Tuesday Book review on Wednesday

Four-star review of The Prophet of Yonwood: The Third Book of Ember by Jeanne duPrau

 

This is actually a prequel to the other Ember books, a story about a girl dealing with the impending sale of a family house against the background of an impending war. The story is well-written but not as engaging as the others in the series. Eleven year-old Nickie travels to Yonwood, North Carolina with her aunt after the death of her grandfather to see to the sale of his home. She has three goals that summer: to keep the house from being sold, to meet her true love, and to do something to help the world. Meanwhile, the people of the town follow the so-called prophet’s mutterings as interpreted incorrectly by one zealous woman whose proclamations lead to such actions as banishing all dogs to the forests surrounding the town, and that includes the one Nickie has adopted unbeknownst to her aunt. Although the story doesn’t lead directly into the other Ember books, there are several interesting characters.

Tuesday Book Review

Five-star review of A House Between Sea and Sky by Beth Cato

 

What do you get when you mix Hollywood folks in need of direction, a sourdough starter that’s older than time, a mysterious house on a cliff in Carmel in the 1920s, and Russian folklore and witches and throw in a dash of Agatha Christie and a pinch of PTSD? This wonderful read, of course. The magic makes sense and the characters are multidimensional, as in other books I’ve read by Beth Cato. Houses narration of parts of the story made me chuckle and smile. I second other reviewers’ wish for another book about Mother and House. Very satisfying ending. I wish I could end my stories so well. 

Tuesday Book Review

Four-star review of The Wedding People by Alison Espach

I enjoyed the humor sprinkled throughout this story  of a depressed woman, Phoebe, whose meeting with the people attending a wedding in Newport makes a difference in her life. The casual references to sex seemed gratuitous to someone of my generation. Otherwise, I liked many of the characters and they all were well-described, with quirks and foibles. I listened to the audiobook and the descriptions put me in every scene. The ending didn’t resolve everyone’s story, although Phoebe was more hopeful about her future. I wish I cared more about what that would be. 

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

Four-star review of Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum

This Korean novel was as much a treatise on the philosophy of choosing a job that can make you happy as it was a fictional story. The writing style was sometimes awkward, but that could have been the translation. Yeong-Ju isn’t happy in her IT job or her marriage. After her divorce, she opens her childhood dream of a bookshop in a quiet neighborhood. The shop evolves over time into more than a bookstore but also a meeting place with a coffee counter and book clubs. The friendships that develop among the characters was one of the more interesting parts of the book.   

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

Four-star review of Kingdom of Tomorrow by Gena Showalter

 

This novel is the first of a fantasy duology that starts with the usual story of a woman with abilities she knows nothing about and a powerful (and handsome) man who may or may not be trying to help and protect her. Arden only knows her own homeland called Ourland and joins a training program to give her mother a better life and becomes entangled with High Prince Cyrus Dorian. Lots of plot twists later and Arden still has questions about Ourland and Theirland, how they came to be. I’m intrigued enough to read the second book.

Tuesday Book Review on Thursday

Three-star review of Lincoln at Cooper Union: the Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President by Harold Holzer

I listened to the Audible version of this scholarly book about the speech Lincoln gave in New York that launched his path to the White House, the type of book that tells you what it’s going to cover, covers it, then reiterates what it covered and finally gives a version of the speech, which Lincoln revised and re-presented many times. Yes, I learned a bit about the politics of the time and even a little about the man who became our 16^th president, but it was a rather dry accounting mainly of his whistle-stop tour of New York and New England. Obviously, Holzer did his research into the records of the time, although they weren’t expansive. The speech itself centered on whether new states coming into the union should be regulated as to whether they be free states or ones admitting slavery, an important topic. Listened to for a book club. 

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

Five-star review of All Systems Red: the Murderbot Diaries 1 by Martha Wells

 

There’s a reason these books are so popular and spawned a TV series. This isn’t your normal science fiction. The humor alone is unusual. The Security Bot who calls itself Murderbot has a great sense of what’s absurd about humans, including the survey team it was assigned to, and about its predicament. This novella is fast-paced and a fun read. I loved Murderbot and all the members of the team. Each character is well-rounded. I’m looking forward to reading more of the series and hope it maintains this level.