Dead Ringers (Christopher Golden)

I gave Christopher Golden's Snowblind an average rating a few years ago, saying that it was very reminiscent of Stephen King, so if you're a King fan, you'll probably really like it. While I didn't love his newest, Dead Ringers, Golden really threw me for a loop on the last page, which raised his rating by a full point.

It all begins with Tess Devlin running into her ex, Nick, on a city street. But Nick completely ignores her, and when she contacts him to yell about it, Nick swears that wasn't him since he's in another state. Seeing their "doubles" begins to happen to a lot of people she knows (including herself), and they begin to realize the connection they all have. Why are these imitators out there, what do they want with them, and most importantly, how can they stop the malice they bring from ruining (or ending) their lives?

Just as in Snowblind, parts of Dead Ringers do border on the ridiculous. I realize that this is not the most realistic story, but King's gift is that he can make it SEEM like what he writes can actually happen. However, Golden's plot is well developed and parts of Dead Ringers are really suspenseful. So if you can suspend your disbelief just a little, he'll take you on a scary ride.

MY RATING - 3

Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon (Ed Caesar)

Many of us have never run a marathon and never will.  Wrapping my head around the concept of finishing a marathon, let alone doing it in two hours, is almost unfathomable.  Ed Caesar tackles this concept in Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon.  The two-hour marathon is something now obtainable according to scientists and is a goal for the elite marathoners of the world, who Caesar chronicles as they go through training for several races around the world each year.

Caesar talks about the world of marathon running and how preparation has changed over time as record times have slowly come down and the two hour barrier, once thought to be unobtainable, has approached like a runner approaching the finish line after a long race.  The book talks about those advances from both the scientific perspective as well as ground truth, capturing the stories of runners and the advances in everything from clothing the runners wear to the training they participate in as part of the ritual.

The book reads well and provides those who are into running a nice background into the advances of the sport.  It likely will not get you inspired to go out and run in New York, Philadelphia, or any other marathon any time soon.  However, Caesar smartly advocates how running is one of the few sports where rich and poor can come together and run the same race and how those from dire economic circumstances can rise to the top of their sport.  Even if you have no desire to lace up your sneakers and run, if you're interested in how the human body can adapt and how we can continue to break records in a sport, it's worth your time and effort to read Two Hours.

MY RATING - 3

The Life We Bury (Allen Eskens)

When I began Allen Eskens’s The Life We Bury, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.  The premise was exciting, the characters interesting, and the writing superb.  As the events started racing to the climax, however, everything seemed to slow down, with the main characters making dumb decisions that would, of course, put their lives in extreme danger.

Joe Talpert hasn’t had the easiest life co-existing with his mother, who has been abusive to both him and his autistic brother, Jeremy.  Trying to better himself, he attends college and needs to obtain a subject for his biographical paper.  Thinking outside the box, he decides to go with Carl Iverson, a convicted murderer who has served decades in prison, but is now dying of cancer in a nursing home.  As he interviews Carl (and his friend), and unravels his story, he doubts whether Carl ever committed this grisly murder after all.

As Joe and his eventual girlfriend, Lila, piece together the puzzle, they begin to do things over and over again that aren’t exactly smart.  This brings The Life We Bury down, as I spent more time mentally yelling at the characters instead of being engrossed in their story. This results in a predictable ending, but getting there was somewhat fun.

MY RATING - 3

The Lake House (Kate Morton)

I’ve been a huge Kate Morton fan for a long time and have introduced quite a lot of people to her books.  I always look forward to her novels, as they’re perfect for cozying up to a fire with a cup of tea and just getting lost in the stories.  While her latest book, The Lake House, wasn’t my favorite and had quite the unrealistic ending, it definitely had a lot of steam getting to that point.

Due to overstepping her bounds, Sadie Sparrow, a detective in the police force, has been forced into taking a little “vacation” in Cornwall, England.  It is here during a run that she comes across an old estate.  The reader learns that during World War I, this house was the home of the Edavanes; Alice Edavane is a well-known author now in her eighties who is looking for answers into the long-ago disappearance of her little brother, Theo.  During a midsummer party, Theo vanished, never to be seen or heard from again.  What happened to him?  Were their parents, Eleanor and Anthony Edavane, somehow involved in his disappearance?

One of the things that make Kate Morton’s books so interesting is that their large houses can almost be seen as major characters.  Little Theo seemingly vanished in one of these houses, and Morton goes back and forth in time to tell his story.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work as well in The Lake House as it did in her other novels; some parts seem slow, and I kept hoping for Morton to pick up the pace a bit.  When she does, the plot races to the end quickly, and all the puzzle pieces fit together nicely.  However, the ending is a bit implausible and a little disappointing after all that work reading the book.  Don’t let that deter you from reading The Lake House – but if you’ve never read Kate Morton, you might want to start with one of her earlier, and in my opinion, better books.

