Everything I Never Told You

I picked up Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng because I was intrigued by the mystery. The story is centered around a Chinese-American family living in Ohio. All of the parents hope are placed on their daughter Lydia to make something of herself. She is under intense pressure to perform and succeed. On an outing at a local watering hole, Lydia is found dead. Did she commit suicide or was she murdered? No one can quite figure out what happened.

As the story unfolds, the family must deal with their grief and guilt. The pressures of the investigation cause the family to fall apart. The mother and father drift apart, blaming each other. Siblings turn on each other and their parents. Secrets are slowly revealed.

I only continued reading this book to see if there was any resolution to Lydia's death. Otherwise the story is just so depressing. Individuals make decisions that are just despicable. Do people really do these things to their family? Maybe some do but I find it hard to read. I always hope that in the midst of tragedy a family would pull together for comfort and strength no drift apart and begin despising each other.

I don't know if I can recommend this book completely. If you are ok with a depressing story, this might be for you.

The books I select for review are books which I personally select from my local library. I do not receive any reimbursement from authors or publishers or free books. I do provide links to Amazon as a convenience to the readers of this blog, which are affiliate links.

The Shadow Lamp

The Shadow Lamp by Stephen R. Lawhead is the fourth book in the Bright Empires series. I have previously read The Skin Map, The Bone House, and The Spirit Well. So far my favorite of the series is the Bone House. Just to recap,Kit, Mina, Gianni, Cass, Haven, and Giles all travel through time via Ley lines. They use Shadow Lamps to help them detect Ley lines. There is some kind of unknown cosmic link between the shadow lamps, the skin map and the spirit well. Add to the mix, the Zetetic society discovers something that could unravel everything.

I must confess, I read this book quite a while ago and I'm just now getting around to writing up the review. In general, I've liked nearly everything that Stephen R. Lawhead has written. This series confused me with the time travel and Ley lines. It had great adventure and esprit de corps, but it lacked something cohesive. The shifts in time are a little jarring. One minute you are in the Middle Ages Europe, the next, ancient Egypt and then back in modern time. As I said, I really loved the Bone House. For whatever reason, that story has stuck in my head. Large parts of the Bone House take place in one time and location. The Shadow Lamp did not stay in my memory, and so I guess it was a bit forgettable. I can't really remember what the big reveal was with the Zetetic society - I didn't get it the first time either - nor what the deal was between the shadow lamps, skin map, and spirit well.

This series was hit and miss for me. I liked Stephen R. Lawhead's other books so much better.

War Brides by Helen Bryan

World War II fiction stories are very popular right now. Some have been very good. There is something about that generation of people that speaks to resilience and determination that can inspire. I think these stories also help us work through the horrors of war that maybe help us gain a deeper appreciation of the sacrifices that were made.

Does War Brides by Helen Bryan reach this kind of status? In some ways it does. The story takes place in England. The women left behind take up roles that support the war effort. Some of the women in this story are relocated from London, the others are locals. They form a support group as tragedy and life events unfold. As the war goes on, rumors suggest a spy in their midst is leaking information to the Nazi's. Decades after the war, the women reunite and their secret that helped the war effort is revealed.

Overall, I enjoyed the story. It was engaging and interesting. While the story is fiction, it was easy to believe it could have happened. I won't spoil the ending, but it did leave me dissatisfied. I suppose war makes for difficult decisions. Would I have done what these women did? I don't know that I would, but I can understand why they did it.

Book Rating: 5 stars

The books I select for review are books which I personally select from my local library. I do not receive any reimbursement from authors or publishers or free books. I do provide links to Amazon as a convenience to the readers of this blog. I do earn a small referral pittance which is not even enough to buy a soda.

Cast on Kill off

This is another crafting mystery for knitters. This is book 10 in this series by Maggie Sefton. I have not read any of the other books in the series.

A knitting friend is getting married. Kelly refers her friend to a talented seamstress, Zoe, to make the bridesmaid dresses. The only problem is Zoe is in a troubled marriage and ends up dead. So Kelly, along with her knitting friends, set out to find the true killer.

The story, like many crafting mysteries, have the usual crafting mystery cliches. The story is charming enough that the reader will want to finish it. The end is not totally unexpected, but it still took me some time to figure it out. I do not feel I missed too much by not reading the other books in the series, so this could easily be read as a stand alone.

Book rating - 4 stars

The books I select for review are books which I personally select from my local library. I do not receive any reimbursement from authors or publishers or free books. I do provide links to Amazon as a convenience to the readers of this blog. I do earn a small referral pittance which is not even enough to buy a soda.

