39. What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown

listened on Libby

368 pgs.

2025
Adult CRF
Finished 8/19/25
Goodreads rating: 4.14
My rating: 4
Setting: late 1990s Montana

My comments: Jane/Esme, raised by her dad in the middle of the Montana woods, gives us her life story from her point of view, telling how she lived and grew up with her dad until she discovered what was really going on.  Is technology going to "get us" in the end?

Goodreads synopsis: 

A teenage girl breaks free from her father's world of isolation in this exhilarating novel of family, identity, and the power we have to shape our own destinies—from the New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Things and Watch Me Disappear

The first thing you have to understand is that my father was my entire world.

Growing up in an isolated cabin in Montana in the mid-1990s, Jane knows only the world that she and her father live the woodstove that heats their home, the vegetable garden where they try to eke out a subsistence existence, the books of nineteenth-century philosophy that her father gives her to read in lieu of going to school. Her father is elusive about their pasts, giving Jane little beyond the facts that they once lived in the Bay Area and that her mother died in a car accident, the crash propelling him to move Jane off the grid to raise her in a Thoreau-like utopia.

As Jane becomes a teenager she starts pushing against the boundaries of her restricted world. She begs to accompany her father on his occasional trips away from the cabin. But when Jane realizes that her devotion to her father has made her an accomplice to a horrific crime, she flees Montana to the only place she knows to look for answers about her mysterious past, and her mother's San Francisco. It is a city in the midst of a seismic change, where her quest to understand herself will force her to reckon with both the possibilities and the perils of the fledgling Internet, and where she will come to question everything she values.

67. Consider by Kristy Acevedo

Holo #1
read on my iPhone
2016, Jolly Fish Press
288 pgs.
YA Dystopia
Finished 12/3/2017
Goodreads rating:  4.17 - 621 ratings
My rating:  4
Setting: Contemporary Boston suburb

First line/s:  "When the Boston outbound T screeches to a stop, I lose my grip on the silver pole and slam into Dominick."

My comments:  What an interesting story, and one, I think, worth reading.  It presented a few problems to me, personally, but I'll look past them after a quick mention.  The protagonist and her brother, Benji, are always at odds with each other for some reason.  Although she explains it a bit, she never says anything about how or where it started.  Or why.  It's disconcerting, unless I didn't read carefully enough to pick it up, and that's not like me (I'm a fairly slow reader).  And I never fully understand her overwhelming need to protect her father, her thoughts and actions about and toward him show that she dislikes him.  Maybe she's more like him than she realizes?  Otherwise, the characters are fully relate-able.  The scenario is one that makes you think....and think...and think some more.  What would you do if there was insistence that the world would end and you had the opportunity to escape to another world, with no facts to base your decisions on?  No actual facts.  Whew!  I've got to read the next book!

Goodreads synopsis: As if Alexandra Lucas’ anxiety disorder isn’t enough, mysterious holograms suddenly appear from the sky, heralding the end of the world. They bring an ultimatum: heed the warning and step through a portal-like vertex to safety, or stay and be destroyed by a comet they say is on a collision course with earth. How’s that for senior year stress?
          The holograms, claiming to be humans from the future, bring the promise of safety. But without the ability to verify their story, Alex is forced to consider what is best for her friends, her family, and herself.
          To stay or to go. A decision must be made.
          With the deadline of the holograms’ prophecy fast approaching, Alex feels as though she is living on a ticking time bomb, until she discovers it is much, much worse.

59. Trail of Broken Wings by Sejal Bedani

listened to on Audible
2015 Lake Union Publishing
377 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 9/25/2017 (my 46th wedding anniversary)
Goodreads rating:  3.94 - 28,501 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting: contemporary Palo Alto, CA

My comments:  Beautifully read by Karen Peakes, the story is told by four women - a mother and her three daughters, as they reflect upon their lives and the different paths they've had to take because of the now-comatose father's abuse.  Four different stories, actually five if you include the granddaughter's, which is told by her mother.  Women deeply damaged by one man, and now, finally, discovering how to heal.  There's a  little bit too much philosophizing, but as I listened to this on a 16-hour drive, I didn't mind too, too much.  Great setting: contemporary Palo Alto, California.  An interesting, character-driven story, and an opportunity to watch and think about four very different relationships with one difficult man.

