My Rating: 4.6
When Tara Connelly is released from prison after serving eighteen months on a drug charge, she knows rebuilding her life at thirty years old won’t be easy. With no money and no prospects, she returns home to live with her siblings, who are both busy with their own problems.
Despite this dealing with some heavy issues, it was actually very light and easy to read. It felt part beach read and part romance...and I loved it!
Rating: 4.1
In January 1961, as the Cold War escalates, John F. Kennedy struggles to contain the growth of Communism while he learns the hardships, solitude, and temptations of what it means to be president of the United States. In the midst of a 1963 campaign trip to Texas, Kennedy is gunned down by an erratic young drifter named Lee Harvey Oswald. The former Marine Corps sharpshooter escapes the scene, only to be caught and shot dead while in police custody.
This explores the events leading up to this notorious crime as well as the assassination itself. What it does not explore is many of the other possibilities that are known today about who shot Kennedy and why. Even if O'Reilly didn't want to explore those angles, I felt he could have at least acknowledged that they exist and referred you to other books. That being said, it did a good job of capturing the events leading up to Kennedy's assassination.
Rating: 4.6
Best selling author Athena Liu and her friend June are laughing and enjoying eating pancakes at Athena's apartment when the unthinkable happens. Athena chokes on a pancake and dies. June is appalled but still able to think to steal her unpublished manuscript. This deals with diversity, racism, cultural appropriation, the cut-throat world of publishing and the harshness of social media.
The writing was fabulous! It made me realize the pressure on writer's and the toxicity of social media. I loved how the protagonist was not a nice person and yet I felt sympathy for her. I wasn't thrilled with the ending but, the more I have ruminated on it, the more it felt fitting (and I can't come up with a better ending than Kuang). I will definitely be exploring more by this author. So creative!
My Rating: 4.7
1940's/50's Brooklyn and Asher is a Ladover Hasid who keeps kosher, prays three times a day and believes in the Ribbono Shel Olom, the Master of the Universe. He grows up in a cloistered Hasidic community, a world suffused by ritual and revolving around a charismatic Rebbe. He is torn between two identities, the one consecrated to God, the other devoted only to art and his imagination, and in time, his artistic gift threatens to estrange him from that world and the parents he adores. As it follows his struggle, My Name Is Asher Lev becomes a luminous, visionary portrait of the artist, by turns heartbreaking and exultant.
This is a quiet book where Asher and his parents struggle with Asher's gift. Asher is a very quiet boy who seems wise beyond his years. This book explores if it is right to pursue a gift when it leads to blasphemy, This deals with the struggle of the art vs the Jewish world, honoring your father and mother and being true to yourself. Potok's writing is quiet and beautiful. Sometimes so quiet that you might miss some of the beauty in the soft tender pacing. I will definitely be immersing myself again in the remaining works by this gifted author.
