Rabbits for Food

 Fiction by Binnie Kirschenbaum

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

At the beginning of this book, a woman (possibly named Bunny) is institutionalized after a long slide of depression followed by a violent breakdown. She is refusing treatment.

A few chapters in, I realized that reading the chronicle of her spiraling decline might devastate me beyond repair, and I had to stop reading. Maybe the author should take it as a compliment that her prose affected me so...

I'm logging the book here as a Did Not Finish so I don't accidentally try to read it again.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye

Audible Original Fiction by John Scalzi

https://www.audible.com

What if the moon turned into cheese? LITERALLY?!

There's the premise of this strange book, which is funny and very odd. The story jumps around to different characters and how the moon-change affects them personally. At first I was slightly annoyed by how the characters kept switching out --just when I'd gotten interested in a character, he/she would be unceremoniously dropped and a new one would be introduced-- but after a while I got used to it. I decided to treat the book like a series of connected short stories.

The ending was a surprise!

I also read by this author: Head On

I also listened to from Audible Originals: Hitch Hikers

Disappearing Earth

 Fiction by Julia Phillips

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

On the peninsula of Kamchatka in far northeastern Russia, a pair of young sisters called Sophia and Alyona disappear one summer afternoon. Everyone in the small community frantically searches, but as months pass, things seem hopeless. Because Kamchatka is so isolated, no one really thinks the little girls could have left the peninsula; still, with only one real city in the area and the rest of the land taken up with tiny native towns, there seems nowhere that the sisters could have been taken. Additionally, some people are reminded of the recent disappearance of a native girl called Lilia who was also never found.

Although that is generally the plot synopsis, this book is not a mystery story. Instead it is an examination of a bunch of different characters at different points in the year following the girls' disappearance. The story jumped all over the place, introducing new characters every chapter who were somehow connected to the three lost girls. I found it difficult to read, and I disliked the fact that the question of what had happened to the missing children seemed ancillary to the plot.

I didn't really like this book.

The Farm

 Fiction by Joanne Ramos

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Mae Wu is an ambitious young woman who runs a special enterprise called Golden Oaks Farm that caters to the Very Rich. Golden Oaks is a home for surrogate mothers, but it's an elite one. The women who carry the privileged fetuses for the wealthy clients, called the Hosts, stay on the farm from implantation until birth, and they are carefully taken care of and monitored for the entire nine months. Mae meticulously manages every aspect of the farm, from sourcing the Hosts to keeping the Clients happy.

Jane and Reagan are Hosts at Golden Oaks, each carrying a baby for an unknown Client in order to receive a big bonus after giving birth. But Jane and Reagan are very different people; one is a struggling immigrant mother who does domestic work, and the other is a recent college graduate who wants to pursue an art career without her parents' support. The two of them are befriended by Lisa, a returning Host who knows her way around the farm and isn't above bending the rules.

This was a really interesting book with good characters. The reviews I read weren't overwhelmingly positive, however, and I think that is because readers were expecting the story to be something it isn't. It's not The Handmaid's Tale by any means.

This book is NOT a dystopian novel; it's a realistic one. These characters live in the world that we live in, where the gap between the very rich and very poor exists, but also where almost everyone falls somewhere in between. I really liked this story and it gives the reader a lot to think about.

Ward D

 Fiction by Freida McFadden

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Amy is a medical student doing her clinical rotation in psychiatry, a specialty she has no intention of pursuing due to her personal fears about mental illness. In this story she does her first overnight shift on Ward D, the locked psychiatric wing of the hospital, and she will have to face those fears head-on.

This was an exciting thriller with several surprises! 

I also read recently by this author: The Crash

Slow Dance

 Fiction by Rainbow Rowell

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 2006, Shiloh goes to her friend Mikey's second wedding. She didn't go to his first one, because it was all the way in New York, but this one is right here in Omaha. She hasn't seen Mikey much since they graduated from high school almost fifteen years ago, because she's not good at keeping up with people. But she goes to the wedding, and she dresses up, although she'd not admitting to herself that who she really wants to see is Cary. Cary is the boy she hasn't seen or spoken to since she was nineteen, but she has never stopped thinking of him.

This was a truly lovely romance story. Rainbow Rowell writes the most realistic characters and the best dialogue. I recommend this book!

I also read recently by this author: If The Fates Allow

Deep Freeze

Amazon Prime Fiction by Lisa Jackson. 

https://www.amazon.com

Movie star Jenna Hughes decides to relocate to a small town in Oregon in order to get her daughters (and herself) away from the Hollywood scene after a bitter divorce. But she doesn't realize that an obsessed fan is stalking her...

This book was all right, I guess, but a little over the top in believability. It ended in a cliffhanger to try to hook me on the next book in the series but I think I decline. Still, it WAS free.

I also read by this author: Wicked Ways

I also read (FREE) from Amazon Prime Kindle Fiction: Room for Another