The Next Good Book
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 so i like to read- 

friends often ask for book suggestions so i created this site in 2014 to help me think about what i read and pass it on.  

I hope you find many good books here!


e-mail-thenextgoodbook5@gmail.com

the incendiaries by R.o. kwon

9/24/2018

1 Comment

 
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The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon
210 pages

What’s it about?
 Will and Phoebe meet their first month at an elite American university.  They both have things to hide.  Will is a scholarship student who has just transferred from a small bible college and Phoebe is struggling with grief.  They are immediately drawn to each other, and simultaneously Phoebe is drawn to John Leal and his fanatical religious organization on campus.  The story is told through memories and it is a really effective tool.

What did it make me think about?
This slim novel is about the fine line between faith and fanaticism- in both religion and in personal relationships.  It also touches on the slippery slope of truth- what we wish to share and what we keep to ourselves.   "​I wished I could ask how he'd survived giving up so much.  But in general, he avoided talking about life as a Christian.  He'd joke; otherwise, he pushed it to the side.  With me, too, once I'd told him about my mother's death, he shied from bringing it up.  It was like high school, after the crash, when even close friends failed to ask about it: afraid, I think, to remind me I was grieving.  They hadn't known it wasn't possible, since I didn't, at any point, forget."

Should I read it?
Don’t read the book jacket first- it gives too much away!!!!
The ideas in this book hurt my brain sometimes.  Having said that,  I thoroughly enjoyed this one.  It just touched on so many complicated and difficult themes- fanaticism being just one of them.  A big punch is packed into a really quick 210 pages.  


Quote-
“People with no experience of God tend to think that leaving the faith would be a liberation,” he says, “a flight from guilt, rules, but what I couldn’t forget was the joy I’d known, loving Him. Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing — the old, lost hope revived. I was tantalized with what John Leal said was possible: I wished him to be right.”

If you like this try-
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Moshin Hamid
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf 
The Enchanted by Rene Denfield

9 stars
1 Comment

our little racket by angelica baker

9/22/2018

0 Comments

 
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Our Little Racket by Angelica Baker
495 pages

What’s it about?

 This book takes place in Greenwich, Connecticut at the height of the financial collapse of 2008.  Bob D'Amico runs a powerful investment bank until things begin to crumble all around him.  Has he just taken too many risks or is he a criminal?  Either way he has ruined the lives of a lot of people.  Seen through the eyes of his daughter Madison and four other women that are close to the household- this novel gives us a slice of how families were affected by the financial crisis.

What did it make me think about?
 I just so hope that this is not what the wealthy women of Greenwich are really like....  The women in this book come across as manipulative, cunning, shallow, and insecure.  “Many of these other women were like Mina, had grown up in places that were nothing like this, but they’d forgotten it so fast.  They’d blinked and then suddenly were women who deserved this, who could talk to Isabel D’Amico and pretend they understood her.  The only thing that remained of their old selves was the survival instinct, the willingness to claw another women out of the way."

Should I read it?
 I had two issues with the book.  First- Angelica Baker is a fine writer but she needed some self restraint and a better editor!  No one wants to read almost 500 pages about these people.  They warrant 300-350 pages at most.  Second- the motivations of the characters were oblique and hard to decipher.  The women were almost cartoonish in the way they were portrayed.  I am sure their is some truth in here but it seems buried under a lot of cliches.  It is an ok beach read...but who are these people?
 
Quote-
"A few Italian words sprinkled here and there and the annual Christmas-Day car ride to Nanna Connie's because Isabel would never say anything in front of her mother-in-law.  It wasn't the potential weight gain that bothered her mother, Madison knew, or that wasn't what bothered her the most.  It was the wanton disregard for discipline, Madison's willingness to let everyone around her see how bottomless her appetites were, how raw her hunger.  If you wanted something, her mother believed, you took steps to acquire it in the privacy of your own home, so that by the time you are out in the world again, you had everything you needed.  You did not let other people see you as grasping, desperate."

If you like this try-
The Swans of New York by Melanie Benjamin
​Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe
The Unfortunates by Sophie McManus

5 stars
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the distance home by paula saunders

9/17/2018

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The Distance Home by Paula Saunders
288 pages

What’s it about?
 This is the story of a family growing up on the plains of South Dakota after World War Two.  Eve and Al fall in love after high school and soon have three children.  Their oldest two, Leon and Rene, share a love of ballet but have very different temperaments.  We watch the years pass and watch life take it’s toll on the whole family.

What did it make me think about?
 This novel highlights the difficulties of growing up different in small town America.  

Should I read it?
 I truly wanted to love this book… but I just didn’t.  I just wasn’t completely engaged with the characters and the plot did not keep me that interested.  It wasn’t a bad book and the writing is pretty- it just didn’t tug at my heart.

Quote-
“And as Rene sat in her bed that night, looking across the hall at Leon’s closed bedroom door, she couldn’t help but wonder where all the hurt and anger went after something like that.  Did it just disappear as a person are older, dissolving in a mist of resignation and forgetfulness?  Or did it crystallize, so that you carried it with you building layer upon layer as the years went by, each incident adding to a more solid core of pain, until you cane to face the world more tock than flesh?”


