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Some time ago I realized almost all the books I read were by men, and so I focused on reading books by female authors.  This time I'm taking a break from female protagonists AND female writers courtesy of Kindle Unlimited and an ad on FB.  I really enjoyed Who Killed Mrs. Finch  by Peter Boon.  The narrator/protagonist is a murder mystery reader/librarian working for a small English village school. To spice things up, he is neurodivergent, and his protege is a 16-year-old with Asperger's (Yes, I know the classification is out-of-date, but I can't change the book.) who predicts the horrible Head Teacher will be murdered.  And she is.  The clues to solving this murder were all there, and I could predict some things, but not all of them. I seriously didn't anticipate who the murderer was until there was no one else, and then I saw how the author had woven clues which I ignored. (Story of my life. IYKYK.)  I'll check out the next one in the series.

Life is finite. We live . . . and then we die. There is no escaping this very human reality. We just don't think about it much. We don't want to think about it.  Until we have to.  Kate Bowler tells her story of facing death in  No Cure for Being Human: And Other Truths I Need to Hear . She begins with her colon cancer diagnosis in her mid-thirties, when her son is only a few months old, and the doctors tell her she is terminal. When they tell she has a small chance of survival, but survival just means an extra two years.  How does she make the most of this? How does she plan for the future, a future that probably doesn't include her? How does she fight for more?  This is Bowler's story of fighting for survival and thinking about what it means to be human, with all the joys . . . and disappointments. And Bowler is a fantastic storyteller who shares what she learns from facing death.  We all need to think about, at least some of the time, because not a one o...

I read a lot of cozy mysteries. (Or cosy mysteries given that many of the books take place in the UK.) It's not surprising, I suppose, since I tend to gravitate toward the same kinds of TV shows. These mysteries aren't too stressful, they offer likeable characters, and because they come in series, it's easy to "make friends" with the characters as I spend so much time with them. Most of the time I rate them a 4 or maybe a 3. They're good, I enjoyed them, but this isn't GREAT writing. It's good. (Which is good.) The first installment of The Thursday Murder Club  was great. I picked it up quite a while back, and I just couldn't quite get into it. The point of view switched frequently. When we get Joyce's point of view, she is using first person. We see an omniscient narrator when we see Elizabeth, Donna, or Chris's point of view. (We also see the POV of a couple of criminals and some side characters.) I set the book aside thinking I would com...

The Girls in the Attic by Marius Gabriel My rating: 3 of 5 stars View all my reviews I like the idea of a novel focused on internal transformation. After all, the United States has a history of racism, similar to the history of anti-Semitism. How do we change people's perspectives?  This book doesn't provide any insight into that question. The transformation of Nazi Colonel Max Wolf from anti-Semite and Hitler apologist to a compassionate human being who mourns his past and falls in love with Lola Rosenstein, a Jew hiding in his mother's attic, is a little simplistic and way too quick.  The characters are interesting but not really credible, and the story is filled with fantastical coincidences.  Even so, I can't say I didn't enjoy the story. I just didn't buy the premise.  The final scene, which follows the Lola after the death of her husband six decades later was particularly unbelievable.  I freely acknow...

32 Candles: A Novel by Ernessa T. Carter My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews My daughter Kirsten and I were talking about books the other day, and I bemoaned the very bad books I had started and then set aside. What a waste of time.  I want to read things that engage me and make me think about different perspectives. She suggested that sometimes it's good to read something just for fun, and I agreed, but told her I at least wanted well written books. She suggested "32 Candles," and in the middle of our conversation, I bought the book. (I have issues with books and book purchases.) So a few things about this book.  First, when I finished the book, I immediately started missing the protagonist, Davidia Jones, born and raised in Glass, Mississippi, a transplant to Los Angeles. Her observations are sharp and humorous even when she describes tragic events.  Second, it is a fun read. Davidia Jones, writes in first p...

Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything by Kristin Bair O'Keeffe My rating: 4 of 5 stars View all my reviews Donovan Woods (and someone else) sings a song called " Iowa ." The first line of the song is "I am waiting for this book to get good."  And that's a really good way to start this review.  It's clear from the first page that Kristin Bair O'Keeffe's prose will be quick moving and humorous as we are introduced to Agatha Arch's reflections on finding her husband in flagrante in the shed. She goes berserk and takes and axe to the shed.  Her husband moves in with the dog walker and begins a new happily ever after, and Agatha's children begin living in both home.  Meanwhile, Agatha's life spirals.  And it is here that I completely lost interest.  This woman is berserk. Does she have any redeeming qualities besides her imagination? She is a stalker, filled with hatred, and seems to des...

Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner My rating: 4 of 5 stars A few years ago I read Jennifer Weiner's Mrs. Everything, which I considered one of the best books I read that year. This isn't that good. But it is good enough that I wanted to read all of it. Honestly, I am finding more and more books that I just would rather skip. This book follows the story of a plus-size social influencer and her internal struggle accepting herself. It throws in the "mean girl" who made her life hell in private school, a little romance, a wedding (not hers), and a murder. Yeah. That's a lot of things, but Weiner does a nice job weaving these things together and keeping everything interesting. View all my reviews

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews I remember reading about the caste system in India and thinking about the injustice of making one set of humans like gods and others lower than the animals, just because of who their parents were. And I was proud that in America, the country of my birth, we all had equal opportunity. Anyone could be anything they wanted if they just worked hard enough. Over the years I have realized that is not entirely true. That some people have extra opportunities based on family connections, that the schools we go to, based on where live, afford us opportunities that others don't have. My parents couldn't give the kids in our family cars, college tuition, or mentors in "high" positions, but they could give us music lessons and books. And so we had more opportunities than some but not as many as others. And as I thought about t...

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews I should be grading, but I don't really want to, so I am writing book reviews. (I'm not sure anyone reads these, but that isn't the point.) I've got a library full of books I haven't read on my Kindle, and my goal is to make a sizeable reduction in the number of books, but I keep getting interrupted with books I simply must read. Like this one.  I haven't read any of Kate Quinn's historical novels on ancient Rome, but I loved The Alice Network and The Huntress which both tell untold stories about the contributions of women to World War 1 and 2. They are meticulously researched with well-developed characters and riveting stories. So when The Rose Code came out, I ordered it immediately.  I was not disappointed.  This time Quinn tells the story of three women coders at Bletchley Park and their role in decoding German messages. She adds...

The Son and Heir: A Memoir by Alexander Münninghoff My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews Life is complicated, and sometimes circumstances, completely out of our control, change everything. For example, what would this last year have been like if we had not gone through a pandemic? How did this change the course of people's lives? Sometimes my students feel like their lives have been unfairly altered, and while this is true, my age and my fascination with history remind me that they are not the only ones who have experienced the injustices of circumstance. This memoir follows the life of Alexander Munninghoff's family, through the Russian Revolution, World War 1 and World War 2, how circumstances, culture, and personal choices shaped their lives. How their family story would have been entirely different if things had been different. No. It was not fair. But it was. None of us choose the time we live in, and so we are ...

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson My rating: 4 of 5 stars View all my reviews First of all, Kate Atkinson is an extraordinary writer who crafts beautiful details. Her prose was a breath of fresh air after starting and stopping more than three books on my Kindle because of formulaic writing. (I did finish one of them, but only because I was on a plane.) Atkinson explores the life of Ursula, who has an uncanny sense of deja vu which haunts her and distances her from her family. Her memory is filled with previous experiences. Did they really happen? Can she change her life if she makes different choices? Should she? The story follows multiple timelines, which is odd at first, but later seems quite ordinary. Sometimes I even rooted for her to change the timeline. (Ursula, you don't have to have this life. You can choose something else. You can change the present by changing the past.) And then she always did. Or mostly. By the end, ...

The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon by Sarah Steele My rating: 3 of 5 stars View all my reviews ** spoiler alert **  This was a predictable yet lovely story of Flo, who learns she has a great aunt after discovering a box of 1960s era patterns, fabrics, and photos in the back of the closet. She determines that this is her great aunt Nancy, but why had her grandmother, who raised, never mentioned her? Her grandmother's friend reveals that Nancy had disappeared in Europe after 1962 and they had never heard from her again. Flo is a bit of a mess after the loss of a full-term pregnancy and learning her husband had cheated on her, so she sets out to discover where Nancy has gone by following the travel notes on each of the patterns, and to make the trip more interesting, she sews all the clothes Nancy had made herself, using similar material. The story follows Flo's journey to find Nancy and resolve the sorrow in her heart as well a...

