Melissa Marr

William Morrow Paperbacks

352 pages

Rebekkah Barrow  is living alone on the west coast, but she has always felt ties to her old town of Claysville.  She left there years ago after the death of her stepsister but she still returns from time to time to visit her grandmother Maylene.  She finds that she must return home spur of the moment once she receives word that Maylene has died suddenly.  What awaits her there sounds like stuff of dreams . . . or nightmares.

Rebekkah must confront her old love interest Byron, who works with his father William as the only undertakers in town.  Byron knows that Maylene has been murdered, but none of the town officials seem too concerned about it, and he’s unsure of how to break the news to Rebekkah, who has enough on her plate as it is. Add to that some strange traditions that have been taking place around Claysville regarding the city’s dead, and you’ve got quite a strange concoction.

I suppose I should throw out my negatives before I move onto the positives.  For one, I absolutely hated the love affair between Rebekkah and Byron.  It seemed contrived and juvenile.  It’s made obvious from the word go that both Rebekkah and Byron have strong feelings for one another.  Byron is very vocal about this fact and pleads with Rebekkah to open up to him.  But Rebekkah refuses.  And so it goes.  Again and again and again.  It just seemed so drawn out and I didn’t really connect with either character, so in the end I was bored with the twosome.

I also thought that Graveminder started out a bit slow.  The plot didn’t grab my attention till well over the 100 page mark.  Instead, it just seemed amateurish, possibly in part due to the love affair of Rebekkah and Byron. The rest of the characters also seemed very two dimensional and I often had issues with trying to figure out each one.  Take Charles for example.  By the end of the book, I was still unsure of exactly who he was and how he got where he was.  That just may be me being dense, but I kept wondering when everything was going to be fully explained.

That being said, I do think that Marr had a great story to tell.  Graveminder is not without flaws, but the story was so interesting that I did begin to enjoy it.  I could see this becoming a fun series because now that I know the back story, it would be fun to see where Rebekkah and Byron end up (although I could do without a focus on their love life!).

Melissa’s Tour Stops

Tuesday, January 17th: Unabridged Chick

Tuesday, January 17th: The Road to Here

Wednesday, January 18th: Raging Bibliomania

Thursday, January 19th: Wordsmithonia

Friday, January 20th: Lesa’s Book Critiques

Tuesday, January 24th: Jenny Loves to Read

Wednesday, January 25th: Life in Review

Thursday, January 26th: Reviews by Lola

Tuesday, January 31st: Elle Lit.

Wednesday, February 1st: The Scarlet Letter

Thursday, February 2nd: Savvy Verse & Wit

TBD: Books Like Breathing

I am an absolute sucker for coming of age novels. I’m not sure why that is exactly. I suppose I’m one of those pathetic souls that remembers my high school years as “the good old days”. I can’t imagine going back at this point in my life, but damn was it a blast while it lasted. So anyway, my point is that I am rarely disappointed with novels in this vein.

Sarah Kunitz is growing up in Boston decades ago. Her world is completely different than what I experienced during my formative years. Her daily ensemble consisted of a matching skirt and sweater set with knee socks and the cliques in the school caused a great divide. Sarah, a Jew, is classified along with the other teenagers of her faith, with the Italian kids causing problems and picking on their Jewish counterparts.

Sarah is not buffered my a strong home life. Her father is a literary professor and seems to be disconnected from his four children. Meanwhile, Sarah’s mother is a train wreck. Her passion was violin playing, which is no longer attainable due to her arthritis and, according to her, her children. Now she self medicates with alcohol and pills, which culminates in crashing her car into a local river after a cocktail party at their home.

As Night Swim went on, I realized that, despite the cultural differences between Sarah’s high school years and mine, I could still empathize with her situation and relate to what she went through. Despite her young age, Sarah was a logical thinker who seemed older than her years. At the same time, she still had a vulnerability that was overtly realistic.

I have to admit I can be nervous to read debut authors at times, because you’re flying blind. I had no idea what to expect and the last thing I wanted was for this novel to flop. Luckily, I need not have worried. I thought Keener had a fresh voice and Sarah’s character was one that resonated with me, which was unexpected.

About the Author, Jessica Keener:
Jessica Keener has been listed in The Pushcart Prize under “Outstanding Writers.” Her fiction has appeared most recently in:Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, Night Train, and Wilderness House Literary Review. A recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist’s Grant Program, and second prize in fiction from Redbook magazine, her feature articles have appeared in The Boston Globe, Design New England, O, The Oprah Magazine and other national publications. Night Swim is her first novel. Visit her website: www.jessicakeener.com, and find her on Facebook and Twitter.

One book that wowed me recently though (and the only other book I’ve been reading recently, for that matter!) is Divergent, by Veronica Roth.  I could not put it down! It made me realize two things.  The first was that I should never have avoided this book.  I am not even sure why I did.  The second was that I am on a roll with YA dystopian fiction.  I read Delirium, by Lauren Oliver, a few weeks ago and was wowed by it.  I just need the sequels to that and Divergent to be released ASAP.

