Everybody Matters; Mary Robinson

Everybody Matters: My Life Giving Voice by Mary Robinson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This was a DNF not because it was poorly written, or that the life of Mary Robinson doesn't matter, but because I just wasn't engaged by this memoir. That's not to say that every memoir or life's story has to be filled with humorous anecdotes or weird relatives! It's just that, while the role Ms. Robinson played in Ireland, and the one she continues to play in the human rights movement are important, it's not the most engaging of reads. The parts about Ireland in the 60s and her childhood were the most interesting parts; the rest were informative but not - as possibly could/should have been the case - inspiring.

Copy provided by publisher.

Alex; Pierre Lemaitre

Alex by Pierre Lemaitre
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I honestly thought I knew the big twist... guess I'm not so smart after all!

Alex is told from two points-of-view, the first from Alex, a very beautiful 30-year-old who enjoys wigs and the other from Camille Verhoeven, a 50-year-old widower who also happens to be a Police Commandant in Paris. Their paths cross when Alex, following an evening meal, decides to walk home and is kidnapped, beaten and then put into a fillette (a cage in which the prisoner can neither sit, stand or lie down) so that her kidnapper can watch her die. As it happens, M. Verhoeven's wife was kidnapped and killed shortly before giving birth, and this is his first case like this in the four years.

The problem is that nothing is quite what it seems where Alex is concerned, and the police investigation is complicated by the layers of her life. I won't go any further because it's impossible to do so without spoiling the plot. Suffice it to say that when we got to a certain point, I thought "oh, I know where this is going" but it didn't go there. I love it when that happens!!

ARC provided by publisher.

The Longings of Wayward Girls; Karen Brown

The Longings of Wayward Girls by Karen Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Inspired by a real disappearance, the author imagines what that might be like for the friends left behind. At least, that's what she's trying to do. The thing is, there are two disappearances here: Laura's and Francie's. Laura is the first to disappear, and headlines set off parts of the books ("Girl Missing"... "Search Expanded"... etc. type headlines). However, it's Francie's disappearance that is the more important one, which is a little odd - given the headlines and Laura's disappearance, I'd hoped for more about her.

Sadie and Betty are good friends, in and out of each others houses in the way kids often are. Sadie's mother is an actress with the local acting group, possibly an alcoholic, definitely troubled. We also meet Beth, the daughter of the local patron, who lives in a huge house with an in-ground pool, and who has a Very Cute older brother, Ray. Back in the 1970s, children disappearing was rare and Laura's disappearance shakes their cozy world. Beth was friends with Laura, the others less so, but still, they're all a little nervous (the parents more nervous than the kids). Francie is the odd kid in the neighborhood, the one that doesn't quite fit in, and one day Sadie and Betty see her hiding a letter to someone - they decide to respond, in what today is called "catfishing" (think Manti Te'o) and ultimately convince Francie to run away with "Hezekiah". Only Francie really does go missing, which seems to be the deciding straw in Sadie and Betty growing apart.

This story is intermixed with a more modern story, one where Sadie is married with two children. She's recently had a very late term miscarriage and is - understandable - depressed. Over the course of the summer, she starts to make changes and choices that probably stem from that; some of them have their root in that long-ago summer and the questions/culpabilities that raises.

As I said, the use of Laura for the headlines but having very little about her in the plot was a little odd. The other problem for me was that there were so many stereotypical things added, and none of the characters surprised me. Almost as soon as I met someone I could begin to predict the outcome and their arc, which works better in mysteries than it does here.

ARC provided by publisher.

Burial Rites; Hannah Kent

Burial Rites: A Novel by Hannah Kent
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Historic fiction about the last case of capital punishment in Iceland? Hmmmm... Ok, I'll try it. And it exceeded my expectations, so yay!


