Reading List by Jennie for April Through June 2020
Book Reviews / Reading Listsclassic fiction / historical romance / History / mystery / Reading lists / Satire / Suspense23 Comments
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Is it a shameful to admit that I’ve never before read Little Women? At least not that I can recall – it may have been one of those books that I started and put down in my youth. Still, I’ve seen both of the recent movie adaptions (if 1994 can be considered “recent”) in theaters, so I’m familiar with the story. I even read March by Geraldine Brooks! Anyway, this is all to say that this actual book has a bit (maybe more than a bit) too much 19th century moralizing for me (as well as some old-fashioned sexism). If other 19th century female authors that I’ve read and liked write about people with fairly stark realism (Anne Bronte, George Eliot) or through a satirical lens (Jane Austen), Alcott appears to write about people as they should be, at their best. Flawed, to be sure, but with an unusual self-awareness of their flaws and a strong desire to always be better. Even Amy, who seems to be traditionally viewed as the shallowest and vainest March girl (and who thus is most relatable, at least to me), strives to adhere to the example set by her beloved Marmee.
I think I may just have grown up in too cynical an age to entirely appreciate the improving nature of Little Women. I find Jo and Meg both irritating (Marmee too, and Mr. March once he shows up). Beth is actually sweet but she’s such a Christ figure that it’s hard to take her seriously. I feel bad when she dies, but Beth’s only real purpose in the story is to die. So Amy ends up the only real, likable character for me. (Laurie kind of sucks too, but I may be overly influenced by my recent viewing of the 2019 film and my abiding dislike of Timothee Chalamet.) The Professor isn’t bad, I guess. I hate having to grade classics that I didn’t like that much for what feels like shallow reasons; I guess I’ll give this a B-.
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The White Mans Guide to White Male Writers of the Western Canon by Dana Schwartz
I read and enjoyed Schwartz’ memoir, Choose Your Own Disaster, so I was interested in this, written from the perspective of her @GuyInYourMFA twitter account. It’s a funny, if slight, overview of writers from Shakespeare (whom the author is suspicious of, wondering how he could have been so prolific and successful without access to an MFA program) to John Updike (“the man finally brave enough to tell the story of white, middle-class American Protestants struggling with issues that ranged from the temptation to commit adultery to committing adultery”). Like I said, the overall effect is sort of slight, but I enjoyed the book and found it a pleasant diversion. I gave it a B; I’m *really* looking forward to Schwartz’ upcoming fiction book, Anatomy, a Love Story, which is “a gothic romance set against the backdrop of 1830’s Edinburgh, and follows an aspiring young female surgeon, the resurrection man who brings her bodies to study, and a reclusive aristocrat who tempts them both with immortality.” Sounds awesome. (Her podcast, Noble Blood, is also great.)
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The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson
I have been a big fan of Erik Larson’s work since reading what is probably his most popular book, Devil in the White City, back in 2006. As the subtitle indicates, his latest focuses on the Blitz, the bombing campaign by Germany in the early days of World War II that caused widespread death and destruction in London and elsewhere in England. Winston Churchill is the central figure, and comes alive in a very-Churchill-y way throughout the book, but the story also follows his youngest daughter Mary, just 18 at the time and dealing with the sorts of things 18-year-old girls have dealt with through time immemorial. Also featured is one of Churchill’s secretaries, Jock Colville, and others in the orbit of the Prime Minister, as well as the major players in Germany and the United States at the time. This was an engaging and informative book, and I gave it a B+.
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What We Forgot to Bury by Marin Montgomery
Another Amazon First read – one of the worst so far, and that’s saying something. Lives and lies collide when 17-year-old Elle and 35-year-old Charlotte meet on a stormy night. Elle has ulterior motives for seeking out Charlotte, and Charlotte has some secrets of her own. This book featured an overdone and byzantine plot – I guessed one of the “twists” early on but the last twist was just out of nowhere and ridiculous even by the standards of what had gone before. Elle is a parody of a neglected foster kid with a wicked, though inconsistently characterized, foster mother, and two foster brothers who are strangely only referred to as “the boys”, not given names, though they are mentioned 41 times in the book (I did a search and counted). There there were so many examples of weird, awkward writing I finally stopped marking them on my Kindle. (One bit, when Elle meets with her boyfriend Justin: “‘What’s up, Elizabeth?’ His greeting is so generic and immature I want to scream.” The words “generic” and “immature” seem out of place here, like they were added by a random adjective generator.) I gave this a D; it is saved from F-dom by being marginally readable.
