Oh well. Now I don’t have to feel bad about finishing up Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey series. This one was kind of a bust. I’m a big fan of Raybourn and had more love for the Lady Julia books than the majority of her fans, but this final (?) book in the series was a huge disappointment. A lot of Cannonballers have read and reviewed her books. I reviewed two of them this year, here , so I’m not going to get into too much detail about […]
We don’t need more memories. It’s hard enough trying to get a handle on the ones we’ve got.
A disillusioned, recently dumped 30 something going back home to help care for a parent but ending up healing themselves in the process is not a new plot line. Dealing with the pain and frustration of watching someone you love deteriorate from Alzheimer’s isn’t either. This little book tackles both without becoming overly melodramatic. At the request of her mother, Ruth moves back to Los Angeles from San Francisco in order to help her care for her father, who is quickly succumbing to dementia. Mourning […]
Remembering for both of them.
There are many ways to approach a review of this book. “Salt Houses” is about a family constantly displaced through the generations by war. It is about the loss of a cultural identity and the struggle to find one. It is about finding who you are and being true to yourself no matter how difficult it may be for those around you. I prefer to think of it as a love story. Steeped in the conflicts of the Middle East from after World War II […]
I will solve you.
This is a melancholy little book about what it means to live almost forever. Think “Interview with a Vampire” without vampires. Tom Hazard, a man of many names and times, is over 400 years old. Tom is not immortal but ages VERY slowly. The explanation for this is some kind of genetic thing that kicks in at puberty, physically aging those with the gene around 10 years for every 100. The obvious things occur here: watching loved ones age and die, constantly moving and changing identities initially to avoid superstitious village […]