Book review: That night

Title: That Night
Author: Chevy Stevens
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Format: Audiobook

Summary: Toni Murphy is a typical teenager--she has a boyfriend that she's crazy about, her little sister annoys her and she fights with her parents.  Toni's also bullied at school by a group of four girls.  These four girls seem bent on ruining Toni's life.

Toni's life changes forever when Toni's sister is killed and Toni and her boyfriend are charged and convicted with her murder.  After serving her time, Toni's back in her hometown.  She wants to prove her innocence and find her sister's killer.

Review:  I finished this book months ago and I'm just getting to writing the review.  I initially gave this three stars but I'm going to bump it up to four.  I really liked Toni and her toughness, as well as her drive to prove her innocence in a town where she was considered a bad seed.  For obvious reasons not a lot of people (including her parents) trusted her when she came back to town.  I suppose she really had nothing to lose.  A good murder mystery if you're into those!

Time to write: 4:22

Book review: Every Fifteen Minutes

Title: Every Fifteen Minutes

Author: Lisa Scottoline

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Format: Audiobook

Summary: Dr. Eric Parrish is having a bad month.  His relationship with his ex-wife is increasingly estranged and their informal co-parenting arrangement is falling apart.  To make matters worse, he was just accused of sexual harassment by a Resident who is mad that Dr. Parrish rebuffed her advances.  Oh, and a patient of his may have murdered somebody and because Dr. Parrish won't violate doctor/patient confidentiality, he's considered a suspect as well.  Dr. Parrish is having a hard time getting anybody to believe him.  Can he clear his name?

Review:  Dr. Parrish sure sticks to his guns when it comes to sticking to doctor/patient confidentiality.  I would love to know if he was right in not sharing what was discussed in his sessions with his patient Max.  I remember when I was listening to this book that I kept thinking, "I think I would sing like a canary."  Not that there was any concrete proof that Max did anything, it was all very circumstantial.  Of course, I would have also lawyered up quicker than Dr. Parrish did because everybody knows you can't trust detectives to actually listen to you.  Poor naive Dr. Parrish.  They're there to solve a murder and Dr. Parrish did look kind of guilty himself, although again, for circumstantial reasons.  Anyhoo, it all worked out in the end.  The twist at the end was kind of fun, but all in all, I think my general dislike of Dr. Parrish led me to give this book three stars over four.  I leaned toward four stars, but this was a good book, not a great book.  

Time to write: 5:03

  

Book review: The Secret Place

Title: The Secret Place
Author: Tana French
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Summary:  Stephen Moran is looking for a chance to join Dublin's Murder Squad.  He gets his chance when 16 YO Holly Mackey, a witness from an old case, approaches him about a picture that was posted of  a boy that was murdered a year ago at her boarding school.  Stephen joins the case with Detective Antoinette Conway and they enter the strange and dangerous world of boarding school.

Review:  I really liked the previous two books in the Dublin Murder Squad series, so I was looking forward to this book.  But for some reason, I just couldn't get into this book.  I'm not entirely sure why, I didn't look forward to reading it each night. Maybe it was too long, maybe I was annoyed by the Irish slang, I don't know.  Whatever the reason, this book took forever to read.  The only reason I finished it is because I felt so invested and I'd passed the point where I could give up without feeling like I hadn't invested too much time in it.  Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed.

Time to write: 4:04

Book review: The Dead Will Tell

Title: The Dead Will Tell
Author: Linda Castillo
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary: Many years ago a terrible tragedy happened at the Hochstetler farm.  The deaths that happened went unsolved for many years.  One night years later Police Chief Kate Burkholder is called to an apparent suicide in her small town in Amish country.  The suicide turns out to be murder and when more people start dying, Kate has to figure out the link between all of them and go back to that tragedy so many nights ago before somebody else dies.

Review: As you know, I get backlogged on these reviews.  When I came upon this one, I couldn't remember what this book was about.  At all.  I suppose that I could have dropped my rating down to two stars, but it's not that it was bad, it just wasn't memorable.  But not all books can be memorable.  This is a good beach or vacation read.  It was your typical murder mystery story.  I liked that the main character was a woman and a Chief of Police at that.  She has relationship issues (what Chief of Police doesn't?).  Her boyfriend has his own baggage (what boyfriend of a Chief of Police who's also a state agent doesn't?).  The story was suspenseful and I didn't quite know where it was going.   It certainly painted an interesting image of the Amish.

