I just finished Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri.  This is a compilation of eight short stories with the common thread being nationality - expatriate Bengali parents and Americanized children were the main character traits.  So much of each story delves into the difficult between parents from another country and their americanized children.

I loved the first story and the last story, which is presented in three parts. I was not thrilled with everything in between, though they were interesting.  Read the rest

Attachment is Isabel Fonseca’s fiction debut.  This is a book about a woman who is, on the surface, pretty comfortable with her life, as a writer living on a remote island with her husband.  That is, until she finds a risque letter to her husband. This initiates a whole string of emails between the woman and her husband’s lover.  The woman seems to be in the midst of a self-image breakdown as she’s dealing with insecurity, deceit, dishonesty and manipulation from every relationship she is a part of. Read the rest

Trauma is Patrick McGrath’s latest novel about a New York psychiatrist whose specialty is helping Vietnam Vets deal with, what is now known as, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. A common thread emerges pretty quickly that seems to effect every character - whether they are suffering from the main psychological diagnosis or not. The story is predictable and somewhat basic in the psychiatric descriptions. McGrath explores a human defense mechanism that is probably one of the scariest. Repressed Memories. Read the rest

I had an opportunity to read The Truth (I’m a girl, I’m smart and I know everything) by Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein. This book is a journal of a pre-pubescent 10 year old girl, her parents fight about silly things, and she’s in love with a boy in her class. We go through about a year and a half with this girl, through a school year, a summer and right before her family’s move two towns away. She finds out her mom is pregnant, she may not “love” the boy as much as she originally thought, and that her friend knows more about growing up than she does.

The Truth is a very simple, enjoyable read. The purpose of this book, from what I gathered from the authors notes in the book and on her website is to remind us that we had some pretty good goals for ourselves when we were young and we should reflect on what those goals were and figure out how to achieve them. Read the rest

I used to think the Virginia Slim tag line “We’ve come a long way, Baby!” was empowering and celebrated the achievements women have made in the last hundred years in gaining equality.  Women can own property, women can vote; women can be working mothers or stay at home mothers without society telling them which path is better. Women can be CEOs, Presidents of Universities, Scientists, and Jet Engine Mechanics. Women can be anything they want to be.

On the surface, women have certainly come a long way.  What about under the surface?  Read the rest

I’ve been pondering book jackets for the last few months. I’ve seen more jackets in the last few months than a model for Burlington Coat Factory does in the length of a ten season contract. My reflections have more or less been about why its assumed consumers need elaborate, more complex visual aids to capture their interest. A new published author told me recently people are not buying her book because the book jacket looks plain, boring and low-budget.

This bothered me for three reasons: Read the rest

Blood Moon is about a girl who may or may not be “the one” that will save the Wiccan Community from falling. The vehicle for the story is Wiccan in nature. Because of this, there are some areas of the Craft we felt should be expanded upon to enhance the story. Unless you are or have been a practicing Wiccan, this book is pretty solid as a supernatural-mystery-thriller.

The strong character building between protagonist and a plethora of antagonists keeps the reader wondering who is who and what is what until the very end. There are some characters that we feel should have been made stronger, but overall the relationships made sense and were mostly believable. Read the rest

I am an Anne Rice fan that fell by the wayside. I have loved the sensuality of her writing, before I knew what sensuality meant. It’s not necessarily the words, but the feelings she invokes with her use of language and descriptions. At one point in my life, I pre-ordered Anne Rice books, as I had to read them all as soon as they came out - I had to know what happened next. I could read her books over and over and pick out things I hadn’t caught the first time around. Eventually, the stories became a bit predictable and Anne Rice got the special place on the bookshelf for great authors that I’ll pick up again sometime in the future. I began reading some of her work again when she came out with “The Violin.” I liked the morbid sensuality of it. Some may find this an odd statement, but I thought it was an amazing love story. I was hooked again.

When she came out with the “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt” I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Read the rest