I liked All Her Little Secrets well enough. I liked the characters. I thought the storyline was clever and the mystery wasn’t too mysterious but it was fairly well-paced even with the flashbacks. A few things bothered me. I was puzzled why the single section from Sam’s point of view was basically a spoiler for … Continue reading
Tag Archives: four stars
Crushing: An Illustrated Misadventure in Love and Loneliness by Sophie Burrows
I’ve been on a big graphic memoir kick lately! I read eight in a single week in December and am trying to make a real effort to keep up with graphic novels. There are so many good ones written by women out there! I loved Crushing! It’s not a memoir but a sort of sad-sweet … Continue reading
Everything I Have Is Yours: A Marriage by Eleanor Henderson
Oh my. I have so many thoughts on this book. I must have requested it a while back because it popped up on publication day in the Libby app to download. I didn’t really remember what it was about but it had a cool cover, it said the woman’s novel was a NYT bestseller and … Continue reading
The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver
What a clever idea for a novel! Who doesn’t wonder what their other life could be if things went differently? I felt like Lydia was a fully developed character as was Jonah but I didn’t see what the appeal of Freddie was. When they stayed together in her “sleep”, they didn’t seem to have anything … Continue reading
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Hate U Give caught my eye back before it was released in late February thanks to the 2Pac reference in the title but I just was able to download it to my Kindle from the library this week. It was as good as I hoped. The story of Starr, a black girl going to … Continue reading
Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa
I’ve read a few books the last couple of days but Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa was my favorite. Translated from Japanese, it is the story of a reluctant dorayaki (a type of pancake filled with sweet bean paste) chef who against his initial impulse hires a woman in her mid-70s to help out at the dorayaki … Continue reading
Poirot and Me by David Suchet
I watched Poirot since I was 9 or 10 when it premiered here on PBS and the series premiered until it ended just a few years ago. That’s roughly 2/3 of my life! One my favorite scenes was in ‘The Royal Ruby’ where Poirot shows his dining companion the best way to eat a mango. … Continue reading
The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South by John T. Edge
The Potlikker Papers one of, if not the, best food history books I’ve ever read. It goes from the segregated South to the Black Panthers (did you know Bobby Seale* has a cookbook?) to Nation of Islam to hippies relocating from cities to the deep South to start communes to Paul Prudhomme to Southern Living to … Continue reading
The Maximum Security Book Club: Reading Literature in a Men’s Prison by Mikita Brottman
I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Mikita Brottman lives in Baltimore too and the book club she starts is right in Jessup south of the city. I always like a local connection. Each chapter focuses on a different novel or play she has the prisoners read and their reactions to it. There is also a … Continue reading
The Satanic Mechanic: A Tannie Maria Mystery by Sally Andrew
The Tannie Maria mysteries are one of my all-time favorite mystery series. That’s really saying something because I have read literally thousands of mysteries over the years. The Satanic Mechanic was a lot of fun and a little less gruesome than the first book in the series which involved some unfortunate wildlife poaching scenes. The … Continue reading