‘The Wedding People’ Book Review

“It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She’s immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe’s plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.”

Phoebe had a weak start as a character. We meet her in the thick of her depression. She was unlikable. The flashback sections were where I struggled. I understand that they give a backstory to Phoebe, but they were frustrating to read as it was just her complaining about her life and being a pessimist, which yes that does happen but the way it was written wasn’t executed properly.

As pages went on, I found her to be more relatable. The strongest point of the novel was how well the characters bounced off each other. Their chemistry was written so well. Each character was so incredibly human.

The setting of Cornwall Inn was dreamlike. This has all the feels of a New England summer. Dark themes might be introduced with emotional inner thoughts, and then there will be a funny line. This book was way more comedic than I expected, and I enjoyed that thoroughly. The humor came so naturally. A lot of books today try to be funny where it comes off as forced but not here.

At first, the chapter lengths startled me, but they never felt as long as the page number. It didn’t take me as long to read as I expected it to. I did get lost at some bits. It was wordy at times however, the dialogue was golden for the most part. It is so intelligently written that people who love literature and languages will fall in love with this book. It’s perfect for all ages.

 This is a story of a woman finding herself. She is breaking away from what is expected of her. Really all of the characters are doing that in their own way. The main theme here is the unpredictability of life. Circumstances can change in a second. Life is what you make it. That is happening with all the characters. We can see how this is true for any stage of life that you might be in. We have characters who are children and characters who are elderly. It is really such a wide array of a cast. That is another thing that makes this story so relatable and therefore so human.

Even when the main theme of this book is unpredictability, the book was predictable. I predicted the ending in chapter 4. I’m not dissatisfied with that. It had a weak start but a strong ending. I wouldn’t say I was bored. I was going along with the notions, but I was never fully gripped by this book.

As the characters are incredibly dimensional, their stories make sense. The mental health depiction was done really well.

‘The Wedding People’ was all right for me. It didn’t do a whole lot, but I enjoyed the characters and how they bounced off each other. It had a weak start and was predictable but overall it was an OK book and I would recommend it.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

‘Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 2 – The Pillars of Civilization’ Book Review

“What if humanity’s major woes—war, plague, famine and inequality—originated 12,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens converted from nomads to settlers, in pursuit of the fantasy of productivity and efficiency? What if by seeking to control plants and animals, humans ended up being controlled by kings, priests, and Kafkaesque bureaucracy? Volume 2 of Sapiens: A Graphic History–The Pillars of Civilization explores a crucial chapter in human development: the Agricultural Revolution. This is the story of how wheat took over the world; how an unlikely marriage between a god and a bureaucrat created the first empires; and how war, plague, famine, and inequality became an intractable feature of the human condition.”

This graphic adaptation has been a great refresher to the ideas from the original ‘Sapiens’ book. It has been a while since I read that one and I now have more knowledge under my belt making this an all new reading experience. This will be great for people who do not typically read nonfiction. It is casual in its witty style.

However, this was a lot of info coming at me fast. I’m scared that it might not have stuck in my brain. It also felt like the book was going over the same point over and over again. That pretty much everything is a man-made concept and being a human is biological, and our mind came up with everything else to keep order. By everything else I mean; government, money, religions, customs, romanticism, laws, all sorts of things. It needed to be diced down.

I never had much thought on the agricultural revolution, but so much and so many of our modern problems stem back to it. This book asked the question of if it was a mistake and in my personal opinion no it wasn’t because we wouldn’t be here without it and everything does happen for a reason and unfolds the way it is supposed to. This was a good book, but I don’t think it will work for everybody.

3 out of 5 stars.



“To See and See Again” Book Review

“A compelling and intimate exploration of the complexity of a bicultural immigrant experience, To See and See Again traces three generations of an Iranian (and Iranian-American) family undergoing a century of change–from the author’s grandfather, a feudal lord with two wives; to her father, a freespirited architect who marries an American pop singer; to Bahrampour herself, who grows up balanced precariously between two cultures and comes of age watching them clash on the nightly news.” – Description from Amazon.

