White Rage
Built on a mountain of historical insight and irrefutable evidence, White Rage provides a damning indictment of the United States’ purported progress toward a desegregated, racially modern society of equal opportunity for all. Carol Anderson presents a searing account...
read moreBearskin
A darkly rousing page-turner by first time author James A. McLaughlin, Bearskin introduces a violently witty, fresh new voice to the world of thrillers. When the novel opens, Rice Moore has been working for six months as the caretaker at a nature preserve in the...
read moreManhattan Beach
A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award for A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan’s literary merits are well established. I haven’t read A Visit From the Goon Squad yet, but as a result of my introduction to Egan via her...
read morePromise Me Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose
I read a solid amount. Some books are easier than others to review. I try to review the books in the order that I read them. But sometimes, I hit a difficult review and it starts to delay me. I’m now five books behind. But Joe Biden’s book is an easy one to review...
read moreArtemis
When I bought The Martian a few years ago, I didn’t know it had been picked up to be made into a movie. I barely knew what the book was about. And then I couldn’t put the book down! Any avid reader will know what a treat this is. So, I was excited to pick up Weir’s...
read moreDarktown
Darktown by Thomas Mullen does not pull punches. It is a tour de force with no apologies. Thomas Mullen does not bend historical accuracy to create heroes or villains who fall outside the purview of historical accuracy. Do not look for idealism in Mullen’s writing—you...
read moreBed-Stuy Is Burning
I do not feel anxiety often when reading, but Brian Platzer’s debut novel set me on edge before the end of the first page. Bed-Stuy Is Burning presents a fictional account of police shooting an unarmed 12-year-old-black kid in Bed-Stuy. The shooting...
read moreThe Parking Lot Attendant: A Novel
I’ve been a voracious reader as far back as I can remember. In second grade, I read the entire Black Stallion series by Walter Farley twice through and regretted the ending of every installment—all eighteen of them—two times over, wishing I could remain in...
read moreIn A Dark, Dark Wood
In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware is deliciously terrifying! When a “hen weekend”—a British term for “bachelorette party”—turns darkly sinister, Nora wishes she had followed her initial instincts and stayed far, far away. But the invitation from Clare, her best friend from childhood, held far more mystery than Nora could bear to leave unsolved. Why would Clare invite her after ten years of silence, not as much as a text shared between them in that time?
read moreThe Women in the Castle
I’ve read a fair amount of literature about World War II, but I’ve never read any from the German point of view, so I was intrigued by the plot line for The Women in the Castle. I’ve always wondered how Germans viewed their involvement in the war, their complicity in the mass murder undertaken by the Nazi’s, in the evil that ruled the country for so many years. Did they claim ignorance of what Hitler’s army was doing before and during the war? Did they simply point their fingers at other citizens and lay responsibility elsewhere? Did they try to leave the past in the past and forget their involvement? Did they understand that their silence was complicity? Did they accept the shame and guilt and spend the remainder of their lives trying to find some semblance of absolution?
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