Lucky You by Erika Carter

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If you did not read Lucky You by Erika Carter, nor did you select it as part of your Book of the Month Club box, of which it was selected in January 2017, then lucky you.

I've managed to read about three Book of the Month Club picks over the years, mainly due to finding them at second-hand book stores, and they have all been very strange; like the Book Pickers are trying to prove to the world their maudlin intellect. Well Carter's debut novel, Lucky You, is not only a waste of a BOTM selection, but a waste of paper and a waste of time.

Rachel, Ellie, and Chloe are frenemies, each stuck in their own cycles of self-destruction; you know the drill: sex, bad relationships, too much booze. Then Rachel up and moves deep into the Ozark mountains with a man who is sure that he can change the world by learning, and writing about, and thus teaching, how to live off-grid and on the land. Ellie and Chloe are eventually convinced to join the couple at their remote house and work on The Project. What is an otherwise interesting and intriguing concept, not only fell short but will live forever in my mind as one of the worst books I've ever read. Not only do these insipid characters with a proclivity for claiming Chinese proverbs as their own, not "solve the conundrum of being alive," they struggle with getting their would-be cult off the ground in favor of depressive loafing.

The writing is slow and dispiriting, and grey and frigid, despite writing scenes that supposedly take place in intense heat. "She had to pee. Then she flushed," is the sort of riveting storyline that you can expect from this droll, much more lame, non-serial-killer, version of Emma Cline's The Girls. Lucky You is one big bad mood that is so nicely summed up by one paragraph: "they traded turns talking in stream of conscious monologues. After a while, they weren't even listening to each other, it was more about just filling the air with the comfortable lilts and turns of story." Lucky You is like reading Carter's disoriented, rough-draft of her own personal journal. There is no real point, prompting me to wonder, Why am I reading this book? Many books of this similar genre are bound to be far better, can I even give this one star?

The Man from Primrose Lane by James Renner

I don't even know where to begin with this book. So I will start by saying that I have no idea where to begin in reviewing this book. I suppose I will start at the end and declare up-front that I gave the first two-thirds of this book 3.5 stars and the last third one star, basically for the effort of putting pen to paper. Though I have been disappointed by books in the past, could see the shocking twist from a mile away, or was generally underwhelmed, I have never been completely let down by a book before; like a roller coaster that is wild and crazy and unexpected and then suddenly turns into the Lazy River meets Terminator 2.

David Neff is a successful true crimes writer and one-time author who is taking care of his four-year old son while still reeling from his wife's sudden suicide. On a tip from his publisher, who has always been anxious for Neff's next work, David immerses himself in the random, yet gruesome, murder of an old man, The Man from Primrose Lane. Others knew him as The Man With a Thousand Mittens. Who was he? Why would anyone want him dead? And why did he always wear mittens? These are questions you either won't get answers to, or will have to find like the needle in the completely not-worth-it haystack. A big swing and a miss with this one.

The story of The Man from Primrose Lane is so intricate and mysterious and just twisted enough to make you feel like you're navigating a big spider's web while still making you feel like you have a good handle on the situation, a sign of a well-written thriller. There are a lot of twists and turns that keep you turning the page, and although triggers abound - abduction, pedophilia, torture - I am able to look past the sometimes gruesome nature of the storytelling in order to get to the real root of the story: who was The Man from Primrose Lane and who murdered him? The book is engrossing and unsettling, then suddenly takes a very unexpected move and turns into a hundred-page orgasm that never happens and slowly, confusedly, fizzles away, and if that isn't a let-down, I don't know what is.

Renner seems to work very hard in putting the story together, creating the vivid characters, their histories, and how they connect to one another. He threw in a murder and added some extra mystery then just sort-of chucked it to the four winds. In a drastically over-complicated section, Renner heaves his deviously plotted murder mystery into the arms of an entirely too easy explanation. SPOILER ALERT: 

time travel. Well, fuck if every complicated problem can't be just explained away with a little time travel. *eye roll* Although the explanation of which is convoluted and elaborate, the "solving" of the murder by using time travel makes the story too easy and stupid and more like Renner is applying for a job with Tesla instead of working to find a more credible solution. I skimmed the final section, all while thinking, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid; so stupid that I can't even decide if it was a waste of time. Any other book about murder or time travel would probably be better.

Final rating ⭐⭐/5 on goodreads.

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The Chain by Adrian McKinty

Once again I caved to the social media frenzy and excitedly snatched up The Chain by Adrian McKinty from the library even though I swore I wouldn't check out any more books for a while so I could stay focused on my 300-deep to-be-read shelves. Let me just say, breaking my self-imposed rule, and the subsequent library late-fees, was...not worth it.

"Grips you tight, right from the start, and mercilessly refuses to let go. One wild ride," is my very first note on this book after I was undoubtedly sucked in by the first two chapters; that's what books are supposed to do, after all - get us hooked from the beginning. Unfortunately, The Chain grips you tight, doesn't let go, and drags you through a slow, character-driven plot that is more an attempt at a philosophical explanation of life than a propulsive thriller.

The Chain - believed to be hundreds of years old - is quite possibly the worst thing to happen to a parent. Their child is kidnapped and the only way to get them returned safely is for those parents to pay the ransom, kidnap another child, and be prepared to commit murder if anything goes wrong. The Chain studies their "participants" and Rachel Klein seems to fit the bill. Newly divorced, new job, and a cancer survivor, The Chain believes she's just strong enough to carry out their heinous demands, but just pliable enough to avoid going to the police, and to do whatever they say. The book jacket would have you believe that she is a strong-as-a-motha, mama Grizzly type who will stop at nothing to get her daughter, Kylie, back safely, while dismantling The Chain, which is, unfortunately, misleading. What is actually true is that McKinty's novel is slow, dramatic, and ultimately a poor attempt at existentialism where Rachel's "take down" of The Chain feels forced.

