Don’t Go

Don’t Go by Lisa Scottoline              Audio:  11 hrs., 22 mins       Mass Market Paperback:  464 pages                             

Another excellent book by Lisa Scottoline.    Where does she pull all of these great stories from?    Her words make you feel like you are right there experiencing the story.   This poor guy.   He is serving as an Army doctor over in Afghanistan and all he wants to do is serve out his tour and go home to his wife and new baby daughter.  A lot is going on in Afghanistan and while he is dealing with that turmoil – his wife dies at home of an apparent accident.   Now he has to go home and bury her and decide who will care for his infant daughter.    His wife’s death is devastating to him and  he only has 10 days leave to make funeral arrangements and sort out childcare and what to do about his home.   His wife’s sister and her lawyer husband have stepped up to care for the baby which is a godsend.   When he has to go back to complete his tour he knows she is in good and loving hands.    He willingly signs over temporary custody of his daughter while he is away so in the event she would require hospitalization or medical care they would have permission to get her proper care.    His brother-in-law being an attorney saved them lots of time getting all the paperwork through the proper channels in a hurry.   After the funeral and ag the end of his 10 days leave, he went back feeling he had done the right thing.   Circumstances can change in an instant, however.    Four of his buddies are killed right in front of him en a little boy comes to them with a puppy who’s leg is severed.  The soldiers are discussing how against the rules it would be to help the pup but the guy, Mike’s, heart melts for the boy and his bleeding dog.  He decides to go against the rules and help, but they soon find out it was a ploy when who they thought was the boy’s grandfather who was standing by a donkey pulls out a grenade and blows 4 of the soldiers up before they can move out of the way.   This messes with Mike’s head severely and thereafter he suffers from PTSD.   They were all just there talking and laughing and now he is picking up what is left of their body parts to send home to their families to bury.   Then his CO is pushing him to sign on for another tour of duty as his medical skills as a surgeon are needed there so badly.   They had already been short-handed, now they were short 4 more surgical staff.    He waffles as his world crumbles around him.   He wants so much to go home and be with his little girl who he is a stranger to now, but, after discussing it with his sister-in-law  and brother-in-law who assure him they love him and his daughter and don’t mind at all watching her while he serves another tour of duty.   You have to watch folks when they are too agreeable to do things as this soldier doctor soon finds out.   He goes through so much in this story it had me saying OMgosh! So many times.   It’s like somebody keeps saying what could be worse?   Then this poor guy finds out.   He is too quick on the uptake to react to external stimuli for one thing.   This is such a good story another page turner you won’t want to put down.   I highly recommend this story and Lisa Scottoline as an author.     Her writing keeps the reader enthralled.  

 - Shirley J.

The Standard Grand

The Standard Grand  by Jay Baron Nicorvo    368 pages

I was excited when I obtained a copy of Nicorvo’s debut novel. Set in 2012, it’s the story of a halfway house for homeless veterans suffering from PTSD and located in an abandoned Catskills (NY) resort.

One of the vets, Antebellum Smith, is actually AWOL from her post in Fort Leonard Wood. She can’t face a third deployment to Iraq and is sick and tired of her deadbeat civilian husband. She makes the trek from the Missouri Ozarks to Manhattan. She’d rather sleep in the park than go back.

She meets Milton Wright, a Vietnam vet and widower. Milt’s late wife’s family once owned the derelict property.

That was as much as I could decipher in this convoluted tale. There is a huge cast of characters, but thankfully, Nicorvo provides a list of who’s who before the story even starts. Most of the book is written in military lingo that was easy to figure out what it was, but for me it slowed the story down.

This work has been getting rave reviews, but it didn’t click with me. Every book had its reader(s), but this one isn’t for me. The Standard Grand gets 1 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

motorcycle ride on the sea of tranquility

motorcycle ride on the sea of tranquility by Patricia Santana   276 pages

I remember reading this book years ago and loving it.  Since I can’t remember exactly when, I checked the copyright page, a first edition from 2002. I checked Amazon and it says 2004.  I just remember loving it.  I’ve had its follow up, ghosts of el grullo, on my shelf for years. I wanted to read that, so I knew that I had to go back and read this one so the story would be fresh.