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Tempt Me at Twilight by Lisa Kleypas
I was looking forward to this, the third book in the Hathaways series, as a respite from the “Gypsy” heroes of the first two books, with their exotic Rom ways (eyeroll). Also, I think this was Janine’s favorite book in the series. It ended up not really working for me, mostly because of the hero. I can kind of wrap my mind around the idea that Harry is supposed to be an antihero; Janine said straight out in her review that he was a villain. I had to examine whether I’m ever okay with that, and I think the answer is, not usually. With that type of hero, I need there to be some serious comeuppance, reform and possibly groveling. With Harry we mostly got Poppy feeling really sorry for him when she realized he’d had a bad childhood. Poppy was a decent heroine, and I liked the hotel setting, but Harry just bugged me too much. This was a C.
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The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
This was probably recommended on Amazon; I know that wherever I saw it the description sucked me in. A group of Londoners, friends from Oxford who are now 10 years past their college days, gather at a remote Scottish estate for their traditional New Year’s get together. Someone ends up murdered, and though the action switches back and forth between the days leading up to New Year’s Eve and the day the body is found, it isn’t until late in the book that the identity of the victim is revealed. (It did end up being my first guess, though.) There are five perspective characters who tell their stories in alternating chapters. There’s Heather, the woman who manages the estate, working in the remote location as an escape from a tragedy back in Edinburgh. There’s Doug, the gamekeeper, also hiding out from a dark and possibly dangerous past. Emma has organized the gathering; she is a latecomer to the group who is part of it due to her relationship with Mark. Miranda, the vivacious one, is the center of the group. And then there’s Katie, who has been Miranda’s best friend and sidekick for two decades, but has pulled away lately. I probably shouldn’t have liked this book as much as I did; there’s a real lack of depth in the characterization. Even though I was right about the victim, the story did keep me guessing and it totally sucked me in, which is what I want from this type of book. This was a high B+/low A-. Foley just had another book come out and I’m on the fence about it because it sounds *so* similar to The Hunting Party, which could be a good thing or a bad thing.
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Married by Morning by Lisa Kleypas
I’m following along behind Janine in reading the Hathaways series, and I remembered that she didn’t love this one. In spite of that, I actually picked it up kind of eagerly – I was interested in the characters from their interactions in previous books even though I don’t usually love antagonist-to-lovers stories. My interest palled pretty quickly, and I’m not sure why. It felt like I was back in my historical-romance rut, where the predictability of the characters and plot was so overwhelming that it was hard for me to stay interested. About the only thing I really cared about was finding out what the heroine’s secret was (and when I did, it wasn’t as scandalous or compelling as I’d hoped). The book did get a little more interesting in the late chapters when a somewhat uncommon conflict cropped up. But by then I just kind of wanted to finish it. Maybe I’ll take another break from Kleypas after I read the last book in the Hathaways series. My grade for this was a C+. (I really liked the ferret, though. Dodger was so cute, it was almost enough to make me want to get one. They’re illegal in California, and I already have too many pets, so it’s probably for the best that I refrain.)
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The Bone Jar by S.W. Kane
This is the first in a series featuring a London police detective named Lew Kirby. It was an Amazon First Read and definitely better than average for those. An elderly woman is found murdered in an abandoned insane asylum during one of the coldest snaps in memory in London. Detective Lew Kirby is trying to balance the demands of the investigation with his personal life – a new romance, and a mother who seems confused and is hiding something from him. The mystery of the murder of Ena Massey involves a large group of characters – Connie Darke, whose sister Sarah fell from a tower and died at the same asylum five years before; Sarah’s boyfriend Ed, whose is missing and whose cell phone is found in the asylum, Raymond Sweet, an ex-patient who lives on the grounds, Patrick Calder, an arrogant developer who has plans for the asylum. (Expensive housing plans, that is.) And finally, Charles Palmer, who has inherited the house next door to the asylum and whose family has unexpected connections to the place and the murdered woman. There’s a *lot* going on in this story, and not all of it was really resolved to my satisfaction. But the book held my attention really well, so I’ll give it B+/B; I may pick up the second book in the series when it comes out.
