Just Like Home (Sarah Gailey)

Ahh, it's almost October -- my favorite time of year. As soon as Labor Day is over, my thoughts turn to spooky reads. I thought that's what I was getting with Sarah Gailey's Just Like Home. Instead, I got a book that seriously missed its mark by the end.

One day, Vera receives a phone call from her mother, Daphne. Daphne is dying and wants Vera to come home to sort things out in the Crowder House. The problem -- beside the fact that Vera has long been estranged from Daphne -- is that this is a house where her serial killer father murdered his victims. 

This is all that happens for the first 2/3 of the book, and actually, I found this part really interesting and suspenseful. It's the ending that's a bit of a mess, and I think I figured out why. At least for me, even the most far-fetched horror book has to have some semblance of reality in it. Think of Stephen King's It -- the way it is written, I truly believe that a deranged clown could be in the sewer. But by the end, Just Like Home goes beyond far-fetched into the ridiculous, which ruined the book for me.

MY RATING - 2

In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy (Jeff Biggers)

The Mediterranean island of Sardinia is one of the more unique places in all of Europe with a fusion of Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian, Phoenician, and North African influences having blended into the island over its rich history. While Sardinia has been a part of Italy since the country’s unification in 1861, it maintains a very distinct identity much like its Sicilian neighbors to their southeast. 

Author Jeff Biggers embarked on a long journey around the island to experience its cuisine, its literature, and its history. In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey In Italy is the culmination of those travels. What I appreciated the most about In Sardinia is that the chapters are short and generally focused, and I felt that the book took me on both a geographic journey around the island and a journey through time. While I was a bit disappointed in the lack of pictures within the book, Biggers’s descriptive writing was a very apt substitute and helped my imagination capture what Biggers experienced in his time in Sardinia.

The author’s storytelling and ability to paint the picture of a beautiful island has helped ensure that In Sardinia will not be the last travel book I read anytime soon.

MY RATING - 4.5

Just Like Mother (Anne Heltzel)

The creepy doll face on Anne Heltzel's Just Like Mother tells you all you need to know about what's inside these pages. This is a disturbing, spine-chilling story for the most part, but falls flat in some places.

Maeve and Andrea are close cousins who grew up in a cult run by "mothers." After Maeve escapes, she is adopted by a loving family and tries to have a normal life. She always wonders, however, what happened to her cousin. When they're both adults, Maeve is happy when Andrea finally contacts her. Andrea is a wealthy woman who made her money in the fertility industry. But childhood memories run deep -- this book doesn't have the aforementioned creepy doll face on the cover for no reason. 

While the story itself was horror personified, I felt it didn't go deeply enough into the cult aspect. Who were the mothers? What was the purpose of Boy? There were a lot of questions that left me wondering. 

That being said, it's been a long time since I actually gasped while reading a book, but Just Like Mother made me do so in many places. It's scary, and above all, one could see a story like this happening in real life (but let's hope not). 

MY RATING - 3