ARC review: Island Girls by Nancy Thayer

 

Many thanks to Net Galley and Ballantine books for the advance reader's copy of this novel!

 

Synopsis(via Goodreads):

 

Charming ladies’ man Rory Randall dies with one last trick up his sleeve: His will includes a calculating clause mandating a summer-long reunion for his daughters, all from different marriages—that is, if they hope to inherit his posh Nantucket house. Relations among the three sisters are sour thanks to long-festering jealousies, resentments, and misunderstandings. Arden, a successful television host in Boston, hasn’t been back to the island since her teenage years, when accusations of serious misbehavior led to her banishment. College professor Meg hopes to use her summer to finish a literary biography and avoid an amorous colleague. And secretive Jenny, an IT specialist, faces troubling questions about her identity while longing for her sisters’ acceptance.

To their surprise, the three young women find their newfound sisterhood easier to trust than the men who show up to complicate their lives. And if that weren’t problematic enough, their mothers descend on the island. When yet another visitor drops by the house with shocking news, the past comes screaming back with a vengeance. Having all the women from his life under his seaside roof—and overseeing the subsequent drama of that perfect storm—Rory Randall might just be enjoying a hearty laugh from above.

 

This insomniac's opinion:

You may have noticed a change in my summer reading habits. I think the Iowa heat drains me of a bit of my brainpower and I find myself craving books within the category that I like to call 'Brain Candy'- i.e. no deep thought necessary, just a delightful sugary romp within. Nancy Thayer is pretty amazing at brain candy.

This novel has what every Thayer novel has: Nantucket beaches, female relationships, charming  men and sex. Hello, summer in a book! I loved the developing relationships between the sisters, even if it was predictable and unrealistic at times. The slow pace and descriptions of living in Nantucket gave me a distinctly summer vacation feel. Very enjoyable.

Worth staying up all night to read?

This would be the perfect book to stash in your beach bag and read in the sun.

Rating: 3 stars

 

When it Happens to You by Molly Ringwald

 

Synopsis(via Goodreads):

 

When it happens to you, you will be surprised. That thing they say about how you knew all the time, but just weren't facing it? That might be the case, but nevertheless, there you will be.

Molly Ringwald mines the complexities of modern relationships in this gripping and nuanced collection of interlinked stories. Writing with a deep compassion for human imperfection, Ringwald follows a Los Angeles family and their friends and neighbors while they negotiate the hazardous terrain of everyday life—revealing the deceptions, heartbreak, and vulnerability familiar to us all.

 

This insomniac's opinion:

 

Well, knock me over with a feather. Molly Ringwald can actually write.

 

I had no intention to read this collection of short stories, but fate had another idea. When I was browsing through audiobook selections on Overdrive that were immediately available, this was pretty much the only title that I had not read. I was in the middle of a paperwork nightmare at work and desperately needed an immediate download to distract me from my nurse's hell. This was it.

 

Molly Ringwald narrates the audiobook version and her familiar voice was calming and perfect for the short stories. I have not read many short story collections in which the stories are all inter-related. I think this collection actually gives you a better picture of the characters and the story than a traditional novel format would have. I really enjoyed the all of the characters and felt that they were well-developed. I was worried that, being a celebrity and all, the author would be out of touch with "regular" people. That assumption seems to be misguided, as the everyday drudgery of motherhood and all its trappings seem to be well understood by Ms. Ringwald.

 

Yet another great summer read!

 

Worth staying up all night to read?

 

Yes. However, that's the beauty of short stories- you don't feel as though you have to read the entire book in one sitting.

 

Rating: 4 stars

ARC review: Always Watching by Chevy Stevens

Note: I gratefully received a copy of this novel from Net Galley and St. Martin's Press in exchange for an honest review.

 Synopsis(via Goodreads):


She helps people put their demons to rest.

