Jolissa

I've read a lot of great books in my lifetime, but it's rare that I read a book that actually changes my life.

This memoir by Amy Silverstein is a must-read for everyone. Whether or not you think you like memoirs, I don't care – put this on your list, right now.

My Glory Was I Had Such Friends is about life, death, love, and friendship. As Amy sits in a hospital bed with a failing donor heart on the other side of the country from her home in New York, nine of her friends sign up for time slots to come and stay with her in California as she waits for a second transplant. Her first transplant was when she was only 26 years old, and now at 50, that donor heart is so diseased, Amy is dying quickly.

For my full review, visit http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2017/07/review-glory-friends/

I'm so sad to say I was disappointed by this one! That's not to say I didn't like the story and enjoy reading it, but for me, it lacked the magic that made the first one into a book about zombies that I could like. There was a little too much military drama in this one for me. You had the typical alpha male military character who will do anything to protect himself and his group, and he has the ego to go along with his high rank. There was a good deal of the story centered around the politics of what was going on in Beacon, his fight against it...meh.

There were a couple of characters that saved this for me, including a teen who's definitely on the Autism spectrum (Asperger's) and the woman scientist who adopted him. They had an interesting relationship, and being in the teen's head were definitely my favorite parts of the book. Yes, there was still interaction with child hungries who aren't just walking dead, but the book wasn't from their perspective and they were portrayed a little more like savages, unlike Melanie from The Girl.

I also had a hard time following what time period it was in relation to The Girl, as I didn't read about that beforehand and assumed it was a sequel (until I started reading it, of course). It spans that entire book plus some, so I was just a little confused.

All-in-all, yes, the book was enjoyable to read and the action definitely held my attention, but for me, this one lacked what made The Girl so unexpectedly good. I gave it 3 stars.

For my full review, visit http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2017/07/book-review-boy-bridge/

If you've ever felt like you're unable to decide on “what you want to be when you grow up”, no matter your age, this book is for you! I don't read a lot of self-help books, but I enjoyed and was inspired by this one.

Recently, I've been having a lot of ideas about which direction my career could go. I enjoy the company I work for currently and I enjoy what I do (web marketing), but I have other interests and passions too that I would love to indulge. Of course I love books, I want to be an author, and I also would like to work on a project (a website maybe?) for other moms, like me, who've experienced the loss of a pregnancy or baby.

So, I've been....well, kind of all over the place. There are too many things I want to do, and too little time to do them all. I picked this book off the TLC Book Tours list because it sounded like just what I needed to help sort out all my interests/passions and my career.

How to Be Everything is a guide for “multipotentialites”, or people who have potential across a number of careers and interests and aren't easily satisfied by one specialty career. Author Emilie Wapnick not only provides ideas and solutions for how to harness your multipotentialite-ism, but also profiles several individuals who make their varied (and often very different) interests and passions work for them.

Wapnick proposes four general types of solutions for multipotentialites. I was really inspired by her “group hug” approach, which means that all of my interests and passions can sort of fit together in a career and side projects that all make sense together, in a group.

I loved how each portion of this book had an easy “key points” wrap-up at the end, and there were activities for you to do throughout to figure out how to make your multipotentiality work for you.

Overall, I loved this book and it was really useful for me to read! I definitely plan to put some of Wapnick's ideas into action to create a satisfying and fulfilling career and life. 4.5 stars!

See this and more reviews at http://www.literaryquicksand.com/

If you've not listened to The Moth radio show, you're missing out. It's all about storytelling, and there are so many amazing stories to listen to. They're just stories of people – of love, of life, of pain, of wonder. This book is a collection of a bunch of those stories, and I loved reading every one of them. That said, as good as the book is, listening to the stories gives them something that just reading them can't. The voice and emotion of the person telling the story just gives a dimension that reading the story can't. Overall, though, recommended!

Find more of my reviews at http://www.literaryquicksand.com/

Kassi's writing is frank, it's funny, it's straightforward but moving – she has a wonderful voice for a memoir. I loved reading her story, I loved taking a deep dive into her most private of thoughts. I love her tenacity, her eagerness to fix the isolation she felt for other women going through abortion trauma, and her bravery for trying all methods of healing in a spiritual journey. What she learned isn't only relatable to abortion, but to any sort of grief, including my own with the loss of my son.

