a single long gulp because I could not put it down. And after I was finished, it stayed on my mind.
A phenomenal page-turner. Love the premise. Love the writing. Don’t read this book in bed.
A lush new book of classic Christmas traditions
The first time I visited Ukraine was in 2001. It was an amazingly fun and educational bus tour led by Orysia Tracz of Winnipeg Manitoba. Since that time, Orysia and I have kept in contact. We’re part of an online group of people who write on Ukrainian themes, culture and history. Orysia is my go-to person for all things Ukrainian.
Orysia has been working on a number of projects and one came to fruition this fall in an absolutely spectacular way. She has published a book about Ukrainian Christmas traditions. This isn’t just any old book. It’s a visual masterpiece, chock full of full colour photos and images, printed lush on heavy gloss paper. I consider this the encyclopedia of Ukrainian Christmas traditions. Well written in an engaging anecdotal style, it invites the reader to dip in time and again. A new classic.
To give you an idea of the broad range of this book, check out this page on carols of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army:
A lush new book of classic Christmas traditions
The first time I visited Ukraine was in 2001. It was an amazingly fun and educational bus tour led by Orysia Tracz of Winnipeg Manitoba. Since that time, Orysia and I have kept in contact. We’re part of an online group of people who write on Ukrainian themes, culture and history. Orysia is my go-to person for all things Ukrainian.
Orysia has been working on a number of projects and one came to fruition this fall in an absolutely spectacular way. She has published a book about Ukrainian Christmas traditions. This isn’t just any old book. It’s a visual masterpiece, chock full of full colour photos and images, printed lush on heavy gloss paper. I consider this the encyclopedia of Ukrainian Christmas traditions. Well written in an engaging anecdotal style, it invites the reader to dip in time and again. A new classic.
Dance of the Banished audio interview
From Teachingbooks.net. Listen here.
