On a scale of Donald Drumpf to Samantha Power (United States Ambassador to the United Nations) regarding my knowledge of the geopolitical landscape, I would rate somewhere in the middle, as I had to Google to figure out who to herald as an example of someone very well knowledgeable regarding world events, but I knew what the word “geopolitical” meant. That being said, I wasn’t terribly familiar with the history and current events of Iran, and this memoir was a stark look at what it […]
A protagonist who makes Nick Dunn look like Mr. Rogers
This isn’t a murder mystery. At first glance, it appears like one. On a winter evening, George Clare comes home to find his wife Catherine brutally murdered and their three-year-old daughter crying, “Mama hurt.” Of course as the husband, George jumps to the top of the cop’s suspect list. But it’s not the first tragedy to take place in their house. Just a few years before, a farmer and his wife killed themselves there, leaving three orphaned sons who might know something about Catherine’s murder. […]
“Optimism is a sliver of glass in your heart”
This is a rare book that blends both mystery and character building in equal parts. I had never read Karin Slaughter before, but I think I will be remedying that soon. The style of this book and Slaughter’s writing reminded me of the better elements of Tana French and Gillian Flynn. Start to finish, this book is fast-paced and unflinching in its portrayal of pure evil. The story revolves around the disappearance of Julia Carroll in 1994. It looks at the ways her disappearance affected her family […]
The review in which I weep and fulfill all your baby shower shopping needs
My baby and I cleaned off his bookshelf this weekend. My baby is nearly 8, and his interest in the picture books that I spent hours upon hours reading to him and his big sister has waned in favor of a growing number of graphic novels and chapter books. He needed more room on his shelf. My heart broke a little (read: a lot) when he handed me You Are My I Love You and said that it was time to pack it away. It’s […]