The premise - the very idea of the book - is enough to keep you reading, so where you would expect the book to be plot-driven, it mostly focuses on the characters and their basic emotional well-being during the time that Kylie is missing and after she is returned. The set-up for the major "twist" is unfortunate and weak, and in spite of the book being very wordy, the writing is choppy and comes off lazy; case in point, no one who isn't from Massachusetts and the surrounding area will care about the random list of street names. And the ending is an attempt at Dennis Lehane-esque waxing poetic that mostly misses the mark, like when my high school English teacher would call me out on my bullshit.

I will say, though, that The Chain is an eye-opening account of Social Media, the dark ways in which it is used that we hear about on the news but think it will never actually happen to us, and makes us re-examine if we're really being as social media safe as we should be. Posting our every move and thought is not only annoying, it's dangerous. So, more for the public service announcement than anything else, I give The Chain ⭐/5 on goodreads.

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

About a month ago, I went through a bit of a book slump which, as you know, isn't that uncommon - I see a lot of posts online about said slumps and asking for recommendations in order to relieve them. I wasn't sure what genre I was even in the mood for, much less any specific novel, and then I noticed Ruth Ware's The Lying Game on my shelf. But, of course! Ware has been giving me the fall chills since In A Dark, Dark Wood, reading one of her deeply mysterious novels during this time of year has become habit. So then it was decided for me. Well, whoever was the decision-maker fell asleep on the job, most likely reading The Lying Game.

Isa, Kate, Thea, and Fatima become fast-friends at a wayward boarding school in the damp marshes of England, and in less than a year, are able to create a very unfortunate reputation for themselves; think Mean Girls Gone Bad. But not so bad that the story actually becomes interesting. Something sinister happened to Kate's father, Ambrose, during that time at school, and now - some decades later - their lying past is about to come back to haunt them.

The most glaring of discrepancies is that the actual Lying Game and its subsequent rules - tell a lie, stick to your story, don't get caught, never lie to each other, and know when to stop lying - are completely arbitrary, and more a lesson in how not to be a dick during your teen years because it could come back to bite you as an adult. Reminiscent of Ware's previous novels, none of The Lying Game's "participants" are at all likable, and these women come off as whiny and self-involved. This book is about 200-pages too long, extremely boring and over-dramatic, the ending is a total let-down, and the final line of the book makes absolutely no sense. This Ware book is a rare disappointment. ⭐/5 on goodreads.
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Force of Nature by Jane Harper

"Five women go on a hike.

Only four return."

And marked down 75-percent off at Barnes and Noble, how could I not? Unsurprisingly, though, the hiking bits are the most interesting and entertaining, and it reminded me why reading the words, "When Detective/Investigator So-And-So.." on the book jacket is an instant book-boner downer and makes me return it to its rightful place on the shelf: police novels are DULL. In Jane Harper's Force of Nature, the investigative routine makes up about 70-percent of the story, but the rest is a grave disappointment.

Five women on a company-mandated retreat - Bree, her twin sister Beth, Jill, Lauren, and Alice - set out on a three-day supposed team-building hike through the Australian bushland. Personalities and pay-grades clash from the start, and - as Lauren states, "It was a hundred things that went wrong." Chief among them, Senior Level Alice, goes missing, a woman who has been working with Financial Crimes investigator, Aaron Falk and his partner, Carmen, to bring down the very company she works for. Everyone has a motive to get rid of her, including Alice for choosing to walk away from the group on her own, one of the many possibilities, and everyone has a reason to lie.

I didn't read the first of the Falk series, The Dry, so maybe that is why I find Falk and Carmen to be the most uninteresting characters ever. The switching back and forth between the groups each chapter makes it difficult to focus, and the chapter with a hint of sexual tension is ultimately fruitless and mostly uninteresting (although I'm sensing this will gradually change with future Falk novels). Harper adds a lot of mysterious elements, which gives the reader too many options instead of surprises. And although those elements are what propel the story forward, their contribution to the overall plot is minimal; by the time I finished skimming the last 40-pages, I felt like I had just watched a very long episode of CSI: Miami. *puts on sunglasses*

Force of Nature is written well, the premise is intriguing, though weakly executed, and the ending is a disappointment, and just a tiny bit sexist. I don't find anything glaringly wrong with the book, a la Lauren, "It was a hundred things that went wrong." ⭐⭐/5 on goodreads.

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The Break Down by B.A. Paris

Is Cass cracking up? Or is she unwittingly a witness to a terrible crime?

Driving home late one night from a post-work get-together, and despite her husband's wishes to avoid the dark, forested short-cut back home, Cass comes across a car parked on the side of the road with only a woman staring vacantly from the driver's side window. Unsure of what she could do, how, exactly, she might be able to help, and in preservation of her own safety, Cass drives on home, only to discover the next morning that the woman in the car has been brutally murdered. Wracked with guilt but also consumed with a possible memory-loss problem, Cass begins to think she's spiraling out of control. But is she really, or is she just being fucked with? And so begins another in the long line of psychological and domestic thrillers.

First off, I appreciate a good double entendre, which you get with the titles of both The Break Down and B.A. Paris' first novel, Behind Closed Doors. The Break Down is deeply mysterious, and makes the reader physically breathless as Cass sharply vacillates between extreme guilt and extreme fear/paranoia/anxiety/panic. But there are particular scenes that come off a bit too dramatic and contrived and, quite frankly, a little hard to accept. Paris makes clear Cass' heightened nerves, which was made even more evident by my own heightened nerves for personal, non-book-related reasons. But the true test of any author of the psychological thriller genre is, can the story be written well enough to trick the reader, without the use of bald-faced lies (Paris does not lie, but authors sometimes utilize this avenue)? Unfortunately, in this particular instance, the answer is no.