This is a story of a woman trying to find herself. It appears she felt as though she never fit in one mold or the other. That leads her on a quest to discover her heritage and the impact that it had on shaping her as a person. This is a story of trying to find home. It asks the question of what exactly is a home? Does it change as we enter new stages of our life or the physical world around us change? Does our perception change said home? Tara comes from a family with an American mother and an Iranian father. With that American element, this is unlike any other Iranian book that I have read. It really dives into the immigrant experience. With her family dynamics, it really shows how displacement impacts each person differently even if they are all in the same family. Before recent years, I was ignorant and didn’t think the events by world leaders had an impact on me as a person. The more that I read and the more that I grow, I have come to realize that that isn’t true. Books like these show how big cultural and historical moments affect our lives.

The structure was jumbled. I do really like how it starts with the family moving to the United States and then jumping back to what life was like before. As the book progressed that structure didn’t work and I was finding myself confused when I would get to a new section and be told information about the previous years that we did not get in previous sections. 

 The writing style was very descriptive. It was a lot to take in and is at a slow pace. That isn’t to say it was bad. I have never felt so immersed in Iranian culture as I did in this book. It really paints a perfect picture of the country in the times that the author was speaking of. That even translates to the author’s teenage years in 1980s Portland. This is told in a narrative style and doesn’t read like a typical memoir. We are seeing the day to day life of the author so much so that it reads like fiction. This was a good book and if you are really wanting to see what Iran and its people are like this would be a book to pick up for that. 

3.25 out of 5 stars.

‘The Potbellied Virgin’ Book Review

“In an unnamed town in the Ecuadorian Andes, a small wooden icon—La Virgen Pipona (the Potbellied Virgin)—conceals the documents that define the town’s social history. That history recently has been dominated by the women of the Benavides family, a conservative clan and, not coincidentally, the caretakers of the Virgin. Their rivals are the Pandos, a family led by four old men who spend their days smoking in the park across from the Virgin’s cathedral and offering revisionist versions of local and national events. When a military skirmish threatens the Virgin (and the secret in her famous belly), the Benavides women must scramble to preserve their place as local matriarchs—without alerting the old Pandos to the opportunity that might enable them to finally supplant their rivals.” – Description from Amazon.

This short little book might be small, but there is a very large cast of characters and we are introduced to them rather quickly. I had a hard time keeping track of who is who, especially with this being about two feuding groups of people who share the same last names. They got to be a bit interchangeable. The sisterhood and the Benavides family, I really wanted to explore more of their relationship dynamics with one another, but that is not prevalent in this book. Doña Carmen is the only distinguishable character and I did enjoy her as a character. She’s one of my favorite kinds of people if she sees something that needs to be done. She’s going to go off there and do it.

 The atmosphere is quite different from a lot of popular books. This is taking place in the Andes in Ecuador. The tone is very fairytale-esque with folktale vibes. There is nothing magical about this story but by the way it is told it feels like it could be one of those two things. At the start, there is a lot of world building and info dumping with that. I read the introduction of the book and that told me a lot about Ecuadorian history and culture, but then we would get basically the same thing told to us in the book and that made it overbearing, and I don’t think it was necessary for the story.

The writing style is long-winded with paragraphs that go on for pages. I had a really hard time following the story. It isn’t dialogue heavy. We would get maybe two lines of dialogue every couple of pages.

The author is very creative with how she handled this plot. This is a story of the impact that colonization and colonialism have on the modern world. She takes two families and personifies European colonizers and indigenous peoples of Latin America. There’s a fight between who gets to tell history; those are some great themes. I really wish I connected with the book more. The author even dives into what it was like for an isolated community in the last century, seeing all the rapid changes of our modern day and age and how the smaller rural communities evolve, even if it is slow.

I was confused for a lot of this book, but I also want to have a disclaimer that I did start this book while having a migraine and I wouldn’t recommend doing that. It was a disservice to the author and the work of fiction. I do plan to reread this book at a later date and hopefully it will work out better for me then as it didn’t do a whole lot for me this time around.

2.25 out of 5 stars.

‘The Details’ Book Review

“The Details is a novel built around four portraits; the small details that, pieced together, comprise a life. Can a loved one really disappear? Who is the real subject of the portrait, the person being painted or the one holding the brush? Do we fully become ourselves through our connections to others? This exhilarating, provocative tale raises profound questions about the nature of relationships, and how we tell our stories. The result is an intimate and illuminating study of what it means to be human.” Description coming to us from Amazon.

