Book Review: "Four of a Kind," by Kellie Sheridan

I started this book fully prepared to dislike it. Between the cover and the description, it seemed like a lot of Bad Waiting to Happen. However, I was pleasantly surprised. Which just goes to show, you can't judge a book by its cover. 

Disclaimer: A received a copy for an honest review from NetGalley. Also, this review does contain spoilers. 

Yes, there is a little bit that could do to be changed. Mainly, the quads' R-names really should have been rethought; I still can't 100% tell the difference between Reilly and Reece. Realistically, new parents of identical quadruplet girls would not name all of them incredibly similar sounding names: Reilly, Reece, Reagan, and Rhiannon. That was the first unbelievable hurdle to jump over (never mind the statistical possibility of identical quadruplets, all of whom are perfectly fine with no lasting difficulties from, I don't know, sharing a womb). 

Another difficulty was the fact that occasionally, the book does veer into sounding just a little too try hard, including the moments when Reagan seems to slip into seeming, well, too much like a narrator. I think that's one of the biggest downsides of the book; occasionally, Reagan will think something that is so incredibly not something a teenager would think about themselves (such as "Curse my teenage hormones!" What teenager says that!?) that it takes you out of the moment entirely. Basically, Reagan's internal dialogue often did not feel natural or normal, probably because of editing.  

The one thing I will say is that it felt like the book ended just a little too abruptly. It was quite a short book; I read it in a total of perhaps 4 hours. It felt like towards the middle a lot of random "drama" happened, such as Reece dyeing her hair and Rhiannon disappearing. Regarding that second incident, I think Reagan's non-anger at Rhiannon was the most disappointing part of the book; talk about being untrue to teenagers! Rhiannon's behavior lead to Reagan having to abandon her first ever date--what a dick move for her sister to pull. It was an incredibly important moment for Reagan and actually felt like the climax of the novel: Reagan, who is shy and nerdy, is on a date with a guy she really likes. That's the ultimate end-game for Reagan, what her narration has been about essentially since the beginning. And instead of anything happening, the moment is ruined, about 5 minutes in, by her sister's disappearance. And we're supposed to believe that Reagan isn't mad?  

Any teenager, or adult, honestly, would be livid, but Reagan was just "too good" for that. It's those moments where she slips (alongside her parents and sisters) into being just a little "too perfect," just a little idealized. I wanted some messiness from Reagan, but it didn't happen. There were a few moments like this where the reactions of characters seemed to be just too fake and unrealistic. No one, absolutely no one, reacts to teenagers breaking rules with, "Well, maybe we need to readjust the rules." No, if my kid disappeared and turned off her phone, she'd be getting grounded until summer at the very least. But not Rhiannon's parents!

Then, after Rhiannon came back and Reagan got to do a date re-do, the book ends. We get a brief scene where Reagan acts in a play, but that's it. It's a bit anticlimactic; there is no big action that creates tension or changes things. Things seem... the same as when the book started, plus a boyfriend. Maybe Rhiannon's disappearance is meant to be the climax, but it didn't feel like it; Reagan found her within 10 minutes of starting to look, so, you know. 

All this being said, it wasn't an entirely unpleasant book to read; I would definitely recommend it as the start of a series to younger readers (I'd say it's definitely written at around 6th or 7th grade level).

A few additional notes: this book does win points for attempting to include a diverse cast. Based on descriptions, Reagan's love interest, Kurt, appears to be biracial (it's never explicitly stated) and one of the quadruplets (Reilly) identifies as gay. These are just two examples. It is always difficult to praise diversity in a book that centers around four, beautiful, identical, white girls, but alas, I have to give Kellie Sheridan credit for at least including diverse characters, even if they are secondary in this novel. (From my understanding, this is the first in a series about the quadruplets. Here's to hoping for more in the sequels!) 

My Readings List [+ Where to Get Free Books!]

I love to read. Between October and December 31, I read 53 books. You read that right: 53 books in 3 months--that's about 17 books a month, that's 4 books a week. If a book sits still long enough, I'll probably read it, even if I have no interest in it. I'm just that kind of person. I'm just that kind of reader. 

On my iPhone, I keep a Note with a list of the books I'm due to read: books I've downloaded from Amazon, books I've bought, or books I plan to review. I thought I'd share my reading list because it will keep me accountable (I really need to stop downloading more books...) and because I'm always a little nosy about what other people are reading. 

