Monica read and liked ♥Eva♥ 's review of The Doctor's Wife: A True Story of Marriage, Deception and Two Gruesome Murders:

"There were a few problems with this book IMO opinion, althought nothing earth-shattering. I found one, literally one, error in the entire book which pleased me to no end after the horrific editing mistakes I've come across in the past month or two. ...more There were a few problems with this book IMO opinion, althought nothing earth-shattering. I found one, literally one, error in the entire book which pleased me to no end after the horrific editing mistakes I've come across in the past month or two.
Now for my opinions:
I think it sucks and was for no reason other than shock value for Glatt to put excerpts from the victim's emails to another woman she was having an on-line affair with. As far as I can see there is absolutely no reason to include them. How mortifying for her family. I'd love to ask Glatt what the point of that was. I can understand that having to come out in court but 'I wanted all the information available to the public' doesn't work for me here. There was no need and it was insulting to me on behalf of the victim and her family. It's bad enough they had to hear all of it in court.
I also don't understand why the husband was listed as a survivor in the victim's obit. Her sister wrote the obit so why in the living hell was her murderer included? WTF?
The victim's parents found there way around this, thank God above, but why in the world is the husband of a murdered wife allowed to give directions to not only have his wife cremated but be allowed to pick up the ashes at his descretion, all the while under suspicion of murdering said wife? I'm sorry but it seems to me that there should be a law that negates any and all marriage rights when the other person is being investigated for the other persons murder. Had he got the ashes what would that have done to the family, on top of everything else? I applaud the parents for doing what they did with her ashes. I'd have done the same exact thing myself.
There were a few confusing instances, one where the lead detective asked the defendant's brother how he knew that his wife was dead before he was notified. A few pages earlier it was written that a friend called the defendant to "break" the news to him.
When the case went before a grand jury, and after the grand jury heard testimony from the defendant's brothers, the lead detective withdrew the case from the grand jury's consideration. Huh? That's it - no more info on that. It makes no sense and I'd like to know the decision behind that personally. I think that's very important to this story and this book.
The defendant's sister-in-law, Edwina Tims, is portrayed like a hungry vulture and I think Glatt portrayed her correctly. It was hilarious at the end, when the husband confesses, and then she above all, but the rest of his family too, look like the assholes they are. God forbid, if someone in my family murdered someone I would stand by them...BUT I would NOT make excuses for them and I would NOT make the victim(s) or the victim(s) families look bad. His family should be ashamed of themselves with Tims heading the list. I can only hope she stumbles upon this review at some time or another - YOU'RE A DISGUSTING HUMAN BEING. Almost as disgusting as your brother-in-law and you dare spout that you're a Christian? Laughable.
Lastly, and this is right at Glatt - stop putting the false advertising on your books that say it's full of "alarming" and "shocking" photos.....unless it is. Read my updates for more info on this. I know ALL t.c.'s do this but it's endlessly annoying to flip to the photo section and see the prosecutor's face as a "shocking" photo, the high school the murderer went to, his home he grew up in, the city sign for the city he lived in, etc. STOP IT. (less) "

Monica read and liked ♥Eva♥ 's review of I Remember Nothing More: The Warsaw Children's Hospital and the Jewish Resistance:

"This is one of the most powerul memoirs I've read in my lifetime - easily. The fact that the author didn't put much stock in her writing is amazing to me. Almost as amazing as her story. Her story is far different than the "average" Holocau...more This is one of the most powerul memoirs I've read in my lifetime - easily. The fact that the author didn't put much stock in her writing is amazing to me. Almost as amazing as her story. Her story is far different than the "average" Holocaust memoir in that Blady-Szwajgier's experience was not in a concentration camp. Which isn't to say her life during this time was any less terrifying.
You donn't want to miss this memoir!(less) "

Monica read and liked Abigail's review of Lost Magic:

"Ceridwen, an orphan known for her first twelve years simply as Waif, is taught herblore and healing by the traveling Wise-Woman Gallena, who warns her that all magic must have a purpose, and that simple tricks and illusion are the work of the Devil. ...more Ceridwen, an orphan known for her first twelve years simply as Waif, is taught herblore and healing by the traveling Wise-Woman Gallena, who warns her that all magic must have a purpose, and that simple tricks and illusion are the work of the Devil. When she heals Lord Robert, lord of the very castle in whose shadow she has always lived, Ceridwen finds her life transformed with dizzying swiftness. Proclaimed the Wise Woman of Bedevere, she is given her own garden and room in the castle, and after being made the companion of Lord Robert’s young daughter, Elinor, is given the precious gift of literacy, reserved only for the privileged few. But the jealousy of Dame Bewick, a castle servant with grand ambitions and an unpleasant disposition, and the arrival of the Plague at Bedevere, spell trouble for Ceridwen's new life and happiness...