The Last Correspondent by Soraya M. Lane My rating: 3 of 5 stars View all my reviews I wanted to like this book about female war reporters during WWII, but this one was completely implausible. Every single scene, nearly every character. I read to the end because I was on the plane. To be honest, there are plenty of people who will like this book, but I am not one of them.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews I read this book because my friend and colleague Natalie recommended it. I was not disappointed, although it was daunting when my Kindle indicated it would take more than nine hours to read the book. (Would I have picked up a hard copy book that big? I'm not sure.) At any rate, Schwab is a wonderful story teller, and the author sucked me into this story of Adeline, a young woman from 18th century France, who wants to explore the world, who resents the expectations of her small village so much that she runs from the church and into the woods on her wedding day, praying desperately that god would deliver her from this marriage. The only god who answers strikes a bargain with her, her freedom for her soul. She hesitates; she knows who this god is, but she is desperate, and so she attempts to bargain. For how long, the god asks, and she res...

A Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal by Sarah Bessey My rating: 5 of 5 stars Prayer is complicated. We pray, we hope God is listening. If our prayers are answered, meaning we feel comforted or what we ask for comes to pass, we may wonder if the prayer made a difference. If our prayer is not answered--or the answer is no, not yet, later--we may wonder why or why pray next time. Reading through this collection of prayers reminds me of the Psalms, a collection of prayers that celebrates, whines, and bemoans the same issues. Is God listening? Why is all this stuff happening to me? To the people I love? Thank you, Sarah Bessey, for collecting these prayers and publishing them to pull me beyond my questions about prayer and into the presence of God. I was sad to end the book, and I will read it again. View all my reviews

Barefoot Ways by Stephen Cherry My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles My rating: 4 of 5 stars View all my reviews

What Sam Knew by Steve Higgs My rating: 3 of 5 stars Yawn. Patricia Fisher's husband cheats on her, she goes on a world cruise and solves a few crimes, and then a Maharajah gives her the use of his estate in her home town and ail of his luxury cars and his staff for perpetuity, so she goes home, starts a detective agency, and lives like a rich woman even though she isn't. She also doesn't actually seem like a very good detective since she ignored major clues that were obvious to readers but hidden to her, and she talks about that cruise incessantly. Apparently there is a whole series about the cruise, and so she is just talking about it in case we didn't read that series. I did not. She also talks about her cars and the size of her house. She also doesn't know what a booty call is and doesn't take the time to Google it, but mentions several times that she doesn't know what it is despite the fact that people keep saying tha...

Rediscipling the White Church: From Cheap Diversity to True Solidarity by David W. Swanson My rating: 5 of 5 stars The more I read about the white American church's complicity with racism, the more I recognize my own complicity with racism. The more I read about whiteness and white privilege, the more I recognize the many ways I benefit from my whiteness--and the more I recognize the cost of this privilege. And it's hard to write these things. It's uncomfortable. And I need to make peace with discomfort and seek justice, whatever the cost. Last February, I attended the Cultivate conference and participated in a breakout session focused on how to talk about race. Leroy Barber, the facilitator, asserted that the problem in the white church was a lack of discipleship, training, understanding what the Bible says, understanding history, understanding justice. And that word discipleship resonated with me. How do we begin to see the world beyond...

The Girl from Vichy by Andie Newton My rating: 3 of 5 stars I've read a lot of novels about espionage during World War 2 and the role of female agents, and this was one of them. I liked the storyline, and I appreciate Newton's moves to illustrate complexity of human beings as they try to navigate difficult times. Why do people support their leaders despite the evidence that the leader is taking the people down a dangerous path? Why do some people collaborate with enemies? Why do some people risk everything to change the course of history? How does war change us? Unfortunately, this story and the simplistic character and plot development never quite achieve what I believe Newton wanted to achieve. For example, the protagonist's recruitment into the resistance was based on the fact that she wasn't a spy for the opposite side and because she fled marriage to a collaborator. She was actually a bit flighty. The resistance members shared na...