The End of Everything by Megan Abbott, narrated by Emily Bauer

Synopsis:

Lizze has a wonderful life for a 13 year old girl. Since her parents’ divorce she doesn’t see her father – he moved to California – but living next door to her best friend Evie Verver makes Lizzie feel as if her family is complete. Evie’s feminine yet strong older sister Dusty is more central to Lizzie’s life than is her own brother, and Mr. Verver is a father-figure extraordinaire, plus perhaps a bit of a crush of Lizzie’s. When Evie disappears suddenly after school, though, Lizzie’s entire world turns upside down. As the person who spent the most time with Evie, Lizzie is convinced that she must know something that nobody else knows, something that can save Evie. Without her friend, Lizzie feels empty, and she cannot bear Mr. Verver’s pain, or the speculations of the girls in school as to what has become of Evie. The more she digs into her friend’s disappearance, though, the less convinced Lizze becomes that she really knew Evie at all.

Thoughts on the story:

Missing girl novels are not exactly few and far between, and they have been attempted by some fabulous authors – Stewart O’Nan’s Songs for the Missing and Hannah Pittard’s The Fates Will Find Their Way come to mind – but The End of Everything proves to be a very strong entry in the field. Looking at the entire incident from the point of view of a young girl brings an entirely different perspective. So many of these books are told at least partly through an adult’s eyes (or the eyes of multiple adults), but Lizzie brings an innocence and an urgency to the situation. So often the adult characters move very quickly to despair, or a hope that somehow seems bereft, but Lizzie continues to believe not only that Evie can be saved, but that she is the one who must somehow hold the key. Despite the fact that so much of the book is very internal with few actual plot points, Lizzie’s perspective on the situation makes for a compelling read.

Thoughts on the audio production:

Emily Bauer and Kate Simses are absolutely my favorite female narrators of young adult books. Like Simses, Bauer is both compelling and believable as a teen or young adult. While she doesn’t quite sound 13, she definitely has a young enough voice to allow the listener to suspend disbelief and accept her as a young teen without being pulled out of the story by an overly mature voice. She does a wonderful job narrating the oft-disturbing The End of Everything, thoroughly convincing me that the problems I had when listening to one of her prior audiobooks had much more to do with the story and the way the character was presented by the author than the way Bauer voiced her. This is definitely a strong audio.

Overall:

Abbott has created an extremely strong story of loss and fear, which is only enhanced by Bauer’s compelling narration. This is a great listen, but would likely be just as fabulous in print, pick it up either way.

Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
Indiebound: Audio/Print*

I encourage you to review any audiobooks on Fridays and include the link here. If you have reviewed an audiobook earlier in the week, please feel free to link that review as well. Thanks to Pam for creating the button.

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012

Post from: Devourer of Books

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott – Audiobook Review

Crooked House

This post could alternately be titled: Why I Need to Take a Break from Agatha Christie

From the publisher:

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012

Post from: Devourer of Books

Crooked House by Agatha Christie

For the last 10 weeks or so, my reading has very much been dictated by the fact that pregnancy with twins is making me tired (and for quite awhile, rather sick). I’m still reading, yes, but there has been more Agatha Christie in my life than you could possibly know, much of my other reading has also consisted of mysteries, particularly cozies – hence me catching up on the latest three books in Julie Hyzy’s fabulous White House Chef series – and other things on the lighter side. Now, these books have all been great, but there are a number of heavier books (or books I perceive to be heavier, for all I know some of these characterizations could be off) on more serious topics that I want to get to as well. I typically like a balance between fabulously fun and seriously thoughtful, and I’m having a hard time achieving that right now. Here are a few of the books I’m still trying to figure out how to get to, along with descriptions from the publishers:

A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor  - Released Jan 3, 2012 from Palgrave (Macmillan)

Paul Jennings was born into slavery on the plantation of James and Dolley Madison in Virginia, later becoming part of the Madison household staff at the White House. Once finally emancipated by Senator Daniel Webster later in life, he would give an aged and impoverished Dolley Madison, his former owner, money from his own pocket, write the first White House memoir, and see his sons fight with the Union Army in the Civil War. He died a free man in northwest Washington at 75. Based on correspondence, legal documents, and journal entries rarely seen before, this amazing portrait of the times reveals the mores and attitudes toward slavery of the nineteenth century, and sheds new light on famous characters such as James Madison, who believed the white and black populations could not coexist as equals; French General Lafayette who was appalled by this idea; Dolley Madison, who ruthlessly sold Paul after her husband’s death; and many other since forgotten slaves, abolitionists, and civil right activists.

