Quick Book Reviews Blog

"Greetings to all our readers, past, present and future! The year is finally closing down on us, with a new one ready to take its place as soon as the clock strikes midnight. We would like to sincerely thank you all from the depths of our hearts for allowing this website to become what it has, and our only hope is that we will outdo your expectations come January. We wish you happy holidays, and a very happy new year!

Someone Else’s Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson is a rather light, cutesy, and still thought-provoking romantic story that goes well with the atmosphere brought unto us by the holidays. The story follows the life of Shandi Pierce, a young single mother who is raising a three year-old genius and trying to make her way through college… all while playing the mediator between her always-warring divorced parents.

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion is a novel written by Fannie Flagg, and it is completely within her realm of mastery. In other words, it has the same style and humor as one can find in Fried Green Tomatoes , and what’s more, I believe that this novel is on the same level as the afore-mentioned classic. In any case, The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion tells us two stories separated by time but connected by one letter. First off, there is the story of Mrs. Sookie, who just married off her children and wants to travel the world with her husband Earle.

Greetings to all our readers, regular, irregular, and first-timers! Thank for taking the time that you did, let it be seconds or hours, to have visited our website during this amazing year that is about to come to a close. We are going to slow down a tad for this holiday season, but rest assured, once the new year finally makes its way to us we will return to full gear and just keep on doing what we have been doing for the past years. So happy holidays to you all, enjoy what’s left of this year, and look forward to the next one!

Haruki Murakami has made quite a name for himself with his unique and engrossing style of writing which at times can be cheerful, thought-provoking, morbid and fascinating. It can be argued that The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is one of the earlier works by Murakami which gained him some of the recognition he has now, and just like in the spirit of many of his other works, it is quite expansive in its scope, combining numerous elements which generally have nothing to do with each other to deliver a unique and compelling story like none other out there.

Mickey Haller has already had a relatively long and tumultuous career at his early age, and with The Gods of Guilt Michael Connelly has extended it even further. Being another entry in the Lincoln Lawyer series, it once again follows Mickey Haller as he takes on a peculiar case. This time though, the involvement is rather personal as the whole thing revolves a former client of his: a prostitute Mickey help put on the straight and narrow.

In recent years it seems that Stuart Woods has lost his touch, with his novels having noticeably dropped in quality. His fans have been yearning for a comeback for some time now, and lo and behold, it seems they might get what they were asking for. Severe Clear is a return by Stuart Woods to the Stone Barrington series , bringing to us virtually the whole case, including Stone’s son, Holly Barker, Mike Freeman, Kate Lee, Herb Fisher, Dino, and some others.

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh is not the kind of book that is easy to describe, especially when done in a quick book review format… nevertheless, I’ll give it my best shot. To give you the best idea possible of what the book is all about, one can think of it as a compilation of original content, web comics, and basically thoughts that appeared in the author’s head.

Virtually anyone who has studied the Second World War is familiar, at least in some capacity, with the events of June 6th, 1944, when the Allies took to the beaches of Normandy in an attempt to start pushing the Nazi war machine at the Western front. Though there were certainly many casualties, on the whole, many consider the operation to have been a resounding success, with the number of lives lost being far less than what was expected.

As is usual with Mitch Albom, For One More Day is a novel which touches upon a rather heavy subject, following the story of Charley who, from a very young age, was always forced to choose between his father and his mother after they got separated. Things don’t change as he grows up, and one day he decides to secretly go visit his father on a weekend rather than his mother… a decision which doesn’t end well, considering she dies while he is gone.

The First Phone Call from Heaven is a rather unique and peculiar novel written by Mitch Albom, focusing on the citizens of a small town who have allegedly started to receive phone calls from those in the afterlife. As far as the people are concerned, the calls seem real enough and there is not a single indication that it may, in fact, be a hoax.

Throughout her illustrious career Agatha Christie has delivered to us many unforgettable and moving classics in the crime mystery genre, but that happens to be a two-sided coin; though nearly everyone may be familiar with her popular works, her lesser-known efforts are overshadowed, and not for a lack of quality. It seems to me that Mrs. McGinty’s Dead is one of those novels, following Hercule Poirot as he leads an investigation inside a small village into the murder of an elderly cleaning lady who wouldn’t dare hurt a fly.

David Baldacci has already gifted us with an incredible amount of mesmerizing mysteries, and with King and Maxwell comes a new one that no fan of the author should miss. This time around, we once again follow the duo of Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, two private investigators and former Secret Service agents. They are tasked with a seemingly innocent case from a teenage boy: though his father is said to have died in Afghanistan recently, the boy received a communication from him after the fact.