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In the Woods by Tana French
This was the first in a series called Dublin Murder Squad, written back in 2007. I’ve heard of the author but didn’t really know anything going into the book, which was, for several reasons, not what I expected. I think it was a bit broodier and…more psychological?… than I expected, and that and some things to do with the ending made my grade go down a bit, though I found the story really compelling. Adam Ryan is 12 years old when he and two friends disappear into the woods near their housing development. He’s found hours later, bloody and catatonic, but the other two are never seen again. Years later, Adam, now rechristened Rob, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad. A young girl has been found murdered near the very same woods where Ryan and his friends went missing. He has never been able to remember what happened when he went missing, but he seems to be living his life without significant residual trauma; he has a best friend in his partner Cassie Maddox, and he is very absorbed in his work.
Things really go south in the course of the story, revealing just how not okay Ryan is. Again, the story really drew me in, and though I had an idea *who* the murderer was, I didn’t quite get the how. Ryan goes from a sympathetic narrator to someone who tears his own life to pieces and really hurts people in the process. I felt sorry for him in the end, but the overall effect was kind of unsettling. The first person narration, his tragic past and seemingly good-guy character made his behavior feel weirdly like a betrayal, until I realized that this was who he was all along. (However, I can’t forgive that he says that the villain “fooled you, too” because NO, it was actually pretty obvious there was something not right with that character.) The last issue that I had is a spoiler:
Spoiler: Show
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The Hiding Girl by Dorian Box
I picked this thriller up on Netgalley; since I have such poor luck with the thrillers and suspense novels I’ve been getting from Amazon First Reads, expanding my horizons a bit seemed like a good idea. The Hiding Girl ended up being more successful than a lot of those reads, though it’s not without flaws. Emily Calby is 12 and living in rural Georgia with her mother and 8-year-old sister; her father has died in a work accident not long before the story begins. As the book opens, two men stop by their isolated home in a truck and ask for gas, and then attack the family. Emily’s mother and sister are killed, and she flees with a box of money her father kept hidden for emergencies. From there, this is sort of a play on “The Professional”, with a large, secretive black man named Lucas playing the Jean Reno role. There were times I was uncomfortable with this – Lucas speaks in dialect, which I didn’t love. (His girlfriend Kiona doesn’t though, which made me feel a bit better about it.) But some cringe aside, I really liked Emily and Lucas and their relationship, and I was absorbed in her drive to find the killers of her family. Emily’s not a realistic character, but she was a compelling one. This appears to be the first in a series and I may just try the second book when it comes out. B+.
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I always appreciate your reading list reviews! I agree completely about Little Women. I tried reading it some years ago and couldn’t finish it, it was just too preachy.
I have read most of Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad books. My favorite is THE LIKENESS—although the premise does require a huge suspension of disbelief, if you can get beyond that, it’s a very good read that kept me guessing until the end. BROKEN HARBOUR and FAITHFUL PLACE are also quite good. But as the series has progressed I’ve noticed a recurring downbeat element to how the female detectives are treated. While that is undoubtedly an accurate reflection of what many women experience in mostly-male workplaces, it does give the books a “samey” quality that detracts from the cases being investigated.
I’ve read a handful of these and have some thoughts. SPOILERS AHEAD for all of these:
Little Women: I read Little Women as a child and again in high school. The only parts of the book that made a lasting impression were the scene where Amy falls though the ice and the death of Beth. Otherwise it didn’t stick with me except for giving me a not-very-favorable opinion on it. The reason I reread it in high school was to see if I had missed something the first time. But no.
I’ve always felt like a philistine for not appreciating it more. Of the movies, I liked the version with Winona Ryder better but I’m not sure I would be able to watch it now because it also has Susan Sarandon.
Tempt Me at Twilight: Yeah, I liked this one a lot better than you did (although I reread it and re-graded it as a B+ after writing that Hathaways post).