The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar – Released Jan 3, 2012 from Harper Books (HarperCollins)

Thrity Umrigar, acclaimed author of The Space Between Us and The Weight of Heaven, returns with a breathtaking new novel—a skillfully wrought, emotionally resonant story of four women and the indelible friendship they share. Fans of Jennifer Haigh’s Faith, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, and Katrina Kittle’s The Kindness of Strangers will be captivated by Umrigar’s The World We Found—a moving story of bottled secrets, unfulfilled dreams, and the acceptance that can still lead to redemption, from a writer whom the New York Times calls “perceptive and often piercing.”

From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant by Alex Gilvarry – Released January 9, 2012 from Viking Books (Penguin)

Boyet Hernandez is a small man with a big American dream when he arrives in New York in 2002, fresh out of design school in Manila. With dubious financing and visions of Fashion Week runways, he sets up shop in a Brooklyn toothpick factory, pursuing his goals with monkish devotion (distractions of a voluptuous undergrad not withstanding). But mere weeks after a high-end retail order promises to catapult his (B)oy label to the big time, there’s a knock on the door in the middle of the night: the flamboyant ex-Catholic Boyet is brought to Gitmo, handed a Koran, and locked away indefinitely on suspicion of being linked to a terrorist plot. Now, from his 6′ x 8′ cell, Boy prepares for the trial of his life with this intimate confession, even as his belief in American justice begins to erode.

With a nod to Junot Diaz and a wink to Gary Shteyngart, Alex Gilvarry’s first novel explores some of the most serious issues of our time with dark eviscerating wit.

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson – Released January 10, 2012 from Random House (Random House)

An epic novel and a thrilling literary discovery, The Orphan Master’s Son follows a young man’s journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and eerie spy chambers of the world’s most mysterious dictatorship, North Korea.

Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother—a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang—and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will be no return.

Considering himself “a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,” Jun Do becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress “so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like.”

Part breathless thriller, part story of innocence lost, part story of romantic love, The Orphan Master’s Son is also a riveting portrait of a world heretofore hidden from view: a North Korea rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love. A towering literary achievement, The Orphan Master’s Son ushers Adam Johnson into the small group of today’s greatest writers.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo – Released February 7, 2012 from Random House (Random House)

Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter—Annawadi’s “most-everything girl”—will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call “the full enjoy.”

But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi.

With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012

Post from: Devourer of Books

D.E.A.R. – Heavy Books

A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty

From the publisher:

A GROWN-UP KIND OF PRETTY is a powerful saga of three generations of women, plagued by hardships and torn by a devastating secret, yet inextricably joined by the bonds of family. Fifteen-year-old Mosey Slocumb-spirited, sassy, and on the cusp of womanhood-is shaken when a small grave is unearthed in the backyard, and determined to figure out why it’s there. Liza, her stroke-ravaged mother, is haunted by choices she made as a teenager. But it is Jenny, Mosey’s strong and big-hearted grandmother, whose maternal love braids together the strands of the women’s shared past–and who will stop at nothing to defend their future.

You know, I had forgotten how much I like Joshilyn Jackson. I read her last novel, Backseat Saints about a year and 1/2 ago (although it appears that I may have somehow failed to ever review it). Why I have failed to read any of her backlist in the meantime, I have no idea. I have a feeling, though, that this is not a mistake I will be making for a second time. A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty is a gorgeously written and evocative novel of family and identity, of the things that bind us together, one that I really highly recommend.

For a full review, please read my piece in the SheKnows Book Lounge.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher, at a trade show.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012

Post from: Devourer of Books

A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson

A Good American

Jette’s mother is determined that her daughter will be the family’s ticket into higher society, marrying up and bringing connections. The large-boned Jette is not a traditional beauty, though, and she has no particular interest in playing a society girl. That is not to say that nobody is interested in her, however. Unfortunately, her suitor, Frederick, is not a man whose social status her mother does not deem appropriate. When Jette ends up pregnant and scorned by her mother, she and Frederick decide to head to America to create a new life in the early years of the 20th century.

