Go into this with the understanding that there’s a magic phone, one that allows our main character (Georgie McCool) to communicate with her husband back before he was her husband, back during a terrible week in which she thought she would lose him forever. Understand that you will never get an explanation for the magic phone. Think of the magic phone like Clarence showing George what could have been, or the ghosts giving Scrooge a tour of things. Accept that, and it’s a wonderful little story. “Nobody’s […]
The Fourth Hand by John Irving
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so “meh” after a John Irving book. But this was definitely one that I finished, set down and thought “Well, okay then” rather than continuing to mull the story over for a week or two while everything settled in my brain. Instead, I finished this book a week ago and I’m struggling to remember what it was even about. John Irving books, to be fair, are rarely “about” anything, but that’s okay because they’re driven by fascinating characters in absurd […]
The Night Listener by Armistead Maupin
I picked up Armistead Maupin’s The Night Listener at a book sale because the title seemed vaguely familiar. After reading the back, I remembered seeing trailers for a movie with the same name starring Robin Williams in the title role. When I started reading it, I thought maybe I was mistaken–the trailers I remembered seemed to be advertising a dark, creepy thriller. The book starts out nothing like that, but it gets there! NPR star Gabriel Noone has recently gone through a rough breakup with his much […]
Now & Then by Jacqueline Sheehan
Double Cannonball! Woo! This book was…meh. It was…inoffensive. Well, that’s not true. I was offended by the fact that it could have been a great story, but the author had apparently never heard human beings having conversations, and therefore delivered some of the most stilted dialogue I’ve ever read. And the method/reason for the time travel started out cool, then got stupid. Fast. That’s offensive because in the hands of someone else, it could have been great! (read: in the hands of Diana Gabaldon, this […]