The Miseducation of Cameron Post

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth     485 pages

From Goodreads:

When Cameron Post's parents die suddenly in a car crash, her shocking first thought is relief. Relief they'll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl.

But that relief doesn't last, and Cam is soon forced to move in with her conservative aunt Ruth and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. She knows that from this point on, her life will forever be different. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in and leaving well enough alone (as her grandmother might say), and Cam becomes an expert at both.

Then Coley Taylor moves to town. Beautiful, pickup-driving Coley is a perfect cowgirl with the perfect boyfriend to match. She and Cam forge an unexpected and intense friendship--one that seems to leave room for something more to emerge. But just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, ultrareligious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to "fix" her niece, bringing Cam face-to-face with the cost of denying her true self--even if she's not exactly sure who that is.

Review:

This is a well written book in the much needed, slowly expanding LGBTQIA Young Adult genre. I think many teens will relate to Cameron’s earnest, authentic voice and her experiences as she grows up. There are a lot of difficult topics brought up, but it’s important that they are and this book doesn’t shy away from them. I think, not just for young adults, but adults as well, this book is a great choice. Danforth really captures the teenage voice and the story is so compelling. It’s a long read, but it’s really worth it and for anyone who likes that slice-of-life or coming-of-age genre, this is a perfect choice. It’s all about what it means to be a teenager and the highs and lows of young adult life. I would definitely recommend it.

The Good House

The Good House by Ann Leary    292 pages --- audiobook 10 hours

Hildy Good is one of the most successful businesswomen in the area. She's been the most successful real estate broker in her town for years. And, she knows houses better than anyone else. However, she's reached a dangerous time in her life: she's middle-aged, divorced, and she's prone to having a little too much wine a little too often.  When her two grown children stage an intervention, Hildy goes through a stay at Hazelden. However, Hildy finds that while she didn't miss alcohol too much, she's slipping into the habit again. After all, she's been involved in some of the bigger recent real estate deals in her town, including selling a huge house to Rebecca and her husband.

While this story starts out as somewhat light and amusing, it starts to feel like there are shadows at the edge as the story progresses. Hildy knows a lot about most of the people in town, and it starts to become clear that she's supporting not only some of their self-deceptions, but some self-deceptions of her own. Soon, her own secrets are intertwined with the secrets of her others and as her drinking starts to increase, you can feel that something awful is going to happen.  Soon.

I really enjoyed this audiobook read by Mary Beth Hurt. She's a wonderful actress and the book just came alive. Hildy is a very realistic character --- which means that sometimes, I enjoyed her, and sometimes I plain out didn't like her at all. However, I did like this audiobook and would look for another read by this actress.

The Truth According To Us

The Truth According To Us by Annie Barrows                 Audio Book: 18 hours, 52 minutes     Paperback Book: 529 pages                      

This book will hold your interest from beginning to end.    Very well written and developed characters.    You will come away feeling that you were actually a witness to all the events described here.    The town of Macedonia, West Virginia held a very southern sympathetic view during the War Between the States, however, the State of Virginia had divided into two sections because folks in the western part of the state wanted to stay in the Union, all that is except the town of Macedonia.   So, going with the majority,  the state of Virginia was divided into two states forming Virginia (seceded) and West Virginia (did not secede) it was entered into the Union as a Federalist region though the pocket that was Macedonia remained loyal to the South for the most part.    This story involves many of the families in the town who are proud of their southern heritage and held many artifacts of their confederate ancestors.    The story involves the town’s past history as they celebrate the town’s sesquicentennial and a young woman who is awarded the task of writing a book on the town’s history through the writer’s project of Roosevelt’s WPA New Deal program.  The girl in question is a poor little rich girl who doesn’t want to marry her family’s choice of husband for her so she and her father (a senator) have a falling out and he takes away her expenses so she has to fend for herself.    Her uncle happens to work with the WPA and gets her on relief so she can get the job that is open (that requires no skills – she’s never worked before).    She balks at first not wanting to go live amongst hillbillies and can’t imagine how she will achieve the research and writing of a book for them.    The story takes place in 1938 and the family she ends up staying with, the Romeyns, are so endearing, even the black sheep scoundrel has reasons for his behavior.   He does play dirty at times though and uses people.    Their back stories and dark secrets are smoldering underneath the facades almost everyone puts on.    Everyone except Jottie, the fixer in the Romeyn family – she is genuinely a good fun-loving person, o.k. she does know how to use the term “oh honey,” in that sickly sweet way some southern ladies declare that can express  sentiments of sincerity, insincerity, sarcasm and aspersion interchangeably.   I learned all about the “oh honey” and “well bless your heart” phraseology when I married into a family with roots in Virginia.  Yikes!   Those steel magnolias weren’t kidding!   They can praise you and strip your feelings to the core with either of those phrases depending on their tone and inflection.   Amazing.    Praise or belittling and you never know which way the knife will fall.   The townsfolk in this book use it with fierce accuracy and dole it out like icing on a cake.   This was such an enjoyable read I hated to come to the end, I liked it that much.   The children are like the little rascals and “Scout” from to Kill A Mockingbird always up to something.   Five stars for this one.