A fatal fleece

Crafting mysteries have been a trend for a while. Our library acquired a few of them. This is book 6 in the series, but also the first that I have read.

This story is about a group of knitting friends, one of whom runs a knitting shop. An old, lonely seaman is discovered dead wearing a yellow fleece vest. The knitting friends do their own investigating to solve the crime. In the meantime Birdie's unknown granddaughter, Gabby, shows up for a visit. Gabby, of course, gets in the middle of both the mystery and takes up knitting.

The story is charming. I do not feel I missed out by reading the 6th book in the series first. There are a number of standard crafting mystery cliches in the story, so do not expect too many surprises with the characters or what they do. The mystery kept my attention and so I did finish the book. Also, the author has a tendency to describe the meals the characters eat in detail. Not too annoying, but it may make you hungry.

Book rating - 4 stars

The books I select for review are books which I personally select from my local library. I do not receive any reimbursement from authors or publishers or free books. I do provide links to Amazon as a convenience to the readers of this blog. I do earn a small referral pittance which is not even enough to buy a soda.

Chasing Vermeer

Chasing Vermeer is a young adult mystery by Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist, the same artist as A Series of Unfortunate Events. I was immediately impressed by the books illustrations and paper quality. The end pages and interior pages are a much higher quality than is normally found in books today.

The book is a not so simply story about two friends who attempt to find a painting by Vermeer that has been stolen and hidden. Calder and Petra attend a laboratory school located at the University of Chicago. Calder, a boy, has a fascination with pentominoes. Petra is bookish, but seems psychically connected to the stolen Vermeer painting because of her appearance. Their school teacher seems unusually interested in the theft. Through the kids persistence, they manage to find the painting and some trouble.

This is a first novel for the author who has a love for art and museums. I found the story overly complicated and the characters a bit bizarre. For example, every time the children discover a clue, they sit down and eat a blue M&M. Really? Then there is the boy who is obsessed with pentominoes and uses them to help him find new clues. Not in a mathematical way, but in a random pulling of a piece out of his pocket kind of way that suggests words. The psychic connection Petra has with the painting and the use of the pentominoes makes for a strange story. The reader is instructed to look for clues to the mystery in the illustrations. There are sections in which the reader can decode coded messages, which I didn't care to take the time to decode.

What can I say? I didn't like it. Reviews on Amazon are mixed.

Book Rating: 2 stars and a bit annoying.

Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii

Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii is a story by Lee Goldberg and is very similar to Mr. Monk Goes to Germany, which I previously reviewed and didn't like. This story was written before the Germany story and it is ten times better.

Natalie is invited to attend a friends wedding in Hawaii. This is one of the few vacations away from Monk she is able to take and she really looked forward to the time off. Problem is Monk couldn't bear to be away from Natalie for a full week and so he followed her. In order to endure a airplane ride for over 5 hours, Monk takes some prescribed mood-altering medications (the idea is introduced here which later shows up in Mr. Monk Goes to Germany). These medications depress Monk's detective abilities, so he would only take the medication in extreme circumstances. Once Monk is in Hawaii, he turns Natalie's vacation into a working vacation. He immediately begins investigating a murder that takes place at the resort. Monk-ish hilarity ensues with a fake tv psychic, a string of unsolved robberies, and more.

The story was enjoyable and I didn't mind the medication crutch to take Monk to Hawaii. It does get old in the Germany story though (and I think the author uses it in at least one other story). In some ways it is like drugging B.A. Baracus of the A-Team to get him on a plane. There must be some other way to get Monk out of his element and into a new location than to default to this every time.

Book Rating: 3 stars.

Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants

Lee Goldberg writes the Mr. Monk novels as well as scripts for the tv show. I have had some difficulty reconciling Mr. Goldberg's characterizations with the depictions on tv. He has added some depth to the characters, which I appreciate. In other cases, he takes the characters much further than I like. Mr. Monk, in particular, is more mentally ill in the books than on tv. Despite all that, I think Mr. Goldberg really hit the nail on the head with Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants.

In this book, Sharona and Natalie meet for the first time. Sharona has returned to San Francisco after separating from her husband for the second time. This time, Sharona's husband has been accused of murder. She doesn't ask Monk to investigate, but wants her old job back. Natalie, of course, wants to keep her job and resents having Sharona show up. Monk does offer the job to Sharona, but also wants to keep Natalie - thus having two assistants. Natalie decideds that Mr. Monk needs to investigate Sharona's husband and clear him of the murder. In this way, Sharona can reunite with her husband and Natalie can have her job back.

