Book Review: The Mourning Parade by Dawn Reno Langley

Natalie, a veterinarian,  has lost everything.  Her husband has left her, and her sons Stephen and Danny have died in a horrific school shooting.  At a conference she listens to a speech by a man, Andrew, who runs an elephant sanctuary in Thailand.  Reeling from the pain from her losses and from PTSD, she goes with him to volunteer at his sanctuary. She befriends and helps a damaged, suffering elephant named Sophie, (also with PTSD) who helps her deal with her grief, along side new friends.

"You know, one of the reason I started this sanctuary is because the best way to treat broken animals is with broken people.  Each fixes the other."

So grab the tissues, I'll wait.

I sobbed openly throughout this book, which is unusual for me as this doesn't usually happen to me in novels.  This was beautifully written.  I could feel her crushing pain.  Some parts are written for Sophie, the elephant's viewpoint, and I could feel her pain as well.  I could feel the humid heat of the Thai air.  I could hear the giggles of the children and the barking of the dogs.

The character are fully formed and well rounded.  This book has a lot of heart.  I can't recommend it enough.  5 stars.

Many thanks to Amberjack Publishing, NetGalley, and Dawn Reno Langley for a complimentary digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis

Rose is a journalist for a web media company that we'll pretend isn't Gawker.  She's living with her boyfriend, Griff, in an old New York City condo building called the Barbizon. After seeing an old woman wearing a hat with veil in the elevator of her building, she gets curious about the woman and starts to delve into the history of the building and it's elderly residents.

In 1952, Darby is brand new to NYC from the midwest.  She's enrolled in secretarial college and is a new resident of the Barbizon Hotel, THE place for young ladies looking for husbands pursuing careers as secretaries and models.

This story follows them both, as Rose discovers the full story behind what happened to Darby and Esme, her latina jazz singing friend and jazz singer.

I enjoyed this book immensely, there was definitely a seedy element to the novel embedded in it's Mad Men-esque flair.

The two women's life seem to run on a parallel, as Rose's life falls into shambles, so does Darby's.  The ending was lovely and wrapped up the story nicely.  4/5 stars.

Book Review: The Bookshop On The Corner by Jenny Colgan

Once in a while, a book comes along that hits all of the right notes for me and imagines a future that I would embrace whole-heartedly.  This is it.

Nina is a librarian in Birmingham, UK.  She is facing being downsized, as apparently the city is eliminating it's library to focus on a more media-centric (read social media) image.  Nina is of course broken hearted, as finding the perfect book for people is her jam.

She needs a plan and needs one fast! She sees an ad for a van/truck posted by a seller in Scotland and imagines using it as a mobile book store.  She heads up north to purchase the van and start her life as a book truck (like a food truck, but books!)

The interesting people in the village, however, draw her in.  There's the older gentlemen who drink at the pub every day.    The women who work as merchants in town.  And teenage girl that she takes under her wing.  With her will and quirky personality, she manages to help the lives of everyone in town, including the handsome Lennox, her landlord, who is initially grumpy and dour.

I now want a book van.  And a life in the Scottish countryside.

Book Review: Merciless by Danielle Vega

Another mean girls book.

Sofia Flores is the new kid at Adams High School in Mississippi. She’s used to moving around a lot, her mom is a medic in the army and her father is apparently not in the picture. 

Her mom is distinctly non-religious, despite her heavily religious mother and Sofia’s abuela. The town that they have moved to is DECIDEDLY religious. 


The “cool kids” being the most religious of all. She meets Brooklyn, apparently the town’s lone goth girl, then meets Riley, Grace, Alexis and the rest. Riley seems to have a grudge against Brooklyn, and after a dead, skinned cat is found under the bleachers, Sofia volunteers to serve as a double agent, spying in Brooklyn for Riley, and on Riley for Brooklyn. At Brooklyn’s party, Sofia sees Brooklyn making out with Riley’s boyfriend. Then the book goes off the rails. (No pun intended)



“I’m going to get the evil out of her.” –Merciless, Danielle Vega

At this point, the story decided that it needed an exorcism. That’s not a metaphor. Riley and the others decide to do an exorcism on Brooklyn. Because obviously her actions meant that she was full of the devil!




Of course it’s not really an exorcism, it’s more like a torture session. And these righteous girls get way more than they can handle.

Coming off the heels of Girls on Fire, my last review, this rates extremely poorly. The prose is sub-par, and the meanness of the girls that the story was trying to portray really was just psychosis. Another book without a single like-able character.

Book Review: Girls On Fire By Robin Wasserman

I'm fascinated with the culture surrounding teen girls.  I know, I once was one, but I'm so far removed from it it's hard to put myself back into the mind-frame.  Conversations with my 18 year old daughter have shown me that really, not a lot has changed for the eons ago that I was part of the tribe.

                                       Girls on Fire

by Robin Wasserman

This book took me back a bit.

From Goodreads:

"Girls on Fire tells the story of Hannah and Lacey and their obsessive teenage female friendship so passionately violent it bloodies the very sunset its protagonists insist on riding into, together, at any cost. Opening with a suicide whose aftermath brings good girl Hannah together with the town's bad girl, Lacey, the two bring their combined wills to bear on the community in which they live; unconcerned by the mounting discomfort that their lust for chaos and rebellion causes the inhabitants of their parochial small town, they think they are invulnerable.

But Lacey has a secret, about life before her better half, and it's a secret that will change everything..."

This story is set at the beginning of the 1990's, from about 1991-1992.  It's loaded with imagery and pop culture references that those who were around then, like me, are well familiar with.  I was in high school from 1990 to 1994 so all of this is like home.  

Hannah, or "Dex" as she is later called is the central character of the story.  She is portrayed at first as being a sort of frumpy loner. Not one of the "cool kids" by any means, but not fully ostracized by the upper echelons of high school society either.  

“I took up space. I was a collection of cells and memories, awkward limbs and clumsy fashion crimes; I was the repository of my parents' expectations and evidence of their disappointments” 
― Robin Wasserman, Girls on Fire

Enter Lacey, the new kid at her school.  Lacey is all plaid shirts, combat boots, black hair and Kurt Kobain ALL THE TIME.  There's seemingly never been a bigger fan.  These two quickly form a close, almost obsessive (on each side) friendship.  As the book moves forward, Hannah is renamed "Dex" by Lacey and the reader can see the influence that Lacey has upon her.

Then things go BATSHIT crazy.

This book is GORY.  This book is VIOLENT.  This book has enough kinky sex to fill a porno.  And all of the Satanic Panic pseudo Satan worship that this time period was famous for.  Right up to the somewhat predictable ending.

It definitely reads like a "How to Be A Mean Girl" bible, down to the videotaping (yes, it was the 90s) of a was it or was it not rape scene at a party.  None of the characters are particularly like-able, and sure, they don't have to be.  

“There had to be consequences. Lacey was always right about that. Maybe freaks stayed freaks and losers stayed losers, maybe sad and weak was forever, but villains only stayed villains until someone stopped them.” 
― Robin Wasserman, Girls on Fire