But she has a few of her own…

In the lockdown ward of a psychiatric hospital, Dr. Nadine Lavoie is in her element. She has the tools to help people, and she has the desire—healing broken families is what she lives for. But Nadine doesn’t want to look too closely at her own past because there are whole chunks of her life that are black holes. It takes all her willpower to tamp down her recurrent claustrophobia, and her daughter, Lisa, is a runaway who has been on the streets for seven years.

When a distraught woman, Heather Simeon, is brought into the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit after a suicide attempt, Nadine gently coaxes her story out of her—and learns of some troubling parallels with her own life. Digging deeper, Nadine is forced to confront her traumatic childhood, and the damage that began when she and her brother were brought by their mother to a remote commune on Vancouver Island. What happened to Nadine? Why was their family destroyed? And why does the name Aaron Quinn, the group’s leader, bring complex feelings of terror to Nadine even today?

And then, the unthinkable happens, and Nadine realizes that danger is closer to home than she ever imagined. She has no choice but to face what terrifies her the most…and fight back.

This insomniac's opinion:

I adored the Chevy Stevens' novel Still Missing so I was thrilled to receive a copy of this ARC(advanced reader's copy). In typical Stevens' style, this novel was heavy on the suspense and twists. I voraciously devoured the first half of the novel and couldn't wait to unravel the mystery.

Unfortunately, the second half of the novel was a bit slow-going for me. The ending was unfortunate. It was like a blow 'em up action movie where they take it so far that it no longer resembles reality in any way.

Criticisms aside, though- this was a great summer read! I really enjoyed it and it did not take long to finish.

Worth staying up all night to read?

Yes. There is a certain scene(ahem, buried alive, ahem) that may give you nightmares, though!

Rating: 3.5 stars

Mermaids by Patty Dann

Synopsis(via Goodreads):

So begins this extraordinary first novel about one wild year in the life of fourteen-year-old Charlotte Flax, when she and her sister Kate move with Mrs. Flax into a sleepy 1960's Massachusetts town. Mrs. Flax is a woman who wears polka-dot dresses and serves hors d'oeuvres for dinner every night, and Kate is a child who basically wants to be a fish.

And then there's Charlotte, who in Patty Dann's hands, is transformed into a young woman of infinite whim and variety. Charlotte's main ambition in life is to become a saint, preferably martyred, though she's Jewish. She's smitten with the shy young caretaker at the convent at the top of the hill. Dann has created a young girl who accepts the unkindness of the mad universe in which she's whirling and takes it on with a savage glee.

This insomniac's opinion:

I realize that my reading of this novel is somewhat backwards. Mermaids, the movie made from this novel, is one of my favorite movies. I love the quirky wonderfulness of Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci as the sisters coming of age in a time that quirkiness wasn't appreciated. So, I was watching the movie a few weeks ago and I noticed the mention that it was based off of a novel. What???? How did I miss this? I immediately got on Half.com and scored an original 1986 hard-cover for pennies. Score!

Just wait, it gets better. You know how you can tell if a book has never been read by the way the pages lay? I could immediately tell that no one had ever flipped a page of this novel. It was a virgin book, my friends! I realize that not everyone would be excited by this, but I most certainly was. I immediately set about taking the book's virginity.

I really enjoyed this short novel. Charlotte is delightfully quirky and the author does a wonderful job of capturing that awful teenage insecurity that overcomes most of us at that age. I do regret not getting to read this novel before seeing the movie because the faces of the actors immediately became the faces of these characters as I began to read. You just can't knock the strong personalities of Cher, Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci out of your mind once they have taken the roles and made them their own. I read this novel in one sitting and was absolutely delighted by it.

Worth staying up all night to read?

Definitely worth reading and no need to stay up all night- I finished it in a couple of hours!

Rating: 4 stars

The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma

 

Synopsis(via Goodreads):

 

When Alice Ozma was in 4th grade, she and her father decided to see if he could read aloud to her for 100 consecutive nights. On the hundreth night, they shared pancakes to celebrate, but it soon became evident that neither wanted to let go of their storytelling ritual. So they decided to continue what they called "The Streak." Alice's father read aloud to her every night without fail until the day she left for college.

