jedore's reviews
499 reviews

“That was the secret of a happy marriage. Step away from the rage.”

Ah, Liane Moriarty has yet to disappoint. Apples Never Fall is my second book of hers and, similar to What Alice Forgot, it pulled me in on Page 1 and didn't let go until the very end. At about the 4/5's mark, it became a marathon for me...there was no way I was going to bed until I to got to the end.

Liane has mastered the art of "Twisted Chick Lit" (as I call this genre). Her stories are intelligent, anywhere from shady to dark, and mysterious. And, her firsthand experience being a mum in a man's world made an appearance in this book similar to What Alice Forgot, which I love.

This is the story of a perfectly imperfect Australian family—mum, dad, and four adult children—with tennis flowing through their veins. In usual Liane style, character development is brilliant. The woman knows psychology and, despite all of their flaws (or maybe in spite of?), each character is oddly likable. (It's always nice to know your own family isn't the craziest!)

While it's not impossible to guess the ending, I didn't. Liane leaves so many viable options that you just can't be sure which one she'll go with in the end.

So, apparently, I'm quite twisted because I've given high ratings to all of the Twisted Chick Lit books I've read so far. Apples Never Fall was a super fun romp and a solid 4 stars for me! I feel exactly the same as I did at the end of What Alice Forgot—I want more.

"It's always been fascinating to me how things can be simultaneously true and false, how people can be good and bad all in one, how someone can love you in a way that is beautifully selfless while serving themselves ruthlessly."

This book was so delicious that I devoured it in less than a week. Typically, when a book gets a lot of hype, my feelings are much more lukewarm. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a definite exception to this rule-of-thumb. 

 

This is intelligent "chick it" at its best. I even know a couple of sensitive men who would be into it. 

 

Character development is one of the biggest standouts of this book for me. They were were authentic, they were fake, they were givers, they were takers, they were wise, they were clueless. They were perfectly imperfect...just like we all are. Evelyn's complexity was both fascinating and torturous…I adored her so much that I didn't want to be disappointed in her as often as I was. 

 

I also loved that I wasn't distracted by predictability, which I often am with "chick lit" books. There were so many paths this story could take at any given point that all I wanted to do was keep turning the page to see which one it was going to be. 

 

The perfect companion to this book is Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates, so if you end up loving this one, go get that one! 

"We will go on, he thought; as long as Mother Earth smiles on her children, we will continue to be a people. We will live and die and live on."

Fools Crows is the story of the Pikuni (Blackfeet) tribe in the Montana territory shortly after the Civil War. As the white man is encroaching more and more on their land, the tribe is faced with the choice of whether to stand their ground and fight or surrender and sacrifice their resources, land and way of life.

The story is almost entirely from the male perspective, primarily the main character named White Man's Dog, who is later re-named Fools Crow (a common tribal tradition). He begins the story as a boy struggling to find his place and become a man and ends it as one of the leaders and medicine men of his band, known as the Lone Eaters.

Although there were some women characters, the author definitely doesn't have the gift of a connection with the feminine soul like some other male authors I've read, so unfortunately they were flat and unemotional.

For me, this was an educational book that taught me some important things about one of the most awful aspects of my country's history. What it did not do was have a lasting emotional impact on me, so it's not likely to live long in my memory. Regardless, it made me better, so for that I am grateful.

"[Fidel] was telling us what was good. Telling us how we should think. He was telling us what to choose and how to choose it. He was telling us we had no choice. And he was telling us we were free. Free at last."

It's unsettling when a quote about Fidel Castro sounds eerily familiar to the narratives we're hearing today in supposedly democratic countries. This made me pay even closer attention to Carlos Eire's story. 

In his memoir, Carlos tells the story of his life in Cuba as a young boy until he boarded a plane at 11 years old with his older brother, and without his parents, bound for a new life in the U.S.

The lack of a cohesive timeline made this a challenging read for me. You never knew where you were going to be—in place and time—with each chapter, which caused some emotional disconnection. However, Carlos' poetic writing drew me back and kept me interested until the end. 

Another initial irritation for me was a lack of emotion given the serious shit that was going down in Carlos' life. But, it clicked when I imagined how my own son would have handled some of the situations.

I realized that Carlos was authentically portraying how his young boy self deflected, projected, adapted, denied, and tried to make the best of all the craziness around him…exactly like most young boys would. Until he couldn’t any more. The moment I realized this was the moment my irritation turned to heartache.

Mission accomplished. I definitely have more insight into what happened to Cuba and her people when the Revolution hit in 1958...and, have so much more empathy for all who were displaced. Truly heartbreaking.

This book will go down in my literary history as the one that brought me to Storygraph.

Because of my own assumptions, I got a little snookered on this one. The cover art and the name (which apparently called forth memories of Lonesome Dove) had me believing this was a hearty saga. Nope.

I'm baffled that Dovetail has a 4.18 star rating on Goodreads. This is NOT a 4+ star book! The characters and the plot are very simplistic and totally predictable. And, the internal and external dialogue was borderline cheesy at times.

Storygraph's 3.35 rating (at the time I wrote this review) is much more on point.

I'm just growing weary of reading books where I know exactly what is going to happen. If the writing isn't outstanding, what's the point? 

I can forgive a book for being predictable if it brings something else to my table...like outstanding writing. But, while this book was entertaining enough to stop me from tossing it into my virtual DNF pile, it definitely didn't bring me unique or fascinating characters or dialogue that was a pleasure to read. 

After 45+ years of reading, I expect more. It's highly likely that I would have rated this much higher in my 20's when a light "beach read" did it for me. So, if you're into light, and you don't mind a dark slant, just ignore me! If you're a bit of a book snob like me, you might want to keep looking.