I don't often give books the full 5 stars, but I don't think I can hold back this time. I loved this book ❤️ 5 full stars, and a huge recommendation from me! Put this on your TBR list right now!

For my full review, visit http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2017/04/book-tour-review-may-cause-love/

I was SO excited for this one! I fell in love with Christina Baker Kline when I read Orphan Train last year. I reviewed it just recently, ahead of reading her new novel, A Piece of the World.

Before I say anything else, I have to tell you that this is a wonderful novel! If you read and liked Orphan Train or if you enjoy stories of rural American life before running water and electricity, definitely pick this one up.

A Piece of the World was inspired by a piece of art – Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World.

For the full review, visit http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2017/03/review-piece-world/.

I've been devouring memoirs lately, and I'm really glad that My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward was one of them.

It's pretty easy to figure out what this one's about from the title, but on the inside, this is not a straightforward and ordinary book. Yes, the author's wife goes to the psych ward, but the entire story of how she gets there and their life before, during and after is unique and ridiculously compelling. I had a hard time putting this down!

My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward is a really unique glimpse into family life with mental illness. Mike Lukach and his wife, Giulia, have a seemingly fairy tale life. They meet, they fall in love, they love intensely. Then, suddenly, Giulia experiences an onset of mental illness, despite not really having symptoms before. It's all very difficult to bear, and the strain it puts on their relationship and their lives is huge. Like I said before, I couldn't put this one down – I just had to keep reading to find out more about their story.

Lukach provides such an intimate look at living with mental illness. It was an eye-opening read, and I'm so glad I picked it up. If you enjoy memoirs or just want to read a real-life story of living with mental illness, I recommend this one.

For my full review, visit http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2017/06/review-lovely-wife-psych-ward/

Oh my goodness, how I loved this book! I hope Dane Huckelbridge writes more fiction, because I will definitely read it.

Castle of Water is the story of castaways on a desert island. Sound cliche? In this novel, it's not at all! It's dramatic, it's funny, it's romantic, it's everything you'd want it to be. I'm particularly picky about the writing I enjoy, and I fell in love with Huckelbridge's prose. It's engaging and colorful and unlike most other fiction prose out there.

I'll try to review the story without giving too much away. In the beginning, a plane goes down over the ocean. A seemingly uninteresting banker and a young newlywed woman are the survivors, and they form the most unlikely of bonds. Think Gilligan's Island with the shtick, plus Castaway with the drama, plus the romance of Atonement. And if you need more proof that I enjoyed this book, here it is: I read it in a weekend. I don't usually get around to reading often enough to finish a book in a weekend, but this one I just didn't want to stop reading.

I feel like if I say any more about the book, I'm going to give away what happens, and I don't want that. I want you to go and pick it up and read it, because it's lovely and sad and dramatic and beautiful. This is a super short review, but you know what? Oh well. Just put this one on your TBR now please 🙂

4.5 stars.

For more reviews, visit http://www.literaryquicksand.com/

It seems like everything Margaret Atwood touches turns to gold, doesn't it?

She nails this retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest for the Hogarth Shakespeare Project. The way she interweaves her own story with the play is just genius. Her main character is just as colorful and dramatic as any Shakespeare character, and I loved him for his crazed creative genius.

Seriously, if you have any smidgen of enjoyment for Shakespeare, pick this one up. You'll love it.

Find my full review here: http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2017/04/mini-reviews/

I would definitely recommend The Nix. You have to be in the mood for something more literary than sit-back-and-enjoy, but overall I thought this book was a well-written piece of art. Everything just fit together so perfectly for me: the writing style, the multiple characters and viewpoints, the nuggets of humor in between the more serious themes...I just really like this one.

For my full review, visit http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2017/12/review-the-nix/

To be honest, after reading the synopsis of this book, I thought I'd hate it! Drought, lonely countryside, murder mystery...not at all up my alley. I loved being pleasantly surprised! Could not put this book down. Needed to know what happened next, got sucked in so hard. Loved it!