Gwendy's Button Box

Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar Book 164 pages

From Publisher's Weekly: "It's 1974 when 12-year-old Gwendy Peterson is offered a magic box by a man named Richard Farris, whom she meets at the top of one of the cliffside Suicide Stairs in Castle Rock, Maine. Farris wears a "small neat black hat" and seems to know just who Gwendy is and what she wants. Eight buttons grace the mahogany box he offers to Gwendy, and a lever dispenses silver dollars and intricate chocolates that Farris claims will help Gwendy lose weight and escape being called "Goodyear" by her classmates. Lose weight she does, but that's not all. Wonderful things keep happening in Gwendy's life, and she's happier than she's ever been. But when she decides to press one of the buttons, the consequences are horrendous."

I enjoyed reading this book. However, it did take some adjusting to realize that it wasn't going to be scary despite its authors. It is billed as horror, but I found no horror and also not a lot of suspense. The story reads like a normal life of a young girl who turns into a young woman. The addition of the button box is what makes it slightly different. Of course this is not an original story line, but it was nicely done. The box has some profound effects on Gwendy's life, but I felt sorry for her as the bad circumstances weren't her fault. I did like Gwendy, she was doing the best she could with what she had. As is usually the case with these types of stories, she had to discover a lot of information on her own. Sometimes I find teen characters hard to read, but I applaud King and Chizmar with their writing of the protagonist. After she pressed the red button the first time and blamed herself for a tragedy, I thought that was going to be the theme for this book. I was grateful it wasn't. This was an easy read that keeps the reader engaged. Although there are some holes in the story, I still liked it. The plot of the book suggests that it should have been longer. The black button alone deserved more page time, but that's a novella for you. Throughout the story and at the end, I could not help but wonder what Gwendy's life would have been like if she had never received the button box. I wonder if that was the authors' intent. Hmmm....

Secrets of Southern Girls

Secrets of Southern Girls by Haley Harrigan 400 pages

 Julie Portland killed her best friend, Reba, in 1998. In the ten years since, Julie has left their small hometown of Lawrence Mill, Mississippi, for New York. She attended NYU, studied acting, married a classmate who becomes a Broadway star, has a baby, divorces said classmate, and is now trying to make ends meet. Her daughter, Beck, is the light of her life. Julie has lived a full life, but every day that goes by, she remembers that girl from Mississippi---the one she killed.

In a crowded, Manhattan restaurant, Julie sees a man from her past: the man who came between Reba and herself. She tries to escape, but the man, August, manages to track her down to her apartment.

August hasn’t come there to cast blame or seek revenge; he’s come to New York to persuade Julie to return to Mississippi and free Reba’s memories. What follows is a page-turning story where author Harrigan feeds readers information slowly, like a stray breeze on a hot and humid Mississippi afternoon. Sometimes the tension is almost unbearable, and there are several twists in the story that I didn’t see coming.

August is sure there Reba left behind a journal that could unlock the mystery of her death. Julie may feel that is responsible for her friend’s death, but August isn’t convinced she is. He knows that the journal holds the answers to all his questions.

