Review: The Last Widow (by Karin Slaughter)

My Rating:  4 stars

 

I normally don’t like to jump into a series in the middle without having read all of the previous books, as I’m pretty big on character development and the concern is always that I won’t be able to relate much to the characters due to missing out on so much of their backstory.  Given this concern, I was a bit apprehensive at first when I received an ARC of Karin Slaughter’s latest thriller The Last Widow, which is actually book 9 in the Will Trent series and also features characters from the previous Grant County series, neither of which I have read before.  On top of that, I’ve also never read this author before, despite the fact that she is one of the most popular writers in the mystery/thriller genre and I’ve had several of her books on my TBR list for awhile. 

My original intention was to start from the beginning of the series and read my way through to the current one so I could familiarize myself with the characters’ backstories, but of course with the time crunch I was under, that didn’t end up happening, so I made the last-minute decision to jump right into this one and hope for the best.  Well, it turns out I needn’t have worried, as the character and relationship development in this particular installment were excellent – Slaughter included enough details from the main characters Will Trent and Sara Linton’s backstories that I was able to read this as a standalone without feeling confused or that something was missing.  More than that though, I actually became enamored with both characters and liked them to the point that, by the end of the book, I really wanted to read all the previous installments in this series so I could see for myself how Will and Sara’s relationship evolved as well as understand their respective histories individually before they became a couple.

From a plot and story perspective, this was an intense, action-packed read, one that I found myself unable to put down after starting it.  My review will be deliberately vague where the plot is concerned, as the book summary already provides enough information in this regard, plus as a thriller, it’s best to go into this one knowing as little as possible. With that said though, I do have to mention that the story was a lot more violent and graphic than I expected, so if that’s a concern, then definitely be warned.  For me personally, the subject matter was also outside the realm of what I usually read, so it would seem that I’d have difficulty getting into the story, but Slaughter is such a powerful storyteller that, a few pages in, I was already drawn into and hooked on the story.  One of the things that I still can’t get over after having finished reading this is how timely the story was given the current world we live in — there was a huge “ripped from the headlines” realistic feel to so many of the events that occurred in the story, which is a testament to the astounding amount of research that Slaughter put into her work.  

This is a book that I’m sure fans of the Will Trent series will enjoy, though it also works extremely well as a stand-alone, so if, like me, you haven’t yet read the previous books in the series, I still recommend diving into this one sooner rather than later; for fans of fast-paced, intense, well-written thrillers, this one is pretty much a must-read!  I know for me, I definitely can’t wait to read the next book in this series, though hopefully by the time the next one comes out, I will have caught up with this series’ backlist first!

Received ARC from William Morrow (HarperCollins) via NetGalley.

Review: The Accidentals (by Minrose Gwin)

My Rating: 3 stars

This book was a bit of a mixed bag for me, to the point that, despite having finished reading this a few days ago, I'm still struggling to gather my thoughts together so I can write a coherent review.  On the surface, the story sounds simple enough:  it is the year 1957 and the McAlister family – Olivia, her husband Holly, their 2 young daughters Grace and June – live an ordinary life in the small town of Opelika, Mississippi.  Holly is a bookkeeper at the local lumber mill while Olivia is a stay-at-home mother whose only pastime outside of taking care of the household is watching over the birds that seem to like making a home in the family's backyard.  As an interracial family living in a society where the seeds of racial divide were starting to fester, the McAlisters kept to themselves as much as possible, often not engaging much with the outside world aside from the regular routine of work and school.  Feeling restless and blown off course, Olivia dreams of returning to the much larger life she had prior to her marriage, where she ran the main office for a landing boat factory in New Orleans, during a time when everyone was treated the same regardless of the color of one's skin.   It is this feeling of being blow off course to a place where she doesn't belong -- similar to the "accidentals" (migratory birds found outside of their normal geographic range) she sometimes sees in her yard – that triggers a strong reaction in Olivia when she finds out that she is pregnant again.  The fateful decision that Olivia makes sets in motion a trajectory that has an unexpected and drastic impact not only on her husband and daughters, but also on other individuals whose lives end up intersecting with her family's.

There were things that I felt worked well with this story, the biggest one being character development, especially with the two sisters at the center of the story – Grace and June.  However, even the "supporting" characters were well-developed, which is especially significant given the fact that these characters only feature once or twice in the story, yet I felt like I knew them as well as I knew the main characters.  Having each chapter alternately narrated from the first person perspective of the various characters definitely helped, as each was able to provide some insight into their relevant backstories.  I also thought it was clever how the title and the overall theme of birds and nature were incorporated into the story.  The parallels between the flight patterns of the "accidentals" and how the characters led their lives were interesting and elevated the story a bit for me from a literary standpoint.