The character building of ‘The Details’ is seeing a character through the significant relationships in her life. I think our main theme even falls back on that. That being relationships shape us into the person that we become. I do feel like I know our nameless narrator and know the people that she shared her relationships with. Yet, I don’t feel a strong connection whatsoever to the character.

I am actually shocked as I sit here and come up with my rating for this book that the atmosphere really did stand out to me, especially in the Alejandro chapter. It was magical at times, immersive, nostalgic are words that I would use to describe it. It’s not what you would typically get out of a fever dream story. Fever dream-esque books often leave me feeling confused and dazed, but this one had clarity as we look at the character’s life. I do appreciate that as this is a new take at that trope.

 The writing is where this does get a little bit tricky. There were beautiful sentences about the human experience, a love of literature and going through the mundane events that make up life. In the English translation, and apparently in the original Swedish as well, it’s very much a stream of consciousness, long run on sentences .For me personally that convolutes the story and makes it lose its meaning as I get lost in all the words without a break.

It is hard to say that there is a plot. It falls back on being a character study on the relationships that we make in our lives. This is definitely a character driven book even though I didn’t feel a connection to the characters. There may even be slight themes and ideas about relationships and how they impact the human experience. I didn’t feel much while reading this book, but there were some things that I liked, relatability and as I said, the immersive atmosphere with the occasional bit of beautiful writing, this was a fine book.

2.75 out of 5 stars.

‘The Five People You Meet in Heaven’ Book Review

“In The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom gives us an astoundingly original story that will change everything you’ve ever thought about the afterlife — and the meaning of our lives here on earth. With a timeless tale, appealing to all, this is a book that readers of fine fiction, and those who loved Tuesdays with Morrie, will treasure.” – Description provided by Amazon.

After finishing ‘The Five People You Meet in Heaven’,, I am left wanting a deeper connection with the main character of Eddie. He is a developed character, and we truly understand who he is as a person and what his purpose and role in life was here on earth. I am left wanting more and I do think that if this book had been longer and told at a more medium pace we could have got that. This was the author’s debut work in the fiction category. It was published over 20 years ago and he has since come out with other books, but the fast pace is something that sticks through every book that I’ve read by the author, which is only a couple.

The use of senses was done in such a great way. It makes each experience with each of the five people unique and memorable in their own way. The atmosphere very much immerses you into the story. The writing style is thought-provoking therefore reflective and I cannot ask for anything else in that department, but as I keep saying, it is very fast and that often scares me when I think about the sticking power of this book. Am I absorbing all the info that I can get out of the book? There is so much wisdom in these pages that I’m scared it’s not going to stick because it went by so quickly. I did read this in the physical format and that is what I would recommend.

The tone does come across as preachy. It’s very all the nose and the author isn’t leaving a lot of room for you to come up with your own thoughts and ideas. Therefore it feels like the author doesn’t trust the reader. I was left feeling like I should have gotten more out of the story. I have that feeling because I didn’t get to think for myself. I had everything put on a plate in front of me. Overall with the themes of what is heaven? What comes next? What do we get out of life on earth? What is our purpose? I do think all of that was done in such a unique way that I would’ve never come up with personally and I’ve never seen anybody else do it in such a way. It made me feel so seen with some of my own thoughts with my own spiritual journey. This is a book that really anybody of any religion can read and still get something out of and I think that’s very moving and important that it doesn’t discriminate in that way because most if not all religions do have some kind of take on the afterlife and what comes next.

Some of the main plot points were predictable, but I still felt satisfied by the end of the story. Speaking of the end, the last 20 pages felt like a horror movie and I had no idea what was going to come next. However, the logic in this book is done so perfectly. It’s like an aha moment when you really have it all wrapped together and get an understanding of the character and his life. This was a good book, but I am worried about these sticking powers, but I do think this is one that you should revisit every so often and your life and maybe you’ll get something different out of it each time.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

“Poe Stories and Poems” Graphic Novel Review

“In “The Cask of Amontillado,” a man exacts revenge on a disloyal friend at carnival, luring him into catacombs below the city. In “The Masque of the Red Death,” a prince shielding himself from plague hosts a doomed party inside his abbey stronghold. A prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, faced with a swinging blade and swarming rats, can’t see his tormentors in “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a milky eye and a deafening heartbeat reveal the effects of conscience and creeping madness. Alongside these tales are visual interpretations of three poems — “The Raven,” “The Bells,” and Poe’s poignant elegy to lost love, “Annabel Lee.” The seven concise graphic narratives, keyed to thematic icons, amplify and honor the timeless legacy of a master of gothic horror.” (Description from Amazon).

