The Book of Secrets (Elizabeth Joy Arnold)

I seem to be on a completely unintentional kick of reading novels with the word "book" in the title.  My "currently reading" list includes Charlie Lovett's The Bookman's Tale and Markus Zusak's The Book Thief. There is something about the word "book" that is just so comforting...curling up and going into another world for a little while.  The closing of so many bookstores lately is really alarming to me.  I've gone kicking and screaming into the e-Reader age, but I'm certainly not happy about it.  Elizabeth Joy Arnold's The Book of Secrets seems to be written for people like me, those who love nothing better than to take a book off the bookstore or library shelf and lose themselves in its pages.

Chloe and Nate grew up together in a small town.  Almost every day, Chloe would go over to Nate's house, where the two of them, along with Nate's two sisters, would put on plays based on books.  The children were homeschooled by Nate's mother, Mrs. Sinclair, until she became severely ill.  Chloe hardly ever saw Mr. Sinclair, but when he surprisingly came home early one day, it wasn't hard to see why the children seemed afraid of him.  The Sinclair house had a lot of dark secrets, some of which do not come to light until Chloe and Nate have a son, get married, and open a bookstore together.  When Nate disappears one day, Chloe discovers that he's gone back to their small town to see his family for answers.  Chloe goes after him, of course, and finds the answer to the biggest secret of all.

The final mystery is fairly simple to figure out; however, don't let that stop you from reading this wonderful book.  Arnold imbues the novel with tons of literary references, codes, and dark secrets, making this far from a "fluff" book about a bookstore.

MY RATING - 4

In the Garden of Beasts (Erik Larson)

It’s not always the easiest task to review a work of nonfiction. While with fiction, the reviewer can concentrate on how interesting the characters and plot developments are, she can’t do that with nonfiction. Every word Larson writes is true and well researched using a plethora of sources. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin tells the story of an American ambassador who was one of the only ones who recognized the unprecedented danger of the Fuhrer. When he tried to tell his colleagues back home as well as President Roosevelt, he wasn’t taken seriously enough for the terrible damage to be contained.

Ask almost anyone if they have ever heard of William Dodd, and chances are, they will look at you with a blank stare. But he was a very important historical figure, acting as the American ambassador to Germany during the rise of the Nazi regime. Larson tells the story of Dodd’s surprising ascent to the role, like a fish out of water, and the family’s eventual move to Berlin. Once there, the reader is taken deeply into the terrifying regime, where names like Hitler, Goebbels, Goring, Himmler, and Diels made their unfathomable marks in history. Today in the modern day, one cannot understand why things weren’t done to overthrow the government and deal with the unimaginable injustices, but Larson explores why many German people and foreign leaders just accepted the status quo…some even going so far as to glorify Hitler.

The best nonfiction books delve thoroughly into the subject matter without disrespecting their subjects. Larson does a masterful job at this, never spoon feeding his readers or mincing words. This is a story that deserves to be told, and the author does a masterful job at it.

MY RATING - 4

The Never List (Koethi Zan)

Sometimes terrible things can happen to someone no matter how many safety precautions he or she takes.  In Koethi Zan’s at-times gripping The Never List, Sarah and Jennifer are two best friends intent on living their lives as safely as possible, always noting the nearest exit and carrying pepper spray.  One day, they are both kidnapped despite their cautious ways.  Sarah spends the next few years with two other girls, Christine and Tracey, in the kidnapper’s dangerous hands.  Jennifer has a far different fate.

Zan weaves her narrative between following the girls as they try to survive in the dungeon and alternately, as women, trying to make lives for themselves.  As the kidnapper continues to communicate with them from prison, the women desperately attempt to stop him from getting out on parole.  This means going back to a place that they were hoping never to relive both mentally and physically.

The Never List can be a terrifying read, and I found my heart beating wildly in quite a few spots.  The supporting characters are all interesting and seamlessly ingrained into the story.  What keeps it from getting a 5, or even a 4, are the last few chapters, which I found completely outlandish and unbelievable (not in a good way).  However, read The Never List with the lights on, for it has some parts that will definitely keep you up at night.

MY RATING - 3

A Fatal Likeness (Lynn Shepherd)

In Lynn Shepherd’s A Fatal Likeness, detective Charles Maddox has been called to the Shelley family estate, currently the home of troubled poet Percy Bysshe Shelley’s son, daughter-in-law, and wife Mary, the author of Frankenstein.  They are desperately trying to keep secrets from coming out that could completely ruin the reputations of Percy, who is deceased, and Mary.  Charles soon discovers that his seriously ill great uncle was involved somehow in the Shelleys' lives, and based on his missing diary pages, it seems like the uncle wants to erase this from the record.

