nomadreader

The backstory: Tampa  was longlisted for the 2013 Flaherty-Dunnan Prize , an award sponsored by the Center for Fiction for the best debut novel of the year. The basics: Twenty-six year-old Celeste Price is eager to start her new job teaching middle school in suburban Tampa. Her reason: access to fourteen-year-old boys, the only people to whom she is sexually attracted. My thoughts: As I was raving about this novel to my husband shortly after I finished it, he (somewhat jokingly) said that I really enjoy novels about sexual deviance. Stumped, I asked him for other examples, and he promptly replied Room (which he was too disturbed by to finish and I call one of my all-time favorite reads .) Later, I realized I also adored Repeat It Today with Tears  ( my review ), which is about a father-daughter love affair. It's true all of these novels share the theme of sexual deviance, but they're also about so much more than that, which is why I truly love them. I read fiction for...

The basics: Lady Elizabeth Ashton, known to most as Lilly, has longed dreamed of a formal education and career. When World War I begins, she is at odds with her mother, who desperately wants her to find an appropriate husband, whereas Lilly wants to join the war effort. My thoughts: Although this novel's subtitle indicates its about the Great War, the emphasis of the story is more on Lilly's search for independence and her love with war surgeon Robbie, the old roommate of her brother Edward. The hopefulness of both of these storylines shifts the tone of the novel away from the atrocities of war, even as its main characters continue to immerse themselves in it. For a novel about war, there is a surprising lack of somberness, as the narrating characters focus on their own fortune and nearly altruistic desire to help. Underlying the novel are themes of class and its place in the war, a theme of which I'm quite fond. This time in history is a fascinating one (admittedly my ...

The backstory: Guilt by Degrees  is the second mystery in Marcia Clark's Rachel Knight series. I reviewed the first, Guilt by Association , last week. The basics: Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Rachel Knight ends up taking on the challenging case of a murdered homeless man, still unidentified, when she witnesses a fellow district attorney bungle the case in court. Rachel recruits detective Bailey Keller, also one of her two best friends, to help her solve the case. My thoughts: Although it wasn't a perfect mystery, I adored Guilt by Association  and Rachel Knight so much I started Guilt by Degrees  as soon as I finished it. Some time has passed in the story between the two books, but Clark jumps right back into the action. What begins as an ordinary day in court for Rachel Knight soon becomes a game changer. So little is known about the case initially, but Rachel and Bailey slowly start to discover the details. The more they learn about the victim and the c...

The backstory: Jessica Valenti founded feministing , a blog I read long before I started this one. The basics: Why Have Kids? A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness  is more true to its subtitle than its title. Valenti combines her own experience as a new mom with research to convey the realities of modern parenthood, including the negative parts. My thoughts: I have clear answers to the question "why have kids?" and its opposite. In the pro column, I believe our child would make the world a better place, whether it be in a large or small way. In the con column, there's the cost, emotionally and financially. I know Mr. Nomadreader and I would be happy taking either track in life; both options would allow us to do things we couldn't do otherwise, and both will leave us feel as though we're missing out. Both would be good choices, and I expected Why Have Kids?  to dive into the complicated intellectual and emotional arguments for and again...

The Third Rail  by Michael Harvey The first two novels in Michael Harvey's Michael Kelly mystery series, The Chicago Way  and The Fifth Floor , were both 5-star reads. By those standards, The Third Rail  fell a little short, but it is still an excellent mystery. Michael Kelly finds himself at the right place at the right time (or perhaps the wrong place at the wrong time) when a sniper kills a woman on the L. It soon becomes clear the killers have far bigger plans to terrify Chicago, and they want Michael Kelly along for the ride. Harvey lets the bad guys share narration in this novel, and the insight into their actions wasn't as compelling of the rest of the mystery. The ending, however, is delightfully ambiguous. Rating: 4 out of 5 Source: library We All Fall Down  by Michael Harvey What I thought was a delightfully ambiguous ending to The Third Rail  turned out to be a cliffhanger, as We All Fall Down  picks up immediately after it left off. T...

The backstory: Like so many of you, I read and adored Gillian Flynn's most recent novel, Gone Girl, in 2012 . I finally got around to reading her first novel, Sharp Objects. The basics: Camille, a wounded young woman who recently spent time in a psychiatric hospital, must return to the small Missouri town where she grew up to cover the murders of two pre-teen girls for the second-rate Chicago paper she works. Forced to stay with her mother, stepfather and half-sister, Camille must also confront the childhood death of her sister. My thoughts: As many of you as know, I majored in journalism in college (and women's studies and art history--I've always been a multi-disciplinarian at heart!), and I adore stories of journalists. Camille is a fascinatingly flawed character. I loved to glimpse inside the combination of her hardness and softness. She was simultaneously a character to whom I could relate and understand and one who baffled me, yet Flynn merged both seamlessly. S...

The backstory: After reading ( and loving ) Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's first book, Game Change , about the 2008 U.S. presidential election, I grabbed a copy of their follow up, Double Down , which chronicles the 2012 election, as soon as my library had it. My thoughts: Admittedly, I'm fascinated by politics. I won't go as far to say I enjoy it most of the time, as I far too often find the antics and actions of politicians maddening, but I do love it in retrospect. Looking back at the minutiae of how elections are won and last, bills are passed, and scandals embraced or ruined fascinate me. Double Down  offers all of those things and more. It begins with a prologue of the first debate between Romney and Obama (remember the one when Obama bombed and Romney came off as charming and likeable?) Then the book shifts back to the beginning of the 2012 campaign. Much of what I loved about Game Change  was the lengthy piece about the Iowa caucuses in 2008. It was my firs...