Archive for the ‘Contemporary’ Category
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
Trade, 339 pages, 2006
Rating: 10/10
Reason for Reading: All these years of reading chick-lit and I’d never read an author from Toronto, my hometown - it practically seemed mandatory.
Synopsis: Meredith Moore excels as a ‘continuity girl’ - the girl on film sets that makes sure each take fits in perfectly with previous ones - no cigarettes mysteriously jumping from hand to hand, no fly-away hairs dancing up and down during a scene. It’s her job to make it look like everything flows, in other words. Her own life seems to be on a similar track of careful consideration - until she turns thirty-five and a trip to the doctor sends her fleeing from her job in Toronto to London, England, which is home to her batty mother and a host of genetic possibilities: Meredith has decided to become a ’sperm bandit’ in order to have a baby before it’s too late. She doesn’t actually want to become involved with a man, but her seemingly-simple plan seems to lack the ease of a Hollywood movie…
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Wednesday, November 29th, 2006
Trade, 340 pages, 2006
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: It’s that weakness for chick-lit.
Synopsis: Thirty-three-year-old Iris Hedge has left California for a dream job in New York City, only to lose it to ‘restructuring’ before she’s even settled in. Now she’s broke and stranded in a city where she barely knows anyone, although it would seem that’s all it takes to accidentally land herself a new job…as a private investigator, checking up on possibly-cheating husbands. Not exactly what she was cut out for, but eventually a real job, and a real life, will come through…won’t it?
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Tuesday, November 14th, 2006
Hardcover, 387 pages, 2006
Rating: 8/10
Reason for Reading: I liked White Oleander.
Synopsis: Josie Tyrell is a troubled teenager with no real direction other than which way the LA music scene blows, but she thought she had a chance at real love and a real life with Michael, an artist who turned his back on his rich and cultured family to be with her. But obviously she didn’t read the situation quite right, as she’s forced to identify his body after his suicide. She finds herself haunted by his enraged mother, Meredith, who couldn’t believe her son would chose Josie and ultimately death over all that she had to offer him, and she won’t stop until she’s figured it out or driven Josie to the brink herself.
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Tuesday, November 14th, 2006
Trade, 342 pages, 2006
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: I loved She’s Got Issues, and after having the opportunity to interview Stephanie Lessing last year it was a sure thing that I’d be reading her next book as soon as it came out.
Synopsis: Renegade Zoe Rose is hardly the target audience for most women’s magazines - she’s clueless about fashion, not interested in marriage (despite her wonderful boyfriend), she’s anti-establishment, she simply doesn’t fit in - and that’s exactly how she likes it. Despite all of that, she’s just taken a position as deputy editor at Issues magazine, and she’s determined to shake things up and have women look at how they treat each other rather than at the latest styles from Paris. Her feminist ideals dictate that she change the world, but she’s facing an industry that won’t change its MO as easily as it changes its preference of shoes. Can Zoe infiltrate and change the world of fashion and women’s magazines, or will they ultimately break her, once again leaving her behind as the girl that doesn’t fit in?
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Wednesday, November 8th, 2006
Trade, 230 pages, 2005
Rating: 10/10
Reason for Reading: I haven’t been reading enough Canadian authors lately - and I miss it!
Synopsis: Ladykiller is a collection of seven short stories, ranging in content from a backwards glance at events leading up to a car crash; to twin sisters who fight to stay separate and yet can’t escape each other; to a couple in such a brutal power struggle it seems they would rather go down in flames than concede any sort of victory to the other.
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Posted in Fiction, Contemporary, Short Stories | No Comments »
Thursday, October 19th, 2006
Hardcover (available in trade; mass market in December 2007), 345 pages, 2006
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: I read Barbara Gowdy’s collection of similarly-themed short stories, We So Seldom Look on Love, but I didn’t feel like it did the topic justice.
Synopsis: The Girls is the story of conjoined twins, Rose and Ruby, one of which, Rose, decides it’s time to write down their autobiography with the occasional input of the less-interested Ruby. Approaching thirty, they’re already the world’s oldest conjoined twins, and the medical ramifications are quite poor, so Rose wants to let the world know all that they’ve missed out on through their extremely unusual life - and also all that they’ve gained and enjoyed.
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Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006
Trade, 593 pages, 2006
Rating: 10/10
Reason for Reading: I love Keyes - I’ve read all of her books except for Further Under the Duvet.
Synopsis: Anna Walsh is in a terrible state - mentally beaten down and physically battered, all she wants to do is leave her parents in Ireland and get back to her life in New York City. She has an amazing job (featuring endless makeup freebies), a great group of friends, and it’s also where her husband, Aidan, is supposed to be. But whatever Anna is trying to tell herself in Ireland, the life she has waiting for her on the other side of the ocean is not the life she left behind…
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Wednesday, September 6th, 2006
Trade, 334 pages, 2006
Rating: 10/10
Reason for Reading: It’s a Booker Prize long-lister - and I hope it’s soon to be a short-lister, as well.
Synopsis: John Egan is an eleven-year-old living in rural Ireland, where life isn’t perfect, but he has his beloved Guinness Book of World Records set to see him through the days. When he starts developing an amazing skill of his own - he can detect lies - he becomes fixated on receiving an entry of his own in the record books, and his determination to always expose the truth leaves his family and everyone in his life vulnerable to destruction from truths best left untold.
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Posted in Fiction, Award Winner / Nominee, Contemporary | No Comments »
Friday, July 28th, 2006
Hardcover (available in trade May 2007; mass market December 2007), 294 pages, 2006
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: Try and stop me! Last year, Jackson’s first novel, gods in Alabama, was number two on my top ten list for 2005.
Synopsis: Nonny Frett seems to live in two worlds, a fate handed to her at birth, when she was adopted (under questionable circumstances) - transferred from the downtrodden Crabtree family into the morally upright (but still eccentric and volatile) Frett clan. Now thirty, Nonny is on the verge of a potentially explosive visit home, called away when she was practically on the eve of finalizing her divorce to a man she can’t seem to stay away from. She arrives in the small town of Between to find an all-out war erupting between the Fretts and the Crabtrees, and things are going to get absolutely vicious (and violent) unless Nonny can find a way to soothe thirty years of tension and flat-out hatred.
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Wednesday, April 19th, 2006
Trade (available in mass market), 408 pages, 2006
Rating: 9/10
Reason for Reading: It looked like the perfect backyard-read for enjoying the weather.
Synopsis: Izzie Stock figured that moving to the country would be great for her husband and herself - a relaxed pace of life to fit in with her boho style - but she didn’t count on the Stepford Wives of the neighbourhood. Salvation comes in a strange but perfect figure, that of Maddy Hoare, a woman with effortless grace and endless money, and yet a sense of humour. Shortly after their meeting, tragedy strikes, and Izzie despairs ever finding comfort in her new life, until the pair discovers that some old French beauty potions may contain the secrets to a life neither woman expected to be living…
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