Though in school most of us thought differently, history is about much more than remembering names, dates and facts. If recounted in the right way, history is basically the true story of humanity, the tale of what happened us and what led us to where we are. Miracles and Massacres by Glenn Beck is basically an attempt to not only correct many of our erroneous beliefs about history, but also to present us with the story of humanity in an epic and entertaining way, or as much as that is possible at least.

It can be argued that in the grand scheme of things, today there are two different “sides” to Jesus. The first one is the religious Jesus, the pale-skinned white man who came down on Earth to share the teachings of his father, the one who died on the cross and got resurrected three days later. The other one is the real Jesus, a very average Middle-Eastern man who became a cult leader before being brutally assassinated by the Romans.

1Q84 is perhaps one of the better-known and more popular novels by Haruki Murakami , even though it certainly drew mixed reactions out of the public. For those who are not familiar with the author, Murakami has won a great number of awards for his many works of writing, making a name for himself as a humorous, original and philosophical author whose approach is unique in itself. What precisely is 1Q84 about? Well, giving you a brief summary really won’t do this book justice, but I’ll try anyways. We follow two narratives surrounding a young man and a young woman who spent a part of their childhoods together. Though separated by time and space, they both vividly remember each other, and very slowly their stories come together over the course of the book. Before that happens though, the young lady, Aomame, enters a bizarre parallel existence she refers to as 1Q84, and Tengo, the young man, sees his life unravel in unexpected ways after taking on a suspicious and mysterious ghostw...

Many great doctors and surgeons have come and gone over the past centuries, and it can be argued that today, Ben Carson is the most celebrated neurosurgeon, or at least one of the most revered ones. Basically-speaking, Carson worked miracles day in and day out, saving innumerable lives in the process and even being the pioneer of the surgery used around the world to separate twins who are conjoined at the head.

Neil Gaiman has a habit of bringing us fantastic and surrealistic stories with a colorful cast of characters, and his rather famous collection of stories, Smoke and Mirrors , may be considered as part of the pinnacle of his craft. In this collection of some thirty stories and poems, we are introduced to a strange world which on the surface seems like ours, but underneath it is very different and in some cases even unsettling.

Max Holman has always followed his own rules to the letter, and not for nothing: being that his profession was to rob banks, the slightest deviation from that survival codex means either prison or death. Unfortunately, there was one job during which Holman forewent his rules, resulting in a botched job and years spent in a federal prison. Upon his release, Max learns that his son has recently been gunned down in cold blood, with the truth behind the matter still eluding those on the case.

The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert is the biography of Eustace Conway , and an exploration of his philosophy. For those of you who haven’t heard of him, Conway is a man who, when he was seventeen, decided to move away from what he sees as an unnecessarily cruel and materialistic world into the Appalachian Mountains, coming as close to nature as is humanly possible. He has been living in the mountains ever since then, feeding off the land and wearing the skins of animals he trapped.

The Monkey’s Raincoat by Robert Crais is one of those mystery detective novels that grabs you from the first paragraph and tries to never let you go until the end, and in my opinion, it surely succeeds in that aspect. It starts off as we are introduced to the hard-boiled war veteran, Elvis Cole , who decided to turn to private investigating as a way to make ends meet. However, he isn’t the average sleuth as the wise-cracking detective could give some of literature’s most well-known private dicks a run for their money.

Living Big by Pam Grout certainly isn’t your traditional novel, nor is it your run-of-the-mill self-help book, filled with obvious pointers and downright cheesy tips and tricks. Rather, this self-help book aims to teach you how to turn around a dead-end life into something you will truly enjoy and be passionate about. In order for this to happen, the author realizes that there are numerous hurdles or barriers that need to be eradicated from our lives, but the problem is that we are the ones who put them there in the first place.

No one goes through life knowing the concept of time without spending some time thinking about it. Does time truly exist, or is it merely a human construct which we use to measure our lives? Because the question is rather philosophical in its nature, I have yet to find an answer which conclusively supports one side of the debate over the other.

The Second World War has given rise to countless tales of heroism that will hopefully be carried on for centuries and centuries to come. As a matter of fact, there are so many of them that one would be hard-pressed to discover them all in one lifetime. At this point, those who studied the war know that a huge part of it was not fought with guns, but with information and espionage tactics.

Sycamore Row is yet another legal thriller from John Grisham, and for this one we return to the courthouse in Clanton, previously seen in A Time to Kill . This time around, Jack Brigance finds himself in the middle of a rather peculiar case, certainly no less strange than the last one. Everything began when Seth Hubbard, a wealthy man dying from lung cancer, decided to hang himself on a sycamore tree. It wouldn’t all be so bad if it wasn’t for the new will he hastily left behind in his departure.

