March 2.0

Fall Back Down When I Die by Joe Wilkins
The first fiction book by award-winning Joe Wilkins is a powerful and raw look at the dry region out in Montana, a place seeped in hopelessness and history. This story and its characters seethe with quiet rage: the widow and teacher who drinks too much, who stuffs her memories deep, who wants to change the trajectory of children's lives; the orphaned farm hand, caught in bitterness, trying to do right by his young nephew, always one step behind success; the little boy, abandoned by his drug addicted mother, terrified, speechless, seeking safety; and the story threaded through all their lives, that of Verl, who creates his own rules and regulations to live by, who seeks freedom through hate and violence. The landscape becomes a major player as well, as Wilkins uses the description to put us in this beautiful yet lonely land, the writing never too sparse, never too verbose. I found this to be an extraordinarily compelling story, telling of an area that I know little of, a region full of powerful emotions that deserves to be heard.

If Then by Kate Hope Day
Who has not thought about the other lives we might have led, or be leading? Are their parallel universes where I was a neuropsychologist instead of a teacher, where I chose to be a single independent woman with no children, where I traveled the world as a photo-journalist? Yes, those are all my 'lives' I lead elsewhere. Kate Hope Day has taken my hidden thoughts and put them into a fascinating debut novel. In her setting, a small community in Oregon waits on the precipice of an 'event.' This event brings flashes of other lives to their eyes: the community hospital doctor who sees her life with another mate; the bereaved daughter who catches glimpses of her recently deceased mother; the university professor who sees himself as madman, searching for safety in a dangerous world; the young mother who sees herself still pregnant, but this time with a boy. I was riveted by this story and by the inner desires that drive these characters. Do not bother trying to figure out time lines and which life is intersecting where - it pays to just go with the flow and experience the creativity of the story. I am still not sure of the ending, yet it has me thinking which I think is the point of literature? Well done to a first time author:)

Becoming by Michelle Obama
Yes, I finally got on this memoir train after months of debating. And YES, it is well worth the ride, especially if you listen to Michelle tell her own story on the audio version. She truly does cover her entire life: growing up on the southside of Chicago in a working class family, her years of education and friendship, the overt and subtle racism directed towards her, her romance with a goofy looking law student, the passion for changing kids' lives, her years in the White House. What I found most surprising, beyond the interesting trivia of behind-the-scenes incidences, was how inspiring I found this book, particularly for working mothers. Michelle gives some great ideas of how to juggle jobs, small children, ambitions, and romance without losing one's own identity, something I struggled with for those busy years. She is a beautiful writer with a fascinating story to tell - highly recommend.

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
What was life like before dictionaries? Yes, another nerdy story about words, who has ownership of them, how we determine the multitude of meanings, and how the first Oxford dictionary was put together. Simon Winchester is the master of research, and in this case, a crack narrator of his own story. But beyond the story of the dictionary is the story of an American soldier, suffering from PTSD from the Civil War, a convicted murderer, stuck in an English insane asylum, who becomes the go-to man for much of the Oxford dictionary. I don't know that I would have liked this one as much if I read it (could be a bit dry) but the crisp British accent gave me an intriguing movie in my head as listened to this book non-stop.

The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace
Just the title sounds like the biggest nerd fest ever...okay, it is a little nerdy but it is also an unbelievably fascinating story with a great narrator, if you like listening to books. The story covers the heist of bird feathers from a small museum in England. One might think "Hmmm, so what? Who cares about bird feathers?" But did you know there's a huge black market for them due to fly fishing? Or that bird feathers from centuries ago can tell how how the earth is doing, or not doing? That the feather industry was humongous in the 19th century, employing thousands of workers? Author Kirk Wallace isn't even a scientist, but a man who got pulled into an obscure lil mystery while he worked in his foundation to  aid resettlement of Iraqi support officers to America. Yep, it's an obsessive story, trust me.

The Liar's Child by Carla Buckley
2.5 Stars  I am a big fan of an earlier book of Buckley's, The Good Goodbye, but this one was a miss for me. The plot swirled around a dysfunctional family, a young woman trying to escape the witness protection program, and a retired sheriff still grieving the loss of a child. The first half was a bit slow for me, the second half definitely created more tension for this thriller, but the ending left me rather disappointed. The characters just did not gel for me, lacking significant development and the plot seemed rather implausible so nope, hard to recommend this one.

The Night Olivia Fell by Christina McDonald
Ditto this one unfortunately and it's getting a lot of positive buzz from readers - not sure I truly understand why?? The writing style is awkward and stilted, the characters are thin and wholly under-developed, and the entire plot line of "let's keep the brain-dead girl alive for months on end to incubate a baby"???!!! What happened to the rights of the mother? And the medical interventions done to keep the 'incubator' alive are literally never addressed, nor is the moral dilemma which quite frankly would have made for a more compelling read.  I have read other reviews that this book should be labeled YA but I disagree - good YA books are much better. Sorry but this was a complete miss for me.