He Will Be My Ruin; K.A. Tucker

He Will Be My Ruin; K.A. Tucker

Atria - 2016

Maggie Sparkes was born into a wealthy family that traveled the world when she was young, often leaving her in the care of Rosa Gonzalez who raised her since she was just five.  Rosa's daughter Celine, and Maggie became the best of friends, a friendship which continued for many years.  

When Rosa contacts Maggie to tell her that Celine 28, is dead and that suicide (by pills and booze) is suspected, she asks Maggie to go to New York City to clean out her apartment.  In New York, Maggie begins sorting through Celine's personal effects and the deeper she digs the less she believes that her friend took her own life.  She also learns that she did not know her good friend as well as she thought she did. Unfortunately everyone who Maggie speaks to including the police seem to disagree with her theory, but Maggie persists especially because just too many things just don't make sense to her.

I read several chapters of this thriller on my Kindle each night in bed and it really drew me in. I found myself hitting the sheets earlier and earlier each night just to get back to it. The story is well-paced and kept me guessing.  Maggie is a feisty character who was determined to get to the bottom of her friend's death, even though it puts her own life in jeopardy.  She does make some foolish decisions along the way.  All of the characters (and there were quite a few) were interesting and, there are quite a few suspects that kept me guessing. I especially liked Celine's nosy neighbor across the hall who made me smile at times.  

This is my first thriller by this author and I would definitely consider other books she has written. If you love a good thriller, try this one.

4.5/5 stars

(eGalley)

Coming Soon to a Book Store Near You in April

(3) new books hitting the shelves in April that I thought sounded good.

Do any of these appeal to you?

Sunset City; Melissa Ginsburg

Ecco - 2016

(Description) --- A taut, erotically charged literary noir set in Houston about a woman caught up in her friend’s shocking murder, and the dark truths she uncovers.

Before the drugs, Danielle Reeves was Charlotte Ford’s most loyal and vibrant friend. She helped Charlotte through her mother’s illness and death, and opened up about her own troubled family. The two friends were inseparable, reveling in Houston’s shadowy corners. But then Danielle’s addiction got the best of her and she went to prison for four years. When she gets out, she and Charlotte reconnect. Charlotte hopes this is a new start for their friendship.

But then, a detective shows up at Charlotte’s apartment. Danielle has been murdered, bludgeoned to death.

Overwhelmed by grief, Charlotte is determined to understand how the most alive person she has ever known could end up dead. But the deeper Charlotte descends into Danielle’s dark world, the less she understands. Was Danielle a hapless victim or master manipulator? Was she really intent on starting over or was it all an act? To find out the truth, Charlotte must keep her head clear and her guard up. Houston has a way of feeding on bad habits and Charlotte doesn’t want to get swallowed whole, a victim of her own anguished desires.

Sundays on the Phone to Monday; Christine Reilly

Touchstone - 2016

(Description)---The Middlesteins meets The Virgin Suicides in this arresting family love story about the eccentric yet tight knit Simone family, coping with tragedy during 90s New York, struggling to reconnect with each other and heal.

Claudio and Mathilde Simone, once romantic bohemians hopelessly enamored with each other, find themselves nestled in domesticity in New York, running a struggling vinyl record store and parenting three daughters as best they can: Natasha, an overachieving prodigy; sensitive Lucy, with her debilitating heart condition; and Carly, adopted from China and quietly fixated on her true origins.

With prose that is as keen and illuminating as it is whimsical and luminous, debut novelist Christine Reilly tells the unusual love story of this family. Poignant and humane, Sunday’s on the Phone to Monday is a deft exploration of the tender ties that bind families together, even as they threaten to tear them apart.

The History of Great Things; Elizabeth Crane

Harper Perennial - April 2016

(Description)--A witty and irresistible story of a mother and daughter regarding each other through the looking glass of time, grief, and forgiveness.