This book is hilarious, heartwarming, heart-wrenching, and insightful, and I loved it! It had even more depth to it than Ove, and I just couldn't believe how tangled and deep the story got, but I loved every moment of it. And the ending...that ending! Britt-Marie made Backman one of my favorite authors. I highly suggest adding this one to your TBR list! Audiobook, ebook or paper, this one will steal your heart, turn it upside down and all around, then hand it back to you better for having known Britt-Marie.

Full review here: http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/06/audiobook-review-britt-marie-fredrik-backman/

Find my full review at https://literaryquicksand.com/2021/07/review-the-last-birthday-party-by-gary-goldstein/

This book was just a hoot. It was funny, endearing, and just a good book overall.

Jeremy is a likable guy, if a bit hapless, but that makes him really accessible as a main character. I think we can all identify with that moment when something big goes wrong, and you realize you've seen it coming but just...didn't want to think about it, so you didn't. And now it's here, and you're screwed.

That's the situation we meet Jeremy in (on the day after his 50th birthday), and it just goes from bad to worse very quickly when his wife is gone and then he falls and injures his shoulder (while trying to reach the alcohol cuz, well, his wife is gone).

Honestly, after that, not much really happens in this book. Sure, Jeremy is in the midst of figuring out his love life and his career, but there's not really much for action here. I love a good character-driven novel, so this was fine with me. It does have to be GOOD though, and this one fit the bill.

If you're looking for a summer page-turner, The Girls in the Garden is a title to add to your list! I started reading this one a bit slowly, but when I got to about half way, I couldn't put it down and had to finish it that day. Jewell is clearly a masterful suspenseful storyteller, and I'd pick up any other works by her in a heartbeat.

Full review at http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/06/review-girls-garden-lisa-jewell/

I was so intrigued by this little book when I got it in the mail! It's not often that a book comes in such a pint-sized binding. I loved the cover and was excited to dive in.

At first, I really wasn't sure how I felt about this one. It started light and fun, then took an interesting turn that I wasn't quite sure was my cup of tea. As I read on, though, I really started to change my tune.

The story begins with an ordinary man living an ordinary life. He makes a very modest income working at a movie rental store with all the classics. He's not married, he doesn't have a girlfriend, his small apartment is just comfortable without any bells and whistles, he has one friend...but seemingly in spite of such a quiet and mostly solitary sort of life, this man is content and, well, happy.

One day, he gets a ridiculous invoice (bill) from some sort of vague bureaucratic organization. The amount he owes is astronomical, and he has no idea how he could possibly owe that much, or what it could be for. The story that follows is sometimes funny, sometimes sad, often perplexing, insightful, and chock full of human nature.

I loved some of the conversations that happened between the main character and the woman he ends up chatting with at the company to which he owes a ridiculous amount of money. She finally ends up telling him what it is he owes for: a lifetime of happiness. If you've had a good life, you've got to pay for it. As it turns out, our guy's average life adds up to a great one. Perhaps even the greatest life lived so far?

The Invoice was a fun, quick read. It was smart and insightful, and I'll give it a solid 3.5 stars.

Read more of my reviews at http://www.literaryquicksand.com/

Family Tree is a lighter, girlier book than I usually go for, but I'm glad I picked this one up! There were a lot of feelings and relationships that were deep and well developed, and I really fell in love with the main character and wanted her to succeed.

The story is about Annie, a producer of a popular cooking show in Los Angeles, who gets in an accident at the studio and misses a year of her life, stuck in a coma. When she wakes up, she finds herself divorced and without a job. She's at a facility back in her home state of Vermont, and needs to recover both physically and mentally from her year asleep.

The setting for this book is an amazing family farm in the hills of Vermont. The farm has been producing maple syrup for generations, and it's very idyllic. Let's just say I brought up Zillow to look at homes for sale in the hills of Vermont 😂. Really, the scenery was my favorite part of Family Tree – I just loved it. I hadn't really thought about Vermont, but I think I'll have to plan a vacation there!

Read the rest of this review at http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2018/01/review-family-tree/

Vinegar Girl is a part of the Hogarth Shakespeare project, and it's based on The Taming of the Shrew, which happens to be one of my favorite Shakespeare plays! So, when I downloaded this book via NetGalley, I was really excited to dig in. I haven't read any other Ann Tyler novels, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

Unfortunately, it's not at all what I expected.