Time to write: 5:40

Book Review: Dark Places

Title: Dark Places
Author: Gillian Flynn
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Summary: To say that Libby Day's had a rough life would be an understatement.  Her two sisters and mom were killed in the famous "Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas."  Libby's brother was convicted for the murders, largely because of Libby's testimony.  Twenty-five years later Libby is broke and running out of ways to to profit from her infamous family and her troubled upbringing.  When Libby is approached by The Kill Club (a group obsessed with notorious crimes), she sees a way to continue to profit from her family's demise.  Her investigation uncovers long buried secrets that force her to face what really happened that day.

Review: For those that don't know, Gillian Flynn is the author of Gone Girl.  Dark Places is one of her earlier books.  If you read Gone Girl, you know how dark it is, and I'd been told that her other books were also dark.  I listened to this book on CD and I kept thinking, "huh, I don't find this book that dark.  I wonder what that says about me."  This was a great book.  It doesn't go into it specifically, but the amateur psychologist in me would say that Libby's trauma stunted her emotional development at the age of seven, when her family was killed.  You can feel sorry for her early losses, but trust me, she's no saint.  There's great buildup in this book to find out what really happened that night.

The main reason I didn't give this book the full five stars is I just didn't buy the explanation for the killing.  I couldn't suspend disbelief, it was all too..coincidental.  I don't want to give too much away, so I'll just leave it at that.

Time to write: 6:46

Title: The Girl on the Train

Title: The Girl on the Train
Author: Paula Hawkins
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Summary: Rachel commutes back and forth to London each day on the train. Her ride takes her past her old house where her ex-husband lives with his new wife and baby.  Rachel lost her job but rides the train anyways.  She also has a minor drinking problem.  Anna is the new wife and is tired of Rachel's drunk phone calls and late night stalking.

Rachel likes to make up stories about the people who live in the houses that are on the train line.  One woman in particular is Jess, who lives a few houses over from Rachel's old house. One day Rachel sees Jess with a man that isn't her husband.  These women's lives begin to intersect when Jess (real name, Megan) disappears.

Review: This was a great book.  I had my suspicions on certain characters but Rachel's alcoholism added a sad but great element to the story.  Rachel knew that there was more that met the eye to what was going on but she couldn't remember anything because of her blackouts.  None of these characters are what they seem, which makes the book so great.

Time to write: 4:04

Book review: The Paying Guests

Title: The Paying Guests
Author: Sarah Waters
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary:  After the war, times are tough for Mrs. Gray and her 26-year-old daughter Frances.  They take in boarders, Mr. and Mrs. Barber.  Frances and the Mrs. start up an affair.  The Mr. finds out.  Hilarity does not ensue from there.

Review:  Call me risk-averse, but no good can come from having an affair with your married boarder.   I listened to this book on CD and it was really, really long.  Sometimes when I'm listening to a book I wonder if my opinion of the book would have changed if I'd read it instead. I think I might have liked this one better if I'd read it.

There was some good anticipation around whether or not they were going to get away with killing Mr. Barber.  But then it really started to drag.  The trial could have been shortened. Besides being too long, one other thing that I didn't really like was the ending.  Without specifically giving it away, I just didn't buy it. I would have enjoyed hearing more about what happened to the two of them post-trial.

Time to write: N/A

Book Review: See How Small

Title: See How Small
Author: Scott Blackwood
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Summary: Three girls are killed brutally.  Many years later, this story checks in on the people that were involved or affected by their deaths.

Review: In another life perhaps I would have enjoyed this book more.  For some reason it just didn't hold my interest.  Perhaps it was the topic.  It's hard to think about three sisters dying and their mom having to go on without them, although the book switched point of views amongst several characters and didn't necessarily focus on the mom.  There was one interesting character, I think his name was Michael.  Sometimes it can be frustrating to read a book that doesn't tie up loose ends, but I generally like it.  However, I'd start a chapter and have idea who the character was and I'd have to go back.  This is probably more of a reflection on me than on the author, but again, it just didn't hold my interest.

Time to write: 5:01 minutes.