The story is not immediately predictable. Mr. Monk investigates two murders which eventually intersect. I won't say who did it, but you might be able to guess towards the end. Even so, I enjoyed the story and didn't mind. It was fun to see the interaction of Sharona and Natalie. There is one very poignant part of the story in which Monk explains how he solves crimes and his fear that he might not be able to solve all of them.

For fluff mystery reading, this was a good one.

Book Rating: 4 Stars

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax

I am not much of a mystery reader but my local library has a rather large collection of them. The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman was an unexpected, fun mystery. Mrs. Pollifax is a retired, bored grandmother and decides she would much rather be a spy than the perpetual volunteer of garden clubs. She travels to CIA headquarters and volunteers. It just so happens the CIA director needs a courier in Mexico City, a simple assignment that goes awry. Mrs. Pollifax ends up kidnapped in Albania. Her escape is entertaining, and well, unexpected.

The story was published in 1966, during the Cold War so expect to read some characterizations which would not be politically correct for our day. If you can look past it though, the story is really quite fun to read. This book is the first of a series about Mrs. Pollifax. I may read more of this series later. The Pollifax mysteries are still in print, so they shouldn't be too difficult to find.

Book Rating: 4 stars. For a mystery it is pretty good.

Mr. Monk goes to Germany

I read Mr. Monk Goes to Germany clear back in March and I am only now getting to the review....

In this book Mr. Monk travels to Germany to follow his psychiatrist. His psychiatrist hopes to escape Monk for a while and attend a psychiatric convention at the same time - a vacation if you will. Monk has a long standing 2-3 times a week appointments and he becomes desperate and inconsolable. Problem is Monk is afraid of airplanes and flying, so he drugs himself. Once in Germany, Monk ends up working on solving a murder that is loosely connected to the psychiatric convention.

I did not like this story as well as the others I have read by the same author. I really thought it was a stretch to have Monk flying from San Francisco to Germany, even drugged. Natalie seemed out of character too. Stottlemeyer and Disher don't really make an appearance in this story. In the Monk novelizations, this is one that could probably be skipped.

Book Rating: 2 stars

Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu

These days my attention span seems rather limited. This is why another Monk novel fit the bill. Lighthearted and entertaining. I have read one other that I have yet to review, perhaps at a later date. I found this particular Monk novel to be rather true to the TV character.

In Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu, the SFPD is renegotiating their union contract. While it is against the law to strike, a strain of the blue flu hits the department. The mayor calls in Monk and asks him to take over Stottlemeyer’s position to solve a sudden rash of homicides in the city. Monk gets his badge back but he is in charge of homicide detectives who are just as crazy as he is. Natalie is in the awkward position of supporting the strike while also supporting Monk as a scab.

Can Monk solve the murders? Win back his friends? Keep his badge? You can probably guess the answers to these questions if you have seen the tv show. Still, this novel will give you that Monk fix if you hate waiting for the show to come back on tv (which is in its last season, BTW)

Book Rating 3 1/2 stars

Goose in the Pond

Goose in the Pond is another book I tried to read in October 2008 right before the CPSIA implosion. I also started after I finished the Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, a book that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Goose in the Pond by Earlene Fowler follows Bennie Harper as she solves the murder of a librarian - the story teller for the children's story time. The librarian happened to be dressed as Mother Goose and was found in a pond, hence the title. This is the first book in the Bennie Harper mysteries.

To be fair, my attention span was very limited and I had just come off of one goofy mystery that I enjoyed. I just couldn't get into it. Mysteries are not my thing, and my library has a lot of them. I am trying some of them out and I have discovered some new authors. I tend toward the goofy mysteries with a touch of the ridiculous. Earlene Fowler's books would certainly fill that category. But at least for this one, it wasn't for me. There are a lot of positive reviews at Amazon for it, so maybe it would be something that would interest you?

Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder

Two shows that I love to watch are Monk and Psych. They are funny and have lots of pop-culture humor, especially with Psych. Quirky, fun characters too. Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke fits right into the same category.

Hannah Swenson owns a cookie shop in a small town and is an amateur detective on the side. When a delivery man is found murdered outside her shop, she assists her brother-in-law with the investigation. In one scene, she is jumping into a dumpster and in another she is shopping for make-up following each clue to its end.

The story is a fun read. I really expected to dislike the book. I mean, what is one supposed to expect from the title. It was a nice surprise. I may read more of these mysteries.

Book Rating: 4 stars