The Reading List

 If you are a reader, you know how books can help you escape all your problems and make you  feel better when things seem overwhelming.  Author Sara Nisha Adams show us how well this works in her book, The Reading List.

After Mukesh's wife dies he does not know how to communicate with his granddaughter, Priya.  She always had a special connection with her grandmother.  They would read the same books and discuss them. Mukesh is lonely and wants to discover a way to start a conversation with Priya.  He stops by the local library and  meets Aleisha, another lonely teen working behind the checkout desk.  

Aleisha is working when she finds what appears to be a forgotten list of books in the back of a returned copy of To Kill a Mockingbird.  She starts reading the books on the list to escape the painful problems that face her at home.  When Mukesh asks her for a book recommendation she starts sharing the books from the list with him.  They begin books and discussing them and create relationship that helps both of them. Each reader is able to relate something in their life and situation to the book they are reading.  

It is always amazing when you can find a connection to your own life through the books you read. It is also fabulous when the books can help you feel better.  The list of books Adams chose are all great books ;

To Kill a Mockingbird

Life of Pi

Pride and Prejudice

Little Women

Beloved

A Suitable Boy

The Last Checkmate

 The Last Checkmate is a novel written by Gabriella Saab.  This is another in  the long list of Holocaust fiction.  The theme of chess that runs throughout this book, as a connection for the young girl who has been brought to the concentration camp.  Marie  Florkowska, is a Polish teenager who is working for the resistance.  She is captured and tortured to find out her accomplices.  Then she and her family are sent to Auschwitz.  She is escapes immediate death when Karl Fritzsch, the camp deputy notices a chess piece she has been carrying.

Marie is able to survive by playing chess.  Fritzsch keeps her alive having her play chess with himself, other officers and prisoners for his entertainment.   Interestingly this is a story of a Polish citizen who did not agree with the Germans taking over Poland and killing off all the Jews there.  Marie and her family were working with the underground to save Jewish people.

This is another historical novel in the Holocaust genre. It is interesting that this plot shows us how the Polish were prisoners were treated in the camps.  This is a book that takes the reader back and forth between a young girl's experience in a concentration camp and afterwards trying to exact revenge on her oppressor.   An interesting story but it would have been better in my opinion if it had been based on a real character.  Though there is some historical accuracy and and some characters based on real people, the main character is not based on a real person which I think would have made this a better story.

The Other Passenger

 I am starting to enter the genre of psychological thrillers.  I have not really like that style of writing because I do not really enjoy being scared or nervous as a I reading a book. But I have found some clever entertaining books out there in this space that offer an interesting story and a good twist at the end, that you did not see coming.  There have been some very clever ones that really throw me at the end when the twist comes and I was not expecting it or it is so different from where I thought the plot was going.  

But this book, The Other Passenger, written by Louise Candlish, to me, is not one of those books.  This plot had a slow start, then dragged through the middle and the ending was too predicable.  I  felt like we were spending quite a long time setting up the relationships between the characters.  I guess also I did not like any of the characters.  So as the plot progressed I could not feel sorry for anyone or take any one side and that made me feel bored through the middle when the plot started to really drag.

The ending was close to what I thought was going to happen.  I had some other ideas running through my mind as I read and maybe, looking back, if one of those other points had led to a different twist at the end I would have felt more satisfied.  This ending was too simple.

An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed

 An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed  is the sequel to An Elderly Lady is Up To No Good and she is definitely still up to no good.  This time the elderly lady is on vacation traveling to South Africa and as she sleeps on the plane flight  from England, she dreams about the past and the awful things she has done in the past.  There is a certain tension as you wait to see what she will do next or if or when she will get caught for her horrible behavior.  Can you applaud her because she is  clever or condemn her because she has committed crimes.  Do feel sorry for her because she is elderly or angry because she is devious? 

A clever idea for a plot idea to have this little old lady with hearing aids and a walking stick close to ninety years old being so devious.  This time she takes us back to her youth and young adult years to share the crimes of her past.  As she is sits on the plane snippets of conversation remind her of things that happened years before.  She always thinks strategically and seems to know all the angles so she does not get caught when she misbehaves.  Could it only be a matter of time before her past catches up with her?

There is a feeling of foreboding that followed me through the book waiting for the other shoe to drop.  How long can you go before your problems are uncovered.  Also the elderly lady does some good deeds.  Does the good outweigh the bad?  Can you erase the evil with some caring and better behavior?

An entertaining book with an interesting premise .

State of Terror

 State of Terror, is written by one of my favorite authors, Louise Penny.  This time she has collaborated with Hillary Clinton to write a mystery novel that is both political and a statement on the social and political situation that gripped our country and the world in 2021.

Louise Penny is known for writing mystery novels that are more like novels with a threat to someone's life  or a threat to the way of life in society.  She has a distinct and unique style of writing that brings the reader  in and makes you feel like you are there as a character int he plot.  When she writes about Three Pines, a small cold, snowy village hidden behind trees in the  wilderness of Canada you  can  almost smell the pine trees.  You can almost taste the hot cocoa as her main characters gather around the fire at the Inn.

This book started off feeling like a departure from Penny's signature style,  but quickly became a  political intrigue that followed that same writing theme. Her main character seems to  be a take off on Hillary Clinton.  Except that Clinton has a lifetime of experience that prepared her to Secretary of State and this character has been appointed to her position after running a media empire for years.  The tension between the President and Ellen Adams is deep seated.  The  President, it seems, wants Ellen to fail, but she  is a determined and feisty character who pushes forward and is determined to win the day.

When three bombs go off in various European countries Ellen and her assistant and best friend, Betsy Jameson, are off to meet with different world leaders trying to discover who knew what when.  It seems clear  to Ellen  that an  old political enemy is behind the attacks; Bashir Shah, an evil Pakistani arms dealer “intent on creating a hell on earth.”  Ellen Adams even thinks Shah might have killed her husband in revenge for articles her media company published about him.  Her travels send her to Russia, the grand Ayatollah of Iran and even to Florida to visit a previous president at his compound.

The book plays with characters that resemble members of the US government's previous administration including the Secretary of Defense who is trying to undermine Adams.   The Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff and the Secretary of Defense both look really guilty of being behind the crimes and even have a fist fight in the Oval office. 

This book  is quite full of characters.  Sometimes it is hard to keep track of  them all and there are many twisty plot turns. But that is in true form for Penny.  The book is very different than her Armand Gamache series, though her emotional writing style does come through, her prose and style of offering so many  different directions and not following them directly to a conclusion.  Her ability to write about friendship and present philosophical views are all there.  

Then  there is Penny's co author Hillary Clinton.  She brings the political viewpoint to the book. This is her chance to vent about the way things turned out during the presidential election she lost to Trump.  Though his name is not used there are references to him and his followers.  The president, Eric Dunn, in this book is called "Eric the dumb".  To her credit though she also pays tribute to a long time friend Betsy Ebeling, who died recently, in the character of Betsy Jameson.

In t he end it is a fun book to read and could possibly  lead to another political mystery that Ellen Adam and her entourage need to solve.

Comfort Me with Apples

 Comfort Me With Apples is being described as a terrifying new thriller written by bestselling author,  Catherynne M. Valente.  There is a feeling of suspense and dread as you read this thin novel.  The plot is definitely building toward the uncovering of a mystery.

Sophia wakes every morning and her first thought is , I was made for him. She is convinced her husband is perfect. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.

It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.

But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things begin to appear in the house.  She starts to have dark thoughts. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze....  She is very popular with the neighbors, Mrs Orpington and Mrs. Palfrey and the others.  

They  all live in Arcadia Gardens and there are quite a number of rules for living in this perfect setting. Each chapter starts off with some rules, like no walking on the grass and no children are allowed to live here. The novella is short and you need to pay close attention to the details to discover the secret to the story.  I read through once and then had to go back and see the multitude of clues that I missed the first time.

I  do not want to ruin the plot for you so I highly recommend you pick up this short book, but I will not give you anymore details.

Where the Grass is Green and Girls are Pretty

 Where the Grass is Green and  Girls are Pretty is the newest book written by author, Lauren Weisberger. Weisberger is best known for her novel, The Devil Wears Prada, and she has a number of other entertaining novels.

In this newest story we meet two sisters living perfect lives. Peyton Marcus has it all.   A career as a popular TV anchor for the most viewed morning show, an apartment in New York City. Her husband, Issac, who loves her and a teenage daughter, Max who is on her way to college in the  fall.  Peyton is the obsessed  woman who works out at the gym and has beauty treatments to keep her looking young  and  worries about making sure she is always presenting the perfect image to the world. 

Her sister, Skye also has it all, living the life of a stay at home mom in the town of Paradise.  She has the perfect, loving husband, Gabe, and a beautiful young child, Aurora. She is trying to find herself as her daughter gets older and Skye is feeling like she needs to make an impact on the world and use the expensive college degree she worked hard to get.

Jealousy is such an ugly thing.  Each sister has jealous memories of their shared childhood.  Though they are close and tell each other everything now there are secrets each is afraid to share.  Their mother, whose outrageous behavior pulls them together, is misunderstood.  As the story develops the secrets each sister holds onto builds.  Sometimes one's actions have far rippling affects.  That is the case in this plot.  As we find out the extent of the mistakes Peyton and Skye make and how it extends out to affect their husbands and children, and finally each other.   It strains their relationship.

The story is told in a delightful entertaining way, but the messages of jealousy and envy are well  developed.  There is much to discuss about the world of college admissions to the relationship of siblings  and the need to the best.  Wanting the most for your child..even  if its not what your child may want.  Your child as a reflection of yourself.

Weisberger captures the current dichotomy between teens and their parents in this quote about how parents are not caught up on the social changes today.  "Did they totally  understand the social changes that were taking place in her generation? Of course not. They still expressed incredulousness when Max told them that this boy came out as gay or that girl came out as transgender, and it wasn't a thing. That these were un-newsworthy announcements. They struggled with the idea that people had pronoun preferences. They could grasp the concept that a whole lot of her friends, and maybe even  Max, thought of sexuality as fluid, and something that happened on a continuum , not a fixed point on a straight line.  Hell, they probably freak out if she wanted to marry someone who wasn't Jewish one day, despite being the lest religious people she'd ever met.  And the y were  the liberals ones! The New Yorkers!"

This example really captures the age gap  between not only teens but millennials  and their parents today. I remember when I was young how old fashioned my grandparents and parents seemed. Now I feel like one of those out of touch elders, trying hard to keep up with the times.

This was book was very enjoyable to read and it brings up many issues I think so many people struggle with and might not want to admit.  The only character I was unsure about was Peyton's husband who stands by her through thick and thin.  He is so easy going and accepting of her personality and her foibles and shortcomings and never really seems to get angry enough with her.  It did not seem realistic.