for the love of books

 

reviews

Welcome Book Lovers

carpe librum 

Thanks for stopping by for my short spoiler free book reviews. 

An absentee father collects his son from boarding school after a shocking act of violence. A nanny to a celebrity family hides out in Laurel Canyon in the aftermath of a tabloid scandal. A young woman sells her underwear to strangers. A notorious guest arrives at a placid, not-quite rehab in the Southwest.

In ten remarkable stories, Emma Cline portrays moments when the ordinary is disturbed, when daily life buckles, revealing the perversity and violence pulsing under the surface. She explores characters navigating the edge, the limits of themselves and those around them: power dynamics in families, in relationships, the distance between their true and false selves. They want connection, but what they provoke is often closer to self-sabotage. What are the costs of one’s choices? Of the moments when we act, or fail to act? These complexities are at the heart of Daddy, Emma Cline’s sharp-eyed illumination of the contrary impulses that animate our inner lives.

I read and loved Ms Cline's prior novel The Girls(really- check it out). 

The short stories in this novel are fairly clever and more than a bit edgy and dark. In a nutshell- Daddy is filled with horrible horrible men and overall I didn't care for any of the other characters in this book.But that's okay- it made for some interesting reading for sure.

The stories were mostly a miss for me rather than a hit and my favorite of them all was The Nanny.

Toni Windsor is trying to live a quiet life in the green and pleasant county of Staffordshire. She'd love to finally master the rules of croquet, acquire a decent boyfriend and make some commission as an estate agent.

All that might have to wait, though, because there are zombies rising from their graves, vampires sneaking out of their coffins and a murder to solve.

And it's all made rather more complicated by the fact that she's the one raising all the zombies. Oh, and she's dating one of the vampires too. Really, what's a girl meant to do?

I'm featuring this today, even though I did not finish the book.

Perhaps I'll try again like a batter in baseball as it'd be the 3rd time. 

This book-what I read of it- has almost everything I typically love:snark, booze, paranormal creatures,romance...yet I just couldn't get into it.

I think it was because I felt I was DUMPED into the story at the opening. 

This book has AMAZING reviews, so I'm definitely in the minority but like I said- maybe I'll give it one more try...

As always- I'd love to hear from you so drop me a line.