Book review: The Vacationers

Title: The Vacationers
Author: Emma Straub
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary: The Post family heads from Manhattan to Mallorca, Spain for a 2-week vacation.  The intent of the trip was multi-faceted: spend time together as a family before Sylvia headed off to college, celebrate Franny and Jim's 35th wedding anniversary and to see their son that lives in Florida.  They're also joined by Franny's best friend Charles and his husband Lawrence. But it's going to be a long two weeks.  Jim was just let go from his job for having an affair with a much younger employee.  Franny and Jim's son is a bit under water and needs to ask his folks for money.  Lawrence and Charles are trying to adopt a baby.

Rating:  This book will not change your life but it is a good summer read. There isn't a lot of depth to any of the characters, but the two weeks the family spends together passes quickly enough.  So why not a higher rating? It was good, not great.  Everything just turned out too perfectly.  I know that's the point with a summer read, but I guess I don't like books that end neatly.  Sometimes it's hard to get into too many specifics without giving away the book, so you'll just have to trust me on this one.

Book review: Apple Tree Yard

Title: Apple Tree Yard
Author: Louise Doughty
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Summary: Yvonne Carmichael is a renowned geneticist and happily married mother of two.  She meets Mark Costley in the hallway of the House of Parliament and begins an affair (yes, it is that random).  Then Yvonne gets raped and in a random act of chivalry, Mark kills the guy.  Then they get caught and go on trial.

Review:  The inside of this jacket says, "...Apple Tree Yard is a psychological thriller that calls to mind Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl even as it stakes out its own chilling territory."  I know the publisher is trying to sell books, but this melodrama makes me roll my eyes.  I'm usually able to forget these sensational statements, but in this event, it stuck with me.  Also, even though I remember reading that full sentence, I sort of trailed off at the mention of Gone Girl.  I loved Gone Girl and I kept waiting for the twist.  This book is no Gone Girl and the comparison to Gone Girl sort of ruined it for me.

The book was...fine.  Here are some of the issues I had with it:

1. The guy was clearly bad news.  He was vague about his job and all contact was on his terms.  
2. Hiding the affair after the murder was a terrible idea.  See #1.  If the two of you are on trial for murder and he asks you to hide the affair, it doesn't occur to you that he will use this against you?
3. Because of items 1 and 2, it made zero sense that he would kill the guy that raped Yvonne.  
4. I kept waiting for the plot twist.  When was it going to be revealed that Yvonne was actually behind the whole thing? 

Maybe I missed something?  But I don't think so.  Would I have liked it better if I could get around the Gone Girl comparison?  Probably not.

Book review: And the Dark Sacred Night

Title: And the Dark Sacred Night
Author: Julia Glass
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Summary: Kit Noonan has been drifting for awhile.  He's an unpublished PhD who's been job searching for some time. Finally his wife gives him an ultimatum--he needs to find his dad.  In fact, she's kicking him out of the house until he finds his dad.  Kit's mom has always hid his father's identity from him, but Kit explores other avenues to figure out who his dad is.  He finds a new family, but it also makes him realize that his "real" father isn't necessarily sperm-related. 

Review: The other day my husband Aaron told me he was reading my reviews and he commented that I was so nice in my reviews.  My response was, "I'm not trying to be the New York Times Book Review."  I've made the same comment about People magazine--their reviews are very nice as well, and are typically in the 3.5 to 5 star range.  But it did get me thinking--have I been overly nice or have I just been reading good books lately?  Or is it because even if I don't love a book, who am I to say it's bad?  I've never tried to write a book.  I've thought about it, I suppose, but I've never explored the process of writing a book.  It seems hard.  What is this review about?