Any reader worth their salt begins to guess whodunnit by the end of the prologue or first chapter. I won't be arrogant enough to say that I "figured it out" on page three, but I'll admit that nothing about the ending was at all surprising. Ok, there was one thing that was surprising, but mostly I appreciate how Paris, once again, takes the main female character and deftly transforms her from victim into...something else, and it is encouraging, real, and empowering, not to mention written extremely well.

Although I only gave this book ⭐⭐⭐/5 on goodreads, the story pumps out faster than a slit throat, is fluidly written, and keeps you wanting more; you might figure out the major plot twists sooner than you'd like, but the little twists and turns are fast and sharp enough to keep even the most persnickety reader entertained. If you want your mind fucked with, this isn't your read. But if you want something fun to flip through while at the beach, or when you sense the impending end of summer but don't want to let go of summer reading just yet, then this should be your pick.

The Dark Rose by Erin Kelly

*Turns to chapter 52 and begins to skim* Which is a good indication that I am not engaged or interested in this book.

*Skims epilogue, reads final paragraph, closes book*

Huh.

That was weird.

It didn't give me the bad feels like I Am Behind You, but Erin Kelly's The Dark Rose made me question my seemingly unwavering faith in one of my favorite and most recommended books, The Burning Air. Where The Poison Tree is dark and confusing, The Dark Rose is disturbing and mostly pointless.

THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILERS

Louisa spends her days mooning over her past while rehabilitating an Elizabethan garden with a handful of wayward criminals not hard enough for prison, but just hard enough to require a respite from society. Enter Paul, one such wayward criminal who happens to bear a sinister resemblance to Louisa's teen lover, Adam. In spite of the obvious age difference, the two begin a romance that is neither romantic or necessary to the story. For his part, Paul is a young man abruptly torn from his future when an act of petty theft turns into a grizzly murder, and the two spend most of their time dancing around their violent commonalities.

Like The Poison Tree (or so I wrote on my goodreads review), The Dark Rose is exquisitely written, with imagery that is near perfection. The story is vivid and dark without a hint of remorse, but it doesn't necessarily need to be told, and the book as a whole is long, slow, and it's unclear why certain plot points need to exist. For example, it seems that Paul's likeness to Adam is an intriguing twist, though it is one that is never revealed to Paul, which could have possibly set the story on a different trajectory. The story also suddenly ends in a random twist of fate, and although these characters aren't particularly empathetic, we're supposed to feel sympathy or understanding for their final emotional upheavals. It seems as if Kelly got to page 300 and was like, well this will either be a 500-page book, or I should just end things now, and obviously chose the latter.

Kelly is a masterful writer, though as a novelist, I'm more a fan of her later works like, He Said/She Said, and I'm looking forward to her new book, Stone Mothers. I will also read her Broadchurch because, like my love/hate relationship with Liane Moriarty, I will return again and again and again. ⭐⭐⭐/5 on goodreads.

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

Unless you live under a rock, you probably still have WiFi, so you've seen The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen all over Instagram and book blogs. Well, here it is again, and I don't feel quite the same way that my fellow bookstagrammers and book bloggers do.

This book, another in a long line of domestic thrillers, is billed to be a lot more sinister than it actually is, and the mystery is far surpassed by the emotional drama. In terms of sub-categorizing the domestic fiction genre, I believe The Wife Between Us would make better company among novels like Ghosted and anything by Liane Moriarty. It offers up enough twists and turns to satisfy the thriller-seekers, but, really, this book ultimately dives deeper into the characters, the tangled webs they weave and why, all wrapped up in an empathetic story line.

Like the book jacket suggests, you will read this book and assume you are reading about a heartbroken ex-wife, left by her wealthy, powerful husband for his younger, blonder, Assistant (they don't call them Secretaries anymore). You will think that she is obsessed with her replacement and yearns for the life she once had. Then comes the twist, so sharp you get whiplash and, like Erin Kelly's The Burning Air, you are almost tempted to go back and flip through the last section just to make sure that, yup, she/they did just do that. This twist, though sharp, is also a bit watered down; Kelly still reins supreme.

The Wife Between Us is a well-written, well-crafted story that comes full-circle, but not without throwing out the odd detour here and there. And though psychologically mind-bending, it is more heart-warming than the synopsis would have you expect. It lives up to the hype, serving up several twists and turns, they just come on too sharp, start to become predictable, and one twist is sorely over-used in novels these days. The characters are deep and interesting and garner sympathy, but Vanessa's role in particular is a bit of a stretch, and I find her role hard to believe given the past that Hendricks and Pekkanen created for her.

Though a definite page-turner with compelling storytelling, I don't think this book is as good as the online hype; or maybe I am just tiring of the predictability that seems to be the way of domestic thrillers these days. I was expecting something different and a little darker and The Wife Between Us is just more of the same and left me a little underwhelmed, which is why I give it ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 on goodreads. I've said it before and I'll say it again, just read The Burning Air instead.

I Am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist

What, in the name of all that is Holy, did I just fucking read?

And so begins a long line of similar sentiments on the goodreads review board for John Ajvide Lindqvist's I Am Behind You, a title - much like the book - that is completely pointless and devoid of meaning and ultimately stupid. Apparently, this WTF-factor is not unfamiliar to readers of Lindqvist's previous books, but it will most likely be the reason that I never read - much less pay any more library late-fees for - one of his books again.