With that said, there were quite a few things about this book that frustrated me and therefore made the reading experience a bit tedious. First and foremost was the writing, which was inconsistent — there were some sections where the descriptions were either too vague or abstract imagery was used to refer to something that could've been described in a more straightforward manner (i.e.: pregnancy), which at times made it difficult to understand what was happening in a particular scene.  At the same time, there were also sections that dwelled too much on descriptions that didn't seem to have much to do with the plot (something that I like to call "gratuitous descriptive imagery").   The other issue was the pacing of the story, which, as other reviewers have commented, was a bit messy.  The story supposedly spanned a 50 year timeframe, however as the story progressed, the only indication there was of the time period was the mention of various historical events, mostly referenced only in passing.  In terms of subject matter, the story did touch on some pretty heavy societal topics such as abortion, teen pregnancy, homosexuality, racism and segregation, mental illness, cancer, Alzheimer's, etc., but most were only glossed over and not explored in-depth.  It seemed that the story tried to cover too much ground, which caused its focus to waver and made the story a bit hard to follow.  

Overall, this book had a lot of potential and is definitely worth a read, it's just that it would've been better if the story had been more focused and more tightly written.  Now of course, it's possible the story was deliberately written this way in keeping with the "accidentals" theme, which is fine, just need to be aware going in that more focused may be needed when reading.

Received ARC from William Morrow (HarperCollins) via NetGalley.

Review: Keeping Lucy (by T. Greenwood)

My Rating: 2.5 stars

Last year, I had read and loved T. Greenwood's beautifully written novel Rust & Stardust, her fictional retelling of the Sally Horner case.  The way that story was written — hauntingly powerful, heartfelt, sincere...a deeply emotional story that shook me to the core and continued to stay with me long after I had finished reading it.  Given this background, when I was offered a galley of Greenwood's next novel Keeping Lucy, I eagerly accepted.  After reading the summary and discovering that it would be about a mother forced to send her baby daughter, born with Down Syndrome, away to a special needs school, I expected another deeply emotional, heartfelt story.  Going into this book with such high expectations, I'm sorry to say that I ended up sorely disappointed with how this one turned out.

From the writing to the characters to the execution of the story, Keeping Lucy felt completely opposite to what Rust & Stardust had been — to the point that, as I was reading, I couldn't help shaking my head and wondering whether this could've been written by the same author whose previous book I had adored.  The story actually started off fine, as the opening chapters did a great job of setting up the story as well as the emotional undertones for the events that I thought were about to unfold — a heart-wrenching story about Lucy, the horrors she endured at that school, and her mother's fight to get her back.  Unfortunately, about a quarter of the way into the story,  the plot went completely off the rails and instead of getting to hear Lucy's emotional story as I expected, it became a "road trip" story of sorts when Ginny (Lucy's mother) and her best friend Martha decide to drive across the country with the kids in tow.  From there, the remainder of the story was pretty much about the various situations that Ginny and Martha get themselves into and how they wind up getting themselves out of them.  It felt as though Lucy's story was placed on the back burner, glossed over and forgotten, only brought back out to the forefront when it was convenient to do so, but still sparingly for the most part, as that "terrible place" and the horrors Lucy must have endured are repeatedly alluded to but rarely addressed directly.  

The writing this time around was also off.  Whereas with Rust & Stardust, the writing felt lyrical and poetic and there was a strong sense of time and place, I unfortunately didn't feel any of that with Keeping Lucy.  The writing in this one felt a bit all over the place – overly descriptive in some parts, not descriptive enough in others.  There was also a lot of what I would classify as "unnecessary descriptions of the mundane" – for example, descriptions along the lines of the following:  'she got in the car, turned the key in the ignition, pressed one foot on the clutch, the other on the brake, put her hands on the steering wheel, and looked out the windshield in front of her' (paraphrased and not direct quote from the book!) – which dragged the story down tremendously for me.  Instead of the many superfluous descriptions that seemed to be of little significance and did nothing to advance the plot, it would have been better to use that space to actually tell Lucy's story.

With all that said, what frustrated me the most about this book was actually the characters — specifically the adult characters in the story — most of whom were unlikable.  The way Ginny's character was written especially frustrated me – throughout the time that Ginny and Marsha were on the run, a significant portion of the story consisted of  a constant barrage of Ginny's thoughts as she debated back and forth (often in her own mind) about everything from her decision to run away, to the status of her marriage, to her relationship with her husband's domineering parents, etc.  Oftentimes, Ginny came across as fickle and never quite able to make up her mind about anything, though the most annoying part for me was how her thoughts always seemed to get caught up in an endless loop where she's wracked with guilt one minute, anger the next minute, then doesn't know how she feels the minute after that – the pattern seemed to be that she would reflect about all the regrets in her life, how she deliberately chose to stick her head in the sand, to ignore the signs and keep quiet when she should've said something, but then she turns around and tries to justify why things happened that way, that perhaps it's no one's fault, then realizes she is making excuses, wakes herself up to reality, then tries to push all the thoughts out of her mind completely.  I usually don't mind flawed characters in a story as long as they are written realistically, but when the portrayal goes overboard to the point that it becomes melodrama that detracts from the story itself, that's when it becomes too much for me -- instead of being able to connect with the character or feel any type of empathy for what they're going through, I feel annoyed and frustrated instead.

This was a book that I really really wanted to like, but found it extremely hard to do so.  With that said, I won't discount this author yet, as I've only read 2 books of hers so far that have fallen on the opposite ends of the spectrum for me.  Hopefully Greenwood's next book will be able to deliver a heartfelt and emotionally resonant story along the lines of Rust & Stardust rather than Keeping Lucy.

