I was a big fan of David Mitchell.   I thought Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet were excellent.  I thought The Bone Clocks was interesting but weird.  His newest novel is weird but not interesting.  So as not to give anything away to those who want to read it, Slade House is about twins, Jonah and Norah Grayer, who every nine years need to prey on an unsuspecting citizen to continue their lives of immortality.  Each chapter is devoted to a different victim, and since each character is not delved into, I found it hard to empathize with anyone in this strange, unrealistic, read.

I admire Jonathan Franzen’s fiction; however, many people I know find him frustrating, annoying and/or outrageous.  If you are a fan, you won’t be able to put Purity down; if you’re not, don’t bother picking it up.

Purity is the name of a young woman who would much preferred being called Pip.  Franzen’s novel follows her from Santa Cruz to Oakland to Bolivia to Denver.  Along the way, she encounters a cast of complex, memorable characters who are drawn to her for different reasons.

There are times when some of the subplots appear tangential or confusing.  Don’t worry, eventually everything comes together and Pip’s journey becomes clear.

I have been meaning to read this book since it first came out even though I suspected that some of the content would upset me.  Krakauer’s main premise is that a vast majority of “acquaintance rape” cases at The University of Montana when reported never got further than the Missoula police department.  Although he zeroes in on Montana, Krakauer makes it clear that this type of sexual assault is prevalent on a number of college campuses.  He delves deeply into three such cases, and in each instance, the alleged assault and what ensues is startling, shocking and infuriating.  This work of nonfiction, using direct, straight forward, nondramatic prose, describes a touchy, controversial subject that is slowly being acknowledged and dealt with by a number of colleges and cities across the country.

Mahboubeh Malacouti, an elderly woman, is perusing her garden in Los Angeles, thinking back to events that led up to her birth.  Her mother dies when she is quite young of “women’s problems”, and she is raised by her father and her aunt in a Jewish home in Iran.  The Malacouti’s are wealthy, thanks in large part to her Uncle Asher’s business smarts.  However, with all of his brains and money, Asher cannot produce an heir.  He and his wife will try almost anything to have a child.

This debut novel, which draws on the author’s family history, gets better and better with each chapter.

A beautiful, heart-warming novel about Todd Aaron, an autistic man who has been institutionalized for all of his adult life.  Todd is the narrator, so it is through his eyes, ears and voice that the reader experiences life at Payton Living Center as well as snippets of his childhood.  Todd also introduces his readers to Raykene, his favorite worker at the Center, Mike, his least favorite worker, Tommy Doon, his angry roommate, his parents, his brother, his sister-in-law and several other well-drawn characters.

Best Boy is a novel I could pick up again in several years and discover new and fascinating things within it.

Michael Turner, a successful author, moves from a small town in Wales to London after the sudden death of his wife whom he had recently married.  In London, he becomes friendly with his neighbors, Josh and Samantha Nelson.  However, Michael’s appearance at the wrong place and the wrong time forces all three to re-evaluate themselves and their relationship to each other.

Sheers is good at building suspense and getting his readers involved in the moral dilemmas that unfold in the novel.  An easy read that would be good for a semi-long plane ride.

Jean Perdu has foregone the pleasures of life since his lover left him twenty-one years ago.  One day he decides,after all these years, to open the letter he received from her days after she left him.  As a result of what is in this letter, Jean takes his business, a floating bookstore, down the Seine to begin the adventure of a lifetime.  There are no light touches in this novel; everything, for me, was heavy-handed, predictable and obvious from his name(John Lost) to his similarity to Huck Finn.  Also, although the word love is on almost every other page, nowhere did the feeling of love come across between any of the characters.

This debut novel is the story of Tee, a Korean orphan who was adopted in infancy by a Caucasian American couple.  When Tee is in his early 20’s, he travels to Prague where he befriends Pavel, a semi-famous artist, his wife, Katka, and their friend Rockefeller.  The crux of the novel is the twists and turns these relationships take.  I found the first third of The Hundred-Year Flood confusing.  It would go back and forth in time and place with very little or no warning.  However, the more I read the more I was able to adapt to Salesses’ writing style.

A big thank you to Kathy for introducing me to the English author Sarah Hall.  In her most recent novel, Rachel Caine, a zoologist who had been working with wolves in Idaho, has taken a job near her hometown in Northern England.  Employed by a wealthy Earl, she is hired to introduce a male and female wolf onto her boss’s estate.  Rachel must tackle the issues of a new job with new coworkers as well as confronting her past, her relationship with her brother and sister-in-law, and a very unexpected predicament.  Hall’s writing is wonderful-straightforward yet descriptive with no literary gimmicks.  I look forward to reading more of her works.

Hoffman writes a thoroughly compelling work of historical fiction.  It is the story of Rachel Pomie Petit Pizzarro who is born in the early 1800’s in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, the only child of a Jewish merchant and his unhappy wife.  Headstrong and opinionated, Rachel clashes with her family as well as the small, rigid Jewish community.  Her first marriage is a business transaction; the second is the love of her life and among her children from this marriage is Camille Pissarro, the impressionistic painter(he changed the spelling of his name to sound more French).  Alice Hoffman describes St. Thomas as a lush tropical island that is teeming with secrets, and Rachel, as she grows older, becomes aware of how these secrets destroy more than protect.