Dirt Creek did one of the best jobs of keeping all the characters in this tiny interrelated town straight and reminding us who they were all the time in a helpful yet unobtrusive manner I’ve seen! I really can’t say enough about how rare that is! There were a lot of characters, a lot of … Continue reading
Category Archives: review
Dear Fran, Love Dulcie: Life and Death in the Hills and Hollows of Bygone Australia published by Victoria Twead
This was a wild ride. Someone on a message board had said they read it and I was intrigued because I watch and read a lot of Australian content but it’s all fictional. I thought it would be interesting to see what life was really like back in rural Australia 70 or so years ago. … Continue reading
This Is Not a Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan
This Is Not a Pity Memoir was, instead, a slightly meandering but interesting memoir. I truly don’t know how she managed to produce and write a tv show during all this. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have your partner come out of a coma and insist that you are an imposter. … Continue reading
Groupies by Sarah Priscus
High hopes dashed! What a boring, corny waste of a good idea. Why would you write a book like Groupies if you have no interest or knowledge of the era? I can only assume Priscus thought people were so desperate for a “new” Daisy Jones and the Six that no one would notice it didn’t … Continue reading
The Family Game by Catherine Steadman
The Family Game is just such a fun book—an orphan novelist gets swept up by a wealthy man and his games-obsessed, insular family. Chaos ensues. Really a fun twist on the thriller genre with a little book within a book going on. Is it the best book in the entire world? Maybe not but it … Continue reading
The Bright Lands by John Fram
What a waste of a good idea! The writing of The Bright Lands was so poor. Certain phrases were used over and over again the most glaring was “ridged stomach” and twice on one page the phrase “Joel wondered what the odds were that…” appeared. The word spry was also misused in the description of … Continue reading
Unmask Alice LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries by Rick Emerson
What kind of person writes a debunking only to admit that he cannot and will not provide any sources to his work at all? This guy! Rick Emerson! This book is such a mess I can barely think straight. This was of the hackiest pieces of nonfiction writing I’ve ever read. For the first quarter … Continue reading
Flying Solo by Linda Holmes
Most of Flying Solo was cute enough but what was the point of the duck heist “caper”. It dragged on forever and wasn’t particularly funny or well-paced. It almost felt like the whole point was to drag the brother up from NYC but why? It didn’t add any value to the storyline or give depth … Continue reading
Kings of B’More by R. Eric Thomas
I was excited about this one. I recommended it to both the Baltimore City and County libraries and was excited when it came in. What a disappointment. A lot of it didn’t make a lot of sense and there was little plot or character development. The book seemed to switch perspectives but it was very … Continue reading
The Second Mother: A Novel by Jenny Milchman
I liked the idea of The Second Mother. A woman wanting to start over ends up at a remote island to be the teacher after the last ones left. I don’t think the book needed the mystery element which might have been part of why it felt flat. Nothing sat right about the ages to … Continue reading