keeping up appearances

Are We There Yet? by Kathleen West

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

Genre: fiction

Review: Books like these make me so grateful for my own mom-friends.  Like the women in this book, we met when our kids were in preschool and kindergarten.  Unlike the women in this book, we are genuinely caring and supportive of each other.  These characters care about appearances as much as they care about their kids (to be fair, they all care for and about their kids a lot).  The fact that, Alice, the mom from whom we hear the most, is an interior decorator, is a little too on-the-nose, a fact that doesn't go unremarked upon in the book.

When Alice learns that her 2nd grader is reading significantly below grade level and her 7th grader is acting like a bully, she is equally concerned with how her "friends" will react with how to actually help her children.  To be fair, she does step up and do the hard work to help her kids get back on track.  But following along as she perserverates about other people's perceptions was quite a slog (at least as bad as reading about all the brand-name accessories she uses to decorate her own and her clients' homes).  Alice's other problem is her mother, who is about to drop a bomb on her in the midst of all this.  Alice's mother a child psychologist, and I can only say that I'm glad not all child therapists are as selfish as she is.

The short version: You might not actually like any of these characters, but you might recognize them.  You'll almost certainly recognize their struggles, if you have kids.  You might not actually sympathize with them, though, or enjoy reading their inner monologues, but if you're in a book group, especially with your mom-friends, you'll definitely have a lot to talk about.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

when the ice melts

Laurentian Divide by Sarah Stonich
Genre: fiction
Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)
Review: Every story needs a hook, and for Laurentian Divide it's the question of what happened to Rauri Paar, the odd man who winters alone on his island.  His appearance heralds the true return of spring to the residents of Hatchet Inlet.  But the answer to that question is not nearly as interesting as the stories of the people who are asking it.  There's: the widower who's about to marry the woman nearly 20 years his junior (they're deeply in love); his son, the veterinarian who's also a recovering alcoholic; and his fiancee, who's dealing with a mother with major dementia and reeling from the loss of her neice, who was killed in a drunk driving accident.  These are the people who tell the story, of their past and their present, that color the book in shades of ice blue and the green of new buds.

Unlike other books small-town books, I never got a sense of the town itself, although the larger scenery of Minnesota on the Canadian border comes through vividly (it may have helped that I was there not long ago).  As for what happened to Rauri Paar, the answer is appropriately anticlimactic, serving to satisfy the the curiosity of both reader and town, without overshadowing the characters the reader has come to identify with.  The revelation also allows the book to come to a graceful, natural ending.  I was pleased to learn that this is the second book in a planned trilogy, although it can be read alone; I'll almost certainly pick up the first one, and I'll be looking for the third when it comes out.

FTC Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

bad on either count

Love Lies Bleeding by Jess McConkey
Rating: 1 star (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Challenge: 100 Book Challenge 2011
Review: A simply-told tale can be a good thing.  A simplistically told story, on the other hand, is usually not a good thing, and that, unfortunately, is what we have here.  The language is simplistic.  The characterization is simplistic.  The dialogue is simplistic.  The plot is simplistic!  It felt more like reading a comic book without the drawings than reading a novel.

Add to that was the question of what kind of book this book was supposed to be.  Was it supposed to be an attack-recovery story (in which case it was too pat to be convincing) or a thriller (in which case it was not at all thrilling)?  Making it even harder to figure out was that there was no believable connection between the two parts of the story.  I wish I could say that McConkey would have done better to decide what kind of book this was supposed to be and stuck with that, but since neither part was very good, I don't think it would have helped.