My conversation with Aaron has at least for the short term led me to take a more critical eye to the books I read.  The first victim of this is And the Dark Sacred Night.  I'd like to think that even before I had the above conversation that I would have given this book three stars at most.  It just wasn't very interesting.  Yet it wasn't boring enough to put down.  It was just...eh.  The story would present a scene, meander to a flashback, and by the time it came back to the present I would have forgotten what was going on.  I also think Kit's biological father's family accepted him far too easily.  There was also more to explore--Kit's stepdad had a son that was an alcoholic, but there wasn't a lot of depth to this.  I'm always perplexed when a character's described with what seems to be important details, but the author never really explores it.  Also, Kit's wife kicks him out, but beyond the first part, there's no further exploration of their relationship.  Everything just felt undeveloped.

What do you think?  A more thorough review than what I usually put together?

Book review: Shotgun Lovesongs

Title: Shotgun Lovesongs
Author: Nickolas Butler
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Summary: Henry, Lee, Ronny, Kip and Beth grew up in Little Wing, Wisconsin and have known each other their whole lives. Their lives have each taken their own trajectories but various life events keep bringing them back together. 

Review: I listened to this book on CD, so that may be influencing this review.  As with any book on CD, the readers can make or break the book.  In this case, they made it (except for whoever did Ronny's voice.  His voice rubbed me the wrong way for some reason, but not enough to get me take off a star).  I think I would have still liked this book even if I'd read it myself. But because the book was so well performed, I loved it.  I loved how the book rotated characters, I liked how their lives evolved, I loved it all.  There was one event in it that involved a recovering alcoholic falling off the wagon that was rather glossed over, but everything else overwhelmingly made that worth looking over.  Highly recommended.

Book review: Caught

Title: Caught
Author:  Lisa Moore
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Summary:  David Slaney is 25 years old and has escaped from jail (he was in for marijuana possession).  He's looking to reconnect with his former partner Hearn.  But before he does that, he needs to stay one step ahead of the authorities who are looking for him.  Slaney connects with Hearn and plans to make one last big deal before giving up the drug business for good.  Is he successful?  Or do the cops catch up with him?

Review: I thought this was a suspense novel but it wasn't very...suspenseful.  It wasn't even that eventful.  The book wasn't terrible, it just wasn't terribly interesting.  He's being chased by an undercover cop but there isn't a lot of character development.  Slaney is the main focus and you think you'll get more background on other characters but that doesn't really happen, at least not beyond a superficial level.  I liked the epilogue, but by then it was too little too late. 

Book review: The Rosie Project

Title: The Rosie Project
Author: Graeme Simsion
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Summary: Don Tillman is a Genetics Professor.  While he's brilliant, his social skills are a bit lacking.  Example: He's created a questionnaire that he's titled The Wife Project.  The questionnaire is designed to help him identify his perfect mate and weed out women with undesirable qualities.  Enter Rosie.  She's looking for her father and seeks Don's help to help her identify him.  Rosie doesn't fit Don's profile of the perfect mate at all, yet he can't get her off of his mind.  Maybe love isn't as simple as answering all the questions correctly on a survey?

Review:  This is a great beach read, especially for rom com lovers.  I waffled between three and four stars and finally landed on the four.  It was amusing more than funny (at least to me, maybe I don't get Australian humor?), but it's still cute.  It's obvious where the story is going and at times it feels like the author dragged out the ending a bit, but still a light easy read for the summer and it's fun to see Graeme's transformation.  He tries really hard to be aware of social cues, but it's hard for him. 

Book review: The Lowland

Title: The Lowland
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Summary: Subhash and Udayan are brothers born 15 months apart.  Throughout their childhood growing up in Calcutta, they're inseparable.  Despite being so close, they're very different, and their lives take very different paths.  Subhash ends up moving to the United States, but when tragedy occurs, he goes home.  The events that happen while he's home change Subhash's and his brother's wife, Gauri's, life forever.

Review: The only reason I didn't give this book five out of five stars is it took me a while to get into it--I thought it had a bit of a slow start.  But once the pace picked up, I loved it.  I didn't give a lot away in the Summary, but this book's point of view shifts between Subhash, Gauri, and Gauri and Udayan's daughter Bela.  It spans decades, from when Subhash and Udayan are little boys to when Bela's in her forties.  It gives closure but also leaves a lot to the imagination.