A Good American by Alex George

A Good American by Alex George
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is another Missouri read by a Missouri author. It had a captivating start and then quickly went downhill for me. From what I can tell, it’s a polarizing read. People seem to either love it or hate it. Unfortunately, I lean more towards the hate it side of things.

First 1/4 = 4 stars
Comments:
Good start. Frederick and Jetta charmed me. The voice is strong, and the writing is solid. I thought this was going to be a fascinating read.

Second 1/4 = 2 stars
Comments:  

Rose Hill Mystery Series by Pamela Grandstaff

Summary: Rose Hill is a small mountain town in West Virginia where everyone knows everyone else’s business. In this cozy mystery series, amateur female sleuths (also cousins) Maggie, Hannah, and Claire navigate the challenges of marriage, family, children, and nosy neighbors as they solve crimes and entertain each other. If you like small town cozy mysteries with a little humor and romance, you will love the Rose Hill mystery series. (Publisher’s description) 

Review: I found the mysteries to be secondary and really got caught up in the family saga and the antics of the cousins. 

My Rating: 4 out of 5 

Series Order:

	Pages
1.   Rose Hill	258
2.   Morning Glory Circle	284
3.   Iris Avenue	329
4.   Peony Street	354
5.   Daisy Lane	330
6.   Lilac Avenue	379
7.   Hollyhock Ridge	326
8.   Sunflower Street	268
9.   Viola Avenue	258
10. Pumpkin Ridge	331
TOTAL	3,117

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Summary: "In this gorgeous, page-turning saga, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan, exiled from a home they never knew." - Amazon

This is a wonderfully written novel that begins with a young girl who makes a choice which alters her life forever.  The novel follows her path and those of her children and grandchildren, pulling you in seamlessly through simple, eloquent prose.  I was engrossed.  I was enthralled.  I was utterly lost in their world - until the last fifth or so of the book (hence the 4/5 rating).  That being said, this novel is worth it.  

Pick it up.  

4/5

496 pages

The Hare with the Amber Eyes: a hidden inheritance by Edmund De Waal

I was given this book for my birthday-something I probably would not have discovered on my own. I was immediately drawn into the story of one family and their collection of Japanese netsuke.  De Waal starts his family biography in Japan with the death of his great uncle Ignaz and his inheritance of the collection.  Then he takes us back to the beginnings of the collection in Paris during the 1870s when the craze for all things Japanese was just beginning.  De Waal traces back his family's start as wheat traders in Odessa, the accumulation of wealth, the establishment of the family banking business in Paris, and the expansion into Vienna.  The family's wealth did not insulate them from anti-Semitism. Their collection of netsuke and other fine arts was often their entree into high society. Sadly, the rise of Hitler marked the downfall of the family.  Many family members were murdered in the Holocaust and their wealth appropriated by the Nazis.  The netsuke collection was miraculously restored to the family thanks to a loving family servant. Today the netsuke are an actual, physical link to past family members. The miniatures were handled by them and each one evokes a family memory. In the end, the Hare with the Amber Eyes is a different kind of Holocaust memoir- one told by the silent witness of a family's lost possessions. 354 pages.

The Pearl That Broke its Shell by Nadia Hashimi

In 2007, nine-year-old Rahima lives with her parents and four sisters in Kabul. Her father is increasingly dysfunctional, and the family is barely surviving. With no brothers to protect them, the girls can seldom leave the house, even to attend school.  Her mother decides she should become a bacha posh, a girl who dresses as a boy so that she can go to the market, and escort her sisters when they go out.  This is an ancient Afghan custom which allows a girl to dress as, and be treated like, a boy until she is of marriageable age.

Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this custom. A century earlier, her great-great grandmother, Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life the same way. As a young girl, Sekiba was scarred by kitchen oil and reviled by her family. She eventually made her way to the king’s palace in Kabul, dressing as a man to guard his harem.

For a few years, Rahima enjoys freedoms unavailable to most girls. But when she is 13 she is forced to marry a vicious warlord who decides he wants her for his wife.  She finds strength in her aunt’s stories of her ancestor Shekiba. Alternating between the two, Hashimi weaves a compelling tale of two women, separated by a century, who seem to share a destiny.

Recommended for those who enjoyed 'The Kite Runner'.

469 pages

"Always" by Kindle Alexander

Get your hankies ready for this tear-jerker about the nearly 40 year relationship between Avery Adams, the grandson of a U.S. president, and Kane Dalton, a successful chef from the south.  They meet in 1975 in Minneapolis where Kane has a famous restaurant and Avery has just returned to his home state to contemplate a run for the Senate.  The story covers some of the important milestones in their lives together and really pulls at the reader's emotions, especially at the beginning and end.  Although a bit long, it was easy to read and to root for these men to find happiness.  287 pages (Kindle edition).

Coulson's Series by Anna J. McIntyre

The Coulson's series is a multigenerational saga about an extremely dysfunctional family. The series features romance, a little mystery and a paranormal twist. I first picked up the fourth book in the series, Coulson's Secret (304 pages) and was interested enough to go back to book one, Coulson's Wife (245 pages). I admit, if I had started with book one, I wouldn't have gone any further simply because I didn't find the characters as engaging. The digital versions of both titles could use some editing.

Homeland by John Jakes

(Posted for Paul Mathews)

Pauli comes to America at age 14.  After a little time living with his uncle, he leaves to work with his artistic skills with his Kodak camera.  He films American history.  785 pages.

"A Fine Passion" by Stephanie Laurens

Baron Jack Warnefleet has finally ended his career as a spy for England and wants nothing more than to return to his country estate in Avening and a quiet life.  In the years that he's been gone, Lady Clarice Altwood has moved to Avening to live with her bachelor cousin after having been exiled by her father and the ton from London.  Jack and Clarice meet while tending to an injured stranger who sends them back to London to confront her family, the ton, and the Bishop of London in order to save her cousin.

