Fiction by Stephen King
Fiction by Jodi Lynn Anderson
I categorized this book as both futuristic and historical fiction, because it's both. The story takes place in 2065, 1934, and 1919.
Does that sound confusing? Yeah. I felt like the story couldn't make up its mind what it was.
Maybe I'm too old; this book is definitely aimed at a teen audience. I didn't really like it, but I did want to know what would happen, so I did finish it...
Fiction by Diane Chamberlain
I've been enjoying Diane Chamberlain's books recently, and this one was as good as I expected.
At the beginning of the story, seventeen-year-old accused murderer Lisa leaves a suicide note for her parents and disappears, leaving her yellow kayak frozen in the icy river. More than twenty years later, her sister Riley is trying to sort through the family home after their father's death, and uncovers some things about Lisa she had never known.
That sounded convoluted when I wrote it, but reading the novel was not at all confusing. This was an exciting book with good characters and a surprise ending.
Fiction by Steven Rowley
This was a pretty good story, mostly lighthearted but not exactly laugh-out-loud funny.
Fiction by Diane Chamberlain
Told in both the past and present, this story is engaging and and believable. I loved the characters!
Fiction by Kevin Wilson
Nonfiction by Torey Hayden
Fiction by Laura Lippman
Gerry Anderson is a writer whose most popular book was called Dream Girl, a novel that distinguished itself because Aubrey, the eponymous "dream girl," rose beyond her status as the protagonist's love interest and seemed a believable character in her own right.
Now Gerry has moved back home to Baltimore and is suffering from a bad case of writer's block, where he has a bad fall and ends up confined to a hospital bed in his expensive apartment. Then the mysterious phone calls begin; a woman claiming to be the "real" Aubrey is claiming Gerry owes her something for her contribution to his work. But Gerry knows that Aubrey is entirely fictional. Isn't she?
This was an interesting book, suspenseful, but more of the slow creepy type than what one expects from a thriller. The ending was a surprise.
Nonfiction by Torey Hayden
I have read most if not all of Torey Hayden's books, so I was super excited to see that, after a fifteen-year-publishing gap, she has come out with two more!
Torey lives in Wales now, and she is still working with troubled children, although she's not a teacher in the UK. In this story she meets Eloise, a young teenager who is acting out in strange ways, to the despair of her social worker and foster parents.
This was a good story and a quick read.
Nonfiction by Grace Hunter
This is a true story from a British foster carer, much like Cathy Glass (see Mummy Told Me Not to Tell), but Grace Hunter is much newer at the fostering game and seems to bring an earnestness to the table that is fresh and fun and a little naïve.
In this book, Grace and her husband take on a little boy named Teddy. He is seven, the same age as their own daughter, but Teddy is very developmentally delayed and seems much younger. I liked the story and really felt I'd gotten to know Grace and her family, as well as Teddy. It was a good short read.
As for the tail, which is is an eye-catching feature on the book, does the boy really have one? You'll have to read and find out!
Fiction by Ellen Raskin
Fiction by Freida McFadden
Dr. Lenore Terr did some pioneering research into childhood trauma in the late seventies and eighties, and this is her book.
This is a textbook rather than a storybook, and so it was generally more informational than the books I usually read. However, it had some powerful true stories inside it, so I enjoyed it. (Although I admit to skimming some of the boring parts....)
Fiction by Kevin Wilson
BTW I suggest this artwork for an alternative cover; it's from the New York Times review of the book:
Fiction by Chris Fabry
In 1933, Ruby was a little girl who had a best friend called Bean, living in a mining town in the mountains of West Virginia. But now it is 2004, and Ruby is an old lady in Kentucky who struggles to hold on to her independence--and her car keys!--while her grown children worry about her safety. Back in West Virginia, the mining company is still in charge, moving in to take away the land from the mountain people. The past and the present come together in this story about both versions of Ruby.
This was a good book with some surprises!
Fiction by Neal Stephenson
Published way back in 1992, this is one of the original versions of the "in-the-future-we-will-all-live-cyberspace-lives" stories that permeate the sci-fi universe these days.
I liked the beginning of this book, but then it turned so slow and confusing I gave up. I feel bad about it, but there you go. DNF (did not finish).
