what holds us together?

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray
Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: Often, when I get to the end of a book, I'm left wanting to know what happens to the characters after the last page.  Much less frequently, do I feel the need to know about what happened before the first page.  But that was how I felt with this book.  What happened to get this family into this predicament?  Some of it was ancient history, some more recent, some became very clear, but a lot stayed very hazy in my mind.  I get that the details of the past may not have been the point, but I think a little more history would have helped me to understand the characters actions and reactions and why certain things have meaning.  It is clear that Gray's characters are all very much alive in her mind, but I had trouble getting them to come alive for me.

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

predictable and repetitive

Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult

Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: fiction

Review: Jodi Picoult has once again written a book in response to which there are no easy answers. It's a great story, well-told, and both heart-wrenching and thought-provoking in a way that only Picoult can pull off. Unfortunately, it's also more than a little predictable and way too similar to her earlier book, My Sister's Keeper.