Review: The Last Nightingale: A Novel of Suspense

The Last Nightingale: A Novel of Suspense by Anthony Flacco

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


What a sad waste of a great setting. Truly a waste, because post earthquake San Francisco all but disappears from the last third of the story when a new disaster is introduced - Black Plague. The book did make me curious enough to want to read more about the 1906 earthquake, maybe in a book that wasn't populated with comic book villains and Keystone style cops.



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Review: Wildthorn

Wildthorn by Jane Eagland

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Interesting look at a Victorian asylum, but beyond that it's a paint by the numbers coming of age/strong girls save themselves plot.



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Review: The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree by Susan Wittig Albert

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Once upon a time, I began working my way through Albert's China Bayle's series. I have an interest in herb gardening and I like a good mystery, so it seemed a good match. I made it through #6 and then tossed in the towel. In my opinion, she's exhausted her setting and her ability to create a good mystery in that setting. When I saw this was a new series, set in 1930s Alabama, I suspected it would be a good, quick read, junk food for my reading mind. I was right. Albert digs out loads of historical information for an era that I think is under-represented in American Historical Fiction. But it's more than just fun facts, she writes interesting characters that are real enough within the confines of a cozy mystery. This book actually has three mysteries and a small ghost story going, and I had only one of them solved long before the book ended. That's a strong enough pulll that I'll give the next book in this series a try, once it's published and I'm looking for a reading snack.



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Review: A Red Herring Without Mustard

A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The third book in this cute little series, and I think it's starting to show some wear and tear. There's still plenty to enjoy here: Flavia is still clever but not supernaturally so, she hasn't turned into an adult in a kid's body and Bishop's Lacey continues to be quirky without being farcical. Flavia's family faces a real world problem that Flavia hasn't taken on as her own, and new characters come into the story in a sensible way, or at least in a sensible pattern. It's the mysteries that are becoming a bit of a stretch, with murders building on top of each other because if any of them stood on their own they'd have been solved in one chapter. This book took more suspension of disbelief than the previous two, and I hope that's not a new pattern that Bradley is incorporating into this series.



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Review: Rodin's Debutante

Rodin's Debutante by Ward S. Just

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Four and a half stars for the setting - North Shore, South Side, Gold Coast, Hyde Park, even a name drop for Gary, all so alive that they are the characters that kept me reading this book. Two stars for the real characters, the main ones so flat and bloodless that they can move in and out of the story arc without being noticed. There's some beautiful writing in this book, but honestly, there's not a lot of story. Several small stories that would have made a great short story collection, but as literary fiction, it's only so-so.



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Review: A Clockwork Orange CD

A Clockwork Orange CD by Anthony Burgess

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Hard to believe, but this audio version was better than the movie. Magically, Hollander makes the nadsat dialect as easy to understand as your native tongue. This version includes the real ending to the book, the one edited out of early editions, read by Burgess himself. It is a better ending, but I'm sorry to say that it lost something being read by the author instead of Hollander.



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Review: Those in Peril

Those in Peril by Wilbur Smith

My rating: 1 of 5 stars






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Review: The Sherlockian

The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


It's unusual to find a real person historical fiction where the author doesn't put the historical figure on a pedestal. After all, they usually chose to wrote the book because they were so fascinated by that person they weren't satisfied with what is factually known about them. Moore doesn't hide Dr. Doyle's faults from the reader, though, and that's what makes this a more 'believable" bit of fiction. I think some of the dialog between Doyle and Bram Stoker sounded a little too modern, but who's to say that they really spoke in the same manner that they wrote to each other? The contemporary mystery is a simple and purposely unoriginal who-dunnit, providing just the right interludes of character driven story between the trips back in time to a tiny black hole in literary history.





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Review: Swamplandia!

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


There are two coming of age stories in this book, and it's unfortunate that it's the less interesting, less original one that is the focus of the blurbs and advertising campaign. Yes, little Ava goes on a harrowing and ugly adventure in hopes of finding her mentally ill sister who has run off to marry a ghost. She goes through through swamps and monsters on her quest. Interesting, but so lacking in detail and consequences (except a big one that made me more angry for lazy writing than what it did to the character) that it reads more like a bad fairy tail than a good tale. But then, there's the second coming of age story, Ava's brother Kiwi who goes on his own rescue effort, the kind that has far more chances to go in the wrong direction, one where he has to make actual choices and doesn't always make the 100% correct one. Out of the swamp and into a murkier world of contemporary living, Kiwi lives up to his quest is a slightly more believable way than his younger sister. Not only did Kiwi make the big (and totally precious) save in the end, he saved this book from being a waste of time.



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Review: If I Stay

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Some very nice stream of consciousness writing (pun intended), but so obvious about the outcome that even most young adults will know what's going to happen long before the protagonist does.



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