Welcome back to my monthly book picks and pans! This month was a whirlwind of adventures and not as many pages turned as usual, but fear not—my book selections still pack a punch. From the good, the not-so-good, and everything in between, my mixed bag of reviews is sure to keep things interesting. Whether you’re looking for a tale to tug at your heartstrings, a mystery that keeps you guessing, or a wild literary ride, grab your TBR list and let’s journey through this month’s eclectic reading roundup! There are a few titles and authors with which you might not be family, so dare to branch out. Remember, these are […]
Read more...Tag Archives: Ann Napolitano
Hello Beautiful
Ann Napolitano, the brilliant writer behind Dear Edward (2020), has done it again with her latest novel, Hello Beautiful. While I normally steer clear of Oprah’s Book Club picks, Ann Napolitano is phenomenal, so I gave it a go. We meet William Waters as a young boy in a house silenced by tragedy. His parents can hardly look at him, so it’s a relief when he earns a scholarship to college far away from his childhood home. He soon meets Julia Padavano, an ambitious young woman. He is soon engulfed in her boisterous close-knit Italian family, and embraced by sisters Sylvie, a romantic bibliophile, Cecelia, an aspiring artist, and Emeline, […]
Read more...April Reads
A new month is upon us, fellow bibliophiles, which means it’s time to post what I read in April. There weren’t any 5-star winners, but there were no real duds either. In all the years I’ve been rating books, I’ve only given two 2-stars reviews—one because of grammatical errors and the other because of objectionable content. As an author I know how hard it is to write a book, and I think most books deserve at least three stars (unless a book is self-published, and then it’s no holds barred). April turned out to be a wonderful mix of genres: mystery, thriller, historical fiction, and memoir. I laughed out loud, […]
Read more...Dear Edward – Book Review
One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Among them is a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured vet returning from Afghanistan, a septuagenarian business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. And then, tragically, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor. Edward’s story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place for himself in a world without his family. He continues to feel that a piece of him has been left in the […]
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