Here's my list: 

• A Magical Highland Solstice, by Mary Morgan
• Highland Spy, by Madeline Martin
• All the Dead Girls,  by Rita Herron
• Highland Vixen, by Mary Wine
• The Weatherhouse, by Nan Shepherd
• Meet Me at Willoughby Close, by Kate Hewitt
• The Sheriff's Mail Order Bride, by Ann B. Harrison
• The Montana Bride, by Jeannie Watt
• The Trail of Ted Bundy, by Kevin Sullivan
• The Other One, by Jiffy Kate
• The Intuitive Eating Workbook, by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch
• The Goblin Child, by Michael Forester

In case you were wondering: yes, that is quite a lot of books and yes, I am a bit overwhelmed as I've fallen desperately behind on my reading list! 

I'm always on the hunt for affordable (or even free) books to read while I'm between books. If you're like me and you can read a book in a day easily, then you can end up spending a lot of money on books--or just going without, which isn't the ideal situation! I can't afford to buy 53 books in 3 months, that's for sure. Here are my favorite ways to get affordable, or even free, books. 

1. The Library, of course (or library loan programs!)

If you use an ereader (like me) and have a library card (which I don't because I live outside city limits), you can often borrow library ebooks for free through your library's website. If you need help, you can ask a librarian and they can explain it all. (Also, ask for their recommendations because librarians have the best taste in books!)  

2. NetGalley

NetGalley is a website where you can sign up and receive ebooks (via your Kindle or just as a PDF download) to read in exchange for a review. You can review them on NetGalley, on your blog, or on Goodreads (preferably all three). Since signing up a few weeks ago, I've read tons of books and written lots of reviews; some of them are great, some of them are not-so-great, but it's a good opportunities for those looking to start reviewing. Or who just love to read and review books! 

3. Amazon Prime Reading

If you have Amazon Prime, they now have a program called Prime Reading, where you can download books for free to read. I love this program because I've found some new authors that I love (like Emma Prince) and fully plan to buy all their books! 

4. Kindle Unlimited

If you don't have Amazon Prime, but do have a Kindle reader, I highly recommend Kindle Unlimited. I've read some amazing series through Kindle Unlimited. It's $10.99 per month and you can borrow up to 10 books at a time. Kindle Unlimited has helped me discover some books that I absolutely love, as well as some authors that I cannot get enough of. When I find a book I like, I always buy the next book in the series, even if it's on Kindle Unlimited. 

Book Review: The Fall of Lisa Bellow

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. 

I suppose my one gripe about "The Fall of Lisa Bellow" by Susan Perabo is that, if the revolving incident is a story about a kidnapping, it is perhaps tidiest (and most comforting in terms of storytelling) to come to some kind of resolution. A beautiful book, with interesting female characters, that unfortunately falls prey to the desire to be more mysterious than it is and focuses too heavily on the psychology of an incident versus the incident itself. 

Meredith's family is still reeling from her brother, Evan's baseball accident that left him blind in one eye. She survives a robbery at a local deli where another girl from her 8th grade class is kidnapped, seemingly for no reason. She becomes obsessed with Lisa Bellows, a girl she had simultaneously hated and revered (like most popular 13-year-old girls, of course) afterwards, imagining the apartment where she was kept and the things that were happening to her. 

Simultaneously, her mother struggles to parent two children who have now been inexplicably hurt by forces that she could not control or protect them from. Just as with the Lisa storyline, this storyline, at the end, felt dropped and did not seem to have much of a resolution, except that Claire managed to carry Meredith out of a bathtub. Which I guess means their relationship has healed or something? 

The book felt, in some ways, as if it got rushed to finish at the end. (Almost like it was a NaNoWriMo novel that Susan got bored with two days before the end of November!) 

One chapter, it's the day after Thanksgiving; and then, the next chapter, the last chapter it turns out, is just before Christmas break. In that time, we skip two or three weeks of time. It's confusing; it's nonsensical; it tries to be tidy when it isn't. Perhaps Susan Perabo wanted to show that healing from trauma sometimes happens in skips and jumps, or sometimes one big thing happens and then it's a slow roller coaster from there. Either way, it feels abrupt: one moment, Meredith has a freak out at Colleen Bellow's house where Colleen gives Meredith a hardcore sleeping pill and the next moment, she finally tells Colleen the last thing Lisa said to her and then tells her mom she's ready. Then the book ends. That's it! For the reader, it's not a comforting, or complete, ending. 

That didn't, however, stop me from giving the book a solid rating of four out of five stars--it's just that good, despite the lack of resolution. (Perhaps some authors would argue that the purpose of the book isn't resolution, but I would argue that good storytelling relies on resolution, ultimately. To subvert that requires the novel to have a wider, larger purpose or point and I'm not convinced that "The Fall of Lisa Bellow" achieves that, despite being a great novel.) 

