The Divorce Papers- a review

4 Comments

Posted on February 17, 2014

The Divorce Papers

by Susan Rieger

published by Crown

March 18th, 2014

I received this book as a digital ARC from the publisher through Net Galley in return for an honest review.

Summary

Twenty-nine-year-old Sophie Diehl is happy toiling away as a criminal law associate at an old line New England firm where she very much appreciates that most of her clients are behind bars. Everyone at Traynor, Hand knows she abhors face-to-face contact, but one weekend, with all the big partners away, Sophie must handle the intake interview for the daughter of the firm’s most important client. After eighteen years of marriage, Mayflower descendant Mia Meiklejohn Durkheim has just been served divorce papers in a humiliating scene at the popular local restaurant, Golightly’s. She is locked and loaded to fight her eminent and ambitious husband, Dr. Daniel Durkheim, Chief of the Department of Pediatric Oncology, for custody of their ten-year-old daughter Jane—and she also burns to take him down a peg. Sophie warns Mia that she’s never handled a divorce case before, but Mia can’t be put off. As she so disarmingly puts it: It’s her first divorce, too. (from goodreads)

My Review

This is one fun read, though I must say that I now know way more about divorce law than I ever wanted to. The main character in The Divorce Papers is Sophie Diehl, a 29 year old criminal law associate who enjoys her job. She is hesitant when asked to help out with an intake interview for a divorce, but since it is for the daughter of a very important client, she does it. Much to her dismay, she winds up stuck on the case when the client, Mia Miekljohn insisted she wants Sophie as her lawyer. What comes next is a hilarious, often cringeworthy look inside a divorce.

Susan Rieger has written a debut novel that is new and refreshing. Her characters are well written, especially Sophie. The story is told all through correspondences- personal letter, emails, office memos, and legal papers. While I found the legal papers very confusing and a bit boring (as I find ALL legal papers), it kept the story moving along and very interesting. I would recommend this book- it was fun and a quick read for me!

My Rating

4 out of 5

About the author

Susan Rieger is a graduate of Columbia University Law School. She is also a former Associate Provost for Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action at Columbia University. The Divorce Papers is her debut novel.

The Rosie Project

10 Comments

Posted on January 31, 2014

The Rosie Project

by Graeme Simsion

published by Simon $ Schuster

2013

Summary

An international sensation, this hilarious, feel-good novel is narrated by an oddly charming and socially challenged genetics professor on an unusual quest: to find out if he is capable of true love.

Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful” husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don’s Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

The Rosie Project is a moving and hilarious novel for anyone who has ever tenaciously gone after life or love in the face of overwhelming challenges.

My Review

Simply put- I loved this book and read it in two days. The protagonist is Don Tillman (who, in my opinion, is Sheldon Cooper, Aussie style). Don is an Associate Professor of Genetics at the University of Melbourne. He is smart, attractive, accomplished, and totally off-putting. (Many have suggested he has Asperger’s Syndrome- very possible). When a beloved neighbor- one of his 4 friends- tells him he would make a good husband, he decides he will look for the perfect mate and comes up with “The Wife Project”, which is an extended questionnaire meant to weed out all undesirable qualities, which are TOO numerous to list. He meets Rosie Jarman through a friend and she is totally unacceptable for the “Wife project. Despite this, Don offers to help Rosie find out who her father is through DNA testing.

I definitely recommend this book. It was such a fun read.

My Rating

4 1/2 out of 5

Some great quotes-

“But I’m not good at understanding what other people want.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ said Rosie for no obvious reason.
I quickly searched my mind for an interesting fact.
‘Ahhh…The testicles of drone bees and wasp spiders explode during sex.”

“Professor Tillman. Most of us here are not scientists, so you may need to be a little less technical.’ This sort of thing is incredibly annoying. People can tell you the supposed characteristics of a Gemini or a Taurus and will spend five days watching a cricket match, but cannot find the interest or the time to learn the basics of what they, as humans, are made up of.”

“There were approximately twenty-five people milling around the door and the front of the classroom, but I immediately recognised Julie, the convenor, from Gene’s description: ‘blonde with big tits’. In fact, her breasts were probably no more than one and a half standard deviations from the mean size for her body weight, and hardly a remarkable identifying feature. It was more a question of elevation and exposure, as a result of her choice of costume, which seemed perfectly practical for a hot January evening.”

“I met Rosie at the airport. She remained uncomfortable about me purchasing her ticket, so I told her she could pay me back by selecting some Wife Project applicants for me to date.
‘Fuck you,’ she said.
It seemed we were friends again.”