When starting this graphic novel, which is a collection of Poe’s works, I did not expect the amount of allegories that we can see in the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Our first story is one that isn’t as well known as some of the others in this collection, but that is, ‘The Mask of the Red Death’. I could not help but see comparisons to Covid and ‘eat the rich’. Obviously, Poe was likely not a psychic and this is just seeing our own times and comparing them to Poe’s times in the past. Poe was likely inspired by tuberculosis or even the Black Death. In this story, we see how the people on top will party and not abide by the same rules that lower classes have. The laws don’t apply to the rich and they honestly do not care about people who are worse off than them. It’s funny, this came out over 150 years ago, but we can still see that today. This year, I’ve been coming to learn what makes a classic? It is a work that is timeless. That people in any time period can relate to and with the work of Poe I think that is true.

When I read this adaption of ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, I could see the influence that Poe has had on our culture. The story gave me very Batman vibes when other stories or poems in the collection, such as ‘The Pit and The Pendulum’, reminded me of the book ‘Piranesi’. Poe had such an impact on so many different genres. He was a very influential creative person.

 As this is a graphic novel, I do have to talk about the art style. In poems like ‘Annabel Lee’, I kept finding and seeing new things in the pictures. I will admit some of these pages are very dark in the sense of color and I would have to have the book turned or the lighting perfect to be able to fully see what was on each page. If you remember Game of Thrones season eight there were a lot of complaints about episodes being too dark. As in, the brightness wasn’t turned up. The same could be said for this graphic novel. I love to see classics being adapted into different formats as it is a way to introduce a newer audience to these timeless pieces of literature. This was a good collection and if you are wanting to get into the works of Edgar Allan Poe, I think this would be a great place to start.

3 out of 5 stars.

‘Kick the Latch’ Book Review

“Kathryn Scanlan’s Kick the Latch vividly captures the arc of one woman’s life at the racetrack—the flat land and ramshackle backstretch; the bad feelings and friction; the winner’s circle and the racetrack bar; the fancy suits and fancy boots; and the “particular language” of “grooms, jockeys, trainers, racing secretaries, stewards, pony people, hotwalkers, everybody”—with economy and integrity.”

To my understanding, ‘Kick the Latch’ is based off of a real woman named Sonia. Why is this book listed as contemporary fiction? I’m not sure. Maybe the author did embellish some of Sonia‘s story. I wish I could have gotten more out of this. This is very much the surface level of a woman telling the reader her memories. I’m asking myself: What is the point? I wish there would have been more in building as to why the story is being told rather than being thrown right in.

The atmosphere was not an overall big part of the story. The word I would use to describe it is rustic. It’s very Americana and we are seeing an example of the American dream at play. The writing style is very blunt and straightforward, therefore accessible and easy to read. It reads how people really do talk therefore making this a quick reading experience and I do think it would probably translate well on audiobook, but I did read this on my Kindle.

The plot is very unique and different. It was fascinating to see all the faucets that make up the horse world. Most Americans only think about this lifestyle on the day of the Kentucky Derby and forget about it for the rest of the year. This was an informative piece about the lifestyle of all the different people that it takes to train a horse and get it ready for a race. The pacing moved along well as I said before it was a very quick read. I read this in two days, but I never felt a major connection to the story. This did read very much like non-fiction where I did learn a lot, but I didn’t connect. However, the character arc does make perfect sense and shows that life isn’t perfect. It isn’t only going to wrap up with a bow on top. This was very much a go with the flow kind of story for me. Since it read so quickly I was never bored, but it didn’t do a whole lot for me either as I didn’t have a strong connection to the book and its character. It wasn’t a bad book.

3.25 out of five stars.

‘Leonardo da Vinci’ Book Review

“Leonardo da Vinci” is a comprehensive exploration of the extraordinary polymath’s life, connecting his artistic masterpieces with scientific pursuits, showcasing how his curiosity and creativity made him history’s greatest genius.”

People like Leonardo da Vinci are the people who push our society forward even if they’re not trying to. It makes me wonder what the world would be like if we were all like that. Leonardo was unapologetically himself. That meant being gay , vegetarian, and even having some heretical views in a time when none of that was the norm. He didn’t care, he was just himself. I think that speaks a lot for who he is as a person and why he was able to do the things that he did.

