Contemporary Books - Page 12

Bridge of Sighs: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries)

Richard Russo

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 117 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Empathetic characters, engaging story 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I liked this book even better than Empire Falls, another of Russo's great books. Russo captures small-town life and small-town ambition perfectly and believably. The artist character (Bobby Noonan) is less believable than some of the other characters but still well drawn. Noonan's fate at the end of the book seems a bit like a cop-out, but the book is still engaging and well-written throughout. Russo is a master at creating empathetic characters.

Nostalgic novel with literary ambitions 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Richard Russo's first novel since EMPIRE FALLS lists heavily toward nostalgia. BRIDGE OF SIGHS is set in Thomaston, New York. There is a working class neighborhood, the West Side; a middle class neighborhood, the East Side; and the Borough where the owner of the tannery lives.

Louis C. "Lucy" Lynch lives in all three at some point in his life. His father is a milkman who starts out working on "The Hill" the black neighborhood, then moves up to the East side when he gets a route serving the Borough. When the A&P moves into town, he sees the handwriting on the wall and buys the corner store, Ikey Lubin's, without his wife's permission. Tessa is not happy and refuses to have anything to do with the place, except working on the books. Ikey Lubin's is so significant in the story it's almost a character in its own right.

BRIDGE OF SIGHS has a Milton-esque flavor to it. Milton once wrote two poems, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, asking who is better off, the contemplative man or the happy man. Lucy's father embodies the happy man. He has a good opinion of everybody and thinks everything will eventually turn out for the best. Russo juggles time throughout the novel. Lucy is telling the story as a sixty-year-old, looking back on his friendship with his neighbor Bobby Marconi, one of the popular boys who doesn`t always return Lucy`s friendship. Lucy takes after his father. He's happiest in Thomaston, running by now three convenience stores, one in each part of town. Bobby has become a famous painter, living in Italy, but he's not happy. He has sexual escapades with his friends' wives, his painting has lost its thrill until he paints Sarah, Lucy's future wife. As a girl Sarah was in love with both of them. Russo keeps you guessing as to what exactly went on in that relationship, as he does with Tessa and Big Lou's brother Dec, who works at Ikey Lubin's as a butcher.

Another compelling character is Sarah's father who works at the high school as an English teacher. He's working on a thousand-page, single-spaced novel during the summer when Sarah goes to live with her mother in Long Island. He smokes in class, handpicks his students for reasons other than academics, and seems to be begging to be fired.

If you don't like omniscient novels you may have a problem with BRIDGE OF SIGHS. There is a lot of narrative (telling). Russo gets inside the head of one of his characters and stays there for pages. But he's really good at it, so this may be a moot point. Russo also leaves several questions unanswered. For instance, why are Sarah (an excellent artist in her own right) and Bobby painting the same picture?

Editorial Review:

Amazon Significant Seven, November 2007: Richard Russo's first book since the Pulitzer Prize-winning Empire Falls, Bridge of Sighs is a typically stunning portrait of three small town families struggling--like the town itself--to strike a balance between obsessively embracing their own history or shunning it entirely, with devastating consequences along both paths. Bridge of Sighs is pure Russo: funny, heartbreaking, and ringing completely true. --Jon Foro

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Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Harper Fiction)

Gregory Maguire

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1491 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Ending not worth the time getting there. 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

For a book that was hyped as being so good, I was really disappointed. The book was well written, but after reading many pages, the book ended.

Editorial Review:

When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

The Old Man and The Sea

Ernest Hemingway

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 685 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Here, for a change, is a fish tale that actually does honor to the author. In fact The Old Man and the Sea revived Ernest Hemingway's career, which was foundering under the weight of such postwar stinkers as Across the River and into the Trees. It also led directly to his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1954 (an award Hemingway gladly accepted, despite his earlier observation that "no son of a bitch that ever won the Nobel Prize ever wrote anything worth reading afterwards"). A half century later, it's still easy to see why. This tale of an aged Cuban fisherman going head-to-head (or hand-to-fin) with a magnificent marlin encapsulates Hemingway's favorite motifs of physical and moral challenge. Yet Santiago is too old and infirm to partake of the gun-toting machismo that disfigured much of the author's later work: "The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords." Hemingway's style, too, reverts to those superb snapshots of perception that won him his initial fame:

Just before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket, his small line was taken by a dolphin. He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air.

