A friend of mine from book club mentioned that she’d read some romance novels by C.M. Owens and really enjoyed them. I was intrigued, always ready to find a new, favorite romance author. I went on Amazon and quickly found Hooked on the Game (2014), the first book in the Sterling Shore series for free! So that worked out perfectly. Unfortunately, even though there was sometimes some good heat and connection between the leads, I found the whole thing preposterous. Raya Capperton is a focused college student, […]
Rich, white family drama
The Vacationers (2014) by Emma Straub is another book I saw displayed at the library, and it caught my attention. I think I recognized the author from another reading list, and I decided to pick it up. There’s really not much to this book at first glance. The plot is that a family goes on vacation for two weeks in Spain. They’re well off and they have first world problems caused by their own angst and bad choices. What made this book interesting and fun to […]
Choose kindness first
“Shall we make a new rule of life…always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?” (299) Just the other day, we were talking at work about the hardest times for kids as they grow up. I said, unequivocally, that middle school was the worst for me. I didn’t have a particularly bad time of it, but I think there was a reason I had a spate of migraines during middle school. Middle school kids have an astounding capacity for cruelty. August Pullman, […]
From Homeless to Harvard
I first heard of this book when my mom mentioned that she’d stayed up all night reading it. This was a couple of years ago, but my mom’s strong reaction to the book made an impression on me. Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey From Homeless to Harvard (2010) by Liz Murray is pretty much exactly what it looks like from the title. It is a memoir by the author of her childhood and teen years in the Bronx. I found this book […]
Walk right into a different world
Every Heart a Doorway (2016) by Seanan McGuire was a book I had not heard of and probably wouldn’t have chosen to read if left to myself. I would probably call it a young adult coming-of-age novella with fantasy elements. The reason I finally picked this up was because a friend of mine kept doggedly recommending it to our book club, month after month, until I could hardly say no. Nancy is a brooding teenager, recently brought by her parents to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward […]
Old-fashioned romance
I’d heard that Venetia (1958) by Georgette Heyer is a classic of the romance genre, as well as reminiscent of Jane Austen. I wasn’t sure it could live up to that kind of hype, but I was willing to give it a try. One thing that made me nervous about this novel is that it was written in the 1950’s–not exactly a banner decade for women. I was afraid the old-fashioned mindset would be reflected in the novel. Fortunately, for the most part, this was not true, […]
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