Though perhaps those who are used to the Western way of living sometimes crack jokes about the prevalence of suicide in certain Asian cultures, such as the Japanese one, the truth is that it is a very real problem on the other side of the pacific.  Countless people of all ages and all types of lives put an end to their existence on a very regular basis, believing that it is by far the best solution to any problems they may be experiencing.

The year is 1943, and the Rosati family is safely tucked away into their villa standing in the lush hills south of breathtaking Florence. The war is of no concern to them as the walls keep them protected and they are way out of harm’s way. However, their idyllic life is soon ruptured as two soldiers approach and demand to use their villa as refuge. Needless to say, more Nazi soldiers start pouring in, and the villa slowly turns into a nightmarish prison from the safe haven it once was.

In Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain we are introduced to a fifteen year-old girl named Ivy Hart, living on a tobacco farm in North Carolina during the 1960s. She lives in a shack, and what’s more, she must take care of her aging grandmother, her mentally ill sister, her small nephew, and all the while contend with her own epilepsy.  Quite soon, Ivy realizes that her situation is simply overwhelming, and that’s where Jane Forrester, a recently-married social worker comes into play. 

The story of Charlie Asher is a rather average one. He is a successful young man living with the love of his life, and he’s expecting his first child to pop out soon. One day, however, a strange phenomenon manifests itself around Charlie, and simply refuses to leave: people around him simply start to drop dead without any reason.

The Rapture is about to come to Earth, and everything is set in position, with the Antichrist being confided into the caring hands of Crowley and Aziraphale, a demon and an angel respectively. However, what the forces of Heaven and Hell do not suspect is that across the eons, the demons and angels have gotten to know each other pretty well, and what’s more, they have come to care for the humans more than for their bosses.

Statistically-speaking, it is safe to say that most of us will lead rather average and relatively easy lives, always being pestered by mild inconveniences and perfectly solvable problems. However, there are also many out there to whom life gave the finger, encumbering them with greater challenges than a human can be expected to face.

We may have the impression that our lives are long and full of adventure, the truth is that they are mere singular parts in comparison to the great journeys traveled by entire families throughout the centuries.  The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert is partly based on that concept, telling the story of the Whittaker family throughout two centuries (the 18th and 19th) and the journey they travel, going from rags to riches all while making countless extraordinary encounters and living through many historical events. 

S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst presents us with a rather simple premise which nevertheless has infinite potential. In this story, brought to life by the famous silver screen personality and a very talented short story writer, we are presented with three main “actors” so to speak: Jennifer (a college senior), Eric (a disgraced grad student), and the book which connects them, Ship of Theseus , written by the peculiar and enigmatic V.M. Straka. Though the two students have no idea the other one exists, Jennifer one day picks up the book, only to find Eric’s notes, which seemingly indicate that he is enamored with it, its world and its characters. 

We, the normal folk, can only really imagine as to how things work on the higher echelons of politics, and how the decisions which guide the country are really taken. Are politicians just pushing their own agendas? Is it a power contest? A free exchange of ideas? Are they all in cahoots?  The truth is that we can only keep guessing, and the more dedicated of us will simply jump on the opportunity to find out more on those rare occasions when someone from the inside goes out and tells us how it is. 

Out of all the mysterious and endless topics of discussion which philosophers have touched upon over the centuries, it can be argued that determining what is true reality is one of the most interesting ones ever brought to our attention. There are countless theories as to how the world truly works and why, each one having its benefits, drawbacks and counter-arguments. In the end, it seems that we are left with an undisputable answer and must search for it ourselves. E-Squared by Pam Grout would be best-described as an attempt to help us find that coveted truth.

With The Lost Years Mary Higgins Clark creates yet another addition to her vast repertoire of novels, and this time around she decided to try her hand at writing a serious historical crime fiction. To give you a brief idea of what it’s all about, the story follows Mariah, the daughter of a biblical scholar, Jonathan Lyons. One day, Jonathan is found murdered in his study, with his Alzheimer ’s-stricken wife hiding in the closet and holding the gun.

When it comes to how popular sports are, it was always assumed, at least by most people, that casual fans are only interested in the highest professional levels, while the more hardcore fans watch a sport at lower levels as well. Perhaps this was true for a while, but with the meteoric rise in popularity college football has seen in the United States, it no longer is.   Hundreds of thousands of stadium seats are filled on Saturday college football games, with the final’s viewership only being trumped by the Super Bowl . 