Book review: Big Little Lies

Title: Big Little Lies
Author: Liane Moriarty
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Summary:  This story revolves around three friends who live in an affluent seaside town: Madeline, Celeste and Jane.  All three have children that recently started Kindergarten.  Jane, only 24, doesn't fit the profile of the other moms, but Madeline and Celeste take her under their winds.  At the kindergarten orientation, Jane's little boy Ziggy is accused of bullying a little girl.  This event divides the town into who sides with the mother of the little girl and who sides with Jane, Celeste and Madeline.  Meanwhile, Celeste and Madeline are dealing with their own challenges around family and husbands.  Things come to a head on the school's Trivia Night. when somebody dies.  Was it murder? Just an accident?

Review: I love Liane Moriarty's work, although I didn't realize until I finished this that this was her work.  In the interest of full disclosure, I listened to this book on CD and because Moriarty is an Australian author, it was read by somebody with an Australian accent.  That probably helped me like the book a little more, but I still really liked this book.  There's a great buildup to the night of the Trivia Night where the murder happens.  For some reason I thought at first it was a woman that had died but it wasn't.  I don't want to reveal too much, but this was the kind of work that I couldn't stop listening to but I started to dread the book ending.  Another awesome peace of work by Moriarty.

Book review: The Painter

Title: The Painter
Author: Peter Heller
Rating: DNF (Did not finish)

Summary:  Jim Stegnar is a successful painter with some anger issues and a passion for fly fishing.  He's also mourning the death of his daughter.  He escaped to Colorado after the last time he lost his temper in New Mexico.  He lost his temper AGAIN and is now back in New Mexico.  Blah blah blah.

Review:  Was this a book about a painter?  Or a fly fisherman?  Or was it about a tortured soul who couldn't keep his temper in check and was being sought out by the "associates" of the guy he killed?  I haven't the faintest idea nor did I care so I gave up.

Book review: Broken Monsters

Title: Broken Monsters
Author: Lauren Beukes
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Picture courtesy Amazon

Summary: There's a serial killer on the loose in Detroit.  He's using the bodies as artwork.  Detective Gabriella Versado is on the case.  She thought she'd seen it all, but these bodies are gruesome. Gabriella's 15-year-old daughter Layla is just trying to fit in at her new school.  Jonno is desperately trying to revive his freelance journalism career.  TK is trying to protect his homeless family.

Review:  I started listening to this book on CD.  This is NOT a good book to listen to in audio format (at least it wasn't for me).  While the story is creepy (in a good way, at least at first), I didn't like the character's voices and there were too many characters to keep track of.  I can always sense when I'm not engaged with a book on CD when I space out while listening and realize I have no idea what's going on in the book.

When I realized the audio version wasn't working, I checked out the actual book.  Ah, that's better. One thing I liked about this book is that the protaganists weren't particularly likeable.  Jonno is trying to exploit this case to further his own career.  Layla's primary "fault" is she's 15 and dealing with her parents' divorce and all of the other insecurities that come with being 15.  TK is a peripheral character at best but he has his own violent history.  Gabriella is a detective and dealing with all of the bureaucracy and other crap that goes along with that, plus less than stellar co-workers.

Where this book lost me is what happened once they discovered who the serial killer was.  The search for the serial killer dragged on for a bit and the climatic scene where Gabriella and the rest of the characters converge on the killer's final piece of artwork was a little too supernatural for my taste.   I'm not really into demons that take over somebody's body, but that's just me.  If you're into that stuff, you might like this book better than I did.

Book review: You Should Have Known

Title: You Should Have Known
Author: Jean Hanff Korelitz
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Summary: Grace Sachs has an enviable life--she lives in Manhattan with her pediatric oncologist husband and son.  A successful therapist, her first book, You Should Have Known, is about to be released.  The premise of her book is that women generally have only themselves to blame when their relationships begin to fall apart.  Grace argues that problems of infidelity or poor money management or emotional unavailability are obvious very early on, but women have a tendency to overlook these things.  In other words, they should have known.

When the mom of a kid at the school that Grace's son's attends is murdered, Grace is stunned when the cops show up at her door asking the whereabouts of her husband.  He could never do such a thing--he's a pediatric oncologist loved by his patients and their parents.  Turns out, he's also a sociopath.  Grace's life as she knows it disintegrates.

Review:  When I read books like this I can't help but wonder what I would do if I were in the same situation.  Inevitably, the women in these books seem to have more resources than me.  In Grace's situation, she has the luxury of escaping to her summer place in Connecticut, where she takes the next few months off so she can process what has happened and what her next steps will be.  Granted, the summer place isn't winterized and Grace and her son end up moving there in the winter. So they have that to deal with.  But both their Manhattan apartment and the Connecticut summer home are paid for because they've been in Grace's family for years.

