From One Book Lover

It’s always worse than you can imagine, because horror and grief are tricky and pliable. They take shapes you didn’t know existed, and they're impossible to contain, or even manage. In Then She Was Gone , author Lisa Jewell knows how to describe horror. Tangible horror. The kind of thing that lurks at the back of your mind: what would happen if [terrible thing] occurred?  We've all seen the movies and read the books, but they're not what we can imagine.What's in our heads is awful, simply and utterly awful — and  what Jewell has in her head is even worse than awful, if that's possible. She takes it to unimaginable, etching it into our brains with precise language and specific, and devastating, details.   If you don't want to envision the reality of your own fears, skip this book. At a certain point, I knew what we would learn about the characters and the storyline —  but that didn't dim my enthusiasm one bit. I liked the author's writing. I understood an...

Nora Roberts is an unstoppable powerhouse. Not content with being successful in a single genre, the author has changed names and genres because she just has to write. A lot. I wished her well, but I didn't think she was up my alley. Then I caught sight of Year One in the grocery store (of all places), the hulking crow swooping out at unsuspecting shoppers — and began my relationship with Nora Roberts, the Dystopian Novelist. So far, so good. Year One takes place in current times. An unsuspecting wealthy New Yorker bags a bird on a hunting trip in Scotland and brings home more than he bargains for. As with all fatal diseases in modern tales, The Doom is highly contagious, shockingly swift, and ruthless: one mother dies from The Doom while her newborn does not. Good people go bad, or surrender to fear. Survivors find themselves in a weird, dangerous, and polarized world that is a little Mad Max, a little Stephen King, and way too much Trump's America. Year One chron...

What a reader considers a good book is both very personal and very public. One person's favorite book very well could be another person's nightmare. What is a reader to do if she wants to find out if a book is worth her time? Of course you reach out to your reading friends, ones you can trust regarding the author or genre in question. (If you don't, find some now — your life will be richer, and reading will get even more fun.) You may have a professional critic or two whom you trust and (mostly) agree with, which is a nice way to add to your towering TBR pile. You can accost the occasional stranger or two reading the book of interest — but if they snarl, back away slowly and don't take your eyes off them until their eyes have returned to the page. Online? Think twice, and proceed with extreme caution if you dare venture in. Back in the day, many readers believed online reviews were reliable, and a community of readers discussing books — in part because the...

In 2017, I read 60 books.  I think. Keeping track isn't as easy as it should be. Marking e-books as "read" on Goodreads is easy, thanks to a feature that prompts readers to "mark as currently reading" when opening the book and automatically listing them as "read" when flipping the last page. Alas, print books don't offer the same auto-prompt when a reader cracks the spine. However, I try to remember to record completed print and audio book titles on my cloud drive, and cross-check my drive list against Goodreads from time to time. It's a handy resource to remind myself why a book seems so familiar . (Ahem, Mariana !) Which is a long way of saying, "In 2017, I am pretty sure I read 60 books, give or take." It's not a personal best, but it is a healthy number considering my bout of reading ennui this summer. A friend experienced the same thing last year, and I didn't understand until I stood in front of my bookshelves and...

I was warned. Strangers and friends alike, people who share my taste in books and those who have no idea what I read, sent up red flags. "You will be furious by the ending of Gone, Girl ," they said, to a one. Yet, I did not listen. Hey, I survived My Sister's Keeper and Bridge to Terabithia (and so did the "throw across the room" books, but only because they were library books). I mean, how bad could Gone, Girl be? Worse than you'd imagine. I will try to analyze my disappointment without spoilers, but I may give away more of the plot than you wish to know. If you intend to read this book, proceed with caution. (I may discuss a few other airborne books, so be forewarned.) Let's start with the basics: Amy disappears under suspicious circumstances. The police see Nick as the most logical suspect. Both Nick and law enforcement uncover information and evidence that points to him. He looks guilty — but is he? The story is told in two voices....

Whenever I begin reading a book by Neil Gaiman , I always think I know where I'm going. Then I read the second paragraph and I realize how fundamentally, overwhelmingly wrong I am. You may think Ocean at the End of the Lane is a book about what a seven-year-old boy experienced one summer. You may be right — a little. It's so, so much more. It was a riveting tale. Gorgeous prose, incredible storytelling, a flawless narrator and a tale that takes you places you never expected. Plus, kittens are involved: not always in a good way, but always as they must be. The young boy who is narrating the story is all of seven years old, and it hasn't been all that smooth – especially his seventh summerl. His own little room was being occupied by lodgers, and he had to share a room with his sister. His seventh birthday party was abysmal, but a quiet boy can endure much. Until the opal miner shows up and ruins everything. And that's when he meets the Hempstock women. The narr...

Readers have two very important decisions to make: what books to read and what books to stop reading. What compels us to do either? I used to read anything because I love books. I would drudge through the worst book because I wanted to give the author the benefit of the doubt. What if it got good and I didn't know it? Then I picked up Water for Elephants . It had sat on my shelf for a year as I hemmed and hawed. "It's a tough read for animal lovers," I heard. "I don't know if you can finish it." Then I read the first page. And kept reading. When I came up for air — thankfully at a decent hour of the evening — I called my friend Carole. She got no further than "Hel—" "Oh, Carole, why didn't you tell me?" I could feel her smile emanating from the other end of the phone. "I did." That night, I made myself a promise: if a book didn't grab me, I would give myself permission to set it aside, possibly forever....

Caitlin Moran is like the girlfriend you always wanted, or always wanted to be. She's honest, smart, quick-witted and funny as hell — and so is her book, How To Be A Woman. She also knows how to go too far at the right time. There were a couple of stories and quips where I had to hang on for dear life to read. I may not have had a similar life, but I assure you I've had some of the same thoughts, ideas and experience. I don't know if I'd have the same conversations with my husband about my daughter's vagina, but let's just say if I did, I'd feel better knowing someone else had, too. She wrote enough to make me realize I'm not the only one — on so many topics. I also loved her chapters on underwear, menstruation, sexism and declaring her feminism. I heard a friend say she didn't think she was a feminist, but she was an educated professional with her own bank account and the family's sole provider. When I asked her what she thought feminis...

I have strong feelings about books I have read, but rarely do I assign them to the "untouchable" pile. However, there are a few exceptions, and I will share them with you (in no particular order). Coincidentally, every single one of these books has been made into movies — and in some cases, Hollywood has taken some liberties — and I can hope that it helped. (Not for myself, but for others.) Plague Dogs by Richard Adams. If he was trying to reinforce the horrors of animal testing, he more than did it. I had thumbed through it once or twice, then I gave a copy to my friend Carole — who, one evening, asked me cautiously, "Have you read it?" Oh, no, I assured her, but Richard Adams wrote Watership Down , so I figured he was trustworthy. When Carole described the story to me, I declared that I would recycle my copy so no one else would suffer through it. Thankfully my reading was superficial, or I fear I would have never recovered. Hannibal...