The weakest plot line, really, centered around Meredith's mother, Claire. The book seemed to want to be the story of a mother and daughter, but it seemed to be more the story of a mother who doesn't really like her daughter very much, who prefers her son, except that her son doesn't like her very much, so ultimately, she doesn't really like any of them, her son, her daughter, or her husband. She seems to have contempt for every single character, but not for any clearly definable reason. 

It's all very unfortunate, but when Claire isn't likable (even in the slightest), or relatable, or magnetic, it all falls a bit flat. (I will say, I admire where authors write female characters that are unlikable, complicated, messy, and/or honest. But in this case, I don't think Claire is really any of those things; she is simply a character that I cannot bring myself to care about whatsoever because she seems to have no purpose or motivation.) 

I have a hard time sympathizing with Claire or understanding her motivations for anything; even as a mother myself, I found myself questioning why she was making things so difficult for her children, her husband, and herself. Sometimes we are all our own worst enemies, but at a certain point, you have to realize that. Why fight your son who wants to play baseball again? Why make him feel bad about it? Why bully her own daughter? Why not be on her daughter's side for once? She's clearly an unhappy character, made to represent a woman trapped in a life where she was unaware that parenthood would be difficult. The part of the novel, where she expresses surprise that parenting would be a difficult job and not always happy, is the easily most unbelievable of the novel. Almost every parent realizes, about 6 hours after you give birth, that parenting is the hardest shit you've ever done and it doesn't get any easier until you die. 

Meredith's storyline is more interesting. She moves from being what she refers to as "middle-popular"--better than some girls in her 8th grade class, but definitely not popular-popular--to being in the popular crowd, all because she witnessed Lisa's abduction. For the sake of this review, let me say now, I think Lisa was abducted by her mother's boyfriend; her mother was involved and is stressed out about it, that's why she gets weird; and that Lisa is dead way before the end of the novel. Ultimately, Meredith's trauma-induced hallucinations are just that, hallucinations, and Colleen knows the entire time that her boyfriend killed her daughter. I wish, however, that there was some kind of real resolution to that, that we actually knew the full story. My guess is based entirely on conjecture. 

Her transformation is almost instantaneous: Lisa's friends want her around, Lisa's mom wishes her to be part of the group, and her old friends become annoying enough that she's ok leaving them behind. By the end of the novel, she's rapidly unraveling, imagining an alternate reality where she's with Lisa, but at the same time, obsessing over an algebra problem. (I hate algebra, so I'll admit to skipping over the detailed explanations of math I surely learned in the 9th grade and have willed myself to forget.)  

Personally, it all gets a little too convoluted, a little too strange. I wanted to know what was happening, but I never got an explanation. At the end, I wanted to know if Meredith was ok, if Claire had reported Colleen for giving Meredith a freaking sleeping pill after guilt tripping her into staying at her house (honestly, what kind of parent WOULDN'T call 911 if you find your daughter knocked out in a strange woman's bath tub?), if Lisa survived. I needed a resolution, but there was none. 

That being said, it was a beautifully written book with a gripping plot. I just wish that it hadn't been so hastily ended. 

The Best Book I Read in January: "Life After Life," by Kate Atkinson

When I first wrote my list of 100 books I wanted to read in 2015, I included a few books I'd been wanting to read for months. One of those books was Kate Atkinson's Life After Life. 

I'd repeatedly carried Life After Life around book stores, put it in my Amazon shopping cart, and read reviews. I'd thought about reading it a lot, but something always stopped me. To be completely honest, I think I was put off by the cover: there is something overly sappy about it, as if it will be a bad romance novel. I'm not a huge fan of novels that are epic, sweeping romance dramas. I just find them a bit boring. I want more from my novels. 

This past weekend, I found myself looking at a few blissful hours of alone time. Danny was sick and had homework to do; I'd cleaned the house, done the laundry, washed the bedding. With so many hours, I didn't want to just sit and watch TV. I spent a way-too-stressful hour looking at my book list and reading reviews on Amazon. 

Twice, I settled on Life After Life and changed my mind. Finally, I bit the bullet and bought the book, sending it to my Kindle. 

I had read reviews, sure, but I wasn't 100% aware of the big plot point until I started reading the book.  I'll get to that in a second though. 

I read Life After Life in two days. That in itself is not an endorsement: I can read most books in two days, one day if I really dedicate myself to it. However, I found myself talking about Life After Life constantly. The first thing I said to Danny about the book was: "I wish I'd thought of it." What did I say after I read Tony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See? "I wish I'd thought of that title, it is killer. Also I wish I could steal his ability to use similes." 