"Everyone" knows what happened: one night, Agnus, Fridrik and Sigga brutally killed Natan and Pétur, then set Natan's farmhouse on fire to cover up their crime. Sentenced to death, Agnus is first held in a city, then moved to a small farmhouse in the valley she grew up in, under the watch of District Officer Jon Jonsson (and his wife and two daughters) and the spritual care of Assistant Reverend Toti. What everyone doesn't know is why, and which of the three was the leader (if there was one). Even more important, is it safe to allow Agnus to live with a local family, in or out of chains?

Over the course of the book we hear from Reverend Toti, the family Agnus is housed with, and in a first-person narrative, from Agnus herself. The life she's led, a bastard daughter of a woman who has three children with three different men, abandoned and left to the care of the parish, working long, hard hours helping in houses and fields as a servant, is explored, as is her desire for love and some form of escape. We also hear her tale of exactly what happened the night of the murder/fire. Of course, the question of Agnus' story being reliable is raised, and it's up to us to figure it out. Life in 1820s rural Iceland is pretty grim, with houses made of peat (which sometimes crumbles onto beds and at other times oozes out mold), extreme poverty and cold, not to mention a near-complete lack of what we consider amenities.

The ending is not a surprise, because the author couldn't change history. It's our reaction to it, depending on how we feel about Angus' story, that is important. Unfortunately, in her author's note, Ms. Kent doesn't include information on why this was the last execution in Iceland (was it this case that changed things? were there other factors?). The writing is filled with detail, really bringing the world Agnus lived in to life.

ARC provided by publisher.

Breathless; Anne Sward

Breathless by Anne Sward
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I tried. I really, really tried. But halfway through, I realized this was just not doing it for me: the pacing was odd (mostly glacial, but passages that moved quickly), the characters weren't interesting (who cared about mom and her axe? or all the adults that Lo lived with?), and the tie-in to the movie Breathless wasn't as clear as it could have/should have been. Perhaps this is a translation problem, or perhaps it's just the way the book was written, but it just isn't for me.

ARC provided by publisher.

Human Remains; Elizabeth Haynes

Human Remains by Elizabeth Haynes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After suffering sophomore slump, Ms. Haynes bounces back - not as high as Into the Darkest Corner, but still a far better book than Dark Tide. She's also abandoned the present day/backstory format in favor of multiple points-of-view, mostly two characters but with some thoughts from the recently dead. And instead of stalking, we have a serial... killer? death facilitator? euthanasia enthusiast?

There's no real spoiler here, as Colin's oddness and affinity for helping desperate people find their way to the right solution is state pretty much up front. How he does it is a little odd: there's some hypnosis involved, with phone follow-ups. We never get a definite "plan", but this is definitely in the creepy arena. His motivation isn't altruistic, however, it's far grosser than that.

Annabelle, like Colin, is a loner and not particularly social. Her life seems split between work (she's a civilian analyst for the police), taking care of her virtually housebound mother, and her cat, Lucy. Those three, coupled with her finding her next-door neighbor's body well past it's sellby date, seem to be the impetus for her doing some research and finding a pattern of bodies, decomposed, seemingly dead of natural causes. In previous years there were a few (11 max), but this year? 24 and rising.

Will the police catch Colin? Is what he's done illegal, or simply creepy/immoral? The question is also raised about how well we know and take care of our neighbors: if you don't see someone for a period of days, do you assume they're dead, or that they're busy, or on vacation, or have moved? How does our society help, or further isolate, the depressed? Interesting questions.

ARC provided by publisher.

Visitation Street; Ivy Pochoda

Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is supposed to be a mystery, but there really isn't one: it's clear from early on what happened to June. What this is, instead, is an exploration of grief and loss, set in a slightly-pre-gentrified Red Hook, Brooklyn. It's a neighborhood I'm slightly familiar with, as my post office was located in Red Hook, across from the "PJs" and in the early-mid 90s, you did not go anywhere near there if possible. Things are much better now, with cruise ships and a Fairway supermarket and celebrities. Visitation Street is set in-between the two, with the arrival of the Queen Mary imminent.