The First Rule of Swimming

Sycamore Row

8 Comments

Posted on January 20, 2014

Sycamore Row

by John Grisham

published by Doubleday

2013

Summary

Seth Hubbard is a wealthy man dying of lung cancer. He trusts no one. Before he hangs himself from a sycamore tree, Hubbard leaves a new, handwritten, will. It is an act that drags his adult children, his black maid, and Jake into a conflict as riveting and dramatic as the murder trial that made Brigance one of Ford County’s most notorious citizens, just three years earlier.
The second will raises far more questions than it answers. Why would Hubbard leave nearly all of his fortune to his maid? Had chemotherapy and painkillers affected his ability to think clearly? And what does it all have to do with a piece of land once known as Sycamore Row? (Goodreads)

My Review

I admit to having a soft spot for John Grisham novels. It started when I entered college and didn’t really have a lot of time to read for pleasure. Grisham’s books were easy reads, yet interesting and fun. I think I have read almost everything he has written, with the exception go Calico Joe. That being said, I was very excited when I heard he was writing a sequel to one of my favs, A Time to Kill. I loved that book, and it doesn’t hurt that I think of Matthew McConaughey whenever I think of Jake Brigance. Sycamore Row picks up with Jake and all the original characters three years after the Hailey trial. Jake become involved in the trial to challenge a handwritten will of a white man who killed himself, and left almost everything to his black housekeeper. It might seem at times that Grisham follows a formula to write his courtroom dramas, but this is a fun, captivating, fast read. If you enjoy legal dramas, and a look into sour country’s complex race relations, I word definitely recommend this book!

My Rating

4 out of 5 stars

The Invention of Wings

16 Comments

Posted on January 13, 2014

The Inventions of Wings

by Sue Monk Kidd

published by Viking

2013

I received this book as a digital ARC from the publisher through Net Galley in return for an honest review.

Summary

Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.

Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid.We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty-five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love.
As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements.

Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better.
This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved. (from Goodreads)

My Review

Thank you so much Viking and Net Galley!! This was an amazing book and I would even say a must read. Sue Monk Kidd, the author of The Secret Life of Bees, has given us a very powerful, beautifully written novel that follows the lives of two girls from childhood into womanhood. We meet Sarah, the middle child of a large aristocratic family in Charleston, S.C. in 1803. Her father, Judge Grimke, has authored much of Charleston’s judicial code on slavery and the family relies heavily on slaves in both their home in Charleston and on their nearby plantation. For her 11th birthday, Sarah is given a slave of her own, Hetty (Handful), but unlike the rest of her family, she has very strong convictions about slavery and almost immediately tries to free her. Unsuccessful, she instead teaches Hetty how to read. We watch both these young girls grow into women, though into very different lives. Sarah struggles to live according to her beliefs, and finds she must leave home to do so. Through Hetty, we see the cruelties and injustices of slavery make a strong willed girl into an even stronger willed woman, very ugh like her mother, Charlotte.

The author based her novel on the real lives of Sarah Grimke and her sister Nina, abolitionists who were much hated in their hometown. I loved that the author took time at the end of the book to explain her research and how she came to write about these amazing women. To learn more about the Grimke sisters, look here-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimké_sisters

It was ironic that I started reading this book while vacationing in the Charleston area over the holidays. I loved being able to walk the streets of the story I was in the middle of reading. Charleston is a beautiful city and one of the places I would recommend to everyone.

My Rating

5 out of 5

What do you think? Will you read it? Did you like it?

Please leave a comment-I love hearing from you!

Reconstructing Amelia- a review

6 Comments

Posted on January 10, 2014

Reconstructing Amelia

by Kimberly McCreight

published by HarperCollins

2013

Summary

A stunning debut novel in which a single mother reconstructs her teenaged daughter’s life, sifting through her emails, texts, and social media to piece together the shocking truth about the last days of her life.

Litigation lawyer and harried single mother Kate Baron is stunned when her daughter’s exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn, calls with disturbing news: her intelligent, high-achieving fifteen-year-old daughter, Amelia, has been caught cheating.

Kate can’t believe that Amelia, an ambitious, levelheaded girl who’s never been in trouble would do something like that. But by the time she arrives at Grace Hall, Kate’s faced with far more devastating news. Amelia is dead.