If you like this try-
​​How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
Number One Chinese Restaurant by Lillian Li
​The Nest by Cynthia D''Aprix Sweeney
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

6 stars

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tangerine by christine mangan

9/7/2018

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Tangerine by Christine Mangan
308 pages

What’s it about?
Lucy and Alice are inseparable college roommates until a terrible accident tears them apart. Alice leaves college and marries.   She moves to Tangiers with her new husband John.  Unexpectedly Lucy appears in Tangiers and at her door one day. 

What did it make me think about?
This novel is all style and suspense.  This book had me turning the page and not thinking too much at all.

Should I read it?
Something about this book reminded me of  “Rebecca”.  Not the plot but the stylish writing and the sense that at any moment something is going to happen.  If you like a psychological thriller then try this one.  It is not amazing- but it is fun.  I hear George Clooney has bought the rights so you may be seeing it in a theatre near you soon.

Quote-
"Over a year now, and it was still cast in a hazy fog that I could not seem to work my way out of, no matter how long I tripped through the labyrinth.  It's better that way, my aunt had said afterward, when I told her about the vaporous sheen my memories had taken on, how I could no longer remember details of that horrible night, of the days that followed.  Leave it in the past, she had urged as if my memories were objects that could be packed away in boxes secure enough to ensure they would never let loose the secrets within."
​

If you like this try-
​The Loney by Micahel Andrew Hurley
Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller
So Say theFallen by Stuart Neville
The Life We Bury by Allen Eskins

7 1/2 stars


0 Comments

the book of m by peng shepherd

9/3/2018

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The Book of M by Peng Shepherd
485 page
What’s it about?
This dystopian novel concentrates on the power of memories.  One day in India a man suddenly loses his shadow.  Their is no scientific explanation.  Over time he also loses his memories.  He is the first, but the phenomenon quickly spreads around the world.  The book opens two years later as Ory and Max are hiding out from the chaos in a former resort in Virginia.  One day Max wakes up without her shadow.  The story goes from there…

What did it make me think about?
This book concentrates heavily on how much our memories make us who we are.  I could not help but think of all those that are aging and losing their memories.

Should I read it?
The first half of this book is definitely stronger than the second half of the book.  I like a good dystopian novel every now and then and had high hopes for this one.  However, I just didn’t care enough about these people to make it 485 pages!  If the plot drives your book- it better be riveting.  This was not always riveting.   Having said that- this book has gotten lots of great reviews so maybe it is just me.

Quote-
"I understood then how the Forgetting works. Why sometimes we shadowless simply don't remember anymore and why other times something changes: there's a difference between when the mind forgets and when the heart does."

If you like this try-

On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee
The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
The Power by Naomi Alderman

7 stars
0 Comments

a place for us by fatima farheer mirza

9/2/2018

0 Comments

 
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A Place For Us by Fatima Farheer Mirza
382 pages

What’s it about?
This book opens at a family wedding in California.  Hadia is getting married in a traditional Indian- Muslim ceremony.  Hadia’s mother, father, younger sister-Huda, and younger brother-Amar are all in attendance.  As the story opens you realize that for an unknown reason Amar is estranged from the family.  The rest of the novel goes back and forth in time and viewpoints to explain Amar’s place in the family.

What did it make me think about? 
This book captures the complexity of family relationships.  It made me think of how we all see shared experiences so very differently.  This story emphasizes how our age, our generation, and our life experiences influence those viewpoints.   What grandparent can't understand this quote-  “ A young child was asleep on her father’s shoulder, her little feet bare, her mother following with her shoes hooked on curled fingers.  They had their whole lives ahead of them: they moved through the world where anything was possible and did not even know to be grateful for it. "

Should I read it?
So this book has gotten a lot of hype because it is the first book from Sarah Jessica Parker’s line for Hogarth.  Such a shame as all the hype should be about this amazing new writer.  I thought this book was a treasure.  I wanted to slow down and just savor the last fifty pages.  One of my favorite books I have read in years!  Don’t miss the one.

Quote-couldn't choose just one!
“She knows her father.  His pride, his values, his adherence to religious rules.  They are more important than love.  More important than loyalty to one’s child.  She always sensed conditions to their parents’ love so she did nothing to threaten it.  Amar senses the same and only thought to test its limits.  See how far he could push them before they left him.”

“We pray together and when it is time for us to ask our hearts desire, my first wish is that he remain steadfast in faith, and then, if he does not, that he never believe that God is a being with a heart like a human’s, capable of being small and vindictive.”

If you liked this try-
And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
​
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
​
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
​
Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

9 1/2 stars
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    “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
    ― Charles William Eliot
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     ratings

    1 to 2- I did not enjoy this book.
    3 to 4- I found some aspect of this book redeeming but would not recommend it.
    5 to 6- I really enjoyed something about this book (characters, plot, meaning etc.) but it was uneven. Some aspects were stronger than others.
    7 to 8- It was a good book.  I liked lots of aspects of this book.  I would recommend it.
    9 to 10- I was sorry to turn the last page.  I highly recommend this book!
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