In Vinegar Girl, our main character, Kate, is pressured to marry her father's research assistant so that he'll be able to stay in the country and continue working on an important research project. In the play, the main character is smart, witty and strong-willed. She has a sharp tongue and isn't afraid to speak her mind. Kate, on the other hand, just fell completely flat for me. She resists the marriage at first, then becomes a total pushover.

In the play, there's so much wit, so many playful jokes and comments, and it's so fun to watch. Vinegar Girl had some wit and jokes, which I appreciated, but not nearly enough. The main character of the play, Katherina, does become “tamed” via reverse psychology by her fiancé/husband, but it takes a lot longer than it does in the book, and is just much more witty and funny. I really missed that sharp dynamic between the two characters – I couldn't find it much at all in the book.

Full review at http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/07/review-vinegar-girl-anne-tyler/

This book examines what it's like to be a young teen girl in a way I've never seen done so well. Cline masters the awkwardness, the need to be wanted, the struggle to belong, the blossoming of sexuality, the ability to see parents as humans with flaws, and the idolization of those who seem outwardly to have it all. She so expertly delves into how thoughts and ideas and emotions shape Evie as she searches for herself. Some of these thoughts are so deeply painful, yet so beautiful to read:

“Even possessing that small amount of money tindered an obsessive need in me, a desire to see how much I was worth. The equation excited me. You could be pretty, you could be wanted, and that could make you valuable.”

And this one:

“I wanted to be told what was good about me. I wondered later if this was why there were so many more women than men at the ranch. All that time I had spent readying myself, the articles that taught me life was really just a waiting room until someone noticed you – the boys had spent that time becoming themselves.”

I lost myself in this book. I connected on a visceral level to parts of Evie's experience, having been an adolescent girl myself. My thoughts, of course, were never as profound as Cline's artful (and sometimes disturbing) portraits of what's going on in Evie's mind.

Read my full review here: http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/05/arc-review-girls-emma-cline/

This book left me in awe. It's a stunning piece of art, and I feel like a better human being for having read it. So, so good.

The book is both hilarious and moving, and you'll find yourself moving from laughing to crying within a couple of chapters. If that sounds too intense for you, it's not at all...it gives you all the feels, in all the good ways.

Nora is a compassionate human with (too much) experience in the complicated art of grieving, and her book encompasses so many things about life and grief and love, and being imperfect, and being human. She does all of this while throwing in casual jokes that will make you lol.

Please, pick up this book. It will be the best nonfiction you read all year <3

For my full review, visit http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2017/07/review-okay-laugh-crying-cool/

Very fun! Quirky little mind-bender. Full review on my blog: http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/02/review-the-grownup-by-gillian-flynn/

At first, I was really unsure about the author's writing style. She uses a unique style without quotation marks – dialogue is just right in the paragraph. Here's an example:

“She's gone and it's my fault! Simon slapped himself on the thigh. It made a wet smack. Captain, I am so sorry!
He had to shout over the noise of the rain. He gripped his hat brim and ran alongside the Captain.
Never mind! the Captain shouted back. Can't be helped!”

It definitely took some time to get used to. Even at the end, I still wasn't sure I liked it. The overall story, though, I fell in love with! It's beautiful at times, and this really odd relationship ends up just being really fun to watch. I loved seeing Johanna begin to trust the Captain inch by inch, and he cares about her more inch by inch...I became really invested in their relationship, and loved all of the details.

Jiles's writing is also really gorgeous. I found this passage especially moving:

“She put down the doll and shouted at the Indians with her hands around her mouth. What could she possibly think would happen? That they would come for her? She was shouting for her mother, for her father and her sisters and brothers for the life on the Plains, traveling wherever the buffalo took them, she was calling for her people who followed water, lived with every contingency, were brave in the face of enemies, who could go without food or water or money or shoes or hats and did not care that they had neither mattresses nor chairs nor oil lamps. They stood and stared across the water at her like creatures of the sidhe, wet and shining in every flash from overhead.”