In two beautifully counterpoised narratives, two women—mother and daughter—try to make sense of their own lives by revisiting what they know about each other. The History of Great Things tells the entwined stories of Lois, a daughter of the Depression Midwest who came to New York to transform herself into an opera star, and her daughter, Elizabeth, an aspiring writer who came of age in the 1970s and ’80s in the forbidding shadow of her often-absent, always larger-than-life mother. In a tour de force of storytelling and human empathy, Elizabeth chronicles the events of her mother’s life, and in turn Lois recounts her daughter’s story—pulling back the curtain on lifelong secrets, challenging and interrupting each other, defending their own behavior, brandishing or swallowing their pride, and, ultimately, coming to understand each other in a way that feels both extraordinary and universal.

The History of Great Things is a novel about a mother and daughter who are intimately connected and not connected enough; it will make readers laugh and cry and wonder how we become the adults we always knew we should—even if we’re not always adults our parents understand.

The Good Death; Ann Neumann

The Good Death; Ann Neumann

Beacon Press - 2016

It seems like the past year has brought us our share of books that deal with death and dying: Being Mortal and When Breath Becomes Air were two which I've read and thought were very well done.

My most recent read on the subject was by author, Ann Neumann shares the death and dying experience of her father and then further examines death in the American Culture.  Ann was 37 when she returned home to help care for her 60 year old father who was dying of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  After refusing the last ditch chemo effort, he chose to go home to die.  Unfortunately, his death wish to die at home with his daughters and hospice helping out were not to be.  His drawn out death required that he be hospitalized for pain management levels that were not possible at home.

Ann shares some stories of her time as a hospice volunteer and discusses the history of death in the US.  She shares her findings about death experience and how the experience differs based on socioeconomic environment -- the wealthy, those in poverty as well as those incarcerated.   The Good Death also revisits some prominent right-to-die cases many of us recall to this day.  For me the Karen Ann Quinlan and Terry Schiavo cases seemed in some ways like a media circus.  It caused some individuals to change their views on living and dying and many others to put their final wishes in writing.

It's clear that the author believes that dying should be a "choice" and that individuals should have "choice" when recovery is no longer an option.  She believes that there is not one particular scenario that constitutes "a good death", it's a personal situation that individuals, even those who avoid thinking about death, need to start planning for by making your wishes known to loved ones.

"A good death is whatever the patient wants. There is no such thing as a perfect date as humans aren't perfect."

Overall, I felt this book was well-done although the focus seemed to shift abruptly at times.  An important subject, I'm glad I read it.

4/5 stars

(eGalley

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Shelter; Jung Yun

Every Tuesday I host First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros where I share the first paragraph sometimes   two of a book that I'm reading or plan to read soon.

Shelter; Jung Yun

Picador - 2016

PART ONE

DAWN

"The boy is standing in the doorway again.  He's smiling, which hardly seems right.  A smile means he's not sick.  He didn't have a bad dream.  He didn't wet the bed.  None of the things he usually says when he enters the room uninvited.  Kyung nudges his wife, who turns over with a grunt, face-first into her pillow.  He sighs and sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

What's wrong? he asks. What's the matter?"

What do you think -- keep reading or pass? 
(Feel free to join in this week by posting your intro below?

Mailbox Monday - New Books

I never did get a chance to do a weekend post but, I wanted to share the new books which arrived by mail over the last (2) weeks.

• I Almost Forgot About You; Terry Mcmillan (Crown)
• One-in-a-Million-Boy; Monica Wood (Amazon Vine) (Houghton Mifflin)
• Father's Day; Simon Booy (Harper)
• Where Are You Going Baby Lincoln; Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick Press)
• Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep; Michael Schulman (Harper)
• Shelter; Jung Yun (Amazon Vine) (Picador)
• Juana & Lucas; Juana Medina (Candlewick Press)

The Vegetarian; Han Kang

The Vegetarian; Han Kang

Hogarth - 2016

The Vegetarian is a somewhat bizarre and unsettling story about a woman whose life begins to quickly spiral out of control when she decides to become a vegetarian .