A lot of ourselves consider ourselves to be artsy or  technical, but Leonardo proves that you can be both. There is math and science in  art and there is art and beauty in math and science. Everything is intertwined and that is what makes our world work and what makes us human. Leonardo did push society forward, but the author does say we need to be wary of calling somebody a genius. Sure, he had great creations like the Mona Lisa, and was inventing things like scuba diving and helicopters centuries before they actually came to be, but he wasn’t the perfect person. Again if he was, I don’t think we would have the greatness that he put out into the world.

 Speaking of those inventions, it was so mind blowing to me all these things that he was coming up with,just out of pure curiosity, he never published these things in his life and other inventors came out with them centuries later, but we have all these notebooks, thousands of pages worth where Leonardo is coming up with these ideas in the renaissance. He truly had a remarkable mind and I think a lot of us will be able to find relatability in him because he was such a real person, and this really humanizes that figure of the legend Leonardo da Vinci. 

 The author did a tremendous amount of research in this book. There’s honestly such a long section of notes. Something that I did like was he poked fun at some early biographers of Leonardo da Vinci. This is something that I come to see while reading historical biographies. That a lot of time those early biographers were including fantasy as well trying to shape a certain image of the person they were writing about. However, I did have a hard time finding some of the facts that the author was using. Such as the family of the woman that inspired Mona Lisa and her connection to the Medici. I was not able to find that online, and I am very fascinated by the possible connection between her stepmother and Giuliano Medici.

I did enjoy the structure. That we didn’t reach Leonardo‘s most iconic work, the Mona Lisa, until the last three chapters of the book. It flowed very well and had that anticipation for that big ending. I even like that in the concluding chapter it’s all about what we can take away from this book and what we can learn from Leonardo da Vinci. To be more like him and therefore being better to society. This is an over 500 page book and it did take me nine days to get through, but I was never bored. There was constantly new knowledge being thrown at me. I will admit the author would analyze some of the paintings of Leonardo and that was kind of tedious for me. I do understand why we have that though because it helps us understand the artist as a person. Some other bits about engineering and anatomy or math,all of that did go over my head at times. There was something else that I found interesting about the writing style and that I’ve never seen in a biography before. That is the author would insert his own opinion on certain situations. I’m not exactly opposed to that, but it was something unique and as I said, I’ve never seen before.

This was a great book and I learned a lot. I knew the basics about Leonardo, but this really shows who he was as a person and maybe it will inspire all of you to keep a little notebook.

3.75 out of 5 stars. 

‘The Dead Lake’ Book Review

“In Soviet Kazakhstan, a boy dives into a radioactive lake to impress a girl, causing him to stop growing while she becomes a woman.”

I had no issues with the characters and that is because I didn’t feel the connection towards them. This is a coming-of-age story about Yerzhan. We have the members of his family and his neighbors who are practically family. Therefore he uses family names for the neighbors. I was really confused on who was who out of the side characters they lacked defining traits. I wish there was some form of a family tree. Yes, I could’ve made one myself, but that’s too tedious as a reader to do when one could’ve been provided to me by the publisher.

The atmosphere was my favorite part. This takes place in a remote part of Soviet Kazakhstan, and we are seeing the environmental legacy of the Cold War. The Soviets were testing nuclear weapons in a populated area. Yes, this is a remote rural area with not a whole lot of people, but still there are people there and their bodies were being impacted by these weapons, their animals and livestock and the land around them were all being impacted negatively for the sake of war games. I had no idea this kind of thing was happening or never really thought of it, but the author brought light to what the Soviet government was doing to its citizens. 

I did have issues with the writing, but some of that might fall onto the translation as this book is translated from Russian. It is very fast and sporadic. I was having a hard time following the story. I had confusion with the characters as well ,with them, lacking their development. 

I think the plot is decent at showing this part of history in a location that most western readers are going to know not much about. I think a lot of people do love a coming-of-age story and seeing how fears can manifest. There’s definitely an audience for this book. It didn’t do a whole lot for me personally, but I do think a lot of the story made sense and that it is an important story to show that certain things our governments might be doing, might not be best for our environment and therefore us as people. I don’t think this is a bad book, but if it does intrigue you, I would recommend looking at the library first.

2.5 out of 5 stars.