Anna Oh, mother of three and artist, has spent twenty-seven years in marriage, and has now fallen in love with a wealth art dealer by the name of Vivecca. Though it may be a bit late by some peoples’ tastes, Vivecca and Anna Oh decide to get married in her hometown of Three Rivers, Connecticut. However, as the wedding starts the winds of change begin to blow. This rather unconventional marriage produces many mixed reactions from the family as well as the people, and what’s more, this turn of events inadvertently opened up the Oh family’s Pandora’s box, unleashing into the world all of their dreadful truths they have kept secret for so long. 

It seems that there is no stopping Jo Nesbo, who has penned one Harry Hole after the next, encountering great success in the process of bringing to life one of modern literature’s most recognizable detectives. Phantom is yet another chapter in Harry Hole’s legacy, this time around being centered on the death of Gusto, a local junkie, and perhaps more importantly, the man who was accused of the murder: Oleg, a boy Harry helped to raise a while ago.

The world of literature is a complicated one to live in and navigate, mostly because one has to find his or her own direction autonomously. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon explores that world through two quite unforgettable characters.  First, there is Grady Tripp, a former prodigy in the world of publishing who spends his days in a hazy cloud of marijuana trying desperately to finish his interminable second book. 

Hope is perhaps one of the most powerful emotions we humans are capable of feeling, for it has helped countless carry on through conditions which they couldn't logically survive. Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford touches on that subject quite heavily, as it tells the story of a twelve-year old Chinese American orphan boy living in Seattle during the depression, who one day sees a woman by the name of Willow Frost on the silver screen.

Christmas is on the horizon, and inspector Harry Hole is a bit weary of all the extraordinary cases he has been on recently, meaning he is looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet, at least for once. However, it seems that the curse of all great detectives has now struck him too: rest is the last thing he will get.

Life keeps on going forward, and too often we find ourselves looking behind us for moments, days, weeks, months and years even, trying to find out how we got to where we are. In other words, we often try to reconstruct our actions to find out where we have crossed the point of no return, perhaps in hope of finding at least some kind of sense in a situation that makes none. Dear Life: Stores by Alice Munro is a collection of numerous short stories which are, in one way or another, centered on the concept of the point of no return, that one moment where things became different. 

When those of us who aren’t parents are asked to imagine what motherhood is like, most of us think of emotionally-fulfilling moments between a mother and her baby. We may imagine the baby sleeping soundly in her arms, or perhaps laughing cutely and learning to speak his/her first words.  However, as Jill Smokler would have you know in Confessions of a Scary Mommy , these stages of motherhood are very few and far in-between… most of the time is actually spent in a peculiar purgatory. 

In the very recent past Jo Nesbo has established himself as a very interesting mystery writer, especially with his penning of numerous Harry Hole novels. He has brought us one solid murder thriller after the next, and with The Snowman he makes no exception. Being another Harry Hole novel, we now follow our beloved hero as he looks into a rather strange disappearance.

If you would ask random people on the street who they believe the best hockey player in the history of the sport to be, chances are that an overwhelming majority of them would answer with the name Wayne Gretzky . However, the man’s grandiose exploits may very well have overshadowed the accomplishments of superb players who could be equally-deserving of that title, with one of them being Bobby Orr. 

Cormac McCarthy is quite popular in literature circles for his unforgettable novels exploring either the post-apocalyptic world or the dark side of life in Southern places.  It can be argued that The Road is his one of his more successful novels, and for such a title, its premise is quite simple: a father and son crossing a post-apocalyptic world in hopes of reaching the coast.

In Police by Jo Nesbo we once again see the return of our beloved and charismatic hero, Harry Hole of the Oslo Crime Squad. This time around, the action takes place in Hole’s home, Oslo, and he finds himself face to face with one of the most dangerous enemies he could ever fathom: a serial killer who targets police officers.

Autism is perhaps one of the most mysteries conditions people on this Earth happen to be afflicted with. Though it certainly doesn’t take away one’s ability to live a life and function in society, it does affect him or her in various ways which can turn life into quite a difficult and painstaking labyrinth.  From a medical point of view, the more unfortunate thing is that we do not really know much about the condition, precisely how it affects the human mind, and perhaps more importantly, how autistic people perceive the world. 

Ira Levinson is a ninety-one year old man with a whole life of experience behind him. Though he knows his time will soon come, he never thought it would be this soon. After suffering a car accident, becoming stranded and injured, Ira feels the life fleeting away from him, until his wife Ruth starts to appear next to him, which is surprising considering she died nine years ago.