As for Christmas, what a whirlwind! It was a great day spent with family and there was a lot of eating going on, which is one of my favorite parts about any holiday.  Unfortunately I didn’t get any books as gifts but my husband did give me a new Kindle for Christmas! And by that, I mean we bought it together and I wrapped it myself.  But still.  It’s the thought that counts. I actually had a pretty hard time deciding which Kindle to go with.  I opted not to get the Fire right away because I didn’t want a color ereader.  I already have an iPad so if I needed to read something in color for some reason, that’s my go to.  I have subscriptions to US Weekly and OK via my Kindle app on the iPad, but other than that I rarely use it to read.  But I digress.  So anyway, it came down to the Kindle Touch or the regular Kindle.  I initially wanted the touch but the reviews were pretty disappointing.  So then I figured maybe I would just go for the regular Kindle.  I can’t tell you what eventually made me go with a Touch.  I mean, I have had a first generation Kindle for years, so maybe it’s time for a change.  So I decided on the Touch.  Then I had to decide whether I wanted to pay $50 more for the 3G.  That was actually a pretty easy decision.  If money were no object, the 3G would have been all mine, but in the end I couldn’t justify the extra $50.  There may be a time here or there when I will be inconvenienced without the 3G, but I’ll live with it.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday as well!

We have been so busy that not only did we have to skip our usual tradition of going to cut down our Christmas tree with my family, but I also didn’t even get to pick out the tree! My husband went out to a lot a few days ago and picked one up while I was at work. Our house is really small, so he probably should have gone with a smaller tree, but he did well! I am almost done with the Christmas shopping.  I just have a few smaller things to pick up for my husband, and then I have to finish up the shopping for my stepdaughter.  Everyone else is done though!

Today is my one day off this week, so more than anything I plan to relax.  The only thing I absolutely have to do is go grocery shopping, but I am thinking I may also do some holiday baking.  If I don’t do it today I may not have a chance to do it at all!

If I don’t get a chance to get back on here in the next few weeks, I want to wish all of you a happy and fun filled holiday!

Marti Rulli, with Dennis Davern

e-reads.com

390 pages

I knew next to nothing about Natalie Wood just a few weeks ago.  Just the fact that she was an actress and she drowned.  That’s it.  And then I saw that the case dealing with her death was being reopened by law enforcement and I had to know more.

Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour is the story of that night as told to the author by her longtime friend, Dennis Davern, who was also the captain of Natalie’s boat, Splendour.  Davern was extremely close with Natalie and her husband Robert Wagner and he was present the night Natalie died, along with Christopher Walken.  For years Davern kept his silence, out of allegiance to Wagner, but once Wagner cast him off, his guilt, along with his anger, encouraged him to come clean about what really happened that night Natalie died.

I will be honest; although I knew little about this case before picking up this book, I was already pretty convinced of Wagner’s guilt.  There’s just too many inconsistencies and it doesn’t make sense that someone would just fall off a large yacht and drown.  My viewpoint was only confounded as I read this book.  It just doesn’t make sense, and unfortunately

Wood and Wagner aboard Splendour

Wagner’s celebrity status at the time was enough for the investigators to brush everything under the rug and refuse to look into the matter at all.

I loved that this book was written with the help of an insider.  I believe Davern’s account wholeheartedly, because it makes sense and because it is corroborated by others.  However, I did have some issues with the book.  There were times when it was unbelievably slow.  For one, I have absolutely no interest in the author’s history or Davern’s history.  I’m sorry, but I just want to hear about Natalie and Wagner and that night and what really happened.  There’s absolutely no reason to add anyone else’s biographical account.  I also thought that parts of the book were redundant and that Rulli was attempting to drag it out longer than was necessary.  She would continuously replay the scene of that fateful night, each time adding one or two more tidbits of information, so by the end it had also become a bit anticlimactic.  In general, I felt that it was a poorly written book BUT I was more interested in the story being told, so I was able to overlook that.

If you’re interested in what really happened to Natalie Wood, you should consider Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour.  You’ll be heartsick for Natalie and angered at the way the case has been handled.

Other Reviews:

None that I could find.

I purchased this book from Amazon for my kindle.

W Somerset Maugham

Knopf Doubleday

256 pages

Kitty Fane is a character you love to hate.  Spoiled rotten, Kitty is used to getting what she wants, so she is in no hurry to marry.  That is, until her younger sister becomes engaged.  At that point, Kitty feels backed up against a wall, so she accepts the proposal of a bacteriologist named Walter Fane.  Walter is madly in love with Kitty, but she accepts the marriage as one of convenience.  The couple move to Hong Kong, where Kitty takes up with a debonair man by the name of Charles Townsend.

Walter discovers the affair, which delights Kitty because she is convinced that she can now shrug the bonds of her stifling marriage and run off into the sunset with Charles.  Unfortunately, Charles doesn’t have the same fantasy, and he breaks off the affair with Kitty.  Instead, she is forced to go off with her husband to deliver aid in a village suffering from cholera.

I have never read Maugham before, so I highly anticipated picking this one up.  The plot had me captivated from the start, especially because I love entitled brats, of which Kitty definitely was! I was astounded with the development of her character throughout the book.  It was completely realistic, because while Kitty became a responsible, empathetic adult, she still internalized her true feelings towards Walter, which never changed.  While she realized that her treatment of him wasn’t necessarily the nicest, she wasn’t able to love him in the way that he had hoped she would have.

I felt sympathy for Walter too, but not as much as I normally would.  He knew that Kitty was marrying him out of pure convenience, and he accepted her as his wife anyway, so I felt like his expectations of their marriage were a little too high.  If you choose to marry someone knowing that they don’t love you, can you expect a good marriage? Fidelity?

The Painted Veil resonated with me long after I finished it. It is a well constructed novel with believable circumstances and characters.  I am not sure where I’ll go next with Maugham, but I do have a copy of Mrs Craddock, so that one is definitely beckoning to me!

Other Reviews:

Book Journey

Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity

Ready When You Are, CB

It’s All About Books

Rebecca Reads

Lakeside Musing

I purchased this book from Half Price Books.