Received ARC from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley.

Review: Things You Save in a Fire (by Katherine Center)

My Rating: 4 stars

After reading a slew of suspense thrillers the past few months, Katherine Center’s sweet romance Things You Save in a Fire was a welcome respite from all the “heavy stuff” that has defined my reading world recently.  Romance usually isn’t a preferred genre of mine, but I needed something light-hearted and uplifting and after reading the summary for Center’s latest work, I was hopeful that this would fit the bill of what I was looking for.  Barely a few pages in, I already knew I had made the right choice — not only did this book fit the bill, it actually ended up being a book that I enjoyed way more then I expected.  

From the very first page, where we are introduced to Cassie Hanwell, a young female firefighter getting ready to accept an award for her valor and service at a banquet in her honor, I immediately took a liking to her character.  As the story progressed and I got to know Cassie on a deeper level —  her vulnerabilities when it came to love due to a bad experience in her past, her struggles with forgiveness toward a mother who abandoned her many years ago, her devotion and dedication to a job that she not only adored but also excelled at, her drive to prove herself and overcome the prejudices of colleagues in a line of work that traditionally has been dominated by men — I grew to love her character and wanted to root for her every step of the way.   I love stories with strong female characters that are realistically drawn (meaning they have flaws and vulnerabilities that make them relatable to ordinary folks like us) and this book had plenty of them — Cassie’s mother Diana and her neighbor Josie were two other characters I adored and found myself rooting for.

Story-wise, this was one of those books where, as a reader, I already knew going into it that the plot would be predictable and that there would be a guaranteed "happily-ever-after" ending for the main character, but I was perfectly fine with this because the lovely process of getting there was what defined the experience for me.  The story had a wonderful balance of the humorous and the sentimental to it that made me laugh out loud one minute but get teary-eyed the next minute — a balance that occurred naturally to the point that it appeared effortless.  One of the things I always hope to experience when I read fiction is emotional resonance, which this book absolutely delivered.

This is actually the second book I’ve read by Katherine Center, as I read her previous novel How To Walk Away last year, but wasn’t tremendously keen on it.  With that book, one of the main issues I had was the execution of the story — it felt a bit too cliched and contrived for me, with some parts bordering on melodramatic, which made it difficult for me to connect with the characters as well as the overall story itself.  With Things You Save in a Fire however, the vibe was very different — it was sweet, sentimental, and yes, a little sappy at times, but it was also equal parts fun and uplifting.  I guess the biggest difference was that this one felt so much more authentic and heartfelt, which made an emotional connection easier to establish.

For a cynical reader like me who usually won’t gravitate toward a sentimental romance, this book definitely won me over!  Romance fans definitely shouldn’t miss this one but I think non-romance readers would enjoy this as well.  

Received paperback ARC direct from publisher (St. Martin’s Press) as part of the “Booked Up All Night” early reader campaign.

#tysiaf  #thingsyousavebook

Review: Because You're Mine (by Rea Frey)

My Rating:  3 stars

After having read Rea Frey’s debut novel Not Her Daughter last year – a book that I had enjoyed for its good writing, fast-moving plot, and emotionally resonant story — I was excited to get my hands on her second novel, Because You’re Mine, which comes out this month. While I did enjoy this one well enough, I prefer her previous novel way more, as there was much more depth to the story and the characters in that one, which I didn’t find with this one.  With that said, one thing I thought worked well was having each chapter alternately narrated by the three main characters of Lee, Grace, and Noah, and weaving their backstories from the past into what was happening in the present.  Even so, I couldn’t really relate to any of the characters and found it difficult to feel anything for them despite some of the things that happen — it’s hard to pinpoint exactly but I felt like something was off with some of the character portrayals that made it difficult for me to connect with them emotionally.  In terms of the story, I think this one tried a bit harder to go the thriller / suspense route than her previous book did, which worked fine overall, but at times, I felt like it tried a little too hard in that the story didn’t really flow naturally in some places  -- it was as though some “obligatory” elements were added to make things come across more suspenseful or heighten the atmosphere when technically it wasn’t necessary to do so.  Towards the middle of the story, the plot did drag a little, with some overly descriptive sections that I felt weren’t necessary either, and at one point, the story seemed to veer off course a little, leaving me wondering where things were actually headed. The ending too I mostly figured out early on, so the “twist” wasn’t much of a shock to me, though the way it took place could have been handled a little better.

All in all, I would say that this was a decent second effort by Rea Frey – definitely pales in comparison to her debut, but still quite readable.  The concept of the story was a good one, but I think if the writing was cleaned up a bit, with focus on tightening the plot (especially leaving out some of the unnecessary descriptions) and developing the characters so that they were more relatable, this would have a lot of potential -- as it is written right now though, definitely leaves a lot to be desired.  With all that said, I still look forward to reading Frey’s next work, I just hope that the experience will be more in-line with her first book rather than this one.

Received ARC from St. Martin’s Griffin via NetGalley.