Waking up one morning in a Swedish campsite (not unlike many you find in America), a group of adults, two young children, a dog, and a cat find that everything has disappeared; no additional campers besides them, no additional caravans, no trees, no roads, no water, and no sun. Just blue sky and a grass that doesn't grow. What starts out as intensely creepy, gradually turns into the story with no ending; just one, long, constant stream of consciousness, like the ramblings of an old man who had the weirdest dream and remembers every last detail. But, not only does it get hard to focus, keep names and places straight, and is inherently meaningless, it is also gross, disturbing, and something you're just better off not knowing.

It is written well enough, capturing the spirit - the essence - of each character in a way that is expressly unique to them; and oftentimes profound, offering up several quotes that resonated with me, personally. But as the pages reach the end, the book goes from being a cross between The Shining, LOST, The Langoliers, and every horror movie you've ever seen involving creepy children, to a hodgepodge of lack-luster horror that even the characters aren't afraid of anymore. It goes the way of Nick Cutter's The Deep in that there comes a point when Lindqvist is just trying too hard to be controversial, and the payoff is nil. There is no happy ending, no conclusive ending - also like The Deep, the story just...stops. There is, literally, no ending, which means I could have stopped reading this book about 200-pages - or three weeks - ago, and now it is one of the few that I won't remember much of but when I see it or am reminded of it, will make me scrunch my nose in disgust.

Dubbed "the Stephen King of Sweden," and even though I find King to be exhausting on a whole other level, you're better off just reading a Stephen King novel. Like I Am Behind You, any of his books might also give you nightmares, but they will at least be nightmares that make sense. This book was definitely not worth the time, effort, or library late fees. ⭐/5 on goodreads.com.

A Simple Favor by Darcey Bell

I seem to be coming across more and more reviews on Goodreads that I find particularly confusing or...inaccurate, for lack of a better word. I don't usually read the reviews in order to determine if I will read a book or not, mainly because people like to play it fast and loose with the details. But once I am done with a book, I'll peruse the reviews out of curiosity, and those of Darcey Bell's A Simple Favor - yes, the very same as the movie starring Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick - are some I didn't agree with, but not because I feel like A Simple Favor is some kind of literary masterpiece.

One review in particular that shows up first says that Bell is lucky to have her "contrived," "stinker of a novel," purchased for the movie rights, when the very first thing that I thought was, I know exactly why this book was purchased for the movie rights.

Stephanie is an isolated Stay-at-Home Mommy-blogger (not unlike myself) who suddenly finds herself immersed in her best friend, Emily's, life once Emily goes unexpectedly missing. What is artificial on the surface - the juvenile writing, the blatant ineptitude of the would-be protagonist (if one actually exists in this story, and I don't think one does), and the story as old as time - actually speaks to more complex themes and explores different ideas, and *that* is why I think it was snatched up to be made into a movie, and why the multi-faceted talents of Kendrick and Lively were picked to play the main characters.

The foundation of the book, that everyone has secrets, is the stable ship that carries some very unstable people. And where other Domestic Noir novels work extra hard for character empathy and elaborate reasons for unreasonable actions, A Simple Favor simply tells the story of best friends behaving badly. And in direct contrast to my usual complaints that every mystery thriller is compared to Gone Girl, I am going to go ahead and compare it to Gone Girl in that it is exactly like Gone Girl if Gone Girl was about two female best friends instead of a husband and wife; and, just like Gone Girl, everyone deserves each other.

Also on the surface is the cheesy, over-used theme showcasing the underbelly of misrepresenting ourselves online. Stephanie is an insipid character who is subtly narcissistic and manipulates the tragedy of others to gain validation from online strangers. She is that special kind of willful ignorance who avoids the truth in favor of feeding her own ego and self-interests, though she tries (unsuccessfully) to be remorseful for her ideas and behaviors.

Unlike Stephanie, Emily makes no attempt to veil her unfavorable thoughts or actions, which speaks to present day real life in that most of us do things that we know are wrong simply because we want to do them. In reading this book, I found that I have more empathy for these women than I did in any of the other domestic thrillers I have read *because* there is no special, overly-detailed, vengeful reason for why they do what they do. And it certainly isn't as a result of some dumb male acting dumb. This book makes the movie unlike any other - where the men sit back and enjoy the ride. I find that, currently, nothing is more relatable than these two characters.

This certainly isn't the best book I have ever read, which is why I gave it three out of five stars on Goodreads, but I feel the need to defend it to a certain extent. I would enjoy seeing the movie, I'm curious to see these characters acted out on screen, and if - also like Gone Girl - the intentions of the characters remain the same. This book is definitely a page-turner, but not one to read if you need to like any of the characters; you will definitely not like any of these characters.  

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

Let's be real: most of us readers don't choose our books - or any other form of entertainment - based on escapism alone. If we did, Fantasy would be the only published genre and Hallmark the only channel on cable. We don't have an aversion to observing people exhibit bad behavior, but mostly when there are clear distinctions between the good guys and bad guys, and we are aware of it beforehand, and because we perceive their situations to be so far removed from our own reality. And we"ll accept morally challenged characters in exchange for a good story. So when a book comes along with characters so inherently selfish, narcissistic, and unapologetically so without committing any major legal infractions, accompanying a story that is decidedly not worth the pay-off, that is when us readers feel betrayed. Chloe Benjamin's The Immortalists is a definite disappointment; a promising story propped up by an engaging topic, taken over by truly unfortunate characters.

What would you do if you learned the exact date of your death? Would you seek out that information in the first place? Would knowing the date of your death change the way you lived? What would be the difference - if any - in finding out when you were a child versus finding out as an adult? Benjamin takes on these provocative questions with even more provocative answers by way of the Gold siblings - Simon, Klara, Daniel, and Varya - who sneak out of their childhood home one summer night in 1969, lured by the kid-gossip that doubles as campfire tales about a haunting woman made infamous for accurately predicting the exact date of a person's death. Though they are just children, they immediately grasp the enormity of the information they have just been given. And what follows is a poignant, depressing story propelled by self-inflicted guilt and victimization. Published in 2018, if ever there was a book to highlight the entitlement of middle class youth, The Immortalists is it.

