Tell No One by Harlan Coben
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5 stars
A well executed, exciting, fast-paced crime/romance story with lots of twists and turns. It is a story of love, trust and sacrifice. No gory scenes or bad language and l a brilliant page turner, with a surprise ending that is very satisfying.

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Love Letters of the Angels of Death by Jennifer Quist
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a love story between husband and wife, their shared life together with the expectations, understandings, and unexpected surprises common in strong marital relationships. It is also a somewhat morbid yet tasteful story about death. The writing is lovely, but it is not a plot driven novel and I just didn't feel the connection.

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Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is not just a book about aging, it's a book about dying, a topic few want to deal with. The treatise is an important one: how we hope to end our life is as crucial as how we hope to live it.
Gawande is such a great storyteller and offers so much hope, that you get absorbed in every anecdote he tells & every character he draws for you. He outlines in clear, patient language a better way for the medical community (and society at large) to approach & navigate the end-of-life decisions that all of us inevitably face. Doctors & caregivers, he argues, need to be better at having hard conversations, outlining realistic options for patients, & concentrating more on how to ensure quality of life when that life is nearing its end.

He does a very thorough review of the origin & slow transformation of nursing homes, assisted living facilities & the growing field of palliative medicine, and argues for the right of a patient to express his or her own autonomy as the end of life approaches.

One of the most fascinating statistics: patients in hospice care live 25% longer than those who don't elect hospice care (and thus get all the interventions from the medical community). That stat alone defines the book: the role of medicine to "save at all costs" really doesn't take into account the patient's wants & needs -- and those really matter, so much that when allowed, they prolong life.

I wish everyone would read this book because it lays out -- sanely, rationally -- the choices & options available to those hit with sudden bad news. Why not be prepared? And why not pick up a book by one of American's great new storytellers?

Favorite quotes:
“You may not control life's circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.”

“It is not death that the very old tell me they fear. It is what happens short of death—losing their hearing, their memory, their best friends, their way of life. As Felix put it to me, 'Old age is a continuous series of losses.' Philip Roth put it more bitterly in his novel Everyman: 'Old age is not a battle. Old age is a massacre.'”

“Culture has tremendous inertia,” he said. “That’s why it’s culture. It works because it lasts. Culture strangles innovation in the crib.”

“Your chances of avoiding the nursing home are directly related to the number of children you have.”

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One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Seriously, this book is so poorly written I struggled writing a review deserving even 1 star. The author hasn't the slightest clue or insight into women’s thoughts or emotions yet he chose to tell this unbelievably improbable fiction from a woman's point of view. If this is on your "to read" list I suggest you read this excellent 2008 review (contains spoilers)by Elizabeth first. She says it better that I can:
Elizabeth: "I read this for book club and felt distracted by the quality of writing, and therefore unable to even entertain the implausible historical premise... I just have a difficult time buying into a "journal" which contains pages of dialogue and real time events, with a voice that constantly contradicts itself and clearly belongs in a different century... but I tried to ignore this. . . . had great difficulty getting into the mind of a woman, let alone a 19th century woman! (i.e. gang raped and "fine" within a month or so, pregnant, yet walking/horseback-riding great distances without mention or concern of said pregnancy, blushing and giggling after losing one's virginity doggy-style, the list goes on...) I found his stereotypes to be tiresome, and the whole story felt very contrived, particularly the relationships he "explores" throughout the novel (which in my opinion reach little to no depth). The caricatures he presents belong in a comedy, and while this novel has its humorous moments, it is ultimately a dramatic portrayal of the hardships of frontier life, and the clash between the spiritual but doomed Native Americans and the white man's Manifest Destiny.

It seems readers love most about the novel its heroine, May, for her brazen ways, fortitude in peril, and feminist ideals. Please. This character is being spoon fed to 21st century women readers. A much more likable, realistic, and complex version of this same character is Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody, who fits in perfectly in Peters' light-hearted, adventurous historical mysteries. And while Peabody would be the first to join the men for a whiskey and soda, contemplating the next "course of action," she would never, for her own amusement, make a mockery of a culture's ritualistic and spiritual traditions! Compared to the fully developed Peabody, May is a mere stick figure, propped up by the author in effort to sell his book."



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Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fast paced, family mystery storyline that hooked me from the first read/listen (audio book). The writing is skilled and is loaded with twists and turns, which Archer does better than most, but it does not approach fine literature. It is narrated first person by the 5 main characters with each of their unique viewpoints.
Kudos to Jeffry Archer for always creating an interesting tale, with sympathetic characters, that is difficult to put down…all this with no foul language or gratuitous descriptive sex. I have read several of his novels and will read the sequel to this.
Warning: the end of the novel is a cliff hanger and what happens next is told in at least two sequels.


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The Nest by Kenneth Oppel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Strange, creepy and dark in a haunting Neil Gaiman style. If I had a middle schooler I would not want her/him to read it. That being said, it is excellent writing, but I am the wrong reader for this genre.

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The Lake House by Kate Morton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an engaging mystery with many twists and turns. The plot is very involved and moves back and forth between the years but this is done seamlessly. There is an old mysterious house, past and present secrets galore, wonderfully memorable characters and excellent writing. I couldn't put it down and finished it in record time.

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Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan


Loved it!!!! This book starts off with a sad event, but it gets better as Willow, the 12 year old genius misfit main character, is amazing and the way she brings all the quirky characters together to help resolve the sad event is delightful. It was fun to watch their personalities evolve. I especially enjoyed Mai and her Vietnamese nail-salon dictator mother. The characters are fully fleshed out, believable, and the dialogue is often clever.
I really enjoyed Holly Goldberg Sloan's writing style, simple but elegant, never sappy or over-the-top. She is very direct but empathetic and the story hits the reader right where it should – the heart. I listened to this book on audio and the narrator is excellent. It has a somewhat predictable and unrealistic ending, but it is o.k because arriving there is so enjoyable.
Sloan is also author of Angels in the Outfield.



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How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In this book Clayton Christensen, professor at Harvard Business School, applies organization management theories to answer the question posed by its title. I found the actual business stories very interesting and liked his style of using the successes and failures of those businesses to test and define success in life. He describes how some of the best business minds have some of the worst personal lives, frequently because they take their personal lives for granted and neglect to apply their successful theories of management to relationships with the people who matter most in their lives (family and friends). It is a self reflective book written primarily to help readers see the similarities between the business decisions they make for their companies and their personal lives. It is a short book and a fairly quick read. Highly recommend to business management types.


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A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This beautiful engaging, quirky story made me laugh and cry, both. The combination of despair and humor makes quite a combination. Ove is a cantankerous curmudgeon who doesn't give a fig about what others think of him. He has lost the love of his life which exacerbates his usual grumpiness and his reason to live. However, through a long series of events and interactions with people around him, the man's talents and treasures emerge, and he becomes a caring human being who is loved by many. Translated from Swedish, the language used is lovely. It's gentle, charming and funny. Wonderful story telling!


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