I loved the idea of We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year by Charles Wheelan but I came out of it thinking this man must be incredibly exhausting and dare I say boring to be around. I’ve read a lot of travel and family memoirs and this was an odd one. There … Continue reading
Category Archives: review
Black Widows by Cate Quinn
I came across this one in a NYT column and put it right on my holds list. It sounded intriguing–a man with three wives found dead near his rural compound. What a disappointment! I’m not entirely sure if Marilyn Stasio actually read the book. I didn’t get the impression from Black Widows or interviews with … Continue reading
A Spy in the Struggle by Aya de León
I found A Spy in the Struggle a little puzzling. The concept was unique and I like how it touched on real issues and was topical (there is even a Covid-19 reference) but the main character was so flat. Her thinking was very black and white and childlike. It was very difficult to believe she … Continue reading
Early Morning Riser (originally Gold In the Air) by Katherine Heiny
I always like Heiny’s books because they are filled with people I feel like I’d actually know in my own life, teachers, woodworkers, mandolin players, and not the soccer moms and endless lawyers that populate so many other books. Early Morning Riser did not disappoint! I really felt like I lived in this town and … Continue reading
Impersonation by Heidi Pitlor
I read Heidi Pitlor’s first book back in March. I had found it a little odd stylistically but the subject matter–a wife disappears–was interesting and dealt with in a serious fashion that this current trend to the sensational in publishing rarely seems to do well. This book is about another woman on the margins of … Continue reading
This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World by Marisa Meltzer
This Is Big: How the Founder of Weight Watchers Changed the World is sort of a memoir hybrid with Meltzer exploring the history of Weight Watchers though the lens of her lifelong battle with her weight. While she is very honest about how much she doesn’t like her body, the negative attention it attracts, her … Continue reading