The book is written well, albeit a bit crass, the research is timely, and the story is what good book discussion are made of; I made up about ten discussion questions in my head while I read. Of all the directions lives can go after learning the date of death, Benjamin takes a decidedly darker one with four self-destructive individuals completely devoid of empathy or personal responsibility, which I find personally distasteful. That aside, they are brilliant representations of the various paths one's life can take after learning the exact date of their death. The characters are decidedly unlikable, and though that exists in every entertainment medium, the Gold siblings are just awful, terrible people, hauling what could have been an otherwise engaging, interesting plot into a depressing depiction of our deep self-inflicted wounds. Did Benjamin do this on purpose merely to highlight one of the ways in which a life can go, or is her's just another voice in the race to play victim?

A book worthy of many a discussion groups, the premise had promise but is lost amongst the unfortunate characters. With such an enormous topic, what Benjamin ultimately laced together is brilliant, but I was thoroughly disappointed, and this book left me with a dent in my faith in humanity, which is definitely not why I read.

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

"[A] deliciously disturbing literary thriller...You'll be spellbound from start to finish." - People

"Stunning...Chaon succeeds in both creating suspense and making it pay off..." The New York Times

"A riveting thriller, chock-full of plot twists...There's a bristling momentum that develops, as in any great tale of suspense..." Los Angeles Times Book Review

"...Mysteries lurk in this hypnotic novel that you'll never guess." The Washington Post

Moments after finishing Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon my only thoughts on the above snippets of the book's advanced praise is that clearly none of these people actually read it. Or they were too big of literature snobs to praise the obvious elegance of the writing and ignore the giant hole where the plot should have been. Too wrapped up in the melancholy prose, and all too willing to praise it in the absence of any kind of substance, and for what? This is the kind of book that makes me cynically believe that people pay for good reviews. As someone who reads books with a fine-toothed comb, I can assure you that none of the above is actually true in Await Your Reply.

This book had promise. It certainly started off with a bang, Ryan's severed hand resting comfortably in a Styrofoam cooler as it rushed from a remote rural cabin in Michigan to the nearest hospital. But like the setting in of Gangrene, the book quickly veered into vague territory, providing about 85% meaningless backstory with the remaining 15% dedicated to the plot. It was one of those books where I imagined taking a Sharpie to every pointless sentence and winding up with something only about 30-pages long and most-likely exponentially more interesting. Where the Reader's Guide at the end praised the unorthodox structure of the book, something that should have added dimension to the story, it actually ended up making the book a lot more effort than it was worth. There is a lot of information - and fragment sentences - for the reader to wade through with very little payoff in the end, which is disappointing because the surprises and plot twists have the potential to make an actual impact. Instead, the "big reveal," is clouded by, "Wait...wha...?" It might be most beneficial to read this book in a Reading Group so that, like driving in a dense fog, people might be able to see and explain things that might not be clear to others, and vice versa.

Also in the Reader's Guide, Chaon boasts of thinking of novels as puzzles that need to be completed, but, unfortunately, Await Your Reply fell drastically short and comes off like it's missing several pieces. It is an inelegantly disjointed depressing walk through the mostly random memories of over three people who are interconnected, but not really. The actual plot is built on a rocky foundation of assumptions and conjecture with shockingly little information for the reader that would move the story forward. Instead, we get an overage of information that we don't need, and already know, like the over-explanation of highway memorials.

Purchased from the Dollar Tree about a year ago, and chosen from my bookshelf because I was in the mood for a good mind-fuck, I was given one, but was left largely unsatisfied and like it was a pointless waste of time, especially since I chose it over a soon-to-be-due library book by my all-time favorite author. As the David Frost poem Chaon cleverly inserted, probably to up his literary game in the likes of something actually New York Times-worthy, goes: "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth-"

Thank goodness I will next travel down the path I should have taken in the first place...

The Girls by Emma Cline

Emma Cline's The Girls popped up on Reese Witherspoon's Book Club Instagram page and suddenly it had 49 holds at the library, which - in my mind - translates to it being one of the season's it books. So I used a Christmas gift card to pay full price at Barnes and Noble, and it sat on my shelf, determined to wait until actual, calendar summer to crack it open. But like that great, splendid family vacation you planned and looked forward to and ended up being a huge bust, The Girls is one, big, juicy double of Nothing Burger; what I've often equated to the ever-so-eloquent Elaine Benes: "It's like a big-budget movie that goes NO WHERE." And since The Girls is a Black Swan-like Freudian trip through masturbatory fantasies more than anything else, Ms. Benes description holds even more true.

Set in California in the summer of 1969, The Girls is highly indicative of 2016/17, with the cultural upheaval and the general indifference to structure and authority. Evie Boyd finds herself adrift after her father leaves for his secretary and her mother flounders with the general survival of life. She finds herself drawn to Suzanne and the world she seemingly controls, a young girl who can burn down a house with a single glare. Though Evie makes it redundantly clear that she is aware of the Linus-esque grunge that follows Suzanne around, she repeatedly makes the decision to ignore it in exchange for what Evie can only assume are bigger and better things. Those "bigger and better" things are "Russell," his "Ranch," and what begins as the largest and most infamous cult phenomenon in history.