Overall, I thought the story was really well done, and painted a vivid picture in my head of the landscape and the complexities and violence of the relationship between settlers and Indian tribes, but above all, this unlikely and heart-warming relationship that forms between this man of the old world and this girl wrenched from everything she knows. This is a recommended read from me!

Read the full review here: http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/10/review-news-world/

I have to admit, I'm sometimes kind of a hyped book snob, in that I tend to avoid them. Hyped books are so hit or miss – sometimes, they deserve all the attention, whereas other times, I just can't understand the hype at all. This one, for me, falls somewhere in between those two extremes. I'm going to have to spoil alert this post, because my only disappointment with this book was the ending. Don't worry, I'll warn you 😉

The Nest is a story about a dysfunctional family of 4 adult children and their aging mother. They've been promised a piece of their late father's invested money, aka “the nest”. However, they can only get it when the youngest sibling, Melody, turns 40. Those are the rules. When eldest son Leo gets into a drug-fueled car accident that needs to be covered up to avoid a public stain on the family name, mom digs into the nest for the money. Bye-bye to all that money they needed so badly!

So, in a nutshell, The Nest becomes a story about the struggle to maintain life with dwindling funds. Supporting families, running businesses, and keeping up lifestyles is no longer guaranteed without that money. Each of the siblings had different plans for that money, and now they've got to adapt.

Some people found this story to be a bunch of used-to-be-rich kids crying and whining over their lost money. While I definitely understand where that comes from, I did like and identify with several of the characters. I thought there was a lot of great character development going on here, and that made this story into a colorful one for me. Each characters' story is different and interesting, and I was drawn in pretty quickly to their fight to keep a sense of normalcy in life.

OK, if you haven't read The Nest and you plan on doing so, you may want to stop reading here, because I'm about to talk about the ending. You have been warned!!

Read the rest of this review here: http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/08/review-the-nest/

Let me preface this review by saying this: I am not exactly a science fiction girl. That doesn't mean I dislike it – it's just not something I read on a regular basis. So, when I saw this book in the lineup for Book of the Month a couple months ago, I thought “hey, maybe I should try something totally different!” The book sat on my shelf for a couple months while I made it through some book club reads and some others on my TBR. When I was looking for that always difficult-to-choose “what to read next,” I saw this and was overjoyed that I had something totally off my beaten path waiting for me. I was in the mood for something different, so I snatched it up and began reading.

The story begins with the finding of a mysterious, large metal hand in a hole, surrounded by panels with markings on them. These metal pieces have a mysterious bluish glow coming off of them. They're found by a young girl in the woods when she falls into the hole. Cue the excitement for all the crazy alien mystery coming up in this book, right?

I don't want to delve too much further into the plot, because heck, you might want to read it! For me, though, there was just way too much politics and not enough aliens. After getting super excited about this sci-fi novel, it just...wasn't sci-fi enough! The interview style writing was interesting, but I thought it didn't allow for the greatest storytelling. I just spent the whole time wanting something more to happen. Yes, there was drama. Yes, there were some small pieces of alien-type story pieces. A lot of it, though, was how the human world was dealing politically with this crazy alien robot weapon that could probably take out a whole country on its own.

Read my full review here: http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/12/review-sleeping-giants/

This novel can be described with the following list of very interesting adjectives: quirky, ironic, karmic, squirrelly, political, joyful, maddening, hilarious, emotional, awkward, and even Pynchonesque at times.

Is your interest piqued? It should be!

I had a good time reading The Portable Veblen. It's bursting with themes that exercised the English major muscles in my brain! There are so many dysfunctional relationships, a hilarious and thought-provoking commentary on marketing and big business and corruption, and an exploration of mental health, all told by a confused but quirky and hilarious narrator named Veblen, who has a love for the environment and a penchant for talking to her squirrel friend.

Let me try to put this story into a nutshell for you (pun intended). Veblen is a 30-ish woman with a love for typing, squirrels, fixing up her cottage, and translating Norwegian. The story begins with a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Paul. Her thoughts and reaction to the proposal tips you off to the fact that this will not be an ordinary book about an ordinary love story. Especially when there's a squirrel involved.

Read my full review here: http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/03/review-the-portable-veblen-by-elizabeth-mckenzie/