Dave Eggers has written a chilling thought piece. While I don’t think it fully works as a novel, the ideas it raises have stayed with me for many days since I finished the book. The main character, Mae Holland, is saved from the soul-crushing effects of her first post-college job (at the local utility company) by a job offer from the Circle, a Google-like company. Mae’s college friend, Annie, has been working at the Circle since they graduated from college and has quickly moved up […]
A Wee Fat Woman Crammed into a Marks and Spencer Suit
I’m a big fan of both the TV version of Wire in the Blood and the books that preceded it so when this Val McDermid novel crossed my path, I didn’t hesitate. I don’t know if this is a stand alone or the second in a series featuring DI Karen Pirie but it was a solid story with a great setting and some interesting history involving the Miners’ Strike in the 1980’s. It’s a classic cold case. A young woman shows up at the police […]
Masters Swimming and Murder
The hook for me in this mystery is that it is set in the world of open-water swimming and written by an actual swimmer. Ironically, the main character, Trisha Carson, isn’t a swimmer but her sister, Lena, is. Trisha happens to be watching her sister compete in an open water race when she witnesses the surprising but seemingly accidental death of another swimmer, Dick Waddell. Dick is in great shape and his death comes as a shock to the swimming community. From the very beginning, […]
Light at the End of the Tunnel
This is a compelling and disturbing look into the life of one
Are We All Defined by Our Inner 15-year-old?
Meg Wolitzer’s novel spans many decades—telling the story of a group of friends who meet at an “arty” summer camp in upstate New York in the early seventies but whose lives remain entangled with each other’s into the new millennium. Most of the novel is told from the perspective of Jules Jacobson, who comes to the camp as Julie but after getting invited into a circle of already established friends, turns into Jules and embraces a life in the arts. The group consists of the […]
Psychics Are Just Like Us
Though the main characters of this novel, Kate and Violet, are twins and psychic, this is no twee story involving cooking emotion into food or having the ability to affect the weather.