While the transformation of Ceridwen’s social station seems unrealistic for the fourteenth century, the folk-lore elements of Lost Magic are intriguing. The "magic" practiced here seems mostly to be herblore, though there are references to more powerful spells, and some genuinely supernatural elements, from fairy changelings to ancient sorcerers, are included. The Wise-Woman figure has been explored by authors such as Monica Furlong and Frances Mary Hendry, as well as featuring (not so positively) in Joan Aiken’s The Cuckoo Tree, and readers interested in this archetype should seek out those authors.(less) "

Monica read and liked Jessica's review of The Street:

"I'm hesitant to give this four stars for a couple of reasons: one, because I know it was flawed in certain important ways, but to me the stars have to do with how much I personally enjoyed a book, not how technically "good" it was, so I thi...more I'm hesitant to give this four stars for a couple of reasons: one, because I know it was flawed in certain important ways, but to me the stars have to do with how much I personally enjoyed a book, not how technically "good" it was, so I think that's okay. The main reason I'm afraid of singing this book's praises too loudly is that I really loved it, and being able to see its problems and knowing other people might not think it's good really hurts my feelings. I feel protective of this book, and it upsets me to think about other people maligning it. So please don't read this unless you're going to like it!

The Street is Ann Petry's 1946 novel about single mother Lutie Johnson's efforts to raise her son and escape poverty while living on 116h Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in Harlem. Young, black, beautiful, poor, and socially isolated, Lutie is constantly and acutely aware of the ways in which her existence and her son's future are limited and crushed by the forces of racism and class. I am sure that today's college students really freak out about this book for its sophisticated mid-twentieth-century examination of the paradigm of intersectionality: race! class! gender! It's all here, in this artfully structured novel that moves easily among the perspectives of a handful of the Street's denizens. I found the characters in this book to be brilliantly crafted. Petry has us see through the eyes not just of Lutie but of her eight-year-old son; their malevolent, predatory, mentally-deranged super; the super's pathetic, oppressed, but resilient companion; the building's massive and fire-scarred, red-kerchiefed madam; and other characters whose individuality comes to life, even as Petry lends them each the dignity of her distinctive and -- I thought -- quite beautiful voice. That's really hard to do, and this book accomplished it. The characters make decisions and behave in ways that are often strange, morally questionable, or undoubtably wrong, but the author successfully makes them so human that we understand their reasoning and can't fully judge them.

The Street suffered from two major problems: one, social novel syndrome, by which I mean that Petry's obvious efforts to show the effects of racism and injustice on individuals' lives did often overwhelm the story and get too annoyingly obvious. Every page has Lutie's meditations on the the effects of racism, poverty, and segregated urban slums, and it did get tiresome and undermined the book's power. But a lot of this might have been due to its other flaw, first novel syndrome: The Street was Petry's first book, and it has many marks of that including unnecessary repetition, a failure at crucial points to trust the reader, and what I thought was a hasty, melodramatic, and unbelievable ending. I'm definitely interested in reading Petry's other books to see what she was like when she matured more as a writer. Her gifts of character and description are, I thought, sensational. I can picture Lutie's apartment, the building, and her street nearly as vividly as I can see my own, and all the characters were as physically and nearly as psychologically real to me as the people I encounter in daily life. Since few books can convey a physical environment to me so well, I really found this to be special.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in a depiction of Harlem in the days before drugs (on a wide scale), guns, housing projects, white gentrification, and extensive social services and welfare benefits. I'm pretty familiar with the neighborhood she's talking about, and it was very interesting to see how things have and have not changed since the 1940s. This is one of the better novels I've read about Black American urban life in the pre-Civil-Rights era, and I might recommend it for that to some parties. But the real reason I thought The Street was so good was on its merits as a work of fiction. While I know the social novel stuff could turn off a lot of readers, I felt the same delight from this as from a good children's storybook -- a very disturbing, upsetting children's storybook with a lot of sex and violence and human suffering. But it almost seemed illustrated, that's how vivid it was. I will definitely be reading more by Ann Petry and I'll recommend this book despite my concerns, though if you think it's bad I don't really want to hear about it.(less) "