Seemingly unable to cope with what she’d done, a despondent Amelia has jumped from the school’s roof in an act of “spontaneous” suicide. At least that’s the story Grace Hall and the police tell Kate. And overwhelmed as she is by her own guilt and shattered by grief, it is the story that Kate believes until she gets the anonymous text:

She didn’t jump.

Sifting through Amelia’s emails, text messages, social media postings, and cell phone logs, Kate is determined to learn the heartbreaking truth about why Amelia was on Grace Hall’s roof that day-and why she died.

Told in alternating voices, Reconstructing Amelia is a story of secrets and lies, of love and betrayal, of trusted friends and vicious bullies. It’s about how well a parent ever really knows a child and how far one mother will go to vindicate the memory of a daughter whose life she could not save.

(from Goodreads)

My Review

I heard lots of good thing about this book, and though the subject is very sad, I decided to read it. This was a completely heart wrenching story for me. As a mother of two teenagers, the premise of a teenager throwing themselves off of the roof of their school, after being accused of plagiarism scares the hell out of me. This is the story of successful lawyer and single mom kate, and also that of her daughter, Amelia. As the book begins, Amelia has gotten into trouble at school and Kate must leave a very important meeting to go pick her up. When Kate arrives at the posh private school in Brooklyn, police are everywhere. Kate soon learns that it seems Amelia, distraught over her suspension, has committed suicide by jumping off the roof of the school. As Kate mourns and attempts to pick up her life, she begins to doubt that Amelia really jumped, that she might have been pushed. Kate delves into Amelia’s life, discovering there was much about her daughter that she didn’t know.

This was a very quick read and I would recommend it. I have heard it compared to Gone Girl, which I am not too sure about. I t did have a little element of mystery, but we already know WHAT happened to Amelia, just not HOW. The hard part of this book is that to find the answers, we also feel Kate’s pain. When she discovers things that are going on at Amelia’s school it sent shovers down my spine. Parents try to raise their kids and eventually need to let them stand on their own. The difficult phase of this is usually the teen/high school years, as children become adults and make choices and decisions for themselves. We know they will make good and bad ones, and try to help them navigate these hard times, all the while being less involved in their lives.

(I actually thought the part of the story about the secret clubs in the high school would make a very good cautionary tale for a YA book)

I would love to hear your thoughts- please leave a comment!

My Rating

4 out 0f 5

The Longing of Wayward Girls- a review

7 Comments

Posted on December 27, 2013

The Longing of Wayward Girls

by Karen Brown

published by Washington Square Press

2013

I received this book as a digital ARC from the publisher through Net Galley in return for an honest review.

Summary

It’s an idyllic New England summer, and Sadie is a precocious only child on the edge of adolescence. It seems like July and August will pass lazily by, just as they have every year before. But one day, Sadie and her best friend play a seemingly harmless prank on a neighborhood girl. Soon after, that same little girl disappears from a backyard barbecue; and she is never seen again. Twenty years pass, and Sadie is still living in the same quiet suburb. She’s married to a good man, has two beautiful children, and seems to have put her past behind her. But when a boy from her old neighborhood returns to town, the nightmares of that summer will begin to resurface, and its unsolved mysteries will finally become clear. (goodreads)

My Review

This is the third book I have read this month that I experienced a strange thing- a dislike of the characters and their decisions. The story alternates between the summer of 1979 and the summer of 2003, all set in a quaint New England town. Sadie Watkins is the main character and we go back and forth with her between these two pivotal summers. In 1979, the adolescent Sadie makes choices that will haunt her for the rest of her life. I actually enjoyed the descriptions of growing up in the 70’s. Though I am not as old as Sadie, I too grew up in the era. The flashbacks were honestly the more interesting parts of the book, though I had a hard time liking Sadie at any point. I would have enjoyed more of that story, rather than the constant sense of ennui and repeated poor choices of the adult Sadie. I found it easier to take a 12 year old doing stupid and harmful things than a grown women and mother of two children. That being said, the book was well written and I would look forward to reading more from this author. I did find the whole story line with Sadie’s mother captivating. It balanced out the Loomis storyline, which kind of went nowhere.

My Rating 3 out of 5

The Dinner- a review

8 Comments

Posted on December 23, 2013

The Dinner

by Herman Koch

published by Hogarth

2009

Summary
A summer’s evening in Amsterdam and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse – the banality of work, the triviality of holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened. Each couple has a fifteen year old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children, and as civility and friendship disintegrates, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love. (from Goodreads)

My Review

This is a book that (it seems) you either love or you hate. I can not say either.

