THE SWALLOWS (2019)

The Swallows by Lisa Lutz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It took me forever to read The Swallows. I was first drawn to the story by the boarding school setting, but the cacophony of voices telling the story in first person was a challenge. And although the story was darkly humorous, it was rather unpleasant. Relevant to the #MeToo conversation, the boys take and share revealing pictures of girls and rate sexual encounters. The battle eventually turns into a war where no one is left unscathed.

FIRST LINE: "Some teachers have a calling. I'm not one of them."

THE STORY: Alex Witt reluctantly takes a job teaching creative writing at an elite Vermont boarding school where her parent's friendship with the Headmaster means her recent past will be overlooked. 

It starts with a simple writing prompt from Alex Witt in her effort to get to know the students. When the answers raise disturbing questions, Ms. Witt suspects there's more going on at the school than the faculty wants to see.

WHAT I THOUGHT: I am always attracted to a story that takes place in a boarding school, but apparently I wasn't the only reader who found the book slow going (It took me over two months to finish.) Filled with anonymous notes and secret meetings, Lutz pays homeage to spy novels with a reference to Magnus Pym, a double agent in a book by John le Carré. The actual writing is sharp and funny. And, by the way, swallow has many meanings. One is "a female agent employed to seduce people for intelligence purposes." You can guess at the others.

I enjoyed her earlier book, The Passenger, a thriller, but I'm not familiar with the Spellman series.

BOTTOM LINE: Some reviewers loved this book, some reviewers did not finish reading. The amount of frank sexual description may be too much for some readers.

Disclaimer: A copy of The Swallows was provided to me by Ballantine Books/Net Galley for an honest review.

Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher:  Ballantine Books (August 13, 2019)
ISBN-10: 1984818236
ISBN-13: 978-1984818232

Lisa Lutz is the New York Times bestselling author of the six books in the Spellman series, Heads You Lose (with David Hayward), and How To Start A Fire. Her latest offering is the thriller The Passenger (March, 2016 from S&S).

Lutz has won the Alex award and has been nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel. Although she attended UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine, the University of Leeds in England, and San Francisco State University, she still does not have a bachelor's degree. Lutz spent most of the 1990s hopping through a string of low-paying odd jobs while writing and rewriting the screenplay Plan B, a mob comedy. After the film was made in 2000, she vowed she would never write another screenplay. She lives in the Hudson Valley, New York. .(from Amazon)

Upcoming Reviews Fall 2019

My reading schedule for this fall.

1. Olive, Again (Random House, Oct. 15) by Elizabeth Stout - This is a sequel to her Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge, dealing with the complicated and poignant life of Olive in Crosby, Maine.

2. The Family Upstairs (Atria Books, Nov. 5) by Lisa Jewell - Three siblings who have been out of touch for more than 20 years grapple with their unsettling childhoods, but when the youngest inherits the family home, all are drawn back together. (Kirkus)

3. Palm Beach, Mar-A-Lago, and the Rise of America's Xanadu (Atlantic Monthly Press, Nov. 15) by Les Standiford - The author recounts the creation of the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, by cereal company heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and her husband, E.F. Hutton in 1927.

4. Good Girls Lie (Mira, Dec. 30) by J.T. Ellison - The heroine of this high-tension thriller from bestseller Ellison, leaves the U.K. after the death of her parents to attend the Goode School, an exclusive girls’ boarding school in Marchburg, Va.

And these are the books I am reading for In Good Company, our book group:

October - Milkman (Ann Burns)

November - Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens)

December - A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles)

Thoughts on a Rainy Day

Both Good Reads and NetGalley ask readers to score the books they are reviewing on a one to five star scale. I've decided to do away with using that information on my blog. Here's why.

When I was younger I was reluctant to sing because I thought I wasn't as good as the other people in the room, in the world. Then I met a teacher who suggested that everyone had something to offer. It reminded me of the library rule that says "Every reader their book. Every book its reader."

I started wondering why I had to number rank the books I read. I had one author friend be taken aback because I only gave his new book 3 stars rather than the usual 4. It was more violent than I can handle these day and yet it is the book that will garner him many new readers.

Of course, there will be books I like more than others; and if I feel a book is poorly written and plotted, I don't need to read or review it at all.

I'd prefer to write about the delights and what the author has achieved.

What do you think?

August was a Lovely Month

No, not the title of a book. Just an excuse for not having posted for a while.

In the meantime, I have been reading but very slowly. I'm working on a review of Among Others (Jo Walton), currently reading The Color of Water in July (Nora Carroll), and just added Eileen (Ottessa Moshfegh) to my Good Reads list.