I know I shouldn't take these books so literally--they're fiction.  But I can't help it.  In Grace's defense, she states a few times in the book that they couldn't afford their Manhattan apartment if they had to buy it with their salaries. But she still has it.  And yes, I realize these people aren't real.  But it's this inability for me to relate to her convenient financial situation that led me to give this four stars over five.  If my husband turned out to be a sociopath, I would still have a mortgage to pay with two kids in daycare.  I wouldn't have the ability to run away to our summer place.  If I was lucky I'd have friends that would let me stay at their summer places, but I'd still need to work to pay for the aforementioned mortgage and other bills.

The rest of the book was great.  There's the right amount of buildup to Grace's discovery, and her reaction feels real and raw.  But I just couldn't get past my frustration (and envy?) that her financial situation oversimplified things for me.

Book review: Black Chalk

Title: Black Chalk
Author: Christopher J. Yates
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary:  Six friends at Oxford University embark on a game.  Initially it's fun, but as the game progresses, the stakes get higher and it's not as fun.  Fourteen years later, the remaining players come back together to decide the winner.

Review:  Admittedly, this review is overdue.  I finished this book a few weeks ago and as I write this review, all I can think about is it reminded me a lot of Donna Tartt's The Secret History.  But not as good as the Secret History.

When I write these reviews, I never know how much to give away.  There are a few twists--the person whose perspective this is told from isn't who you think it is initially.  Also, it lacked chapters, which sort of drives me crazy.  I like chapters.  It helps to provide a break for those of us who may not have all day to sit down and read a book.

The book jumps from the present to 14 years ago, with the present told from the perspective of one person.  I'm not very sympathetic to a character that hasn't had to work for the past 14 years.  The flashbacks are more interesting, but as characters drop out of the game, they disappear from the story.  Which is fine--the point of the story is to focus on the people that are left in the game, but I always like to know what happens to these characters.

I didn't really like any of the players that were left, nor did I think their present day lives really made sense.  But again, maybe I'm just not sympathetic to shut-ins?

Book review: A Circle of Wives

Title: A Circle of Wives
Author: Alice LaPlante
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary:  Dr. John Taylor, a successful plastic surgeon, is discovered dead in a hotel room.  The autopsy reveals his death wasn't accidental.  His funeral brings together his three wives.  Not his two exes and a current wife--his three current wives.  It turns out that he was a bigamist.  Stranger still, his first wife knew about and encouraged the two additional marriages.  Needless to say, several people have motives for why they'd be angry enough to kill Dr. Taylor.

Rating: This book was intended to be sort of a palate cleanser for me.  It seems like my last few reads have been on the intense and/or serious side, and I wanted a break from that.  This was seemingly a good choice for that, but it was like I was expecting a mango sorbet but got lemon sorbet instead.  It's fine, it's just not what I really, really wanted.  There wasn't a lot of depth to the characters.  I had a hard time keeping the wives straight, too.  Also, the detective was the usual cliche--are detectives ever happy people?  I'd like to see a book about a happy go lucky detective with a happy home life.  Is that too much to ask?

Book review: Frog Music

Title: Frog Music
Author: Emma Donoghue
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary:  It's the summer of 1876 and San Francisco is going through a heat wave and a small pox epidemic.  Blanche is a French burlesque dancer.  Blanche had a baby a little over a year ago but the baby is being taken care by somebody else.  After all, a baby doesn't really fit into a burlesque dancer's lifestyle.  Her new friend Jenny is outspoken, wears pants at a time when it's illegal for women to wear pants, and mysterious, among other things.  She also challenges Blanche to rethink her life and some of the decisions she's made.

Jenny's murdered one night but was the bullet meant for Blanche instead?  Blanche makes it her mission to figure out who killed her friend and discovers that she didn't really know that much about her new friend.

Review:  I really wanted to like this book.  I think I even put it first on my hold list because I wanted to read it sooner rather than later.  But then I unintentionally requested the large print version of the book.  I hate reading the large print versions.  They're so much bigger and you read and read and read but don't feel like you're getting anywhere.  So I think that was hanging over me the whole time I read it.

There were so many promising elements to this story--it was based on a real unsolved murder, it had elements of women breaking boundaries and seeking redemption.  It had elements of women empowering themselves.  It took place in San Francisco.  Yet, none of these things really came together for me in this book.