Yeong-hye was a passive wife who after experiencing several bloody nightmares decides to give up eating meat.  She shocks her husband when he finds her cleaning out the refrigerator and tossing out all meat-related products into a trash bag.  Her decision throws her husband's ordered life off course.  Her husband, only referred to as Mr. Cheong, was somewhat embarrassed by his wife's plain appearance before she makes this decision and, now that she has stopped eating meat he is uncomfortable taking her to work related functions as well.  In addition, Yeong-hye no longer wants to have sex with her husband claiming "he smells like meat." As weeks turn into months Yeong-hye , can't eat and can't sleep and is emotionally and is physically wasting away. 

The story is told in three parts, first by Yeone-hye, when she decides to become a vegetarian and how her family reacts to that decision (this part was my favorite).  The second part involves her brother-in-law who becomes somewhat obsessed by his sister-in-law when he learns from his wife that she has a Mongolian birthmark on her butt.  The last part is told from the POV of her older sister, In-hye, who manages a cosmetics store. In-hye is trying to cope with the fact that her sister is now in an institution, abandoned by her husband and that the family is now fractured.

This story gives the reader plenty to think about.  Dreams play a significant part in the novel for several characters, and it's clear from some of the dreams and distorted faces that they see that the family members know very little about each other.  I thought the male characters in this novel were particularly loathsome.  From the very first paragraph of the novel, this is how Mr. Cheong views his wife ------

[Quote] --Mr. Cheong

"Before my wife turned vegetarian I'd always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way.  To be frank, the first time I met her I wasn't even attracted to her. Middling height, bobbed hair neither long or short; jaundiced, sickly-looking skin; somewhat prominent cheekbones; her timid, sallow aspect told me all I needed to know. As she came up to the table where I was waiting, I couldn't help but notice her shoes--the plainest black shoes imaginable.  And that walk of hers--neither fast nor slow, striding nor mincing."

There is nothing happy about this short novel, it's clearly a cautionary tale that is less about being a vegetarian and more about the family unit. The writing is very descriptive, at times bloody and definitely weird at times as well.  I think this book will appeal most to Kafka and Murakami fans. For the most part I did enjoy this one -- Translated from Korean.

[Quote] p. 166 - Young-hye (his wife)

"For the first time, she became vividly aware of how much of her life she had spent with her husband.  It had been a period utterly devoid of happiness and spontaneity.  A time she so far managed to get through only by using up every last reserve of perseverance and consideration. All of it self-inflicted."

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Miller's Valley; Anna Quindlen

Miller's Valley; Anna Quindlen

Random House - April 2016

"My name is Mimi Miller, I lived in Miller's Valley.  Everyone I knew lived in Miller's Valley.  I wasn't ignorant; I knew there was a world outside.  I just had a hard time imagining it."

Miller's Valley takes place in rural PA where the Miller family has lived for generations.  While some have sold their land and homesteads to government agencies who have plans for the land, the Miller family refuse to sell out.

Our narrator, Mary Margaret Miller (Mimi) tells the story of her family over the course of many decades beginning in the 1960s when Mimi was just eleven years old and culminating in her old age.  The youngest child and only daughter of the Miller family,  Mimi is a keen observer and reporter of the interactions of her family members.  Her older brothers are as different as night and day -- one the perfect son and the other the troubled one.  Her mother is a strong character who works as a nurse and her father is a bit more passive and is a Mr Fix It of sorts.  There is also Aunt Ruth, an interesting character who lives in a separate house on the property. She is a woman who has not left her house in years.

Miller's Valley is a quiet story about family, friends and the secrets that many families harbor.  In some ways this story felt so intimate that it almost read like a memoir.  Mimi was a wonderful, wise and memorable narrator. She and all of the other characters were very well drawn which made me very eager to keep reading.  There were some family secrets that had me wondering and was never fully explored but, that was okay and it did not effect my enjoyment of this novel in the least.  Readers who enjoy coming of age stories and stories about family life should enjoy this novel - another winner for Anna Quindlen.

4.5/5 stars
(eGalley)