If a younger Hemingway had written this novella, Santiago most likely would have towed the enormous fish back to port and posed for a triumphal photograph--just as the author delighted in doing, circa 1935. Instead his prize gets devoured by a school of sharks. Returning with little more than a skeleton, he takes to his bed and, in the very last line, cements his identification with his creator: "The old man was dreaming about the lions." Perhaps there's some allegory of art and experience floating around in there somewhere--but The Old Man and the Sea was, in any case, the last great catch of Hemingway's career. --James Marcus

Nothing to Lose (Jack Reacher Novels)

Lee Child

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 243 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Two lonely towns in Colorado: Hope and Despair. Between them, twelve miles of empty road. Jack Reacher never turns back. It's not in his nature. All he wants is a cup of coffee. What he gets is big trouble. So in Lee Child’s electrifying new novel, Reacher—a man with no fear, no illusions, and nothing to lose—goes to war against a town that not only wants him gone, it wants him dead.

It wasn’t the welcome Reacher expected. He was just passing through, minding his own business. But within minutes of his arrival a deputy is in the hospital and Reacher is back in Hope, setting up a base of operations against Despair, where a huge, seething walled-off industrial site does something nobody is supposed to see . . . where a small plane takes off every night and returns seven hours later . . . where a garrison of well-trained and well-armed military cops—the kind of soldiers Reacher once commanded—waits and watches . . . where above all two young men have disappeared and two frightened young women wait and hope for their return.

Joining forces with a beautiful cop who runs Hope with a cool hand, Reacher goes up against Despair—against the deputies who try to break him and the rich man who tries to scare him—and starts to crack open the secrets, starts to expose the terrifying connection to a distant war that’s killing Americans by the thousand.

Now, between a town and the man who owns it, between Reacher and his conscience, something has to give. And Reacher never gives an inch.

Zoe's Tale

John Scalzi

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A reiteration of The Last Colony 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Let me first say that I think John Scalzi is a wonderful writer. I read Old Man's War when it first came out and enjoyed it very much. Earlier this month I noted he had penned a few sequels and I decided to give them a go. In preparation for doing so I actually re-read Old Man's War and, surprisingly, I enjoyed it even more the second time around. I can say unhesitatingly that I feel that Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, and the Last Colony are all wonderful five star reads that evoke the best from the golden age of science fiction and yet are distinctly modern in their presentation.

Scalzi writes in a deceptively easy and smooth style and you glide silkily from one page to the next. His writing is leavened with liberal humor and spiced with adrenalin-fueled action scenes making for a thoroughly enjoyable treat. Many people have compared him to Robert Heinlein...I would go even farther. Scalzi could easily be Heinlein's clone when it comes to writing. Their styles are that similar. This is a good thing though, a grand thing, and I am so pleased that Scalzi is writing the books he is.

But...I have to say I was disappointed with Zoe's Tale in several ways. This is entirely my fault as I was so very excited to get a fourth installment in this series that I did not bother to read the publisher's blurb on the Amazon page. The fact I didn't do so is actually a form of homage to Scalzi because I have already decided that anything he writes is worthy of reading so I didn't really feel like I had to check out the plot first. Zoe's Tale simply retells the story of The Last Colony from the perspective of Zoe, a young teenaged girl. Since I just read The Last Colony a few days ago, I already knew what was going to happen and so there was little ability to generate tension during the story. I still very much enjoyed the smooth, humorous writing but the story itself was a little bit like eating leftovers that you aren't really interested in. It's better than not eating, but it's simply not that thrilling.

