One day, Veronica Von Holten is happy, med-school bound, in love with her boyfriend and not far from her supportive family. Then her father finds another man in the bed he shares with his wife of 26 years. As a messy divorce ensues, Veronica struggles to keep her own life in check while her mother's unravels, and a car accident, a house-sitting gig gone bad and an illicit kiss turn Veronica's personal life upside down.I like the "falling" analogy of Veronica falling love, falling behind in her college courses and so many people's lives falling apart....free falling.
This is a light and enjoyable read that truly captures the emotional trauma of instances/choices in your life and how it forces you to grow up.
Rating: 3.9 Good
This extremely short non-fiction recounts the life and death of her beloved Labrador retriever, Beau. Of the dog that once possessed a catcher’s mitt of a mouth, Quindlen reminisces, “there came a time when a scrap thrown in his direction usually bounced unseen off his head. Yet put a pork roast in the oven, and the guy still breathed as audibly as an obscene caller. The eyes and ears may have gone, but the nose was eternal. And the tail. The tail still wagged, albeit at half-staff. When it stops, I thought more than once, then we’ll know.”
Silas Jones and Larry Ott have known each other since their late 1970s childhood when Silas lived with his mother in a cabin on land owned by Larry's father. At school they could barely acknowledge one another, Silas being black and Larry white, but they secretly formed a bond hunting, fishing, and just being boys in the woods. When a girl goes missing after going on a date with Larry, he is permanently marked as dangerous, despite the lack of evidence linking him to her disappearance, and the two boys go their separate ways. Twenty-five years later, Silas is the local constable, and when another girl disappears, Larry, an auto mechanic with few customers and fewer friends, is once again a person of interest. The Southern atmosphere is rich, and I love the languid shifting from present to past. I don't typically enjoy crime-dramas but, this one has my attention. It is an easy read that has drawn me in from the beginning pages unfolding Larry's quiet simple life on the farm and how he made a portable pen so he could move all his chickens to a different patch of the farm every day to eat bugs. I love how it captures the South and the character development.
Mistry masterfully portrays a family being torn apart by lies, love, and its unresolved demons of the past. Nariman Vakeel is an aging patriarch whose advancing Parkinson's disease and its related complications threaten to destroy his large Parsi family. When Nariman breaks his ankle and becomes bedridden, his two stepchildren turn his care over to their half-sister, Roxanne, who lives in a two-room flat with her husband and two sons. What follows is each character's reaction to this situation, from Roxanne's husband's struggle to provide for his family without neglecting his conscience to their sons' coming of age in an era of uncertainty. Interspersed between these dilemmas are Nariman's tortured remembrances of a forbidden love and its inescapable consequences
New York with kleptomaniac Sasha and her boss, rising music producer Bennie Salazar, before flashing back, with Bennie, to the glory days of Bay Area punk rock, and eventually forward, with Sasha, to a settled life. This time-hopping narrative is extremely entertaining. The story skips back and forth in time and place. The voice moves from first person to third person and even to second. In the hands of a less skilled author, this story would not work. This does have a 'short story' feel to it which I don't care for but, overall, I really enjoyed this book and the creative writing style.
Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff 's is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life. I learned a lot about Cleopatra, that although her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious sister as well; incest and assassination were family specialties.
This is told in the form of the voice of a working-class woman with remarkable persuasiveness—through a letter from an enraged mother to Osama bin Laden. Cleave has an eye for detail and political commentary and throws in the perfect mix of a little parody and a little sex.
Two cousins reunite twenty years after a childhood prank gone wrong changed their lives and sent them on their separate ways. "Cousin Howie," the formerly uncool, strange, and pasty ("he looked like a guy the sun wouldn't touch") cousin has become a blond, tan, and married millionaire with a generous spirit. He invites his cousin Danny (who as an insecure teenager left him hurt and helpless in a cave for three days) to help him renovate an old castle in Germany. 
In this debut novel, a nostalgia that is "rich and sweet" belies the lingering bitterness of family tragedy. Natalie Ward is a thrice-married writer forced by the imminent death of her mother to return to the town she left. She recounts her golden childhood growing up on a busy farm "carved out of a narrow mountain valley deep in the Cascade Mountains." But when a handsome Vietnam War resister named River Jordon ambles up the family's dirt road in 1966 and offers his services as a farm hand, this innocent simplicity begins to curdle. This novel combines the Canadian setting and characters, blended with optimism, make it charming and reminiscent of Mark Spragg’s Where Rivers Change Direction in the wholesome farm life but, unfortunately it tries to pack in too much drama and ends up being a bit too syrupy. Overall though, it was still enjoyable if a bit fluffy in the writing style.
This is the 2nd in the Outland time-traveling series that captures the people and politics of a pivotal period in history--while turning up the heat between an appealing modern heroine and a magnetic romantic hero. It's now 1968, and Claire Beauchamp Randall has returned to Inverness, Scotland, with her daughter, Brianna. This is Claire's first visit back since she and husband Frank visited 22 years before--when she walked through a Druid stone circle into the middle of the 18th century. Now, Frank is dead, and Claire hopes to learn what happened to the great love of her life--gallant Jamie Fraser, laird of Lallybroch whom she married during her journey into the past. She's also looking for a way to tell Brianna who her real father is. Framed by these dilemmas, the bulk of the story consists of the second installment of Claire and Jamie's adventures. 
The lives of three strangers interconnect in unforeseen ways--and with unexpected consequences. This book feels light and easy to read and yet I have sense of foreboding the whole time I am reading it (ok, it could be that the first chapter was about a young boy being rushed to the hospital by his father with his severed hand laying beside him!). Each chapter is engrossing and pulls you in more.
