October 2020 Book Reviews Part 1

October was a terrific reading month for me.  I finished 10 books and quit reading one of them because it wasn't for me. I had 6 physical books 5 were on my Kindle. I will split my reviews into two posts so it won't be so long. I am pretty generous with my rating system. A rating of 5,4, or 3 means I actually liked the book pretty well.

5 Stars- amazing, incredible, highly recommend, will be thinking about this book for a long time
4 Stars- really good, thoroughly enjoyed, recommend
3 Stars- good, enjoyed it, entertaining
2- just ok, meh, maybe someone might like it, but wasn't for me
1- not good, did not enjoy, do not recommend

Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden. With this book, I entered a world I know nothing about. The book is a thriller with a protagonist who is both heroically appealing and off-putting at the same time. Virgil Wounded Horse is a tribal enforcer on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. When local authorities and the FBI deny justice or refuse to prosecute crimes on the reservation, Virgil is hired to mete out punishment.  Virgil is a man who has overcome some bad habits and is now raising Nathan, his orphaned 14-year-old nephew. Nathan gets involved with some unsavory individuals and Virgil has to step in. I appreciated the look into Native American rituals and philosophy. While I really enjoyed the social commentary on the unjust situation in which many Native Americans exist today, I found the amount of violence in the book excessive. It was a good book, but I just wish I could erase from my head some of the violent images I was left with. Rating knocked down to three and a half stars because of the violence factor.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune. This was simply a lovely book. Linus Baker is a caseworker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He visits and evaluates orphanages that have been set up for, let's say, "unusual" children. His life is dull, empty, and without friendship. However, he does care for children, and does his best to make sure their care is good, no matter how problematic their behavior or "gifts". Upper Management sends him on a special mission to the Marsays Island Orphanage to check out the six magical children that are being cared for there by Arthur Parnassus. This trip changes Arthur's drab life. The book is a love story, but also about finding family when you think you will never have one. The descriptions of the characters, including the magical children, are so well done you will feel as if you know them all. You might think this is a book for kids, but it is not. I found the book to be very heartwarming and it will always be special to me. Honestly, I did not want it to end. The book is also very funny at times. I went from dabbing tears to laughing out loud several times while reading it. Five stars.

Shiner by Amy Jo Burns. I went into this book with high expectations but felt let down in the end. Wren Bird lives in abject poverty with her parents in an isolated cabin in the mountains of West Virginia. Wren's father is a preacher who delivers weekly sermons in an abandoned gas station. He is the sort of preacher who handles poisonous snakes during the services as proof of his closeness to God. Wren's mother Ruby is desperately unhappy and the atmosphere is thick with tension between Ruby, her husband, and her best friend Ivy. There is a local moonshiner who plays a role in a secret going back a generation. The concept of the book was interesting, but I found myself losing interest as the plot progressed. The writing was very descriptive at times, but the pace was agonizingly slow, and the character development was inadequate for me. Two stars.

Conviction by Denise Mina. A better title for this book would be "Convoluted". What a crazy and complicated plot this book has. Anna knows her marriage to her wealthy husband is all washed up. She is listening to her favorite podcast one morning when he announces he is leaving her, and her life is turned upside down. After having hysterics, she goes back to her true-crime podcast and realizes that the murder that is being discussed involves people she used to know. It turns out Anna has been living a double life, trying to hide from her past and an evil nemesis who would still like to see her dead. The washed-up rock star husband of her husband's lover turns up at her door and the paparazzi who are always tailing him photograph Anna with him and her cover is ruined. She and the rock star go off on a crazy road trip trying to solve the mystery on the podcast and avoid being murdered by the person from her past. Confused yet?  Uh-huh, me too. And this is just the setup. The contrived plot and unbelievable characters left me scratching my head and saying "What"? Two and a half stars.

The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman. The book starts out in Brooklyn in the late 1940s. Two brothers and their families share a brownstone two-family house. Quiet, mousey Rose lives on the ground floor with her overbearing husband Mort and their three daughters. Helen and her husband Abe live upstairs with their four rambunctious boys. The women have a strong friendship and help each other out frequently. Both women, who are pregnant at the same time, find themselves going into labor one dark blizzardy night when their husbands are away on business. The babies (a boy and a girl) are delivered at home and the women make a decision that they think is for the best, but in fact, changes everyone's lives. I found the book engrossing, even though the characters' behaviors were frustrating at times. You follow the two families over the next 20 years and see the ramifications of the secret decision the two wives made on that fateful night the babies were born. If you enjoy a family saga, family secrets, and characters that evolve over time, you will enjoy this book. Four stars.

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. Amanda and Clay and their two teenaged kids are having a getaway from their hectic life in New York City. They book an Air BnB and are in the midst of their vacation when a black couple shows up at their door claiming to be the owners of the property. Evidently, there has been a major blackout in the City, and they have nowhere else to go. Something sinister seems to be at work. The TV doesn't work, the internet is down, nobody has cell phone service. At any rate, Amanda and Clay let them come in and the two families proceed to share the space while they wait for news updates on what is going on in the world. For that is what this book is at its heart–an end of the world as we know it book. We never understand what the heck is going on–nuclear war, terrorist attack, alien invasion? The book had me flipping the pages as fast as I could to find out what was happening. Ultimately, though, the ending let me down and did not resolve all the questions I was left with. Four stars for keeping my interest. I would have rated it higher if the ending hadn't seemed so abrupt. Four stars.

I will come back later this week with Part 2 of my October reviews!