I think Scalzi did a remarkably good job of capturing the perspective and outlook of a teenage girl in the novel, which as he explains in the afterword is something of a challenge for a middle-aged guy to pull off. Speaking as another middle-aged guy it seemed to me like he did a good job, but then again, what do I know? Yet, since I am a middle-aged guy I do generally prefer stories told from an older perspective than that of a teenager. I definitely preferred the protagonists of the first three books from a narrative point-of-view. Shifting from an adult perspective to a teenaged one, while well done, detracted a little from the book for me. It could be a plus for others, but I share this so others can make informed decisions.

I must say that overall I enjoyed the book, but I probably would have ordered something else if I'd known beforehand what this was going to be (again, completely my fault). So my advice is to understand what you are buying here before you do it. This is a good book, very enjoyable, and it does throw in a few scenes and explanations that were not in The Last Colony, including a bit more about the werewolves. On the whole though, there isn't much additional informaiton here and I would have preferred a brand new story over a rehashed one. So I'll give this one five stars for the enoyable writing style that will keep me coming back for more, but three stars for not really adding anything new to the series, and settle out at four stars.

Editorial Review:

How do you tell your part in the biggest tale in history?

I ask because it's what I have to do. I'm Zoe Boutin Perry: A colonist stranded on a deadly pioneer world. Holy icon to a race of aliens. A player (and a pawn) in a interstellar chess match to save humanity, or to see it fall. Witness to history. Friend. Daughter. Human. Seventeen years old.

Everyone on Earth knows the tale I am part of. But you don't know my tale: How I did what I did — how I did what I had to do — not just to stay alive but to keep you alive, too. All of you. I'm going to tell it to you now, the only way I know how: not straight but true, the whole thing, to try make you feel what I felt: the joy and terror and uncertainty, panic and wonder, despair and hope. Everything that happened, bringing us to Earth, and Earth out of its captivity. All through my eyes.

It's a story you know. But you don't know it all.

Foreign Body

Robin Cook

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A series of unexplained deaths in foreign hospitals sends an idealistic UCLA medical student on a desperate search for answers, in this chilling tale from the master of the medical thriller.

Jennifer Hernandez is a fourth-year medical student at UCLA, just completing an elective in general surgery, whose world is shattered during a break in an otherwise ordinary day. While relaxing in the surgical lounge of L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, she half-listens to a piece on medical tourism, where first-world citizens travel to third-world countries for surgery. But when she hears her beloved grandmother’s name mentioned, her own heart nearly stops: the CNN reporter says Maria Suarez-Hernandez had died, a day after undergoing a hip replacement in New Delhi’s Queen Victoria Hospital.

Maria had raised Jennifer and her brothers from infancy, and their bond was unshakable. Still, the news that Maria had traveled to India was a shock to Jennifer, until she realized that it was the only viable option for the hardworking yet uninsured woman. Devastated, and desperate for answers, Jennifer takes emergency leave from school and heads to India, where relations with local officials go from sympathetic to sour as she presses for more information. With the discovery of other unexplained deaths followed by hasty cremations, Jennifer reaches out to her mentor, New York City medical examiner Dr. Laurie Montgomery, who has her own deep connection to Maria.

Laurie, along with her husband, Dr. Jack Stapleton, rushes to the younger woman’s side, discovering a sophisticated medical facility with little margin for error. As the death count grows, so do the questions, leading Laurie and Jennifer to unveil a sinister, multilayered conspiracy of global proportions.

Left To Die

Lisa Jackson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

NOTHING'S MORE TERRIFYING...

One by one, the victims are carefully captured, toyed with, then subjected to a slow and agonizing death. Piece by piece, his exquisite plan takes shape. The police can't yet see the beauty in his work--but soon, very soon, they will...

THAN BEING LEFT ALONE...

In the lonely woods around Grizzly Falls, Montana, four bodies have been discovered. Detectives Selena Alvarez and Regan Pescoli have been hoping for a career-making case, but this is a nightmare. Even with the FBI involved, Selena and Regan have nothing to go on but a killer's cryptic notes, and the unsettling knowledge that there is much worse to come...