I enjoyed this very well written book.  Clarice and Jack are both strong and capable people who are immediately attracted to each other but are wary of marriage and commitment.  The intrigue with her cousin put the focus of the novel on Clarice's family and her place in it but didn't detract from the romance.  This is part of Laurens' Bastion Club Series, and I'm tempted to read more.  437 pages.

Twopence to Cross the Mersey by Helen Forrester

Helen Forrester was the oldest daughter of a family living above its means.  When the Great Depression hit England, her family lost their home and everything they owned. Her father decided that a move to Liverpool would improved their circumstances. Twopence to Cross the Mersey, is Helen Forrester's account of the consequences to the family, and especially to her, of that fateful decision. After reading her story, you will never take hot water and soap for granted again. 405 pages.

Beyond Reach by Karin Slaughter

(Posted for Paul Mathews)

Det. Lena Adams is wrongly arrested of murder.  This book contains multiple murders, multiple suspects cases with suspense, malpractice and rage.

Print:  608 pages.

Audio:  14 hrs. 30 min.

"Charming Grace" by Deborah Smith

Deborah Smith is the author of one of my favorite books - "A Place to Call Home."  I have several of her other books and have enjoyed those, too.  This one follows the same formula as most of her other novels that I've read.  They usually take place in a small town in the northern Georgia mountains and are full of eccentric southern characters.  The heroine is a strong, beautiful, and vulnerable steel magnolia who's been that way since childhood.  The man she loves is usually the silent type with some kind of massive childhood trauma.  Their stories and subsequent travails on the way to happily ever after are the bulk of the narrative.  I know I just made her novels sound very formulaic, but they do seem to follow the same recipe.

Grace Bagshaw Vance has spent the last two years mourning her husband, who became a national hero on live TV when he killed a serial bomber before dying of gunshot wounds in the line of duty.  Now a Hollywood movie star, Stone Senterra, is intent on making his directorial and screenwriting debut with Harper Vance's story.  Unfortunately, he's a thickheaded action star, not a great writer or director.  Grace does everything she can to sabotage the movie when cast and crew arrive in her small hometown.  However, she's surprised to find herself attracted to Stone's bodyguard, Boone Noleene, a serious man with a painful past and a questionable future who understands why she won't cooperate on the film.

I liked this book but not nearly as much as the others that I've read by Smith.  Some of the literary tropes she used got on my nerves, but the book had plenty of humor and interesting characters to make up for them.  Unfortunately, there was an incident with the heroine near the end of the book that I found disgusting and in bad taste and seemed completely out of character for this author.  446 pages.

One Summer by David Baldacci

(Posted for Paul Mathews)

After the death of his wife, who was going out to get his medicine, he recovers from a disease that was diagnosed as 100 percent fatal. Now he must now put life and family back together. 

352 pages; 8 hrs. 55 min. audio.

"The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb

Susan M. lent me this book because I had read "Columbine" earlier this year.  At the beginning, the fictional narrator and his wife are working at Columbine High School when two of its students go on a killing rampage in 1999.  The book deals not only with its aftermath and how they each cope but how their lives unfold once they leave Colorado and move back to the narrator's boyhood home, a former dairy farm down the road from a women's prison founded by and named for his great-grandmother.

Part family saga, part historical fiction, this novel is Forrest Gump-ian in the way some of the characters meet and interact with well known figures, such as Mark Twain and Dorothea Dix, and have their lives influenced by real historical events, like Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq.  Throw in a bit of chaos-complexity theory, family secrets, and unpredictable plot twists, and I was hooked.  I don't usually read fiction written by men, but I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this story.  It took the author about 10 years to write it, and he did a great job.  725 pages (including notes from the author).

A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin

I can't wait for book 2!
I've seen some reviews that compare this to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I see why they make that comparison: a medieval world with magic and mayhem. But Tolkien tends toward dichotomies of good/evil and white/black, whereas Martin's world is comprised of shades of grey. Events are observed from many different perspectives, and seldom are any of the characters truly good or bad. I do have clear favorites, though. Tyrion Lannister may be small in stature and nearly crippled, but his wit and intelligence more than compensate for any physical shortcomings. A self-proclaimed friend to "misfits and bastards", he was instantly my favorite, though he is not exactly a role model. And plucky little Arya, who couldn't bear learning the petty courtesies and fripperies of court life, but derived such satisfaction in learning to wield a blade. (Actually, where Thrones leaves off, Arya was living in a bad section of town with no guardian. I'm worried for her and must know if she fights her way out all right!) Prince Joffrey, however, is cruel, petulant and petty, and I have yet to find any redeeming qualities in him.
There are plots within plots, rogue agents and enough intrigue to leave you wondering which way is up. It is a long book, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The audiobook, narrated by Roy Dotrice, was particularly well done.
Toward the end of the book, a princess who has been meek and scared all her life has found her power... and called forth 3 dragons while she was at it. I wonder what she will do now....
Sorry this post is so long, but I found my self pleasantly lost in the world of Westeros, and was hesitant to leave it. I'm not the only one addicted. See what natejmaster from U City PL has to say about it.
audio: 34 hours
print: 704 pages

Stuck in the Middle by Virginia Smith

This book was a free download from the Barnes and Noble site. It promised to be a combination light romance / family saga / Christian fiction novel. I found the writing humorous and gentle, reminiscent of Grace Livingston Hill. The story features middle daughter, Joan, dealing with sibling rivalry, an aging grandparent, a protective mom, questions of faith and a budding romance with the guy-next-door. Book 1 in the Sister-to-Sister series. 336 pages.