Goodreads synopsis: When her father falls into a coma, Indian American photographer Sonya reluctantly returns to the family she’d fled years before. Since she left home, Sonya has lived on the run, free of any ties, while her soft-spoken sister, Trisha, has created a perfect suburban life, and her ambitious sister, Marin, has built her own successful career. But as these women come together, their various methods of coping with a terrifying history can no longer hold their memories at bay.
          Buried secrets rise to the surface as their father—the victim of humiliating racism and perpetrator of horrible violence—remains unconscious. As his condition worsens, the daughters and their mother wrestle with private hopes for his survival or death, as well as their own demons and buried secrets. 
          Told with forceful honesty, Trail of Broken Wings reveals the burden of shame and secrets, the toxicity of cruelty and aggression, and the exquisite, liberating power of speaking and owning truth.

PICTURE BOOK - Lilla's Sunflowers by Colleen Rowan Kosinski

Illustrated by  the author

2016, Sky Pony Press

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.21 - 29 ratings

My rating: 5

Endpapers: Huge sunflowers

1^st line/s: "Cicadas sang their summer song.

Part of Dedication:  "Thank you to all the men and women who serve our country to protect our freedom.  

My comments:  This is a very special picture book.  The illustrations are lovely, sunflowers and summer and simple, expressive facial expressions. Illustrations that cover the entire page with no white edges.  But the story is a real special surprise, heartfelt and so relevant for kids in our current times, when parents are deployed and gone for long periods of time. And what happens to all the new sunflower seeds at the end of the story is absolutely PERFECT and delightful.   A winner, for sure!

Goodreads:  Lilla and Papa enjoy spending magical times in Lilla’s sunflower patch. Before Papa leaves for a trip that will take him far away from home for a long time, Lilla gives him a sunflower seed. “To remember me, Papa,” Lilla whispers.
          Seasons pass, and Lilla’s mood falls like autumn leaves. Finally, news comes that her papa is coming home! The following summer, to her surprise, she receives letters from families with photos of their loved ones pictured with sunflowers. She learns that her gift to her father brightened the dark days for many people, and that her one small seed continued spreading sunshine across the country.
          Colleen Rowan Kosinki’s lyrical style and whimsical artwork bring this story of love to life. Lilla’s Sunflowers will resonate not only with military families but also with any child missing a loved one. This is a wonderful gift for holidays celebrating our country’s military heroes as well as a quiet story for bedtime read-alouds.
          For kids aged 3 to 6, this is a must-have for military families or for families where one parent does a lot of traveling and is away from the home for extended periods of time. It also serves as a charming story about sharing what you have and the benefits that can reap.

62. Tag Man - Archer Mayor

Joe Gunther #22
7 unabridged cds
2011 Minotaur Books
290 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished 10/28/15
Goodreads rating:  3.79
My rating:  2.5
Setting: Contemporary Brattleboro, VT

First line/s:  "He sat in the center of the love seat, in the darkened bedroom, settled against the soft pillows behind him.  His hands, clad in thin cotton gloves, were folded in his lap; his feet, wrapped in blue surgical booties stretched out before the neatened coffee table before him."

My comments: A police procedural "murder mystery" set in contemporary Brattleboro, Vermont.  There were lots and lots of books in the series that came before this one, none that I'd read, but I had no problem at all following the characters or plot.  It was okay.  I don't know why I wanted more, but I did.

Goodreads Summary:  Someone is breaking into the homes of the rich, bypassing their high-tech security, their state-of-the-art locks and then making himself at home. The intruder doesn’t seem to steal anything except some food. At each break-in, he leaves the remains of his snack out and a Post-it note stuck next to the bed where the owners are sleeping. One word is written on the note: Tag.
Although the press loves him, problems begin for the elusive Tag Man when he removes some documents from the home of a mobbed-up man. Shortly thereafter, the danger increases when a trip through a beautifully furnished mansion turns up a secret basement room, where the Tag Man discovers a truly horrifying secret. Joe Gunther, struggling to recover from a devastating personal loss, leads his VBI team to untangle the many conflicting pieces of evidence, while the burglar himself struggles for survival in the no-man's-land between the police and the villains.