MY RATING - 3

The Silo Effect (Gillian Tett)

The Silo Effect by Gillian Tett is a smart, all-encompassing look at the corporate and government world's constant battles with itself around corporate culture.  Silos in the business world often refer to the attitude that is found in some organizations when departments or teams do not share information or knowledge with other parts of the same organization, which reduces efficiency and sometimes leads to the different teams competing with each other internally.  The Silo Effect has two key objectives in attempting to answer the questions of why silos arise and what can be done by us to master silos in our world before they master us.

Tett covers several examples of corporations and government organizations that either overcame or fell victim to the silo effect.  From the example of one large corporation that lost its way due to layers of bureaucracy to how one city changed the way different departments communicated with each other, the author weaves a narrative to show the importance of how corporate culture and human interaction both play a role in helping silos grow to unmanageable heights, hindering corporate performance as a result.  But that can be overcome through effective communication, corporate culture, and smart management.

The author argues that our modern world has made silos a major part of our life, going so far as to say that "we cannot live without silos in the modern world" and citing psychological and anthropological examples to back that point up.  She then goes on to say that while it is easier and even convenient for businesses to organize themselves into highly structured silos, there are missed opportunities for growth, missed risks as collaboration and communication suffer, and internal departments are loathe to share information and resources with each other, which leads to lower productivity and efficiency in the long run.  Without giving people some rope to be creative, to collaborate, to work outside of their norms, Tett argues that short-term gain does not yield long-term breakthrough impact.  Through her eight case studies that range from major cities to major corporations, she is able to make an effective case to prove her point.

MY RATING - 4

The Admissions (Meg Mitchell Moore)

At first glance, Meg Mitchell Moore's The Admissions seems to be referring to the pressure-filled world of college admissions.  In fact, daughter Angela Hawthorne and her father, Gabe, are desperate for her to be accepted into the hallowed halls of Harvard. However, it becomes apparent throughout the book that Moore was going a bit deeper into the meaning of the word "admissions."

The Hawthornes seem to be a have-it-all family living in sunny California.  Mom Nora is a real estate agent selling luxury properties; Gabe has a similarly lucrative career. Angela is stretched to the limit trying to reach her goals; in addition to being fast-as-lightning in cross country, she's also on track to becoming valedictorian of her class. Her younger sisters, Cecily and Maya, are also facing their own issues.

All this comes to a boiling head when the pressures of daily life seem to unravel the family.  What will they stoop to in the quest to remain "perfect" and prevent their secrets from coming out?  It is this where the origin of the title The Admissions becomes crystal clear.

Moore's novel is a quick read, whip-smart, and very relevant in today's world.  Is there ever a time when people can just sit back and enjoy life or is there just too much pressure today?  Moore addresses this head-on in an extremely thought-provoking novel.

MY RATING - 4

Choosing Hope (Kaitlin Roig DeBellis and Robin Gaby Fisher)

How do you move forward after going through a tragedy of unimaginable proportions?  That is something that author (with Robin Gaby Fisher) Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis has not had an easy road determining, but her answer lies in Choosing Hope: Moving Forward from Life’s Darkest Hours.

A dedicated first grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary in a quaint little Connecticut town called Newtown, Roig-DeBellis was in circle time one minute with her primary-age students, and the next, forced to make a spur-of-the-moment decision to save all their lives.  It was the young educator’s quick thinking that piled her entire class into a bathroom not big enough for even one adult.  Not knowing if any of them were going to make it out alive, she tried to keep the children calm as they could hear the horror happening all around them.  After they were led out of the ravaged school by police and into the arms of waiting parents, the trauma Roig-DeBellis and her class faced became all too real.  This is where the story of Choosing Hope really begins.

Most people know the story of Sandy Hook based on what they have read and seen on the television.  However, what makes Choosing Hope so inspirational is that Roig-DeBellis has learned not to let that unbearable day define her; in fact, she even mentions that readers can skip the chapters about the shootings if they wish because that’s not what the book is about.  With much therapy and the loving support of her family, husband, ex-students and their parents, the author has chosen instead to make some good come out of this tragedy.  She has left teaching (not by choice), but has developed a nonprofit called Classes 4 Classes, where classrooms across the nation adopt other classrooms in need.

Roig-DeBellis doesn’t sugarcoat anything and is completely honest. However, readers expecting a minute-by-minute account of December 14, 2012 should turn elsewhere.  Choosing Hope is about one woman’s journey to remember all those that died that day by giving to others and choosing to reframe her thoughts.

MY RATING - 4