Lightning People: A Novel Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Lightning People: A Novel? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Lightning People: A Novel. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Lightning People: A Novel ReviewI was intrigued when I read the synopsis of this book and decided to pre order a copy. I had high expectations and not only did this book meet those expectations, it exceeded them! Lightning People is by far the best book I've read all year.
Lightning People could be called a New York novel but that would be doing it a disservice as it's so much bigger than that.
It's an epic, plot driven, character piece that grips you from beginning to end. The central characters - Del, Madi, Joseph, Raj and William - will haunt you for weeks after you finish reading. I still can't help but think of them each day. In fact, I miss them!
The plot continuosly twists and turns. It's one of those books that are impossible to put down. It's about paranoia, love, loss, friendship, rattlesnakes, multiculturalism, marriage, green cards, murder.....and that's just part one!
I was surprised to see that this was Christopher Bollen's first novel. He really knows how to craft complex characters and place. I live in Tampa and for one week I was completely transported and engulfed by the gritty and seductive streets of New York City. Not only is Bollen a sophisticated writer, he is obviously a great observer of people and life. I really think he has communicated something important about the human condition with this book. I'm excited to see what he does next.
It's rare to find a book that is so entertaining and edifying. A MUST READ!Lightning People: A Novel Overview

Want to learn more information about Lightning People: A Novel?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Light from a Distant Star: A Novel Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Light from a Distant Star: A Novel? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Light from a Distant Star: A Novel. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Light from a Distant Star: A Novel ReviewI've read a couple of Mary McGarry Morris' books, most memorably "A Dangerous Woman" and enjoyed them very much, and the same applies here. "Light From a Distant Star" is an excellent depiction of a family in flux, as seen through the eyes of Nellie Peck, the 13-year-old protagonist. Nellie reminds me a little of Harriet the Spy, in that she's always lurking around trying to hear things she isn't meant to hear, and see what's going on in the world of the adults around her. Her parents, underemployed, ineffectual Benjamin and perpetually anxious Sandy, have a lot of financial problems, some of which they try to solve by renting a room attached to their house to various tenants, including the newest one, Dolly. Dolly is a stripper, but Nellie is told she's a singer and dancer killing time until she gets to Broadway. Other members of the household include Nellie's half-sister Ruth, a rebellious teen looking for her "real father" and brother Henry, a twitchy nervous boy constantly trying to look more in control than he actually is. Added to this group are grandpa Charlie, who runs a junkyard, and his employee Max, a drifter.
The book covers a summer and fall in Nellie's life and quite a lot happens. Although the book is low-key, there's a lot of action and many different characters, all of whom are deftly managed by Morris. The struggle of Nellie's parents to hold on to their home and business, a crime (you'll have to find out for yourself, no spoilers!), a betrayal, and Nellie's growing pains are all fascinating.
In addition to Harriet the Spy, this book reminded me somewhat of "To Kill a Mockingbird" in the sense that it draws children into the adult world in a negative way. Nellie learns that she can't always assume that her interference in other people's lives is welcome, and that adults aren't always what they seem. She deals with peers whose families define the word dysfunctional, and has to make some really tough decisions.
I highly recommend this book both for the quality of the writing (Morris is a master at depicting complicated characters and making them both sympathetic and repellent at the same time) and the interesting story. It's never dull, has great characters, and just feels "real". I wanted to read more about these characters because it felt like spending time with actual people, and I liked them and wanted them to solve their problems and get a better life for themselves. Check it out, especially if you haven't read Morris before - you're in for a treat.Light from a Distant Star: A Novel Overview

Want to learn more information about Light from a Distant Star: A Novel?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile ReviewI have learned directly from this man at Michigan State University and was fortunate enough to have read advanced sections of this book prior to its release. This is an outstanding piece of history which discusses a part of Soviet society that is most often glossed over, if not completely ignored, in most Soviet history courses. If you are teaching Soviet history I strongly recommend this book.Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile Overview

Want to learn more information about Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...

American Boy Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy American Boy? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on American Boy. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

American Boy ReviewLarry Watson's AMERICAN BOY is an all-American, universal kind of story that will resonate with anyone who grew up in the American heartland of the 50s and 60s. The typical small town of those decades is portrayed perfectly - those downtown blocks that held hardware and grocery stores with the local lawyer and doctor upstairs over the drugstore. Even the latest Plymouth-Dodge innovation, that infamous and short-lived push-button transmission, is featured, the same one that was immortalized in songwriter Greg Brown's "Brand New '64 Dodge."
Matthew Garth is our unlikely hero, a fatherless 16-17 year-old in the 1962-63 school year, who has attached himself for the past several years to the Dunbars, a prominent family in Willow Falls, Minnesota, a small community of a couple thousand. Johnny Dunbar is his classmate and closest friend, but all that will change when an "older woman" enters the picture in the person of Louisa Lindahl. The head of the family, Dr. Dunbar, is a pillar of the local community, although there are early intimations of that pillar being made of salt, with feet of clay.
Like many small towns, Willow Falls is a study in contrasts and opposites. The falls is not really a falls; Frenchman's Forest is not really a forest, but a dark and secret place where the two then-younger boys first learned about the mechanics of sex from an ill-informed older boy, and which later serves as backdrop to more intimate experimentation. Because one of the things that makes AMERICAN BOY such a universal tale is its minutely descriptive attention to all those familiar rites of passage - smoking, drinking, reckless driving, and of course backseat groping with all the heavy breathing, passionate kisses, frenzied frustrations and furtive fumbling with zippers, clasps, breasts and thighs. There is even a very "Mrs Robinson" scene between Matthew and the local lawyer's wife, but it has its own variations making it both original and derivative all at the same time.
Matthew becomes obsessed with the not-so mysterious twenty-something Lydia, who, through a sequence of shocking events, takes up residence with the Dunbars, destroying and changing not just Matthew's friendship with Johnny, but the whole family dynamic.
Yes, this is a masterfully rendered story of a friendship and family torn assunder and innocence lost. An old tale to be sure, but Watson makes it all seem new and fresh, employing characters all too human and flawed.
As a coming-of-age story, countless comparisons could probably be made. I've already suggested The Graduate, but the ones I first thought of were Evan Hunter's Last Summer and Herman Raucher's Summer of '42, both books from 30-40 years ago, and, more recently, Donald Lystra's northern Michigan story, Season of Water and Ice.
AMERICAN BOY is, in the end, an old tale made new and fresh through the story-telling skills of a master hand at fiction. Larry Watson burst onto the book scene nearly twenty years ago with his first novel, MONTANA 1948., a shocking and beautiful book. His latest offering shows he is still at the top of his game. If you appreciate serious literary fiction, READ THIS BOOK!
- Tim Bazzett, author of the REED CITY BOY trilogyAmerican Boy Overview

Want to learn more information about American Boy?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now

Read More...