My ringing endorsement is usually the sentiment of "I wish I'd written this; I'm mad that I didn't." 

Life After Life is built around the premise that Ursula Todd is stuck in a time loop: every time she dies, she starts over again. Sometimes, things are different from the very start; in most versions, her mother gives birth alone, her father searching France for her runaway aunt, Izzie. In one version, her father makes it back in time and they raise Izzie's son, Roland, as their own. In a few versions, Ursula dies at birth, or is born dead, or is suffocated by a cat named Queenie (an old wives' tale come to life). Either way, Ursula gets a lot of chances, but the reader is unsure if Ursula is ever 100% aware of her past experiences. 

There are a few events that suggest Ursula is able to tell change what happened. In one version of her life, Ursula drowns as a child while on vacation; the next go around, she becomes terrified to go near the water and her sister pulls her along anyway. She is saved by a man sitting on the beach painting. 

In another version, Ursula's horrible brother, Maurice, throughs her doll out the window; she dies falling off the roof trying to retrieve it. The next time around, her sister, Pamela, uses a stick to pull the doll inside. 

In these small instances, Ursula was filled with dread when approaching the situation: the doll on the ledge, the water's edge. She doesn't really remember, but she knows something is about to happen. As she gets older, if she does get older in that life, she identifies feelings of extreme deja vu, as if she's lived everything before (which, if you buy that she really is living life after life, she has). 

There are other instances where you wonder how aware Ursula is of her past lives. In one life, she is assaulted by one of her brother's friends, Howie; she gets pregnant, has an illegal abortion, and almost dies. The black sheep of the family, she ends up marrying an abusive man and is ultimately beaten to death. In her next life, she doesn't seem aware of Howie's future behavior, but at their first meeting, she promptly punches him in the face. 

In some versions of history, her next door neighbor, Nancy, is murdered while out looking for leaves for a scrapbook; Ursula usually takes another route home, or a detour, in order to intercept Nancy and save her. We don't know how much she knows she's doing this. She just... does it. However, in one version, Ursula is distracted by her crush and Nancy is murdered. Chance didn't work out in that version, I guess. 

The most interesting part of the story is this: Ursula never marries in any of her lives, except two. In one, she marries the man who ultimately beats her to death. In the other, she goes to Germany on a world tour and ends up staying in Germany, marrying a man, and having her daughter, Frieda. In other versions of her life, she never has children. But when she has Frieda, she ends up having to kill her daughter and herself and start over again; she never stays in Germany again, never meets her husband again. It is almost as if Ursula purposefully chooses to never have a child, because she knows in that version of history, her child always dies. 

It might sound boring to read the same life over and over again -- and there are definitely parts where it becomes a little too hint-hint, nudge-nudge -- but it is also incredibly engrossing. Ursula's panic and confusion over her moments of deja vu, her sense of knowing what will happen before it actually does, her grappling with reality is intense. Beyond that, the book paints the idea that sometimes the most important connections in life aren't romantic: Ursula's love stories are few and far between. Instead, the relationship between siblings is examined and poked: the things we do to save our siblings, to make them happy, to keep them from pain. 

In several versions of history, the Todd family maid, Bridget, attend Armistice Day celebrations in London and brings the Spanish Flu back to the Todd home, killing Ursula; in another version, Ursula manages to stay away from Bridget, only for her little brother, Edward, to get sick and die. Over and over again, Ursula struggles to find a way to not just save herself, but to save her siblings; and, it is interesting to note, she is never once concerned with saving Bridget's life. Her ultimate solution is to push Bridget down the stairs, breaking her arm, and, in later versions, to tell Bridget that she'd seen her boyfriend cheating on her. Both work to save the family. 

It makes me wonder what moments would stand out in my life if I were to live it over and over again. What things would I change? What would I do differently? The best kind of novel is one that makes you think deeply about your life and your choices -- and Life After Life does just that.

I Love Gillian Flynn's "Sharp Objects" & You Should Too

"There is something deeply unhealthy about this book; it's in the characters, in the story, in the relationships, in the sex, and just in the general mood of the novel." - Goodreads Reviewer

"From the first page, I felt the author had just finished a Chuck Palahniuk novel and decided she wanted to be like him when she grew up. Sentence fragments can be fun if you're in the mood for things like 'A belly. A smell. He was suddenly standing next to me.' (Not exact quotes, but pretty close.)" - A Goodreads Review

Harsh words, right? Don't worry, I saved the harshest review for last: 

"The razor blade on the front cover of the book is what one yearns for right after embarking on this read, sharp blade with which to cut every single page, one by one, until they are so neatly shredded that even the memory of what was written on them becomes non existent. And then, one can use the same razor to end one's own life.  I'm still unsure what the author was thinking when she began this book, unless she had some very deep and very disturbing mental issues to work through. This book is dangerous and not because it excites one with a thrilling and suspenseful story. It is dangerous because once one reads it, one loses any desire to look for another book that may restore one's faith in the existence of good books with an uplifting charge. Not only is this book dangerous, but it is sick. Its underlying sickness is that it's emotionally draining and unless readers are looking to load up on more mental baggage (I can't think of anyone who doesn't have enough), I'd stay away from its pain." 