There is much more to this novel….TOO much more.  Just when you think you have your head wrapped around everything, Shepherd adds another mystery into the mix.  I applaud her for trying to construct a multi-layered story, but the hallmark of a novel with depth is that things easily fall into place at the end.  That didn’t happen here, and I was left with far more questions than answers.

Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres, but it always makes me very uneasy when authors try to fill in the gaps too liberally.  Even if you know the general biography of a historical figure, I think authors have to be responsible in their writing in order to not damage the person's legacy.  Shepherd makes the Shelleys do terrible things, but in her author notes, says that much of the novel is based on her own imagination.  That, to me, is walking a fine line.

MY RATING - 2

The Dinner (Herman Koch)

The past few years have seen books trending towards the psychological thriller.  Some, such as William Landay’s Defending Jacob and S.J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep are like giant puzzles, just begging for the reader to put them together.  Others, like Gillian Flynn’s phenomenally successful Gone Girl, practically make the reader feel queasy inside and want to take a shower at the end.  Herman Koch’s international bestseller The Dinner is a hybrid of the two styles.

We start off with Paul and Claire, a husband and wife, getting ready for to go to an exorbitantly expensive restaurant with Paul’s brother and sister-in-law, Serge and Babette.  As Paul is the narrator (and he becomes an increasingly unreliable one at that as The Dinner progresses), we quickly learn that he does not want to go, but we're left to think that it’s because he does not get along with Serge.  Before they leave, Paul goes to his son’s (Michel’s) room to search for something on Michel’s cell phone.  We know that Paul found what he was looking for but do not quite know what that is until the real reason for the dinner becomes horrifyingly clear. 

Koch wisely fills the book with minutiae that lulls the reader almost into a false sense of complacency.  He describes the food ad nauseam, brilliantly naming each section after the dinner courses.  Then, without warning, Koch pulls the rug out from under us; the serene meal descriptions stop so he can get into the real “meat” of the story, and we are reminded that, unfortunately, things are rarely what they seem.

MY RATING - 4

The House at the End of Hope Street (Menna van Praag)

The House at the End of Hope Street is Menna van Praag's glorious novel about a magical home and its inhabitants.  It's the type of book that comforts you like a bowl of chicken soup and just makes you feel better about yourself in times of trouble.  With a who's who of historical figures and unforgettable modern-day characters, The House at the End of Hope Street is a beautiful literary work.

Alba perceives her life as being in ruins, having just had her academic reputation stolen from her.  Her beloved mother has just taken her own life, and her siblings do not seem to care one iota for her.  One day, she shows up at a house where people she's never met have been waiting for her.  This is a house for people in despair who are learning to pick up the pieces of their lives again, and the caretaker, Peggy, says that Alba is welcome to stay for ninety-nine nights.  Pictures of past residents on the wall, including Agatha Christie, Dorothy Parker, and Sylvia Plath, communicate with both the main characters and each other, which just goes to show that every single one of us has needed a "time out" at some point.

This book is a delightfully written fable about what life truly means, and when Peggy has her "a-ha!" moment towards the end, I had a light bulb go off in my own head.  You'll come to know these characters well, anxiously awaiting their fates, and seeing a little part of yourself in all of them.

MY RATING - 5

Mary Coin (Marisa Silver)

The Depression era photo of a woman with a hand on her face surrounded by her children is one of the most famous images ever taken.  Snapped by photographer Dorothea Lange in 1936, Migrant Mother shows a woman by the name of Florence Owens Thompson and is stunning in its stark simplicity.  In Marisa Silver's equally stunning novel Mary Coin, she reimagines the lives of the woman in the famous image and the photographer who took it.

Silver's story follows three fictional characters, Mary Coin, Vera Dare, and Walker Dodge.  Coin is a mother several times over who is just trying to do the best she can by her children during one of the darkest periods in American history.  Dare is having an equally hard time, attempting to reconcile her job of taking photographs of wealthy women with the depression that is happening outside her walls.  Walker is a professor of social history, and the reader is left guessing about how his story will eventually interact with Coin.

When Dare meets up with Coin and her children, she takes the photograph that eventually would become so famous.  Silver doesn't use Lange's and Thompson's real names in the novel, but her description of how the photo may have been taken is enthralling.  The professor's story seemed at times to be extraneous; I think the women's stories during the Great Depression and their lives thereafter would have been
enough to make this novel superb.

MY RATING - 4