Dueling timelines between 1997 and 2008 make for fascinating reading. Especially when Toby, Julie’s cousin, enters the picture. I wanted to give this debut 6 stars, but it dragged a bit about two-thirds through, but picked back up near the end. Therefore, Secrets of Southern Girls receives 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

It Takes One

It Takes One by Kate Kessler.  416 pages.

This is the first book in a new thriller series about a criminal psychologist, Audrey Harte, who uses her own dark past to help catch dangerous killers.   In this book, she is returning home to the small town where she grew up, after seven years away.  Not everyone is happy to see her; when she and her best friend Maggie were thirteen, they killed Maggie's abusive father.  Audrey has left her past behind, but when she is confronted by a drunk Maggie on her first night back, it's not a good start. And things don't get better when Maggie turns up dead.  With some people looking to blame Audrey, she has to find the killer, putting herself in the path of danger.

Audrey is a flawed character, which makes her interesting (and easy to relate to).  She's got an alcoholic father, unresolved issues with her ex-boyfriend, and unresolved issues with her home town. She's also got a quick temper.  She's mostly nice, but she doesn't let anyone push her around.  She knows her past is dark, but she owns up to it, which I liked.   The book is pretty dark, and the pace is even, which makes it a compelling thriller.   The way it's written, it's hard to know if you can trust any of the characters (other than Audrey), and there are some twists and turns.   I felt it was a good pageturner, and am interested to see where the author takes Audrey in the next book.

Wytches

Wytches, vol. 1, by Scott Snyder, 144 pages

The Rooks family has just moved to a new, small town- seemingly to get away from some sort of "incident" that occurred in the old place.  And while it seems like the family is settling in and moving on- the daughter has made a friend at school, and dad's new graphic novel is coming along, there are a few... unsettling things that occur.  Oh, like the bald woman with prosthetic legs who breaks into the house to rave about witches and the egg-sized lump developing on the daughter's neck and the trees that eat people. Clearly, this small town life is not as simple as they thought.  As usual, the writing of Scott Snyder is solid and it reminded me of a Stephen King story (in a good way!).  That said, I am not a scary-story sort of reader, so I may pass on finishing out the series.  

Calendar of Love

A Calendar of Love and Other Stories by George Mackay Brown, 157 pages

A collection of short stories set in the author's beloved Orkney Islands, exploring the landscape and the people who inhabit it.  There are tavern keepers, tinkers, Sikh merchants, Vikings, priests, madmen secular and religious, many sailors, and many wives and lovers of sailors.  There is sadness, treachery, tragedy, drunkenness, repentance, and joy.  

The portrait of a pastoral human community full of flawed characters occasionally illuminated by grace provokes obvious comparisons with William Faulkner, Wendell Berry, and Sholem Aleichem.  Brown, better known as a poet, has a straightforward prose style and an ease with plot that keeps his stories from ever feeling forced.

Midnight Crossroad

Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris
 305 Pages

The latest offering by the creator of the True Blood series, Harris presents a new series set in Texas.  In the small town, everyone keeps their secrets, from the woman who is a witch, the psychic who just arrived and the vampire in the basement.  When the body of the girlfriend of the pawnshop's owner surfaces, the situation escalates with a vigilante supremacist group threatening the safety of the town's inhabitants.

I'll admit I didn't have high expectations for this book , since Harris had been phoning in the True Blood series since it became popular.  While the bones of the story are good, she fails to create enough ambiance or go into enough detail about all the town's various peoples which would allow the book to shine.

Dog Gone, Back Soon

 
Dog Gone, Back Soon by Nick Trout
324 Pages

The second entry in Trout's fiction series, this book continues wher "The Patron Saint of Lost Dogs" left off.  Cyrus Mills is still trying to make the veterinarian practice left to him by his father a going concern despite the threats of multi-conglomerate competition.  As Cyrus gets involved in a series of tricky cases he must solve, he soon finds that the all are connected in an almost Dickensian manner.

A light and enjoyable read, it is especially fascinating how Cyrus solve a series of tricky vet problems.