So that's the scene. The plot is simple: it's late into a hot, muggy summer evening and two friends, Val and June, decide to take an inflatable raft out onto the water. Early the next morning, Val is found, nearly dead, under a pier. June? Vanished. We don't have a lot of the search for June, which would probably be pretty boring. Instead we get Val's reaction, as well as that of Cree (one of the last people to see the two, following them on land as they drifted out into the bay), their families, some of the neighborhood people. There's also Jonathan Sprouse, teacher at Val and June's school, who lives in Red Hook and is the one to find/rescue Val - his mother drowned a few years earlier, and he still hasn't fully dealt with that.

Told from many points of view, this is a great character study. I can see why this was chosen for Lehane's imprint, because the grittiness of Red Hook feels like some of the areas of Boston he writes about, but as a mystery? It's just not one.

ARC provided by publisher.

Heads in Beds; Jacob Tomsky

Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality by Jacob Tomsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Interesting, humorous memoir of "Tommy Jacobs" life in the hospitality industry, moving from valet to front desk to housekeeping manager and back to front desk. Reading this makes me wonder whether it's safe to ever stay in a hotel - even though I keep things tidy for the cleaners, don't demand things, etc. it seems as though we're all at risk! We also learn the right things to say and do to get upgrades and special treatment (invaluable if you're a frequent traveler), and that it's rarely a good idea to use the valet parking.

Hild; Nicola Griffith

Hild: A Novel by Nicola Griffith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was definitely not the book to read as an eARC - getting to the glossary using my Kindle was a pain. I also spent a lot of time looking up names and places, and I really hope that readers get a map and more information that the ARC provides.

Anyway, the blurbage here says that St. Hilda was the most important woman of the Middle Ages. Uh, wrong. She may have been the most important woman in Great Britian during the Early Middle Ages (aka the Dark Ages) but the entire Middle Ages in the entire world? Perhaps, perhaps not. Hild (as she's known here) is the daughter of a king-in-exile, and her life is turned upside down when he is poisoned and she, her mother and their household (which includes a bastard half-brother, Cian) move to the household of her uncle Edwin, King of the Anglisc. There's lots about the life during that time: the wars between the various kingdoms and holdings, the life of slaves and women, the struggle between wealdh priests (worshipping old gods like Woden) and Roman priests (worshipping Christ) for prominence, how the common and royal people live. All very interesting, but at times I just wanted the plot to advance - enough of the birds and food already! I couldn't say that there was a lot of padding, but at times I did want to snip here and there.

We learn about Hild's role as the "light of the world" to Edwin, how her being a seer is really just based on watching, very carefully, the patterns around her, and her conversion to Christianity. However, all this is supposal, as we really know nothing about her life or conversion prior to her founding of the abbey at Whitby. The author here has done a good job with that supposal and readers will come away with a greater understanding of that era (hopefully they'll also have maps and the glossary to help - or do as I did, reading next to their computer so they can learn more).

ARC provided by publisher.

The Righteous Mind; Jonathan Haidt

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I forgot where I heard about this, but the subject has interested me for a while: my family is either Very Liberal or Very Conservative, with few moderates (I count myself among those few). Neither side understands, or wants to understand, the other. As Haidt points out, those of us in WEIRD (White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) countries are often, to the rest of the world, weird. Understanding why and how is important.

According to him, there are six legs to our belief-stool: Care, Fairness, Liberty, Authority, Sanctity and Loyalty. Liberals value the first three and don't value the last, while conservatives value all three pretty much equally. Doubt me? Check out your assumptions on YourMorals.org. It's enlightening. As is the middle third of this book, which to me explained why the people in my family on the right and left think and act as they do. The first third is relatively dry (although some of his examples are interesting) as is the third third, with the exception of Chapter 12 (if you're like me, you'll skim the first 100-ish pages, delve into the next 100, then skim until the last bit). All that skimming led to the loss of stars; had he not underpinned that center part with so much social science and examples from the animal world (did you know that chimpanzees don't work together? yeah, well...) and used a few more examples from the religious and political sides, and any from educational theories, more stars would have been forthcoming.