TO DIE...

When Jillian Rivers opens her eyes, she's trapped in a mangled car. Then a stranger, claiming to be a trail guide named Zane MacGregor, pries her free. Though she's grateful, something about him sets Jillian on edge. And if she knew what lay out there in the woods of Montana, she'd be truly terrified. Because someone is waiting...watching...poised to strike and make Jillian the next victim...

Something Blue

Emily Giffin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 241 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the New York Times bestselling author Emily Giffin comes a novel that shows how someone with a “perfect life” can lose it all—and then find everything.

Darcy Rhone thought she had it all figured out: the more beautiful the girl, the more charmed her life. Never mind substance. Never mind playing by the rules. Never mind karma.

But Darcy’s neat, perfect world turns upside down when her best friend, Rachel White, the plain-Jane “good girl,” steals her fiancé, while Darcy finds herself completely alone for the first time in her life…with a baby on the way.

Darcy tries to recover, fleeing to her childhood friend living in London and resorting to her tried-and-true methods for getting what she wants. But as she attempts to recreate her glamorous life on a new continent, Darcy finds that her rules no longer apply. It is only then that Darcy can begin her journey toward self-awareness, forgiveness, and motherhood.

Something Blue is a novel about one woman’s surprising discoveries about the true meaning of friendship, love, and happily-ever-after. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever, even secretly, wondered if the last thing you want is really the one thing you need.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Mitch Albom

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Total reviews: 1597 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Part melodrama and part parable, Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven weaves together three stories, all told about the same man: 83-year-old Eddie, the head maintenance person at Ruby Point Amusement Park. As the novel opens, readers are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from death as he goes about his typical business at the park. Albom then traces Eddie's world through his tragic final moments, his funeral, and the ensuing days as friends clean out his apartment and adjust to life without him. In alternating sections, Albom flashes back to Eddie's birthdays, telling his life story as a kind of progress report over candles and cake each year. And in the third and last thread of the novel, Albom follows Eddie into heaven where the maintenance man sequentially encounters five pivotal figures from his life (a la A Christmas Carol). Each person has been waiting for him in heaven, and, as Albom reveals, each life (and death) was woven into Eddie's own in ways he never suspected. Each soul has a story to tell, a secret to reveal, and a lesson to share. Through them Eddie understands the meaning of his own life even as his arrival brings closure to theirs.

Albom takes a big risk with the novel; such a story can easily veer into the saccharine and preachy, and this one does in moments. But, for the most part, Albom's telling remains poignant and is occasionally profound. Even with its flaws, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a small, pure, and simple book that will find good company on a shelf next to It's A Wonderful Life. --Patrick O'Kelley

Just Too Good to Be True: A Novel

E. Lynn Harris

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 46 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Harris serves up a treat that will capture and enchant audiences everywhere—a big, bold, and irresistible novel about football, family, and secrets.

Brady Bledsoe and his mother, Carmyn, have a strong relationship. A single mother, faithful churchgoer, and the owner of several successful Atlanta beauty salons, Carmyn has devoted herself to her son and his dream of becoming a professional football player. Brady has always followed her lead, including becoming a member of the church’s "Celibacy Circle." Now in his senior year at college, the smart, and very handsome, Brady is a lead contender for the Heisman Trophy and a spot in the NFL.

As sports agents hover around Brady, Barrett, a beautiful and charming cheerleader, sets her mind on tempting the celibate Brady and getting a piece of his multimillion-dollar future—but is that all she wants from him, and is she acting alone?

Carmyn is determined to protect her son. She’s also determined to protect the secret she’s kept from Brady his whole life. As things heat up on campus and Carmyn and Brady’s idyllic relationship starts to crumble, mother and son begin to wonder about the other—are you just too good to be true?

A sweeping novel about mothers and sons, football and beauty shops, secrets and lies, JUST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE has all the ingredients that have made E. Lynn Harris a bestselling author: family, friendship, faith, and love.