I actually did see comeuppance, groveling and to a lesser degree, even reform with Harry. The comeuppance part (in my reading) was his inability go get close to Poppy, his own wife, while having to watch her get close to everyone around him. I read him as truly suffering in that section and it was satisfying to see him twist in the wind.
The grovel came when he told Poppy he had wracked his brain to come up with an apology that would make it up to her. He was so otherwise outwardly secure that this moment of desperation and admission of need and of wrongdoing went a long way for me–it took a lot and went against all the values he’d previously lived according to for him to humble himself that way.
As for a change of habits–that was there to a degree too. He certainly viewed Poppy and his relationship to her differently at the end of the book than he had in the beginning, when he told Cat that Michael could have Poppy’s heart as long as he got her body. Kleypas tried to underscore that with his willingness to take a vacation for the first time in his life, although I did think that came out too heavy-handed to work well. And with the change in his relationship with Cat, too.
Kleypas could have done much more with the parallels between Harry’s childhood trauma and what happens to him close to the ending. A scene from his POV in that section could have gone a long way toward underlining his changed emotions. It was a missed opportunity
Incidentally, I also liked that Harry told Poppy upfront that he was a villain, not a hero.
With all that said, Harry is not one of my favorite Kleypas heroes. Poppy was the one I loved. I loved the way she insisted on getting her needs met, as she did by befriending the hotel staff, withholding herself from Harry, and leaving to see her family when she needed to. Even talking to Michael. Other than marrying Harry (and she knew what she was getting into there) she got everything she needed regardless of whether he approved or wanted her to. Considering she was a young woman without much experience of the world in the Victorian era, the way she stood up for herself in the face of Harry’s seeming desires to the contrary was impressive, esp considering that Harry was a man who didn’t fight fair.
Married by Morning: God, this book was a hot mess. In hindsight, I wish that I had graded it lower (I gave it a C). I really disliked Leo’s bullying of Cat; bullying romances rarely work for me. And whereas Harry was treated as a villain for his behavior, Leo was portrayed as a charming albeit cynical scapegrace. I wish Cat had called him on his bullying behavior.
I had problems with the way he inserted himself into Cat’s life. Also, taking into account the Victorian setting, he seemed pretty careless about sleeping with her and just in general about her vulnerability. And I hated the way THREE,– count them, three–, villains had no good reason to act as they did. It made absolutely no sense that Leo couldn’t just pay at least one of them off, and another could have easily lost his reputation. And i think at least in one case the villainy was explained by mental ill-health, which I frankly hate because it’s an easy excuse that stigmatizes and others the mentally ill. Then there was the non-consensual foreplay.
I’m trying to remember what I liked about this book and the only thing that comes to mind is that Leo had Cat’s glasses fixed. I also liked the scene where he discovered her natural hair color but that was in the previous book, not this one.
Lastly, let me say how happy I am to hear that you are stepping away from Amazon Firsts in favor of Netgalley! :)
The portrayal of ferrets in movies and books is often misleading. Yes, they are adorable and wonderful pets. Yes, they are playful and mischievous. But they have short attention spans and sleep a lot. They’ll steal your wallet (or, depending on the ferret, your shoe insoles), hide them, and then take a nap. They’ve been used to run wires through long tubes, but have a habit of stopping halfway for a little snooze. Training them to be, say, Jewel thieves or something must take a lot better treats then we can find.
(You can see photos of my adorable ferret fuzzballs, usually asleep, on my Instagram Kris_Bock_Author)
@Li: Thank you! Yeah, I know it means a lot to a lot of people, but it was sort of a mixed bag for me.
@DiscoDollyDeb: The Likeness is the second one, right? I may try that since I did like the main character.
@Janine: I definitely think that Leo got away with stuff because of his devil-may-care, self-deprecating, humorous attitude.
I am almost done with with the last book in the series and while I didn’t love any one book, overall I kind of loved the Hathaways? I mean, I’m sure there are other examples of this type of family in historical series, but I just liked that they were kind of, collectively, a mess, and the people they paired with had to contend with that aspect of them.
@Kris Bock: They are adorable!