The story starts simple enough- a two brother meeting for dinner with their wives. One brother is important and the other resentful. No one seems to be having a good time depute the obsequious efforts of the wait staff and the manager in particular. I started out liking the one brother-Paul-and his wife, until you realize he is an unreliable narrator. Halfway through the book, I felt like I was watching a train wreck in slow motion- the kind where you cannot look away. By the end, I honestly felt a bit ill. I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone who has not read it, but just want to say that I don’t have to like the characters, but when i feel like I loathe all of them, it is hard for me to enjoy a book. This was well written and has gotten many great reviews.

Have you read this book? What did you think?

My rating

3 out of 5- well written and satirical, but that is all i can give it.

Review of “The Dinner” by Herman Koch (rhapsodyinbooks.wordpress.com)
Cleopatra Love Books

The Bone Season- a review

6 Comments

Posted on December 20, 2013

The Bone Season

by Samantha Shannon

published by

2013

I borrowed a copy of this book from my library.

Summary

It is the year 2059. Several major world cities are under the control of a security force called Scion. Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of Scion London, part of a secret cell known as the Seven Seals. The work she does is unusual: scouting for information by breaking into others’ minds. Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant, and in this world, the voyants commit treason simply by breathing.

But when Paige is captured and arrested, she encounters a power more sinister even than Scion. The voyant prison is a separate city—Oxford, erased from the map two centuries ago and now controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. These creatures, the Rephaim, value the voyants highly—as soldiers in their army.

Paige is assigned to a Rephaite keeper, Warden, who will be in charge of her care and training. He is her master. Her natural enemy. But if she wants to regain her freedom, Paige will have to learn something of his mind and his own mysterious motives.

The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine—a young woman learning to harness her powers in a world where everything has been taken from her. It also introduces an extraordinary young writer, with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.

My Review

I had heard many good reviews about this, but i hate eating for sequels, so I hesitated. I saw it on the shelf in the library last wee, and decided to give it a shot. After the first two chapters, I was considering putting it aside- it was a bit “out there” for me. I am not a huge fan of fantasy, but I kept going. I was soon caught up in this amazing world of Sheol 1, where Paige has been held captive by the Raphaite, and ancient race that controls the penal colony and also the main city of Scion, the former London. Paige is a dream walker, a rare clairvoyant.

Whew- I had to stop for a minute or else I would have gotten all wrapped up in this world again. I loved this book. The story pulls you and and will not let you go. I read this in 24 hours-and immediately searched the internet for when the sequel is coming- Does anyone know???

I definitely recommend this book- a must read.

My Rating

4.5 out of 5

(I took .5 off, because at time it seems a little too complicated and I had to go back a few times- also not the best writing ever, but that gets overlooked when you are turning the pages so quickly)

“Knowledge is dangerous. Once you know something, you can’t get rid of it. You have to carry it. Always.”

The End of the Affair- a review

4 Comments

Posted on December 16, 2013

The End of the Affair

by Graham Greene

published by Penguin Books

1951

Summary

The love affair between Maurice Bendix and Sarah, flourishing in the turbulent times of the London Blitz, ends when she suddenly and without explanation breaks it off. Two years later, after a chance meeting, Bendix hires a private detective to follow Sarah, and slowly his love for her turns into an obsession.

(from Goodreads)

My Review

The End of the Affair is a story about lost love, jealousy, resentment, and faith. It is a lot in a short story. We meet the bitter writer and narrator Maurice Bendrix, who has loved and inexplicably lost the married Sarah Wells. Through Sarah’s journal, we slowly discover why she ended the affair with Bendrix. As I say, this is a rather short novel, but it is filled with such strong emotions that I could not read it very quickly. I was pulled into the story of Sarah and how strongly she affected people. I was surprised by the amount of Catholic dogma in the later part of the book, and am not sure how I really feel about the ending. It seems I have been reading a few books lately that were very well written good books, that featured characters that I just didn’t like (this book), and even actually despised (review to come next week). I thought Bendrix was quite awful. Even when he was with Sarah, he usually wound up acting like a jerk. I did believe they loved each other, and can understand how crushing jealousy can be to a relationship, but he was a bit too much. I did like the writing very much, and am looking forward to trying another Greene novel.

Did you read this book? What did you think?

Rating

3.5 out of 5

loved these quotes-

“The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity.”

“It’s a strange thing to discover and to believe that you are loved when you know that there is nothing in you for anybody but a parent or a God to love.”

and my favorite-

“I had to touch you with my hands, I had to taste you with my tongue; one can’t love and do nothing.”