Alecia’s Comments

Alecia’s comments from the 75 Books...More or Less! group.

Note: Alecia is not currently a member of this group.

I hope you enjoy it!

Book # 82 Watching You 4/5 stars

I thought this was a very entertaining whodunit with red herrings and sketchy characters populating the book. The author tries to bring resolution to the book with several extra chapters and an epilogue. I'm not sure they were effective, but the whole book was a good read.

Set in the English town of Melville Heights, the story stars several of the neighbors. They include Tom Fitzwilliam, a headmaster who apparently is irresistible to both students and older women alike. He is married with one rather quirky pre-teen son, Freddie, who has a habit of watching and photographing young girls and other neighbors around him. And there is Joey, who is a young recently married woman, who finds herself incredibly attracted to Tom Fitzwilliam. These characters and others keep the book moving along at a good pace with alternating chapters.

Book # 81 An Unwanted Guest 3/5 stars

This is a very quick read, an Agatha Christie type mystery, with lots of possible suspects. The writing is pretty good, and, if it wasn't winter time, I'd label this a beach read...or an airport book.

It's winter time in the book's setting, and the different guests are arriving at this Catskill mountain resort for a week end away. All the guests come with different backstories, of course. And of course the weather turns into a blizzard and then an ice storm. So, without power or internet, these people are stuck together in the hotel with no escape. And then the first murder occurs.

The ending was not bad, and it was a decent, entertaining read.

Book # 80 Wrong light 4/5 stars

This is the first book by Matt Coyle that I have read in the Rick Cahill series. Although one of the storyline threads refers to something that happened in a previous book, I had no problem starting with this book. I really enjoyed the writing and the pacing, but I did suspect whodunit before the reveal.

Rick Cahill is hired by a radio station to protect Naomi, a sexy-voiced DJ, from a stalker. Naomi will not allow Rick to reveal certain secrets from her past that might help him solve the case and work with the police. At the same time he is working on her case, he is forcibly pulled into a case involving the Russian mob. So he is barely sleeping and calling in the few friends he has left on the police force and the FBI to help him.

This was an above-average noir-tinged mystery, and I would read other books by Coyle.

Book # 79 Gone So Long 3/5 stars

I absolutely loved The House Of Sand And Fog. And I liked Townie, his memoir. So I went into reading this book predisposed to really enjoy it. But I found it overlong and full of unrelenting angst. The House of Sand and Fog was also full of angst, but somehow (in my memory at least), it moved faster towards the tragic denouement.

Dubus is a good writer, but in this case, the repetition of misery was too much. The length allows the characters to develop, and the situation he sets up is certainly a dire one; Daniel kills his young, beautiful wife, Linda, and is sent to prison for 15 years. His three year-old daughter, Susan, a witness to the murder of her mother, is brought up by her maternal grandmother, Lois. When Daniel, who is very ill, decides to try and find his daughter, it sets off a roiling pot of emotion for all three characters.

I found the second half of the book better than the first, but even so, I felt it would never end. That is not the feeling I like when reading a book. I think perhaps some better editing might have helped.

And this was one of those really draggy books!

Thank you, Elyse. I was tempted not to finish it, but I forged ahead (and skimmed at the end). So many good reviews, it boggles my mind.

Book # 78 Virgil Wander 2.5/5 stars

I will give this book that I struggled to finish a 2.5 for some good writing like " Adam Leer's famous visitor swirled into Greenstone on a hard-core North Shore day-twigs snatching in the gale, black filth at the storm drains, the sea hissing in dismay". There are a lot of quirky characters with quirky names populating this book, including the main character, Virgil Wander. In some ways the writing felt a bit reminiscent to me of John Irving.

When the novel begins, Virgil is recuperating mentally and physically from an accident where he flies off a bridge in his car into the icy depths of Lake Superior. He runs a local movie theatre and, while he tries to piece his life back together, we meet a lot of locals and hear their stories. Unfortunately for me, this book dragged and I really had to force myself to finish. I felt a lack of motivation from the characters, and quirky oddities were not enough to engage me. There are a lot of good reviews out there, so I am in the minority.

Book # 77 Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood 4/5 stars

Well, Howard Hughes was a bigger piece of work than most of us might have thought. In this exhaustively researched book, the author (the creator and host of the podcast You Must Remember This) tells what it was like to be a woman in Hollywood during the time of Howard Hughes. Such stellar luminaries, including Katharine Hepburn, Jean Harlow, Ava Gardner, Jane Russell and Ginger Rogers are intermingled with young starlets to tell a tale of exploitation, misogyny and manipulation.

Looking back at these times through the lens of the recent #MeToo movement, we can see the movie business with our current perspective and understand a bit more how it led to Harvey Weinstein and others. Howard Hughes was clearly wounded himself, and was an expert liar. "Howard Hughes would move from pursuing top female stars to pursuing young (sometimes very young) women whose careers had not yet gotten very far off the ground. More than ever, he would become obsessed with controlling these women, seeking to tie them up via marriage proposals or long-term contracts-or both-and taking ownership over their bodies and how they were presented to the public-or weren't."

For anyone with an interest in this detailed, sometimes gossipy book, it is worth the time. It is a long book, but it held my interest as the research was good, the writing was good, and, of course, the subject was very compelling and disturbing at the same time.

Thank you, Elyse! Every year I forget 😉

Elyse wrote: "Alecia wrote: "Book # 76 Waiting for Eden 4.5/5 stars

This book gets 4.5/5 stars...a tiny book that packs a big wallop. Back when I was in college, I read Johnny Got His gun by Dal..."

