This is a memoir by Jeannie Gaffigan, co-writer with and wife of comedian Jim Gaffigan. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor shaped like a pear (hence the title) in 2017, and here tells her own story.
This was a pretty good memoir, funny in some parts and touching in others. It was a little longer than it needed to be.
Fiction by Megan Church
This book begins with 1950's housewife Lulu Mayfield in a mental hospital, and then goes back in time to show how she got there.
Honestly, it was almost too upsetting for me to read at times. (Interestingly, the author's note at the beginning states that the reader might want to take a break from the novel if the subject matter is too triggering. Well, it was, and I did.) It is all too easy for me to imagine myself in the place of the overwhelmed Lulu.
It is a well-written story with believable characters and I did like the ending, but it was a difficult read.
Nonfiction by Cathy Glass
I have read all of Cathy Glass's books and I was excited to see that she had written a new one, and also a little surprised because I knew that she had retired from full-time foster caring.
But in this story, a former foster child called Lily arrives on Cathy's doorstep on Boxing Day, and Cathy gets involved in the girl's life. Although Lily had been adopted, the adoption had broken down in her teenaged years and Lily had finished out her youth in a group home. Now over 18, Lily is floundering and looks to Cathy for help.
This was an interesting story, but also kind of an upsetting one. Cathy does her best to help Lily, but the girl seems the type who leaves destruction in her wake. The reader wonders if maybe less help might have been better for all involved.
I also read recently by this author: Helpless
Fiction by Nadia Hashimi
At the beginning of this story, Fereiba is on a long and perilous journey across Europe with her three children, fleeing her home in Kabul, Afghanistan. The story then takes the reader back in time to Fereiba's childhood and early life. She had loved her homeland as a younger woman, but when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1989, everything changed. Now she is tying to take her family to England where she has relatives, but there are many obstacles along the way.
This was a good book with wonderful characters who help the reader identify with them easily. The story helped me understand a lot about the Afghani people. I didn't love the way the author handled the ending, but overall I enjoyed the novel.
Fiction by Monica Wood
At the beginning of this story, a man named Quinn goes to help 104-year-old Ona Viktus with her yardwork. He is going in place of his eleven-year-old son, who had been assigned to work for Ona as a Boy Scout project. Ona has formed quite a bond with the boy and is disappointed. "He couldn't make it," Quinn says, because he cannot bear to tell her the truth.
The truth is that the boy is dead. Quinn is tying to repay his son's debt to Ona, and also to somehow get to know something about the boy through the old woman the child had bonded with. Quinn feels he never really knew his son and regrets it. Meanwhile, the boy's mother Belle (Quinn's ex-wife) is drowning in grief, and Quinn wants to find a way to help her.
This story had wonderful characters that were very believable and likeable, but it was sad.
Fiction by David Baldacci
It's 1968 in Freeman County, Virginia, and a rich white couple have just been murdered. Their black handyman, Jerome Washington, is quickly arrested and presumed guilty in the court of public opinion. Now it's up to Jack Lee, a white lawyer with little experience and some liberal views, to defend Jerome.
But Jack admits that he's no Atticus Finch; he's going to need help. Enter Desiree DuBose, a black lawyer from Chicago who works for the legal defense fund of the NAACP. Can these two work together and save Jerome and his wife Pearl?
Well, we already know that the answer has to be yes. If Jerome gets convicted the readers would riot! We know he's innocent, and the big bad white legal system is just railroading the poor man. Jerome has to be exonerated, Jack and Desiree should become friends, and the real killer must be revealed!
And there's the only problem with this otherwise very good novel: this theme has been previously explored a little too much and it somewhat makes the story feel like a predictably scripted formula slowly playing out.
Still, the characters are excellent and the plot twists are great. It's a solid novel, and the audiobook narration is very good.
I also read by this author: The 6:20 Man
Fiction by Anni Taylor
Six months ago, Phoebe Basko endured every mother's nightmare: her two-year-old son Tommy disappeared from a playground. Now she is barely hanging on to her sanity when she begins receiving anonymous notes with twisted nursery rhymes alluding to her son, such as, "Little boy blue, where did you go?" She is desperate to believe Tommy is still alive and that the notes will lead her to him. But what game is the writer really playing?
This was an exciting thriller with several surprises. It did stretch the bounds of believability some...