A Good American is narrated by Jette and Frederick’s grandson, and follows the family from their trip from Germany to Missouri, and through the next two generations of the family. George has written a beautiful and frequently heart-wrenching account of an immigrant family as they adapt to life in America. Particularly interesting is the Americanization the family goes through as Germany becomes an enemy of their adopted country during the Great War. Indicative of the way the family and the community and country around them changes over the course of the century is the food served at the family’s restaurant. That, as well as the fate of the family, is a wonderfully rich symbol of the way the family assimilated as well as the way the country continued to change.

Readers will become immersed in the life the family, invested in their futures, in their pain and in their problems. A Good American does, however, fall just short of being a perfect book. George has a tendency to be a bit heavy-handed with foreshadowing, with the end of many chapters setting up an event in the next chapter, or the one following it in a way that lets the reader know a bit too clearly that something bad is going to happen. These sentences tended to draw me out of the family’s lives, without adding much to the story, and perhaps even taking away from the surprise the events might otherwise have held. Still, this amounts to little more than a handful of sentences in a book of nearly 400 pages, and, at least in my case, does not significantly decrease enjoyment of the book, nor does it detract from investment in the family.

A Good American is a wonderful book about family, America, and the immigrant experience. Despite a bit too much foreshadowing, I highly recommend it.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012

Post from: Devourer of Books

A Good American by Alex George – Book Review

And now to the books, here’s what I finished this week:

And here’s what I reviewed:

I also hosted a BOOK CLUB discussion of Running the Rift and posted my January 2012 Reading Wrap-up.

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012

Post from: Devourer of Books

The Sunday Salon: California Dreaming

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling, narrated by Mindy Kaling

Synopsis:

From the publisher:

Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: the obedient child of immigrant professionals, a timid chubster afraid of her own bike, a Ben Affleck–impersonating Off-Broadway performer and playwright, and, finally, a comedy writer and actress prone to starting fights with her friends and coworkers with the sentence “Can I just say one last thing about this, and then I swear I’ll shut up about it?”

Perhaps you want to know what Mindy thinks makes a great best friend (someone who will fill your prescription in the middle of the night), or what makes a great guy (one who is aware of all elderly people in any room at any time and acts accordingly), or what is the perfect amount of fame (so famous you can never get convicted of murder in a court of law), or how to maintain a trim figure (you will not find that information in these pages). If so, you’ve come to the right book, mostly!

In Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood, with several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls. Mindy Kaling really is just a Girl Next Door—not so much literally anywhere in the continental United States, but definitely if you live in India or Sri Lanka.

Thoughts on the story:

While not quite as laugh-out-loud funny as Tina Fey’s Bossypants – which Kaling herself references in the introduction – Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? is charming and extremely entertaining. Kaling is engaging, like spending time with a good friend who is willing to share anything and everything about herself, including embarrassing stories, like the time she stormed out of work like a spoiled child who didn’t get her way.

Thoughts on the audio production:

Kaling’s narration works extremely well. She has a distinctive style and delivery, and as an actress as well as a writer, she has a good command of language, which works to the benefit of the listener. What is not always as well done had more to do with production than narration. There is not always a great differentiation between chapters and sections in a book, occasionally to puzzling results. Longer pauses or some other method of noting a change in direction in the text would have put the audiobook into five star category.

Overall:

Kaling is charming, both in her writing and narration, although the production itself was perhaps not quite as well done as it could have been. Still, I would recommend this overall.

Buy this book from:
Powells: Audio/Print*
Indiebound: Audio/Print*

I’m launching a brand-new meme every Friday! I encourage you to review any audiobooks you review on Fridays and include the link here. If you have reviewed an audiobook earlier in the week, please feel free to link that review as well. Thanks to Pam for creating the button.

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012

Post from: Devourer of Books

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling – Audiobook Review

Treasure Island!!!

