Books Read in January

Linking up with Show Your Shelf and Tanya, Jennifer, Joanne and Marilyn

The following are the books in order that I read in January:

The New Girl by Jesse Q. Sutanto- Just, no! It’s disappointing to say that as I really liked the first book I read by this author. This book is YA fiction and it centers on a high school girl in California whose high school closed down(?) in the middle of the school year(?) and so she transfers to an exclusive private school because she's a track star. Runner's World compared her to Usian Bolt(?) yet the slowest girl running varsity middle distance warns her to not run track because that will demote the slowest middle varsity runner to JV(?) (Did the slowest girl really think that someone recruited specifically for a sport will not participate in the sport??) The above mentioned plot holes are just a drop in the bucket in a sea of, "No, this is not remotely how anything tethered to reality works," that it was one big NO/eyeroll after another. 

Good Half Gone by Tarryn Fisher- This was pretty good. Several years earlier teen twins were at the mall when one of the twins was abducted before the other one's eyes. But no one believes the teen who told authorities about the abduction. Authorities instead believed that the missing teen ran away. At first I found that fact too incredulous to make anything about the book believable. However, as the book goes on, it does become apparent that you could see how authorities could believe the missing teen was a runaway. The non missing teen is a young adult in the book and has dedicated her life to figuring out what happened to her sister. It got weird at the end?  The mood was somber throughout which made the reading experience a little depressing. But, it was still a decent book overall.  

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth- This was a quick, easy read with several unforeseen plot twists- (I mean, you know the plot twists are coming but it's hard to guess what they are!) in other words, a very typical Hepworth book. This was probably one of my least favorite of hers. I didn't find the storyline very engaging. Three girls were foster kids of an almost evil lady and due to what the girls went through, became close and consider themselves sisters. When the book begins the women are adults and all dealing with the trauma of losing their parents and then growing up with the almost evil lady. When bones are found buried underneath the house of where they grew up, police summon the women to answer questions about their upbringing. 

Beyond that, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash- An eleven year old British girl is sent to the US during WWII. She was sent to Boston and becomes a beloved family member. After the war, she returns home to England but she's never the same nor is her relationship with her mom once she returns to England.  The first and last parts of this coming of age book were really good. The middle lagged but the end was worth it. A beautiful tale of family, love, and forgiveness, written exquisitely. I enjoyed reading this book- both while I was reading it and afterward it stayed with me for a long time. 

Unraveling Oliver by Liz Nugent- Very well written and engaging book set in Ireland and France in the 1960's to 80's. At the outset, we learn that Irish writer Oliver has done a monstrous deed. By the end, the reader surely wants to see Oliver pay for what he did (at least I did!) but... the book explores the how and why Oliver ended up as malfeasant as he was. You can't help but feel sorry for him even as, like I said, want to see him pay for what he did. I enjoyed reading this book a great deal!

The Local by Joey Harstone- Set in a small town in Texas, a patent attorney (very incredulously and not quite realistic (by a country mile)), defends a tech CEO who's accused of murder in the town. The CEO had lashed out at the victim, a judge, earlier in the day (prior to the murder, obviously). The book started to veer towards the woke given various characters' perceived wrongs due to immutable features about them and personal preferences for adult activities- set in a small town (and  subsequently small minded, it's strongly implied) in the south; however, it seemed to right itself before long and became a very enjoyable read! Quite a well crafted mystery with a cast of mostly nuanced characters, it's as good a legal mystery/whodunit that I've read in a while. 

Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur- On the cusp of a brilliant marine scientist's 70th birthday, the scientists' two adult children cope- one and artist and one a finance bro with political aspirations (he's an R (obvi!)) with the aftermath of a very unconventional childhood thanks to their dad and the untimely death of their mom. There may even be a half sibling in the mix (unbeknownst to anyone). This character driven novel is set in the estuaries, marshes, and lush waterfront estates in New England. Beautifully descriptive, it felt like you were on a sound near the Atlantic. Adults grappling with mental illness, a drinking problem, sibling rivalry and more could easily veer a book to the swarmy. However superb writing and an engaging plot keep this book firmly afloat (pardon the pun). I liked it a lot!

In the afterward, I loved these words from the author, "Obviously there are some truly evil people in the world but for the most part,  I think humans are like any other animal- at their most aggressive when they're wounded. Who hasn't said something horrible to someone they love? As a writer, I want to portray the complex gray areas in character. I'm far less interested in heroes and villains than in what's courageous and corrupt in all of us." Oh, but that all authors had such an interest!

I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys- This book is historical fiction set in the late 1980's in communist Romania. Conditions were BLEAK in Romania even compared to other communist ruled countries. One of the main reasons for that was that estimates say that every one in ten citizens were government informants when the Communist regime was in power- informing the government of saying anything negative about the government meant grave (sometimes literally) consequences for the "guilty." Subsequently, everyone viewed everyone suspiciously even within one's own family. The main character, a teenage, is forced to become an informant in order to procure medicine for his grandfather. Someone close to him is an informant. 

While the book is historical fiction; the author did extensive research to get the details as close to possible so that the reader really gets a feel for what living in the repressive and poverty laden regime was like. The reader can also understand why the main character became an informant. The book was hard to read in one way because of how bad the conditions were in Romania. At the same time, I'm glad that I read it because I learned a lot about the terrible Communist ruler in Romania. I thought I had heard the worst of what Communist regimes had done in countries like Ukraine, Russia, China, North Korea, East Germany and now I can add Romania to countries that I know a bit more about what Communism was like to live under.

The Main Character by Jaclyn Goldis- A whirlwind of a book in the best possible way! A unique and compelling storyline combined with characters who have secrets to spill made this book fun to read. In it, a popular author chooses a real life person around whom to center a novel (with the person's permission) by interviewing the person and those close to the person. The author chose to gift her latest muse with a luxury train trip across Italy and surprises abound. A neat twist at the end gives this book a grand finale worthy of a hearty "Ciao."

Common Sense by Thomas Paine- A return to common sense governing and away from the upside down world of the last four years has common sense on my mind. And patriotism.

I know I had read some Thomas Paine back in college but I wanted to read some more so I read Paine's Common Sense

Paine published Common Sense in January 1776. The goal of the writing was to convince colonists that it only made sense, make that common sense, that they should be independent of British rule. Paine was not a fan of the British monarchy or any monarchy for that matter and so he advocated for the colonies to form a Democratic republic. So many great lines- Paine is a masterful thinker and writer:

        "To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honors of his contemporaries yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them."

I enjoyed reading Common Sense and look forward to reading more historical works by our Founding Fathers.

Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz- This book was a great way to close out the month of reading. Kinda meta- the author, Anthony Horowitz, is in the book as an author. Horowitz is on a deadline to write about a crime and so he enlists a detective who was assigned to the case when it happened to help him solve the crime. In a small, gated community, a rather obnoxious man was murdered. Every neighbor had a motive to want the man dead but... whodunit? As delightful as a book about murder can be, this cleverly written novel is one anyone a fan of crime fiction would enjoy immensely.