Monday Recommendation List

Monday Recommendation List

Random list of 10 books Monday! I have read and enjoyed each of these enough to flag for a potential personal library purchase.

Be bold and just choose randomly, stick to your normal genre...or step outside of your normal reading zone and try something you usually wouldn’t. You can look up the descriptions at Amazon.com, or search my blog for old posts by entering the title in the little search box in the top left-hand corner and clicking the magnifying glass.

This week-- 10 recommendations (in no particular order):

1. Sookie Stackhouse Series (first is Dead Until Dark) by Charlaine Harris
2. Secrets of a Summer Night by Lisa Kleypas
3. Fragile by Lisa Unger
4. Lead Me On by Victoria Dahl
5. My Sister’s Keeper  by Jodi Picoult
6. One True Thing by Anna Quindlen
7. The Post Birthday World by Lionel Shriver
8. Soul Surfer by Bethany Hamilton
9. If This is a Man by Primo Levi
10. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

Monday Recommendations

Monday Recommendation List

Random list of 10 books Monday! I have read and enjoyed each of these enough to flag for a potential personal library purchase.

Be bold and just choose randomly, stick to your normal genre...or step outside of your normal reading zone and try something you usually wouldn’t. You can look up the descriptions at Amazon.com, or search my blog for old posts by entering the title in the little search box in the top left-hand corner and clicking the magnifying glass.

This weeks 10 recommendations (in no particular order):

1. Last Night at Chateau Marmont by Lauren Weisberger
2. Not Without Hope by Nick Schuyler
3. The Black Lyon by Jude Deveraux
4. The 10 Greatest Gifts I Give My Children by Steven Vannoy
5. Don’t Cry by Beverly Barton
6. Crush on You by Christie Ridgway
7. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
8. Fragile by Lisa Unger
9. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
10. Devil’s Knot by Mara Leveritt

Beautiful Lies

Beautiful Lies by Lisa Unger

I enjoy a good thriller…but this one was neither good nor thrilling.  I have read other books by Unger that I liked, but this one was just bad.  First, the pace is incredibly slow. The narrator is that annoying person you know who draws every story out and never gets to the point. Second, the writing is just below average. Poor character development and conflicting plot points. The final nail is that there isn't even a modicum of suspense.

I wouldn’t recommend this one to suspense readers, or any other readers. I will give Unger another chance though!

Fragile

Fragile by Lisa Unger

Description from Amazon.com:
"Everybody knows everybody in The Hollows, a quaint, charming town outside of New York City. It’s a place where neighbors keep an eye on one another’s kids, where people say hello in the grocery store, and where high school cliques and antics are never quite forgotten. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows’s insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients’ lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie’s intuitive gift proves useful to the case—and also dangerous.
Eerie parallels soon emerge between Charlene’s disappearance and the abduction of another local girl that shook the community years ago when Maggie was a teenager. The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely.  Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn.  In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father. 
“I know how a moment can spiral out of control,” Jones says to a shocked Maggie as he searches Rick’s room for incriminating evidence. “How the consequences of one careless action can cost you everything.”
As she tries to reassure him that Rick embodies his father in all of the important ways, Maggie realizes this might be exactly what Jones fears most. Determined to uncover the truth, Maggie pursues her own leads into Charlene’s disappearance and exposes a long-buried town secret—one that could destroy everything she holds dear. This thrilling novel about one community’s intricate yet fragile bonds will leave readers asking, How well do I know the people I love? and How far would I go to protect them?

What I thought:
I found this to be a clever suspenseful read. The parallel between a past and present teenage disappearance uncovers emotional secrets and family dysfunction. It is a face-paced read and Unger leaves you wondering if you really know the people in your life.