A pet lending library (yes, that it just what it sounds like) is perhaps not the most prestigious place for a college graduate to work, but then again, it wasn’t all the great being an ice cream-scooper or gift-wrapper either. Not only is our unnamed protagonist stuck in the deadest of dead end jobs, but her relationship with her live-in boyfriend (read: the guy she mooches off of) is somewhat sub-par as well. But, while she’s not really happy, she’s also not motivated enough to change anything about how she is living – until she reads Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Never has a book had such a deep and immediate impact on a reader as Treasure Island has on her, that it is life-changing is not even hyperbole. Armed with what she sees as the books Core Values of boldness, resolution, independence, and horn-blowing, our unnamed protagonist is now ready to take on the world with hilarious results that are both predictable (to the reader) and unexpected (to her).

Never has a book been so poorly interpreted as Stevenson’s Treasure Island is by the narrator of Levine’s Treasure Island!!!. Her assessment of the Core Values may not be too far off, but her method of attempting to live them out is, frankly, bizarre, and generally involves taking little to no responsibility for her actions. Now, none of this is in any way meant to be a criticism of Levine’s Treasure Island!!!, she has actually created a wryly story about an incredibly misguided and socially inept girl who completely misses the point of what she considers to be incredibly transformational literature.

Levine’s Treasure Island!!! is fun and funny, and may make you wonder if you have ever completely missed the point of a book. If you’re interested in Levine’s process and how she came to write Treasure Island!!!, check out our interview with her on What’s Old is New.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher, for an episode of What’s Old is New.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012

Post from: Devourer of Books

Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine – Book Review

I did read a couple of really terrific books coming out in February and March, so KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED for my reviews of A Good American and Elegy for Eddie.

What I Reviewed:

Audiobooks
A First-Rate Madness by Nassir Ghaemi, narrated by Sean Runnette
Crossed by Ally Condie, narrated by Kate Simses and Jack Riccobono
The Invisible Ones by Stef Penney, narrated by Dan Stevens

Fiction
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron
Come in and Cover Me by Gin Phillips

Young Adult/Middle Grades Fiction
Among Others by Jo Walton
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

Historical Fiction
The Bungalow by Sarah Jio
The Crown by Nancy Bilyeau
The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak

Mystery
Eggsecutive Orders by Julie Hyzy
The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie
Buffalo West Wing by Julie Hyzy

Nonfiction
The Journal of Best Practices by David Finch
The Sparkpeople Cookbook by Meg Galvin
The History of the World According to Facebook by Wylie Overstreet

Saturday Story Spotlight
My Fire Engine

Other Posts:
An Announcement
D.E.A.R. – My To Be Listened List (Sound Bytes)
Empress Elizabeth – Guest Post by Eva Stachniak, author of The Winter Palace
BOOK CLUB – Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron

Pick of the Month:

Other Books Read, Watch for Reviews:

Audiobook
The End of Everythingby Megan Abbott, narrated by Emily Bauer
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling, narrated by Mindy Kaling
The House at Tyneford by Natasha Solomons, narrated by Justine Eyre

Fiction
Changeless by Gail Carriger

Historical Fiction
A Good American by Alex George

Mystery
The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Crooked House by Agatha Christie
Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear

Note: Some of these books were provided to me for review.

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012

Post from: Devourer of Books

January 2012 Reading Wrap-Up

Here is the synopsis of the book I wrote for my review:

For as long as Jean Patrick can remember, he has wanted to be a runner, to represent Rwanda in the Olympics. And he has a gift, he could do this. Except, in addition to being a talented runner, he is also Tutsi. Things are becoming increasingly difficult for the Tutsi in Rwanda, the Hutu are in power, there are ethnic quotas in place, and violence is beginning to escalate. Jean Patrick may be able to overcome his family’s poverty, but can he survive the hatred of his fellow countrymen?

Before we get started, here are some of the reviews of readers who will be participating today:

Between the Covers
Cheap Black Pens
Devourer of Books
Linus’s Blanket
Linus’s Blanket – Literary Feast
Literate Housewife

If you plan on participating in today’s BOOK CLUB, please consider subscribing to comments at the bottom of the page (please use the TOP subscription option). I will be updating this post with new questions and ideas over the course of the day.

Here we go…

• First off, what were your general impressions of the book?
• Is this a book you would have read had you not been reading it for a book club?
• How did you respond to Jean Patrick’s eternal optimism/naivete?
• Prior to reading Running the Rift, how much did you know about the Rwandan genocide? Did this at all change your understanding of the event?

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012

Post from: Devourer of Books

BOOK CLUB – Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron