Review: In A Perfect World (TLC Blog Tour)

genre: adult fiction

At 32, stewardess Jiselle was beginning to think that she'd never be a wife - until the amazingly attractive airline captain Mark Dorn proposes. But it's not just Mark she'll be getting, she'll also be receiving in marriage his three older children. Her dreams of motherhood and marriage are made more complicated by the bizarre flu that's been circulating and really, she had no way of knowing how much life was going to change.

In a Perfect World is tightly written with maybe a bit more back-and-forth-in-time than I'm used to. I hurt for Jiselle and the situation she chose, I know that stepmotherhood is no picnic and she has to work her way through some tough relationships. I liked the relationship parts of this book a lot, it was fascinating to see how these people worked together (or not) when the situation in America and beyond becomes something that everyone has to deal with. Since I appreciate books that have an apocalyptic flavor, the flu and the chaos it brings were incredibly interesting to me. Sometimes the dialogue was a bit harsh, and if you are concerned about content, you can check out my review here.

In all, I liked that this book had two different but interconnected angles - Jiselle and her experience trying to put together a new family vs. a world where one flu can affect even the smallest details of our lives. And while it's not necessarily a happy story, it did feel like a real story - an authentic "worst case scenario," that grips you until the end.

buy it here

Interested in meeting the author in real life? Check her out here:
10/8 Ann Arbor, MI Nicola's Books
10/14 Birmingham, MI Borders
10/15 Novi, MI Borders
10/21 Milwaukee, WI Next Chapter Bookshop
10/22 Minneapolis, MN Magers & Quinn
10/27 St. Joseph, MI Forever Books
10/29 Chicago, IL Book Cellar
11/3 Ann Arbor, MI Borders

Review: Galway Bay by Mary Pat Kelly

Hatchett Book Group Early Birds Blog Tour
book 6 of 24 for the A to Z Reading Challenge
genre: historical fiction
rating: 5/5

I have never actually used the phrase "tour de force" when describing a book, but I can't think of anything else that defines a work that covers as much ground as Galway Bay. We meet Honora Kelley when she's a young woman, the world ahead of her, living in a costal village on Galway Bay on the western shores of Ireland. The story begins in the "before times," when Ireland is under the harsh hand of the British and the Irish have little to their name beyond the potato to eat and the joy of each other's company. When Honora finds true love and begins her own family, the situation in Ireland becomes frantically desperate.

I hate to give away much of the plot of a book, but I can't NOT tell you that Honora's journey eventually leads her far from the homeland she loves, because the author's depiction of a mid-19th century immigrant experience is one of the elements of this book that makes it so powerful. I can't imagine the amount of research that went in to creating such a believable depiction of Chicago during that time period. As someone very familiar with Chicago, it was thrilling to read a history of the city between the lines of a story that I could not put down.

Life was not easy for Honora. I didn't bother to count the number of times that the sheer magnitude of trials Honora went through brought me to tears. I rooted for her, I cried for her and the people she loves. As hard as her experiences were, though, I felt like she triumphed. Honora's love of her family, her imperfections, her willingness to scrabble forward, whatever the cost, these qualities made her an incredibly sympathetic and realistic protagonist. The Irish love of stories and tales, song and music are a constant thread throughout, woven through the generations and tying them together.

Galway Bay is a glorious yarn, stretching from the hills and beaches of Ireland to the streets of Chicago. For all of it's 500+ pages, I wouldn't leave out a one. An Irish-American history that must simply be read to be believed.

Review: Life After Genius by M. Ann Jacoby

Hatchett Book Group Early Birds Blog Tour
genre: adult fiction
rating: 3/5
fall reading challenge


Mead is one of those boys - the ones who keep skipping grades because they are so smart, the ones that everything academic comes easily to, the ones who are destined for great things. If only it was that easy for Mead. Growing up the "genius" in his town was a pretty harrowing experience. Combine some worse-than-usual bullying with a kid who has a lot of brains but virtually no social skills and an over-the-top mother and you get: a pretty traumatic childhood. Mead hopes that all this will change when he "grows up" and goes to college at 15, but when we meet him at the beginning of the book, he has just run away from his college graduation.

The book is almost like a mystery - where we know what happens almost at the end but we have no idea how we got there and the book takes us back and forth between the past and the present. I really liked this style and it kept me very interested in the story. It was nearly a thriller, often surprising me with a turn of events and I could tell that the author had really done her homework because the mathematical lingo felt credible (I even threw a few theorems out to my husband who backed her up). While there were a few characters I found very sympathetic, Mead was not one of them. I wanted him to find a way to be happy, but to be honest, his general lack of judgment was very frustrating to me. I think partially I was really hoping for Mead to learn a little bit more about being something more than a "genius," so maybe I just had the wrong expectations for the novel.

I am reminding myself that not everyone can love every book. As much as I wanted to like this one, the coarse language and the portrayals of the underside of college life turned me off too much to love it. For those less sensitive than me, I do think that Jacoby has an interesting story to tell about a boy finding his place both in academia and in his family. Please check out these other reviews to get another opinion on the book :)

http://luanne-abookwormsworld.blogspot.com/
http://bermudaonion.wordpress.com/
http://bookingmama.blogspot.com/
http://libraryqueue.blogspot.com
http://www.marjoleinbookblog.blogspot.com
http://38thavedivareaders.blogspot.com/
http://booksbytjbaff.blogspot.com/
http://www.linussblanket.com
http://diaryofaneccentric.blogspot.com/
http://savvyverseandwit.blogspot.com
http://bananas4books.blogspot.com/
http://printedpage.wordpress.com
http://www.myfriendamysblog.com
http://www.shootingstarsmag.blogspot.com
http://bransonreads.blogspot.com/
http://www.sjfreed.wordpress.com
http://thetometraveller.blogspot.com/
http://www.chikune.com
http://bookcritiques.blogspot.com/
http://exlibrisbb.blogspot.com/
http://www.sharonlovesbooksandcats.blogspot.com
http://athomewithbooks.blogspot.com/

Blog Tour: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken

be sure to see my giveaway at the bottom of this post!!

rating: 5/5
genre: memoir

I remember being in the hallway at church once talking with a friend who was pregnant and nearly due. While chatting, another woman came by and told my pregnant friend about how the only time she went overdue during a pregnancy, her baby was a stillborn. I was so offended and shocked that she would bring it up right then - obviously distressing my pregnant friend.

I wish I'd read this book before I had that experience. My view of that entire exchange has shifted.

Elizabeth and her husband were living a carefree and idyllic life in France. She finds out she is going to have a baby and this first pregnancy was spent in pastoral bliss. Life comes to a shattering halt, however, when her son is stillborn. We wade with Elizabeth through her grief and through the process of mourning not only the boy she lost, but the life together they might have had.

The writing is so crisp and with such biting wit. I had not anticipated a narration of such a somber subject to be so clever and tender. One minute I am weeping and the next I am laughing out loud. She guides us from her innermost raw emotions out into the world she had to navigate and the people she had to interact with after her baby died. Her experience validates the whole range of fears and hopes, anger and sorrow that one can experience when pregnant and when dealing with loss. Even those coping with a different kind of loss can find solace and communion:

...surely when tragedy has struck you dumb, you should be given a stack of cards that explains it for you. When Pudding died, I wanted my stack. I still want it. My first child was a stillborn, it would say on the front.

An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination takes us to a different side of pregnancy literature - providing a voice and a memory for those women who have likewise lost a child and carried that burden of grief. If I was standing with that friend now, the one who had lost her baby, I would hug her and sit down and listen to her story.

IT'S A CONTEST!!

FRIENDS - If you would like to WIN A COPY OF THIS BOOK (courtesy of the publisher) please leave a comment. If you put up a post on your blog about my contest (and link back to THIS POST), I'll enter your name again!! Make sure you leave another comment to let me know you've done it :) I'll announce the winner on Oct 7th.


***Follow along on the tour!! Your next stop is Antonette of Books in Every Room Please check it out!!***


Other stops:

• medieval bookworm
• Books in Every Room
• S. Krishna’s Books
• A Bookworm’s World
• the book girl
• Seaside Book Worm Blogger
• Allison’s Attic
• B and b ex libris
• Boston Bibliophile
• In the Shadow of Mt. TBR
• Linus’s Blanket
• A Book Blogger’s Diary
• Booking Mama
• Literarily
• Library Queue