not near as good as iced tea

South of Broad by Pat Conroy


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
SIGH. do you hear that? a big old SIGH. i loved prince of tides but i did read it 20 years ago. i tried BEACH MUSIC but found the story, as well as the writing, immature and sophomoric. i gave up. so when i heard about SOUTH OF BROAD, i was ecstatic. previews were promising. a saga about family with a backdrop of the city conroy so clearly adores, charleston. and when it began, it was wonderful. no one can TELL a story and create such a sense of southern despair like conroy. but again, SIGH, perhaps my tastes have changed. when conroy starts writing dialogue, it all goes flat. seems conroy does not have an ear for dialogue. the characters are caricatures. all the women are beautiful and if not crazy, perfect and unappreciated. the men are either really, really good, or really, really bad. all the friends from the high school circle of misfits end up married to each other - paired off perfectly (in terms of ethnicity, i might add). all bases are covered in SOUTH OF BROAD, just not very well.



as an ode to the city of charleston, this book totally works. but not as or for much else.



SIGH.




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read it in a week

To the Power of Three by Laura Lippman

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
i like laura lippman a lot, and i thought "to the power of three" was another tess adventure. turns out it wasn't but no matter. i love how lippman weaves multiple story lines to a single point. she's a brilliant writer and i'm amazed at how she is able to write from the point of view of SO many characters. it was hard to put this book down, and i could hardly wait to pick it up again. it starts with a school shooting, with what appears to be a clear cut murder scenario, but the easy answer isn't satisfying to the detective assigned to the case. nor is lippman interested in the easy answer. there's plenty of commentary here about society and teenagers and love and hate and the emotional bonds between families.



i read this book in a week, that's how highly i can recommend it. i NEVER read a book in a week anymore!


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polish and personal revolutions

Push Not the River by James Conroyd Martin

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
i enjoyed push not the river. it's a sprawling saga based on the diary of a real polish countess, Anna Maria Berezowska, beginning as she loses both of her parents to tragedy. she goes to live with her mother's sister, her aunt stella and uncle leo, and her cousins, walter and zofia. there is great political unrest in poland, and anna's troubles mirror the unrest. i found anna to be an interesting character, yet she was almost too perfect, falling in love with the "boy" from next door, and pining for him throughout the entire novel, and always doing the right thing. zofia, on the other hand, was a much better realized and compelling character. anna refers to her cousin as shape-shifting, and she truly is. while she always operates to her own advantage, she commits more than one truly selfless act...AND while insanely jealous of her goody two shoes cousin and her love for jan stelnicki, she protects her in many, many ways. while i think martin does a fine job of creating a novel around the events depicted in berezowska's diary, i did find some of the narrative rather clunky. i would like to have given it four stars, but felt it dragged in a few parts, and again, felt anna to be a tad too naive...yet to be fair, she does grow as she faces war and imprisonment. i look forward to reading the sequel, against a crimson sky.




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good...but not as good as cover looks!

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
well, as a co-worker is overly fond of saying, i found "the physick book of deliverance dane" to be underwhelming. the premise was good - grad student researching colonialism finds her own ancestors have a few surprises - but i thought the characters were pretty lame. narrator connie spends most of the novel irritated with her new-age mom, and knows next to nothing about her own heritage, which is odd since she is a ph.d. candidate in...history. and you could expect a surprise at the end of each chapter, that's how predictable it was (reminded me of nancy drew books.) i found it to be rather boring, and often read through the paragraphs quickly, looking for the good parts. to be fair, it had some neat ideas...spells hidden on recipe cards, dog vs. cats as familiars, and a loving setting in marblehead, mass. there were a few chills and maybe one or two nice surprises...overall good, but not great.


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it's all american

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
i enjoyed "american wife" very much. the first half of the book was more enjoyable for me than the second half, and i never did find charlie to be more than a stock buffoon. it wasn't until the end of the novel that i found myself understanding alice completely...her motivation or perhaps i should say...what i perceived to be a lack thereof...and her conflicts became real and i could relate to them...even though she became "first lady," she stayed "alice" for me, and i think that's a true testament to sittenfeld's writing.


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speed read this one!

Sweeping Up Glass: A Novel by Carolyn Wall

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
i received Sweeping Up Glass as an ARC from Book Browse First Impressions' program, and i do believe this was the first book in a long while that was a pleasure to read in order to review. i LOVED Sweeping Up Glass. i read over half of it the day i received it. it's reminiscient of To Kill A Mockingbird, but its story certainly stands alone. i loved the character of olivia...and there wasn't a false note throughout the entire book, nor was it predictable.



the book elicited such emotions from me...fear, anxiety, happiness, and sadness. i will be recommending Sweeping Up Glass to everyone...i can't say enough good things about it. it's a wonderful, wonderful book, and i look forward to wall's next effort very much.


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a good solid story

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
A Reliable Wife is a beautifully written tale of three souls - ralph, catherine and antonio - linked for eternity by rage, love, greed and yes, passion. there are more than a few surprises, and goolrick does a wonderful job of presenting the barren and maddening landscape. it was interesting and painful to be inside his character's heads...which is where we spend most of the book. there's little dialogue here. it's well worth reading, the ending brought closure for me that was comforting. i just read an interview with mr. goolrick, in which he says, "I wanted to give readers, first and foremost, a good solid story and a reading experience that is as sensual as it is cerebral." i certainly think he succeeded.


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