April Mini-Reviews ~ A Half Dozen!

The last couple months have been a weird time. A very weird time. As I write this post, most of us are starting our seventh week of social distancing and largely staying at home. The first couple of weeks my mind was bouncing around all over the place and reading was HARD. As April began, I settled in and reading came back to me as a comfort. Writing, however has remained difficult. Part of it is time, since teaching from home is so much harder than I’d ever imagined, but most of it is just mental head space. So now, at the end of April, I have six books I’ve yet to review, and am going to take care of them all in a series of very short reviews!

As I do so, I want to clear something up. I’ve had comments about books that I give a grade in the B range to as not being a book I liked. That’s far from true. A grade in the B range is a book I gave 4 stars to on Goodreads. It’s probably not a book that’s going to end up on my Best Books of the Year list, but it is still a book well worth reading. An A book has to completely blow me away and leave me with a book hangover, but a B book did its job. It entertained me and I think they’ll do the same for many others!

The Holdout by Graham Moore
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: February 18, 2020
Length: 336 pages
Amazon

My Thoughts: The Holdout was the perfect book at the perfect time. I read it during one of the first weeks of quarantine when my mind was a complete muddle. I’d rejected several books and finally found the one to hold my interest. This the story of Maya who 15 years earlier was the lone holdout on a jury in the case of the murder of a 15-year old Jessica Silver. One by one she turned her fellow jurors and suspect, Bobby Knock, was found innocent. Through the years the case got a lot of press and in the present, Maya, now a successful attorney, is the main suspect in the murder of one of the other jurors. The back and forth of the two storylines gave The Holdout just the right pace and quickly drew me into both cases. I found myself eager to know what had really happened to Jessica and to see how Maya would prove her own innocence. This was a swift fun read, sort of like a mental spa day! Grade: A-

St. Ivo by Joanna Hershon
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: April 14, 2020
Length: 224 pages
Amazon

My Thoughts: I liked St. Ivo very much, but don’t think it will be for everyone. This is a dark story of a couple who have lost their only child, an adult, in a way that few others could understand. The two, Sarah and Matthew, have struggled with each other and how to handle their grief. On the eve of going to spend a weekend with friends they haven’t seen in years, the two are mugged in a NYC park. This lets something loose in Sarah, and we watch her crumble ver the course of a weekend. St. Ivo dove deep into Sarah’s grief and how it affected everyone she came in contact with: her husband, friends, strangers. At times I found her a little annoying, but more than anything I felt pity for her. I know my description sounds morose, but I did enjoy this sad, short novel. The loss was so much different than I’d expected and Hershon pulled at my heart as she exposed a type of grief I’d not read before. Grade: B

Note: I received a copy of this book from Farrar, Straus and Giroux (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Perfect Tunes by Emily Gould
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Release Date: April 14, 2020
Length: 288 pages
Amazon

My Thoughts: Perfect Tunes was one of the books I was most looking forward to from my Spring Preview 2020. The story of a young woman who came to NYC with dreams of making it as a musician sounded ideal for me. I also was intrigued by the idea of her life fifteen years later with a daughter asking questions about who her father is. I expected a lot, but sadly for me Perfect Tunes just didn’t deliver quite what I’d hoped. What bothered me most was the main character, Laura. She hit difficulty early on that derailed her career, and that felt real and right. The part that didn’t feel real was Laura turning down opportunity after opportunity to get back into the music scene. She always had reasons for not doings so, but I never felt like she truly looked for solutions, ways around the obstacles. As women, we all have to do that, and I didn’t like that for so long Laura couldn’t fight for herself. Perfect Tunes was an easy book to read. It held my interest, that is when I didn’t feel like throwing it across the room! Grade: C+

Note: I received a copy of this book from Avid Reader Press (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Pretty Things by Janelle Brown
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: April 21, 2020
Length: 496 pages
Amazon

My Thoughts: I’m sorry to say that for me there was little special about Pretty Things. It was a usual kind of story of a scam with a twist. I was initially drawn to the book because it was a thriller set in Lake Tahoe and it had dual narrators which I always like. It delivered all that, but with no real surprises and it was at least 100 pages too long. The story was told by Nina, the grifter, involved in a scam on Vanessa, a vapid Instagram influencer who came from a wealthy California family. Vanessa was the stories other narrator. It was a great set up, but there was far too much of the two telling the same events from their individual perspectives. Skimming began in those parts and that’s never good! Pretty Things reminded me why I often have a hard time with thrillers! Grade: C+

Note: I received a copy of this book from Random House (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Master Class by Christina Dalcher
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: April 21, 2020
Length: 336 pages
Amazon

My Thoughts: I was a huge fan of Christina Dalcher’s last book VOX (my review), so expectations were high for Master Class. Like VOX, Master Class is a story of a time not far in the future where things have gone a little off the rails. In this case, a system has developed where everyone has a “Q” score, based largely on IQ, but also includes test scores, influences of family members and more. These scores determine many things, but most of all the level of schools children will attend and things have moved to the extreme. Children at the lowest level are being taken away to isolated “schools” and their parents can only see them a few times a year, while those at the highest levels are getting a luxury education. It was a fun story, and I appreciate Dalcher’s political leanings.

“It started with fear, and it ended with laws.”

This was clearly written in part as a response to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her clear love of Charter Schools. Fast, easy and just a little bit scary, I liked Master Class well enough! Grade: B-

Note: I received a copy of this book from Berkley (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest thoughts.

The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe
Publisher: Knopf
Release Date: April 28, 2020
Length: 288 pages
Amazon

My Thoughts: I would have to say that Rufi Thorpe is one of my very favorite authors. Her first book, The Girls From Corona Del Mar, is one of my all time favorite debuts. I also really liked her next book, Dear Fang, With Love (my review), so the bar was set high for The Knockout Queen. Unfortunately, for me, it didn’t quite reach the level of the other two. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it. I just wasn’t awed, as I was with her other books. The Knockout Queen is an intense, character-driven novel about Michael and Bunny, two teens with wildly different sets of problems, but who somehow connect, offering support and comfort to the other. I loved their unusual friendship and their uniquely different lives. The older they grew, the more troubled their lives and their friendship became. It fell a little short for me in that neither character ever came fully to life. Still, I’m in the minority in not adoring this book. It’s Goodreads ratings are off the charts! Grade: B-

Note: I received a copy of this book from Knopf (via Edelweiss) in exchange for my honest thoughts.

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