The description alone is what makes this book fly off the shelves. And though it is hauntingly written, cryptic, and darkly psychological, the writing, at most, creates a grim haze that, either purposeful or not, engulfs the entire story. Cline uses most of her word count to wax-poetic, which is obviously supposed to highlight the story, if there had been one in the first place. There is adequate imagery, mysterious, dismal, and, naturally, the stuff of horror movies, which would also lend nicely to a story line that isn't mostly about the time in between doing drugs, masturbating, and waiting for life to start. And given the premise of the book, it's not surprising that none of the characters are particularly likeable. Lacking base and any sort of substance, Cline's actors are very stoic and one-dimensional; like the robotic ducks you shoot at carnivals. Even highly sexual, angry, too-bitter-for-a-14-year-old-who-didn't-suffer-trauma-or-abuse Evie can't make a story appear where there is none.

Emma Cline's The Girls reeks of poor-little-rich-girl, out for excitement before being yanked back from the brink, and is a textbook case of childhoods lacking an appropriate father/male figure. Evie Boyd is a genius depiction of every adolescent, willfully naive, 14-year old girl spending her summer being too old for everything and being too young for everything. But where Cline goes full-speed ahead on language, the rest of the book is a lot of start-and-go before finally crapping out on the side of the highway. It is gruesome yet vague, and oddly descriptive without actually telling us anything. And though nothing really happens until the last 30 pages, what story line does materialize is obvious and cliche. I had been anticipating this book for an entire year and it was a major let-down. And while I appreciate and respect Cline's obvious writing talent, The Girls felt largely under-developed and mostly like I was reading Cline's diary interspersed with her own personal fantasies; like if the Black Swan danced through the Manson Murders.

(Shout-out to my Mom who recently told me she reads this blog. HI MOM!)

Blind Your Ponies by Stanley Gordon West

Most novels make you wait for the inevitable explanation of the title in a miss-it-if-you-blink, blow-your-mind kind of moment. Blind Your Ponies by Stanley Gordon West waited no such time, revealing the meaning of the title in the sadness-packed, depressing, foreshadowing-of-self-loathing beginning that carried through the rest of the novel; well, at least the first 469 pages, which is about all I was able to stand.

Last year my good friend and fellow bibliophile and I decided to play Reading Bingo, in which one square was labeled, "A book a friend RAVES about." Having her - as well as others in my book club - speak its praises, I concluded there was no better book to satisfy that square than Ponies. While that still may be true, I definitely don't share their affinity for this particular work, and will be using it for the 500+ pages square instead.

Since I'm afflicted with the most common, yet most severe, mental illness known today - called Life - I found the immediate beginning of Blind Your Ponies to be an instant turn-off. Not only did my lips physically curl in disgust just looking at the cover - as I now knew what the title meant - but the very thought of reading the book became the last thing I wanted to do behind laundry, watching PBS Kids, or just staring off into space. I didn't even actually finish the book, not being the least bit interested in the assumed climactic ending, something that is supposedly guaranteed in all books. From skimming and reading the few paragraphs I could tolerate, I was able to gather that the ending would have provided little in turning the tide for me on whether or not I felt anything positive towards this book. Generally speaking, the ending lacked any sort of real conclusion beyond the ending of the basketball season.

Reading this novel reminded me of my high school days, only not those spent cheering on the basketball court, but those spent shoveling metaphorical bullshit into my English papers in preparation for blowing the minds of my future college professors. My Junior Year English teacher called me out on it, if only he had been available to West, he could have saved him an entire novel's worth of overly-contrived crap.

Old, hopeless competition - check!
Will-they-or-won't-they romance - check!
Tragic death - check!
Cancer - check!
Rape - check!

West cornered the market on sad story lines, which may have accounted for the unnecessary page-length, and was an excuse for the turgid, overly-dramatic, incredibly unrealistic plot-twists and accompanying metaphors that littered the story like so much garbage along a majestic mountain highway. (See.) About 150-pages in, I found myself confused as to why this book came so highly-recommended. And although it usually takes me about 60-pages to get hooked on a book, I held out Willow-Creekian-style hope and forged ahead.

Close to the halfway point is when I started to vaguely understand - though completely disagree with - why a lot of people would put this book on their Top-Ten list. West narrated the ebb and flow of life as someone who has lived it, but with particular focus on human suffering, even as he attempted to do the exact opposite. Unfortunately his message of "life sucks but there are moments worth celebrating," got lost amongst his obvious unseasoned abilities as a writer. West ended countless sentences with awkward prepositions, used an inordinate and pointless amount of sentence fragments, and let the cart run away with the horse in terms of metaphors. His imagery flowed well, but only in the places you don't want (Tom's horse, anyone?!?); and while the story, about love, life, taking a village, teamwork, and loss, is more than just about basketball, the execution came off more like a Hallmark-movie gone wrong. The only places where West put nose to the grindstone and propelled the story forward were the game scenes - at one point I actually found myself shoveling handfuls of popcorn into my mouth with excitement. But ultimately anything even remotely climactic could be seen a mile away and was met with an inevitable eye-roll and tall glass of wine to accompany the cheese. And after awhile, following the book's general theme of extreme excess, even the game scenes became too much.

My experience with Blind Your Ponies was similar to that of reading Outlander in that I found an uncontrollable desire to mark out every arbitrary sentence and/or word and watch the book magically (and blessedly) shrink by half and become remarkably more interesting. But that would mean I would need to put more focus into this book and I just can't do that; as West reminds us, life is just too short.

I rode off into the sunset on my pony with this book, hopeful for it's unfolding, but wound up plummeting (albeit slowly and boringly) off the cliff instead.

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

Your first thought upon cracking open this biographical work is, "Wow, I can't believe this was written in 1959! This could be about [insert current year here]!" I mean, after your actual initial thought of, "I'm reading a piece of culturally significant material that enlightens me to the world beyond my own backyard, go me!"

But as the story develops, cultural implications give way to a bland overview of 1960's Deep South racism, spectral division, and a sense of hatred that would be powerful and life-altering had the story execution been even remotely interesting.

