"THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE" / BY V. E SCHWAB
I picked up this book with trepidation. It was thick one, so I knew it would be more than just a quick read. The flyleaf description told me to expect something supernatural, and I'm not a particular fan of too weird. So I had my doubts. But NO, I was hooked by the time I reached page 20 and that interest held all the way to the end. The plot is a combination of reality and myth but the characters are compelling, the story line is fascinating, and the magic flows all the way through.
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"ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE" / BY ANTHONY DOERR
Marie-Laure, a blind teenager, and her father leave war-torn Paris for the north coast town of Saint-Malo, carrying with them a (possibly) valuable jewel. Werner, a young German soldier adept at building tracking devices, ends up in the same town. In this deeply moving story there is war and mayhem, but also a great measure of humane concern and genuine goodness. This is my third reading of the novel, and it's one of my favorites. By the way, the author is an Ohioan by birth and a graduate of BGSU.
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"INDEX, A HISTORY OF THE : A BOOKISH ADVENTURE FROM MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS TO THE DIGITAL AGE" / BY DENNIS DUNCAN
And it is a bookish adventure, as advertised. But not quite enough adventure to take me from page one to the very end. Indexes - those pages in the back of the book that tell us where to find what we're looking for - do have a long and extensive history. But this book was also a bit above my head and not high on my reading list. I will say that my interest was piqued at the beginning, but the terminologies and complexities eventually wore me down and I finally said "enough."
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"THE GOOD SON" / BY JACQUELYN MITCHARD
Take a small town, a more-or-less normal family, and a homicide. Boy kills girl when they're both high on drugs. He serves time, then comes home to a hostile town. What follows is a combination of rehabilitation, retribution, remorse, redemption. There are hidden secrets and ominous threats. obsessions and insecurities. The plot is, perhaps, a bit overwrought, but you can't help but wish for a satisfying ending for a family trying to make sense of it all.
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"FIGURES IN SILK" / BY VANORA BENNETT
This historical novel takes us back to the late 1400's in London - the time of the War of the Roses. It's the time of King Edward IV (not long before Henry VIII), so we have plenty of intrigue, pageantry and "over the top" in riches. But we also learn a great deal about a booming industry in silk and our eyes are opened to some historical female characters who were part of that industry. A complicated plot, but an interesting look at a part of the world most of us have never given a thought.
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"VANDERBILT" / BY ANDERSON COOPER AND KATHERINE HOWE
The author, Anderson Cooper is the man you see regularly on CNN. He is also the son of Gloria Vanderbilt and the great-great-great grandson of the fabled Cornelius Vanderbilt. That said, this is a study of one of America's dynasties. The rise and fall of riches. The overabundance of wealth and the human failures that go with too much of anything. By the end, you may discover yourself to be quite content to just be a middle-class nobody in a small Ohio town.
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