Alice approaches her book as a series of vignettes about her relationship with her father and the life lessons learned from the books he read to her.

 

This insomniac's opinion:

 

*contented sigh*

 

Oh, how I adored this book. As a raging bibliophile, I delight in finding others that share my passion for books. This book is the most delightful read about a father(a school librarian with an extraordinary and quirky love for reading out loud) and his daughter, Alice and their "streak". The streak began as a pact to read for 100 nights that stretched into a streak that went on for years.

This book was beautiful in so many ways. The relationship between Alice and her father, their shared love of books and the impact that their reading had on others around them. If you are a fellow bibliophile, this is a must read!

I feel that I must mention another book in this review as it is another must read for fellow bibliophiles. If you have not read The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe, you must add it to your TBR stack immediately! More details here.

Worth staying up all night to read?

Yes! Then pass it on, my bookish buddies!

Rating:

5 stars. Big ole' stars bright enough to read by.



Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwartz

Summary(via Goodreads):

A tragic accident sets in motion a cycle of violence and retribution in John Burnham Schwartz's riveting novel Reservation Road. Two haunted men and their families are engulfed by the emotions surrounding an unexpected and horrendous death. Ethan, a respected professor of literature at a small New England college, is wracked by an obsession with revenge that threatens to tear his family apart. Dwight, a man at once fleeing his crime and hoping to get caught, wrestles with overwhelming guilt and his sense of obligation to his son. As these two men's lives unravel, Reservation Road moves to its startling conclusion. This is an astonishing tale of love and loss, rage and redemption, that is as suspenseful as it is emotionally compelling.

This insomniac's opinion:

This novel was unique in that it told the story from the viewpoints of both the victim's family and the perpetrator. It was engrossing and moving. The grief felt by both parties was so real that it was nearly palpable. I sometimes find that male authors tend to gloss over emotions,even in the toughest of circumstances. That was not the case for this novel- John Burnham Schwartz very effectively makes the reader ache to reach into the novel and comfort the deeply grieving characters. My only complaint is that the novel seemed to stretch on for too long and the ending did not seem to fit the tone of the rest of the novel.

Worth staying up all night to read?

Yes.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Ann Fowler

 

Synopsis(via Goodreads):

 

When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the “ungettable” Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn’t wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. Her father is deeply unimpressed. But after Scott sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to Scribner’s, Zelda optimistically boards a train north, to marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and take the rest as it comes.

What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined attention and success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Everyone wants to meet the dashing young author of the scandalous novel—and his witty, perhaps even more scandalous wife. Zelda bobs her hair, adopts daring new fashions, and revels in this wild new world. Each place they go becomes a playground: New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French Riviera—where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein.

Everything seems new and possible. Troubles, at first, seem to fade like morning mist. But not even Jay Gatsby’s parties go on forever. Who is Zelda, other than the wife of a famous—sometimes infamous—husband? How can she forge her own identity while fighting her demons and Scott’s, too? With brilliant insight and imagination, Therese Anne Fowler brings us Zelda’s irresistible story as she herself might have told it.

 

This insomniac's opinion:

 

I am smack-dab in the middle of an obsession with the Roaring 20's. I think re-reading The Great Gatsby and going to see the movie has awakened some kind of fascination with that time period(and the famous people that lived through it). This book delivered solidly on that front.

 

Other than the major details, I doubt that this novel is very accurate as to Zelda Fitzgerald's life. It is simply impossible to know what is inside someone's mind and marriage. However, if it is taken as it- a fiction novel- it is absolutely fascinating. I learned a lot of things about Zelda(that she was a published writer and was committed to a mental institution, among other things) and had an enormous amount of compassion for her character. It was a delightful romp through another time period and the enormously entertaining(and sometimes tragic) lives of fascinating individuals.

 

Worth staying up all night to read?

 

Yes!

 

Rating:

 

4 stars