What would have ordinarily been a rather quick read ended up dragging on slower than the buses that begrudgingly carted Mr. Griffin around Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and the like. Distantly telling of the obstacles he encountered after altering his white skin to become black - colored bathrooms miles away from convenient, denied cups of coffee or glasses of water, looks of disgust from obvious strangers - Mr. Griffin spoke more of the general segregation and corresponding consequences of blacks - oftentimes horrific - than of his own, often horrific, experiences. And although they were shocking in nature, Griffins' portrayal of them was distant, vague, and lacked the sort of intensity one would expect from a white man going from his seemingly privileged existence to the suppressed, harsh life of a 1960's Negro man; especially coming from his own personal journal.

Afforded the luxury of being able to switch from black to white skin, Griffin instead wasted it by describing his experiences is generic prose, as if he were standing outside a window looking in. Constructed as his personal journal throughout his seven-week experiment, his freedom to paint a more specific picture of 1960's racial injustice was supremely wasted, though he was still subjected to his own brand of racism once the experiment was made public. Not until the epilogue, which I almost didn't read, did Mr. Griffin delve deep into what his experiment revealed, why, and any possible moves toward national harmony, though he stopped short of making any actual suggestions.

Obviously this work was culturally significant in it's 1960's publication, and is still relevant today, which is both sad and promising. Sad because we're dealing with the same issues as a nation over 50-year later, and promising because although racial harmony alludes us, and springs up in new, ugly ways, our ability to recognize the problem of judging someone based on skin color alone is what separates us from the animals. But, if we're being honest, animals have us beat in this area; I've never seen a dog attack another dog simply for being black.

Me Talk Pretty One Day

Always late to the pop-culture party, I'm probably the last person on earth to pay any member of the Sedaris family any sort of attention. I vaguely remember the hoopla surrounding David Sedaris' latest release, Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls, but mainly just that all of my bookish friends were creaming themselves over it. Having had his Me Talk Pretty One Day taking up residence on my bookshelf (thus satisfying the criteria for Reading What Is Already On My Shelf), I thought it was high-time I see what all of the fuss was about. Turns out, not much.

What is described as a witty, sarcastic, artful re-telling of his weird adolescence is actually nothing more than Chelsea Handler with a smaller penis. But unlike Handler who seems to soften with age, Sedaris only hardens and becomes more bitter, and rapidly becomes the guy at the party you talk about later as, "Man, he was a real asshole."

Playing off the theme of his speech impediment - something that could have taken one good, lengthy chapter to cover, as opposed to the multi-chapter ramble he subjected us to -  we're taken on a bumpy ride through his self-described crappy life. Or maybe that's just his super-cheerful tone. *raises one eyebrow*

By the time he's found a partner who can stand him for longer than five minutes and followed him to France, Sedaris has become that friend we only talk to sporadically because they Debbie-Downer every situation. Against my honor as an avid book-reader, I actually skipped pages. (You're never going to learn French well enough, and the food in New York City is way too pretentious, I GET IT!)

To be fair, there were some parts - mostly in the beginning - where I found myself relating and even laughing out loud. I suppose that is what makes him even remotely appealing, as we often feel like our own lives are complete crap. But we generally don't feel that way 100% of the time, so having a book that contains 100% bitterness and negativity is discouraging.  While this book is in no way a reflection of his every day life, it can make you wonder: did this guy ever have an enjoyable moment that wasn't tinged with cynicism?

Regardless of your level of enjoyment as you read this (because everyone else seems to love these Sedaris people so much, I won't even waste word space and typing energy to tell you to skip this particular read), it's a quick read that won't take up too much room in your tote (though, it's not particularly worth hauling around).

I'll most likely read another of Sedaris' books if I ever find myself trapped on a deserted island and stumble upon it. When it comes to being bitter, having wonky childhoods and growing-up years, and indulging in negative reactions, we all can write our own essay-novels. Sedaris acts like he owns the market when, really, he's only perfected the art of whining.

The Bean Trees

Given my new reading goal of Reading What is Already on My Shelf, I haven't put much offer as of late into my local book club's latest picks. Also, I might have a tiny bug up my butt that no one read my pick. But then my crack dealer book supplier lent it to me, it was a short read, so I figured, what the heck and read Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees.

I'm glad it was a relatively short read because it definitely wasn't worth the detour from my bookshelf. A story about a young girl who feels she should be congratulated for escaping her hometown without getting pregnant, The Bean Trees is one of very little substance. Aside from suddenly being saddled with an abused Native American toddler in the beginning of her journey west from Kentucky, and the very last 45 pages of the book, absolutely nothing happened besides a lot of reminiscing over the past, how everyone has baggage, and how everyone carries it differently. The human condition, if you will.

Faced with sudden motherhood, Taylor is forced to live the life she tried to avoid. And although her new-found friendships help her along the way, as a mother myself, I have to wonder if the author, editor, publisher, or anyone who pre-read the story knew anything about having babies or motherhood.

Overall, I was largely unimpressed by this book. I'd be interested to know the reasoning behind its choice, and given the date of publication, I wonder if I somehow avoided reading and junior-analyzing it for High School English class. Back then it might have moved me in some profound way, but for now, it's not worth hauling in your tote and really should only be read by obligation.

A Dog's Journey

I love animals but refuse to watch movies where they are the star (Milo & Otis, Homeward Bound, Marley and Me, Babe, etc.). Books are only slightly more tolerable and even then I approach them with extreme trepidation. But after finishing A Dog's Purpose, the pull to finish "Buddy's" story proved too much and I borrowed the sequel, A Dog's Journey from a friend. I still had to build up some emotional stamina, though, and it sat on my end-table for a good month before I even considered picking it up.

