Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Note:  To read the entire review, please click on the link to my blog.  Thank you!!

Another reviewer summed it up for me:  "What a yawn."

Maybe because it was under edited.  Or that there is really no point.  Or that the ending, if you can call it that, didn't really end anything. Or that the narrator told us the ending the chapter prior.  Or that the narrator was unnecessary and obviously a plot point for the author to get stuff off her own chest that had nothing to do with the main story.  Or that Toby didn't get off his ass and LOOK FOR HIS WIFE.  Or that his wife was a sniveling social climber who never LISTENED TO HER HUSBAND or even tried to be a team.  Or that this book was so sexually explicit that it was distracting (gross, and I love Outlander, so I am not a prude).  Or that it made all single women seem like horndogs.  Or that the best part was the quotes on the workout tee shirts.  Or that it hit you over the head with its feminist "we can't really have it all and be liked, even by ourselves" drama .  Or or or or or.........

Or maybe I just hated that the author kept doing THAT.

I skimmed.  I read it because it was the only book I brought on the plane.  I read it because it was the buzz book.  When the perspective changed toward the end and we see what really happened to Rachel I thought, ok, here we go, maybe this is the good part.  Nope.  I will say the description of a breakdown was probably the truest part of the book, so there's that.  And maybe the title refers to Rachel.  So, two stars for that "twist."  If it is one, I am reaching here.  However, I would still NOT recommend this book.

This Book Is In Trouble.

Lethal White (Cormoran Strike #4) by Robert Galbraith

(Note:  to read the entire review, please click on the link to my blog.  Thank you!!)

Corm is back! 

After the cliffhanger of the third book (Career of Evil), I couldn't wait for this one to come out.  Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) has created a character I love in Cormoran Strike - an English PI who has issues, who has history, who is gruff and tough and smart and rude.  His sidekick Robin continues to grow and comes across a little less as the maiden in distress this go round (although, she still is of course).  She is still a bit annoying and way too accommodating, but she finally comes into her own.  They are hired not to solve a murder here, at least not at first, and two coincidences are of course NOT. 

But what I like is the banter.  I like a flawed main character who figuratively shoots himself in the foot (he only has one), but still gets the job done.  Reminds me a little of Amos Decker, but the English bit here is perfection - the accents are perfectly represented so that you can hear them in your head as you read.  Undercover work in Parliament and Covent Garden, a new girlfriend for Corm, a jealous husband or two, a politically charged activist and an obviously disturbed young man who thinks he witnessed a murder all come together in a way you cannot predict.  But of course, Cormoran Strike can.  He always gets his man.  But will he get his woman????  Stay tuned.

(PS - The fifth book is finished and should come out soon!  Yippee!!!)

(PPS - nice, subtle title here too.  You might just learn something in this novel!)

(PPS - Hi Barbara!  This one's for you!!!!  ;-))

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

(Note - to read the entire review, please click on the link to my blog rawlesreads.blogspot.com )

How is it that I am FROM South Carolina and was a History major, and yet I did not know who the Grimke sisters were but I knew Lucretia Mott?

Ugh. 

On the positive side, this is one of the many things I LOVE about reading - you learn, even when you are not aware of it until the end of the book.

Charleston, 1803.  Eleven year old Sarah Grimke is given ownership of a slave girl, Handful, for her birthday gift.  She refuses, writes an emancipation letter, and tries to give the girl her freedom.  So begins such shocking behavior from a daughter of a well known Southern judge from a well known slaveowning family that her life is ever changed and estranged.  Sarah knows in her soul that slavery is wrong.  But Sarah is a victim of a different kind of entrapment - her gender.  It is unTHINKable that a woman would have an opinion, much less express it - out loud!!!!  Eeeee Gads!!!!!

The relationship between Handful and Sarah provides the basis for this reenactment, and while the author does a great job of including real historical figures and events, Handful is fictional - mostly.  Kidd does not shy away from the atrocities of slavery and human ownership and the mindset of many a slaveowner, that it is God's will that they own and "care for" and keep in line the Negro population.  When Sarah leaves her church and begins to truly campaign for emancipation, and this bleeds into women's rights, her home city evicts her, her family despairs for her soul and her future.  Sarah and her little sister Nina bond over their convictions and shake up the world in doing so - as women. Sarah, like few women in her time, truly struggles with the desire for love, marriage and companionship and her belief that her voice, her words, her natural desire to DO SOMETHING.  In several chapters I was frustrated because of Sarah's wallowing in self pity and inaction - she is frozen between two worlds and has a hard time moving between them.  Easy for me to say now, when a woman "having it all" is what I was brought up with.  Sarah was brought up to only believe that a husband and children and running the house were the ONLY aspirations for a woman.  Could she be content with that??  She constantly queries her purpose.

Alternating between Sarah's POV and Handful's, the reader gets a good sense of what both women struggle with - their relationships with their mothers; the oppression of body, soul, mind and freedom; their lack of control over their lives; and how they feel about each other - are they friends?  Master and Slave?  How much they learn from each other!!!!

Sue Monk Kidd is a fantastic writer - this book, even with its horrific subject matter - was a beautiful read.  Maybe part of that beauty was because she did not shy away from telling true stories of how slaves lived (if you can call it that).  She relates torturous punishments for the smallest infractions and tells how one kind comment was so very huge to Handful.  The history of quilting, of music, of tradition and holding on to self- awareness and truth to self is the other central piece of this novel.  It will make you think, it will make you cringe, it will make you cheer, and it will make you so thankful that we live in the current time.  Both of these communities have come a long way since 1803, but nothing is equitable yet for either.  But for the absolutely society-busting bravery and convictions of women like Sarah, Nina and Handful, who knows where we'd be now?