Reader Reviews Vs. Reviewer Reviews

Huffington Post recently shared an article that was of great interest to me. I have been writing this book blog for seven years without any real, concrete guidelines. I read what I want (mostly) and write more about how the experience affects me. This makes me feel mightily guilty sometimes. Occasionally I've attempted to be a little more disciplined but it doesn't last.

Then I read this article. It clarified a lot of things for me. Rachel Thompson wrote Reader Reviews Vs/ Reviewer Reviews: Is There a Difference? with authors in mind but it is instructive for a wider audience.

PRECIOUS THING (2014)

Precious Thing by Colette McBeth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

PRECIOUS THING, a marvelous thriller, could be this year's GONE GIRL. First time novelist Colette McBeth has carefully crafted a roller coaster read that slams to an end.

Rachel and Clara have known each other since school days always pledging to remain best friends, but terrible secrets lie just below the surface of their relationship.

In school Clara was the girl everyone wanted for a friend, but she chose dumpy, unhappy Rachel. The world has changed and Rachel is now a successful news reporter with a boy friend and a happy life. She has tried to reach out to Clara but been rebuffed.

Things begin to go awry when Rachel shows up to report on the disappearance of two people who turn out to be Clara and Rachel's boyfriend.

Some suspension of disbelief may be necessary; but in general this is a clever, well-written, psychological story with some surprising twists and turns.  

Bottom Line: Great writing pared with a narrator, who may be unreliable, draws the reader into a web where truth is always just beyond one's grasp. If you liked GONE GIRL, you will enjoy PRECIOUS THING. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Title: Precious Thing

Author: Colette McBeth

Genre: Thriller

Publisher: Minotaur Books

No. of Pages: 304 pages

Copyright:April 10, 2014

ISBN:  1250041198

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Source: NetGalley

Disclaimer: An advanced copy of Precious Thing was provided to me by Minotaur/Net Galley for review purposes.


Colette McBeth was a BBC TV News Correspondent for ten years. She lives in West London with her husband and three young children. She attended the Faber Academy Novel Writing Course in 2011. PRECIOUS THING is her first novel. (from the author's website)

Ephiphany

I've had an epiphany.

I began to wonder why I was writing reviews of books everyone was reading anyhow.

Why?

As a librarian I tended to read less well known titles so I could recommend them. Popular books didn't need me to introduce them to readers.

Now this doesn't mean I'm not going to read the books I want to read. Instead I will read them, enjoy them, comment on them (perhaps) but not 'review' them.

Instead I will be looking to feature books that might have been missed.

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami

 

Thoughts About Reviews

As I've spent more time visiting and reading other book blogs, I've thought perhaps I should begin writing more formal reviews. Now I am rethinking whether I want to do that or not. In the past, my comments have been personal impressions of the things I've read. Using a structure takes the joy out of the process for me.

Therefore, I am going to go back to my original, random style.

Three Overdue Reviews

 

It isn't because I didn't like these books. In fact I enjoyed them all. It's just that I am on vacation and it's hard to discipline myself to put my thoughts together.

Foal Play by Kathryn O'Sullivan is a cozy mystery that will be released later this spring; Home Fires by Margaret Maron, a traditional mystery, was published in 1998; and finally The Blackhouse, a riveting mystery by Peter May, his first in the Lewis trilogy.

There does seem to be a theme here but usually I read more randomly.

You are invited to check back and see when I get these reviews written and posted!

Wire to Wire (2011)

Wire to Wire by Scott Sparling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Scott Sparling's WIRE TO WIRE further clarified for me a couple of the things that draw me into a book. The first I've known for a long time. I crave surprise. It's here in spades. But I also have noticed lately that awareness of the beauty or specificity of language has become more important to me as well. Sparling's descriptions seem new, unique, and perfectly crafted.

"He came to rest against a 1981 Pontiac Grand Am, so new he could smell the General Motors plant outside Detroit." or "You could always count on the past to be there when you needed it, and even when you didn't. Especially then." or "When your belongings don't really belong to you, he thought, it's time to go."

Michael Slater's life changed the day he took a power line to the head while riding atop a railroad car. He survived but with altered perceptions of his world.  With MEMENTO-like flashbacks in time, we wander willingly into Michael Slater's sometimes horrific lifeline following him until we think we know the answer.

Intriguing, disturbing, and perfectly balanced, WIRE TO WIRE may change the way you look at the world and your place in it. Read it. 

WIRE TO WIRE was chosen as one of the 20 Michigan Notable Books  published in 2011. "The selections are reflective of Michigan's diverse ethnic, historical, literary, and cultural experience."

View all my reviews

Blurb Rules: A guide to the art and artifice of writing blurbs for books.

Thrilling, pertinent, and insightful comments on how to write book blurbs. Too bad I didn't know about these rules sooner. Thank you to the Barnes and Noble Review for Blurb Rules by Daniel Menaker.