Honestly, the main thing that’s put me off ferrets is that I’ve heard that they smell. :-(
@Jennie: Re. the Hathaways, yes! They were tangled up in all kinds of complications, but there was a warmth to their interactions as a group that I really liked. The Ravenels, by comparison, although they are interesting people and care for each other, have an aloofness that the Hathaways don’t share.
@Jennie: Re Leo, yes, but that’s exactly what didn’t work for me. I don’t like it when characters or their actions are whitewashed, and while that wasn’t exactly what happened it here, sliding his character flaws and his meanness under the rug of charming rogue didn’t make me happy. I can forgive a lot more when a spade is called a spade and villainy is called out in a book.
I had the same sense of betrayal and disappointment in Ryan with In the Woods, but, as it’s with you, I came to peace with it. He’s so selfdestructive…
Contrariwise, The Likeness is my least favourite of the series, because – and this is really not a spoiler – the setup is that two young women look entirely like each other. I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief far enough to allow me to buy into the story.
But I do love the series as a whole. The shifting protagonist is really interesting – I was about to write that I’ve never read that done before, but then realised I have, many, many times, in connected romance series.
Bit of a lightbulb moment: that’s something that romance series often do badly, and I certainly can’t think of an example where the author handles it as well as French does in these books.
@Janine: I think in general I like the women in the series more than the men – in retrospect, Cam is probably the most likable to me. He’s also the least tortured, so maybe that’s the difference.
@Lila: I think what was weird for me was that I just didn’t see it at first! Even with his blind spot about the villain, I just sort of took him at face value. It doesn’t feel like an inconsistency, though – it feels like a well-crafted unreliable narrator. I think that’s why the book has stayed with me.
@MMcA: I wonder if it’s because the requirements of romance make comparisons between main couples troublesome? How many times have we read the first book in a series where the hero is described as super-tall and muscular, and then the second book comes along and the hero is just a little taller and brawnier? Imagine how big the hero in the fifth book is!
I probably still will try The Likeness because I’m interested in Cassie. Even if I’m disappointed there’s not more of Ryan in it (it’s probably for the best, actually).
I read Lucy Foley’s later book first and really loved it. I couldn’t put it down! I was looking for more from her and realized I already had Hunting Party. I’m close to half way through and, yes, it is basically the same book but still very fun.
@Kim W: This is the one that just came out – on the Irish island with the wedding?
@Jennie: I liked Cam best of the men in the series as well (setting aside the role cultural appropriation and exoticization played there). But I don’t know if I’d say the women were all that either. I disliked Win and Amelia and Cat were just so-so. We’ve already discussed Poppy, so I’ll add that Beatrix is probably my second most favorite of the female protagonists in the series, and I like her better than Christopher.
@Janine: I think I liked Amelia pretty well, but I read that book approximately 825 years ago (actually, a few months). I probably liked Cat the least of the heroines but that’s partly just because I felt like her big reveal (why she’d been in hiding for years) was so much less interesting than it could be.
Thanks, Jennie.
I read Alcott’s books when I was young and they were…ok. There were aspects that I liked, but was ultimately left unsatisfied. I’ve never been tempted to revisit any of them.
I’ve always heard such good things about French. I’ve picked up several of her books over the years, but In the Woods is the only one I’ve read. Or, I should say, attempted to read. I finally cheated and read the ending to see if it got better. I don’t remember the details, but it was enough to decide to ditch it altogether.
And I agree with many of the comments about the Kleypas books. I really disliked Harry for most of that book, but was ok, if not enthusiastic, about him by the end. And Poppy was great. But I despised Leo in his book. It–and he–was such a disappointment. I really liked him in the other books so it was a shame he was so awful when he got center stage.
I have several of the other titles on my Kindle (Foley, Kane, Larson) so maybe I should give them a shot. If I can break out of my lethargy.
(Sorry for any typos)
@Jennie: I think my problem with Amelia was that she was stressed for most of the book and that felt too familiar (and stressful) to be enjoyable. Great point about the reveal re Cat.
@Susan: Thank you for saying that about Leo. So many people loved him years ago when the series was being discussed. I’m glad I’m not alone.
@Susan: To get out of a slump I’d go for the Foley; it’s fun (if that’s an appropriate word for a book where someone gets murdered!).
@Janine: I think I related to that aspect of Amelia’s personality, though I can see it going either way.