Having just come off my Summer of the Memoir, and not in a bury-your-nose-in-a-book kind of mood, I jumped back into fiction with the doozy of them all: Fifty Shades Darker. As my vacation approached, I only wanted to keep things light but still wanted to get A Dog's Journey back to my friend before the end of time. And I DID NOT want to be reading a dog book when I was thousands of miles from my own fur-beasts. I didn't have their comfort when I sobbing through the end of Marley and Me and I wasn't going to let that happen again.

It's a general rule that sequels are never as good as the original and, while enjoyable, A Dog's Journey, easily fell right into that category. True to its name, A Dog's Purpose tells the story of dog trying to find the meaning of his life and answer the question he's sick of asking: when will my purpose have been fulfilled? So, A Dog's Journey is just that: the journey of a dog who discovers his purpose.

In that same vein, A Dog's Journey is more of a story about the people in the dog's life rather than the dog itself, leaving me with the most important lesson of all: don't trust anyone who doesn't like dogs.

While not entirely heartbreaking as animal stories tend to be, a great deal of fun was missing from this book that was present in Purpose, and even Marley and Me, and replaced with a certain amount of anxiety, making this more of an emoti-read than it already is by nature. I did, however, manage to hold myself together until the very end.

While the characters, author, and reader got exactly what they wanted by the end, it came with some lingering questions for me. Having read the entirety of all his lives, the things he learned, the people he saved, the work he did, the love and companionship he provided, I still wasn't exactly clear on his purpose, or the reason his journey finally ended. Not to be a spoiler, perhaps it was just as a result of my own dimwittedness.

If you're me and only going to read one dog/animal book this year (although I doubt I'll even do that), I would suggest something other than A Dog's Journey. Its prequel is better, more heartwarming, light, and funny. But if I'm going to be honest and recommend a dog book, it's going to be Marley and Me. And, once again, don't waste your time with the movie.

The Silver Star

My inaugural book when I first joined the book club was The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and it quickly became one of those books I still talk about and recommend almost five years later. A couple of years ago, still big fans, we picked up her Half Broke Horses, a memoir of her grandmother on her mother's side. Her latest, The Silver Star, is a mix of the two and a tired use of very similar themes.

Taking place in the 70's, the too-long, under-developed story centers around Jean "Bean" Holladay and her older sister, Liz, on their own while their flaky mother chases dreams of Hollywood stardom. Surviving only on pot-pies (which, oddly enough, made me crave a pot pie), their mother Charlotte, doesn't come back after one of her trips so the girls decide to go where their survival might be aided by an adult figure of some responsibility. I'm starting to think that only in a Jeannette Walls novel is young children traveling cross-country alone acceptable - even in the 70's - but I guess I'm just a fuddy-duddy like that.

Making it all the way to Virginia where their uncle has been tending to the once opulent but now decrepit Holladay estate, he hesitantly lets the girls in despite their penchant for causing trouble in the name of good. They soon start a life that is on the verge of normal but couldn't be entirely so since it is Jeannette Walls after all, an author who found the homeless/poor theme and decided to stick with it.

Obviously, one can't fault her for exploring those themes in her first two books as they were memoirs. But with this being her first novel, I had expectations she'd branch out a bit more. Look at Outlander, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter; the imagination knows no bounds! So throughout most of the book I found myself wondering, as an author, why she didn't explore a place she has never been.

I might have been able to overlook that for the most part if the stories and sub-themes had actually been developed and not come to a screeching halt. Every instance of "drama" was shorter than the last with the reader forced to visualize, assume, and do most of the work. Walls created a story that could have gone several different places but chickened out, and was written with a style more suitable to the Young Adult genre. If one thing can be said, Walls expertly wrote from the prospective of a 12-year old.

Others in the book club generally agreed, that The Silver Star was very much been there, done that, got the burlap sack you wore as a dress for a month. We get it.

Obviously, it's no secret this was not one of my favorite books, especially of her's. It's not terrible and might be more appreciated if it was read before her others instead of after. Either way, wait until it hits the bargain bin. It's a short, uncomplicated read, good for reading during a weekend while you're in between better books. Sorry, Ms. Walls; I'll be interested in what you come out with next...

Ask Again Later

It has been several years since I've read one of Jill A. Davis comedic masterpieces, of which I remember laughing out loud in a room full of people with my nose buried in Girls Poker Night. To this day, I can't even tell you what it was about, but certain lines about trying to gain admittance to a mental hospital, and a quick one-liner about suicide with a blow dryer stick out prominently in my brain. I can't tell if it's because I'm older and arguably wiser and less gullible, or if Davis really isn't as funny as I previously thought. And that was long before I ever tried smoking weed.

Ask Again Later is your typical young-woman-trying-to-find-herself chick lit littered with absolutely ridiculous scenarios that make you laugh out loud in that "WTF?!" kind of way. I wouldn't say it was the best book I've ever read - certainly not the funniest and I have yet to read anything by the All Mighty David Sedaris - but it wasn't a complete waste of time, either. It made me appreciate my boring, married-with-children life and made me wonder how necessary it is to have chick-lit in my literary life right now. Like rom-com movies, most romance novels, and porn, once you've seen/read one, you've read/seen 'em all. The random twists Davis peppers throughout the generally hum-drum story definitely keeps you on your toes, though, is much appreciated, and keeps the 240ish paperback pages turning.

Written as if we've secretly picked up a stranger's diary, we're led down a wandering path of a woman who has absolutely no idea what she's doing, where's she's going, or what her basic interests are. It reminds me of Runaway Bride when she has no idea how she prefers her eggs. By the end, we're not really sure if she's figured anything out, just that her life will continue in less of an up-heaved kind of way. So, good for her.