BTW, can you guide me (once again!) on how to transfer my 2018 books to the finished goal category? TY!

It is a special book.

Book # 76 Waiting for Eden 4.5/5 stars

This book gets 4.5/5 stars...a tiny book that packs a big wallop. Back when I was in college, I read Johnny Got His gun by Dalton Trumbo. That packed a huge wallop with me, also. The difference in these two books is that Johnny was a political, anti-war novel, and Eden is not. This one is more of a human novel, if that's a category, as the idea of what it means to be alive is certainly center stage here. Eden lies in a burn ward, without limbs, and yet clings to life.

Human beings are complicated, not pat, cliched characters, and the three main characters are certainly complicated beings. The book is narrated by one of the characters, a friend of Eden's, who was killed in the war that nearly killed Eden. The narrator is a ghost or a spirit, and he tries to explain the motivations of himself, his friend Eden, and his friend's wife Mary, the third main character.

Whether I agree with or understood the motivations of these characters is besides the point. They are wonderful characters who will break your heart.

Book # 75 The Shadows We Hide 3/5 stars

I had read The Life We Bury and was looking forward to this next book with some of the same characters. The reviews on Goodreads are very good, and I was somewhat disappointed with my reaction. I found it rather predictable, somewhat unbelievable in parts, and a little plodding.

The narrator, Joe Talbert Jr., is very engaging while taking the reader through this story. He is the guardian of his autistic brother, Jeremy, and lives with his girlfriend, Lila. Joe is a reporter, and has just written a story about a public official based on one anonymous source. While this public official is threatening a lawsuit and he is being pressured to reveal his source, Joe finds out that his natural father whom he has never met, Joe Talbert, has been found murdered in another town. With his reporter's job in jeopardy, he takes off (leaving his autistic brother in the care of his girlfriend) to find out more about him. At the same time, we learn that his mother is an addict who has inflicted harm on his brother, and find out the circumstances of why Joe had to take guardianship of Jeremy.

The story goes on (and on) about Joe's discoveries while on this search, including DNA testing, millions of dollars at stake and another murder. It was a little too convoluted and meandering for me, but since so many people appeared to have loved this, it might be worth a try.

Then go for it😉!

Oh boy, you have a lot of reading ahead of you! You don't have to start at the very beginning if you don't want to. I think I started a few books in and then went back and read those I missed. Yes, one more book :)

Book # 74 Dark Sacred Night 4/5 stars

I do believe I have read all of Michael Connelly's books (starting a long time ago). And I watch Bosch on TV. I also saw him in person, giving a talk when the TV show was in development, and I was happy that he was so involved with the production of the show. So I'm a fan.

I did read The Late Show, which introduced the Renee Ballard character, also a detective. I like this one better, when she is working with Harry Bosch. He is working as a reserve Detective for San Fernando Valley. And a cold case keeps gnawing at him...the brutal murder of 15 year old Daisy Clayton. When Ballard discovers him rifling through old file cabinets one night (she is still working on "the late show"), she becomes intrigued, and joins forces to try and solve this case with him.

Ballard is a strong character on her own, quirky and independent in the mold of Bosch. Her off time is spent surfing on the beach and camping out there with her dog, Lola. There are other cases the two are working on, because as in all Connelly books there is never just one case. His plotting is very good, as always, and I look forward to more with these two paired up.

Book # 73 Elevation 3.5/5 stars

3.5 stars for a kindler, gentler Stephen King. I follow him on Twitter and I know and appreciate his political leanings. I think, in this whisper of a book, he is trying to present a kind character who just tries to unify a tiny little group of people in Castle Rock, Maine. There is no mention of the larger world outside of Maine in this book, but I think I know how he views it.

Sometimes I like his writing more than others (11/22/63 and Misery are two of my favorites) and some of his books I just don't care for. Sometimes his writing is simplistic and full of gimmickry, but overall, if it isn't a strictly horror book, I tend to give his new works a try. After all, I've been reading King off and on since forever, and he feels like an old friend. This book is an anomaly, a novella labeled as horror, but that is the wrong category. It is more in a sci fi, magical realism category, and, although very slight, is inspirational, almost like a Christmas book.

I have read several reviews complaining about the stereotypical characterizations of the lesbian couple, but I did not find their characters troubling. This is a very slight, light book that packs a certain wallop at the end. And I found it touching.

Book # 72 The Lies We Told 2.5/5 stars

This book gets 3 stars rounded up from 2.5 stars. I see all the wonderful reviews, but, for me, it was just a pedestrian, complicated, red-herring-strewn book in the psychological thriller genre. I was definitely not "kept guessing until the end" as one of the blurbs trumpeted. The plot is quite twisty and somewhat convoluted.

Two stories merge into one (eventually). Beth is the narrator of the first part, set around 1986. She is horrified at the sociopathic tendencies she sees in her little girl from an early age. I found this part more affecting, and Beth makes a good narrator. The second part is set in 2017 and starts when Clara, who is living with Luke, finds him missing. The stories continue, back and forth, until finally the characters come together. Some of the twists I saw coming, and others were just absorbed, not terribly shocking. There was one hanging thread that was never resolved after a lot of foreshadowing, and too many suspicions cast on characters that later turned out to be explained away (red herrings).

Book # 71 Bitter Orange

DNF at 117 pages. It did not hold my interest.