The time is 1969. Vietnam is raging. Chuy Sahagun is coming home from the war, and one of his sisters (there are five) is so excited. Chuy is fourteen-year-old Yolanda’s favorite of her four brothers. The story opens as the family is preparing for Chuy to arrive at their San Diego suburb home. The decorations are going up, the food is being prepared, and the music is being selected. No one know for sure when Chuy will arrive, but they want to be ready.

When he does arrive, it is obvious that he is not the same person. He hardly speaks, and stands at attention. The family feels the strangeness, yet don’t push him. After only a few days at home, he takes off on a motorcycle, without a word to anyone, which he has just acquired.

The Sahagun family is quite worried, but life goes on. We see Yoli struggle to grow up in a three-bedroom home where eleven people (well, now that Chuy is gone, ten) people live.

After four months away with barely any contact, Chuy arrives home on July 20, the day Neil Armstrong walks on the moon. Chuy pulls up just as the event is about to happen and the family misses it. Chuy still hasn’t returned to his former self, and winds up being diagnosed with PTSD and in and out of the VA hospital.

Yoli is the narrator or this first-person tale about life growing up in the summer of ‘69, when America was changing faster than a teenager’s body. Chuy and his struggle to adapt once he’s back home is the catalyst that propels this novel.

 I didn’t like care for motorcycle ride on the sea of tranquility as much as I did when I first read it. It’s a great read, but the Spanish words that weren’t translated made it seem a little choppy. Still, I found that old fondness for Yoli’s wonderful voice, which prompts motorcycle ride on the sea of tranquility to receive 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The Madman Of Piney Woods

The Madman Of Piney Woods by Christopher Paul Curtis, 363 pages

This book is from the perspective of two boys; Benji, an African Canadian boy from Buxton and Red, and Irish Canadian boy from Chatham.  At the beginning, the two boys don’t know each other at all and the stories are simply about their separate lives.  We get to learn a lot about them.  Benji has a younger sister and brother who are extremely gifted at woodworking and he wants to be a writer and a journalist.  Red’s mother died when he was young and his grandmother, who had a hard life growing up and actually abuses Red somewhat, lives with him and his father.  Both boys are aware of the legend of the Madman of Piney Woods, although Red has a different name for him, and both boys have a healthy fear of him.  However, both of their lives change when they actually meet the man and each other.  This is a very good reality story for kids who like historical fiction.

Koko

Koko by Peter Straub   576 pages

Peter Straub is considered one of the greatest thriller writers of our time; second only perhaps to the master Stephen King. Yet, somehow I missed never reading anything by Straub. Anchor Books re-released Koko, the first book in the “Blue Rose Trilogy” in 2009.

The Washington Post claimed that the 1988 work was “brilliantly written…an inspired thriller…(Straub’s) finest work.” I was ready, eager, anxious, and waiting when the almost six-hundred-page paperback landed on my doorstep.

I cancelled my evening plans and curled on the couch, ready to be scared out of my wits. The story opens with four Vietnam vets returning to Washington, D.C, for the dedication of Vietnam Memorial. The four hadn’t seen each other since they left the service in 1968. Shadowing the emotional events of the dedication, the men---now a doctor, a lawyer, a blue-collar worker, and a restaurateur---are drawn together with the resurgence of a serial killer.

The killer, Koko, could be either the writer Tim Underhill or M.O. Dengler or a Victor Spitlaney, from their old unit. But the four men are sure they are the only ones left alive. They decide to go back to Singapore and Bangkok, in search of their old Army buddies and to get to the bottom of the new murders, all seemingly unrelated.

That’s a great scenario, but fifteen days later, I’m still reading Koko. The story plodded along in agonizing detail. I read and read and read and read and read until my eyes burned. I wasn’t scared once nor did I find this “masterpiece” a page turner. When I finally did reach the last chapter, I have never been so disappointed in my life. Straub changed narration and basically ended the story with an “what happened? Nothing happened.” I know that is a set up for book two in the trilogy, but I don’t care enough to even bother learning what the other two titles are.

 I give this one out of five stars.