67. The Cutting - James Hayman

McCabe & Savage #1

Read on my iPhone/through Kindle/Audio eBooks

Audio read by Jonathan Davis

9 unabridged cds (11:00)

2009 Minotaur/McMillan

336 pgs.

Adult Murder Mystery

Finished 10/21/2014

Goodreads rating: 3.80

My rating:   (4) Loved it, despite a few "flaws"

Setting:  Contemporary Portland, ME

1st sentence/s:  from prologue:  "July, 1971.  He pressed the terrified creature firmly against his body.  He was a sturdy boy, tall for his eight years, with dark hair and a long, thin face.  After more than a month of summer sunshine, his normally fair skin had turned quite brown."
from Chapter 1:  "Portland, Maine; September 16, 2005.  Fog can be a sudden thing on the Maine coast.  Even on the clearest mornings, swirling grey mists sometimes appeared in an instant, covering the earth with an opacity that makes it hard to see even one's own feet on the ground."

My comments:  I love intense murder mysteries (does that make me ghoulish?) but this one had a few "grizzly" factors that almost took it too far for me.  This always happens when it involves any cutting of the skin with a knife or scalpel.  I have a difficult time with this.  The title should certainly tip one off......  That said, I greatly enjoyed this mystery.  I love the setting - Portland, Maine and upwards to Blue Hill (home!), and I really like the very human protagonist, Mike McCabe.  He's a police detective who has relocated from NYC with his 13-year-old daughter, Casey.  He made a few assumptions -- perhaps you could call them gut feelings - that seemed a bit over the top, but without which he could not have followed the clues to catching the bad guy. And this one one bad-ass bad guy.....

Goodreads book summary: From a formidable new voice in suspense fiction comes an edge-of-the-seat story of a homicide detective on the trail of a killer, who slays with exacting precision, and who harbors a terrifying motive
          Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe moved from New York City to Portland, Maine, to escape a dark past: both the ex-wife who’d left him for an investment banker, and the tragic death of his brother, a hero cop gone bad. He sought to raise his young daughter away from the violence of the big city . . . so he’s unprepared for the horrific killer he discovers, whose bloody trail may lead to Portland’s social elite.
          Early on a September evening, the mutilated body of a pretty teenaged girl, a high school soccer star, is found dumped in a scrap-metal yard. She had been viciously assaulted, but her heart had been cut out of her chest with surgical precision. The very same day a young businesswoman, also a blonde and an athlete, was abducted as she jogged through the streets of the city’s west end. McCabe suspects both crimes are the work of the same man---a killer who’s targeting the young---who is clearly well-versed in complex surgical procedures, and who may have struck before. Just as the investigation is beginning, McCabe’s ex-wife reemerges, suddenly determined to reclaim the daughter she heedlessly abandoned years earlier.
          With the help of his straight-talking (and, at times, alluring) partner, Maggie Savage, McCabe begins a race against time to rescue the missing woman and unmask a sadistic killer---before more lives are lost.

Crow Call - Lois Lowry

Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline

Scholastic, 2009

$16.99

32 pgs.

Rating: 5 YES!

Endpapers: Deep brown, accentuating the beautiful browns used in the illustrations.

This is a supremely lovely book. The words themselves are gorgeous. The illustrations are magnificent. And the story iteslf is oh-so-satisfying. It's a memoir, a story of Lois Lowry and her own father in 1945.

Just back from the war, a father begins the first steps of reconnecting with his young daughter by taking her hunting, just the two of them. Breakfast at a diner starts the day with a funny situation that I'm certain became an inside family joke. The woods are quiet and beautiful, and they talk. Lizzie is nervous about her father's rifle, and fearful for the crows he will shoot. He gives her the task of blowing the crow call. This becomes such a delight to her when dozens of silent crows rise from the trees in answer to her call.

This is first and foremost the story of a thoughtful, sensitive father who dearly loves his child. Wrapped in magical words and detailed illustrations, this is a lush, special book. BRAVO!!

"Grass, frozen after its summer softness, crunches under our feet; free from the floating pollens of summer, and our words seem etched and breakable on the brittle stillness."

Never stop writing, Mrs. Lowry, never stop!