Gillian Flynn, for the past few years, has gotten a fair amount of attention for Gone Girl, a stunning novel about a husband and wife -- and how easy it can be for some people to hide their true selves. A lot of people don't realize she has other novels, too. 

I like crime novels. I have always liked crime novels, suspense stories, horror stories. I read a lot of Stephen King (even though I find his books maddening). Good crime novels are hard to find these days, too often falling into the trap of a singular portrayal (white male cop, period) and specific crimes (drugs, gangs, the mob). I was excited to find Gillian Flynn: she is a woman writing mainstream crime novels with female main characters. 

I liked Gone Girl. I didn't love it, but I liked it. I was mostly stunned by it; I wanted to absorb Flynn's writing style and talent (a common feeling when I read a book I really like). The twist wasn't much of a twist; I had guessed it mostly from the beginning.

This is true of all of Flynn's novels: you're going to know about the twist early on because, well, it's obvious. That seems to be the crux of most amateur reviews: I saw it coming or I wasn't surprised. 

I liked Gone Girl, but I loved Dark Places, another of Flynn's novels about a girl whose family was famously murdered in a Satanic ritual (or so she thinks, announces the voice over in the theatrical trailer). I loved that the main character, Libby, was as deeply unlikable as Amy from Gone Girl, but for entirely different reasons. She is a lazy, manipulative, kleptomaniac obsessed with being the saddest story, constantly mourning not really her family anymore, but herself. It's a brilliant book.

Then I read Sharp Objects.

I spent a lot of time thinking about Sharp Objects. It revolves around a journalist named Camille, who returns to her hometown to cover the murder of one preteen girl and the disappearance of another (potentially related). She is still dealing with a lot of personal pain and the return home isn't really what she needed to recover.

As the quoted reviews point out, this is a book -- a town, a main character, a family -- that is diseased. It's sick. This is a sour spot for a large number of readers, it seems. If you're someone who doesn't enjoy reading about the twisted psyche of a small town, then this isn't a book for you. Part of me believes that you need to come from a small town to understand the claustrophobia and sickness of a small town like the one in the book. 

---

In my senior year of college, I wrote a poem that included this line: 

Cottage Grove is a town that mopes like a man. 

I come from a small town. Cottage Grove, Oregon, to be exact, a town known for having the largest number of covered bridges in a 5 mile radius of town. The Covered Bridge tour is a draw and now, so are the vineyards, all lying about 10-15 miles west of town -- but people have to pass through from I-5 to get to them. The town is not prosperous; with the recession, sawmills and logging operations closed down and left a lot of people poverty-stricken. My mother grew up knowing everyone in town, but now we don't know anybody. I see a lot of dirty kids. A lot of trash in the river. There is a man who walks the streets of our 3-block downtown screaming to himself. 

Cottage Grove is like so many small towns: dirty, old, obsessed with itself and its false pride, poor. Cottage Grove is like Wind Gap, MO in Sharp Objects: a town with a cruelty that is kept very, very secret. Like most small towns. 

I think to understand Sharp Objects, you have to understand the claustrophobia and fear of small towns, the way it's so easy for small towns to fall into mass hysteria and panic. If you don't, the novel only seems sick, purposefully painful, writhing in its own sadness. 

---

I love Sharp Objects. 

I love the sticky, moist writing, so reminiscent of warm, Midwestern towns in the summer. I love the unconventional main character and I love her personal issues. I love how deeply I identify with them and yet, how deeply I want to understand them because they are so foreign. I love the mother, Adora, because she reminds me of older women I know. I love that it is a book that made me feel uncomfortable, but drew me in. 

I loved that it was a crime novel that wasn't about a cop. I loved that I know who the killer was (or who I thought the killer was) from the very beginning. I love that the big twist takes place in about 1 page of text. I love that the prose feels dirty, the way it is supposed to, the way it should with such a sick story. 

Sharp Objects isn't a book for everybody, but it is a book that should not be dismissed. The writing is beautiful; the story is magnetic. It's a better book than Gone Girl. Don't believe me? Read it for yourself.