The Overbooked Bibliophile

My Rating: 4.5⭐ “If you get to come home, you will be so grateful you won’t realize at first that you survived. But once you know you survived, you’ll only be starting to understand.” Inspired by his mother’s Red Cross experience during WWII,  Good Night, Irene  by  Luis Alberto Urrea  is a remarkable work of historical fiction that gives us a glimpse into the contribution of the women of the Clubmobile Corps of the American Red Cross to the war effort. In 1943, several young women from all across the country signed up with the American Red Cross to serve in the Clubmobile Corps in WWII Europe. Their task was making and serving donuts and coffee, offering a taste of home to those serving on the front, in an effort to boost morale. These young women would be traveling across Europe operating a Clubmobile, a specially designed bus equipped with apparatus for frying donuts and making coffee and stocked with chocolate, cigarettes, magazines chewing gum and so on. Among t...

My Rating:  3.5⭐ “-if it’s a girl, expose her on the mountain-” Following this decree by Iasus, King of Arcadia his newborn daughter Atalanta was left abandoned on a mountain, left to die. But she was to be saved by a she-bear and raised with her cubs, learning her way to survive in the forest, taken in by the Goddess Artemis and her nymphs in the forests of Arcadia becoming a strong accomplished archer and huntress, skilled enough to defend herself against two centaurs – a feat few men could live through to tell the tale, to be the only female among the Argonauts who traveled with Jason to Colchis on his quest for the Golden Fleece, and who proved her mettle multiple times as they faced the several challenges on the journey the only woman who played a crucial role in the Calydonian boar hunt. Her only mistake was falling in love despite Artemis’ warnings – a mistake that results in her losing Artemis’s favor triggering a sequence of events that ultimately leads her back to the sam...

My Rating: 2.5⭐ Our protagonist ,Natalie is a new mother in her early thirties who puts her career on hold to take care of her newborn son. With her husband Tyler, also a lawyer, at work during the daytime she spends her time alone at home caring for her baby, Oliver. Her return to work after her maternity leave proved to be difficult and though she yearns to get back to work, she decides to focus on her child. But depressed, exhausted and sleep deprived, Natalie struggles to take care of her colicky baby. Her husband doesn’t quite seem to understand what she is going through. Enter her neighbor, former college professor and stay-at-home father of a ten year old daughter Paul Riley, who seems to be the child whisperer, helping calm Oliver down, befriending Natalie and offering solid advice and a sympathetic ear to her troubles. But Paul has his own reasons for befriending her and beneath his friendly demeanor is a manipulative mind who intends to use Natalie as a pawn to further his ow...

My Rating:⭐⭐ In 1757 Calcutta (Kolkata), Meena, the seventeen-year-old daughter of the Nawab of Bengal, meets and falls in love and James Chilcott, the nephew of one of the most powerful officers of the East India Company with which the whole of India is at war. James claims to not share the ideology of the EIC and offers information to help the Nawab, which is not well received. Meena falls in love with James and hopes to lead a life different from the restrictions and abuse that are a part of her present life. But escaping won’t be easy and Meena, in a moment of desperation, elopes with James after a horrific showdown with her brother that ends in tragedy. We follow James and Meena over the next eight years, as they travel from Calcutta to Ceylon, then to South Africa and finally to England, and as Meena begins to comprehend the reality of her husband, his motives and how the world truly judges outsiders, it is only a matter of time before she is compelled to resort to drastic measur...

My Rating: 3.5⭐ “Standing Heavy: designates all the various professions that require the employee to remain standing in order to earn a pittance” Standing Heavy  by  Gauz  (translated by  Frank Wynne ) revolves around the experiences of three undocumented immigrants from Côte d’Ivoire who take up jobs as security guards in shopping centers around Paris. The narrative is divided into three interconnected parts /timelines with snippets detailing the keen (often humorous) observations and experiences of security guards manning the entrance of branches of Sephora in Paris. The Bronze Age (1960-1980) focuses on Ferdinand an immigrant who reaches Paris and takes up a job as a security guard. In the Golden Age (1990-2000) we meet Ossiri, a former teacher who gives up the monotony of his teaching job and travels to Paris hoping to change his fortunes where meets fellow immigrant Kassoum. Ferdinand, now, operating as a subcontractor secures positions for them as security guar...

My Review: 3.5⭐ Jack Givins, a thirty-four-year-old author, is offered a lucrative opportunity with the U.S. Marshals Service to create false histories for those being placed in WITSEC. Though he has had moderate success with his first two books, there seem to be no takers for his third, according to his agent. So when his agents present this offer, not only does Jack see this as an opportunity to earn some money and improve his financial situation but also establish connections to help him trace his father, who was placed in witness protection when was nine years old, leaving him with his mother who refused to enter WITSEC with her husband. Jack who didn't know much about his father’s criminal ties or circumstances that resulted in his father being forced to leave his family, hopes to convince his new contacts into sharing the details of his father’s file and his current whereabouts. Jack’s new assignment requires he maintain secrecy and not discuss his work with anyone . His girl...

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐ “Life is sweeping away the dust that keeps piling up, as she mopped the floor with a rag, and sometimes she would add, Death is nothing more than dust piling up.” As the story begins, we meet twenty-seven-year-old Chunhui as she returns to the ruins of her village after a stint in prison for a crime she did not commit. As she looks round her, she sees the ruins of the mountain village of Pyeongdae, a village once made prosperous through the industriousness of her mother Geumbok – a woman who rose from an impoverished life to become a wealthy entrepreneur in a predominantly patriarchal society. Chunhui, Geumbok’s mute daughter with a large build and uncanny strength, is more than often treated with neglect and indifference by her mother. Chunhui, though mute, was capable of communicating with an elephant named Jumbo she had known since she was a child and who was her only friend. The lives of mother and daughter are impacted by the legacy of an “old crone” and her one...

My Rating:  2.5⭐️ After a personal tragedy, Emma Carpenter chose to live in isolation in a house on the Washington Coast. Her sole companion is her golden retriever Laika and her interaction with others is limited to the owner of the house, Jules and her elderly neighbor, Deek with whom she communicates via handwritten messages from her window. Emma spends a lot of time reading. After her neighbor recommends a horror novel by an author by the name of H.G.Kane, which she doesn’t enjoy for several reasons (that are quite believable), she doesn’t hesitate to share in her one-star review – a review that prompts the author to initiate an online conversation with her. Needless to say, he wants her to change her rating which she absolutely refuses to do. The online conversation gets heated with the both of them trading insults. Just when she thinks that things have calmed down, Emma begins to feel like she is being watched and also suspects the presence of someone in the house. Are her fe...

My Rating: 4.5⭐ “Life develops without overwhelming me, it squeezes into every minute, it implodes; I hold it in my hands. I can give anything up, because nothing is essential when you refuse to imprison life in a narrative.” We meet our unnamed protagonist, loner content with moving from job to job, while she waits for a merchant freighter on the Chilean coast where she takes up the job as a cook, perfectly happy with the monotonous, predictable routine while traversing the South American coast. When she meets Samsa, a Scandinavian geologist, she trades in her itinerant lifestyle for a relatively more domestic arrangement in Reykjavik where Samsa gets a job. “She doesn’t like my name, and gives me a new one. She says I’m like those large, solitary rocks in southern Patagonia, pieces of world left over after creation, isolated and exposed to every element. No one knows where they came from. Not even they understand how they’re still standing and why they never break down.” As the years...

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ In January 2003, an unsigned postcard is delivered to the Berest home with a picture of the Opera Garnier in Paris addressed to the author’s late grandmother. Handwritten, on the back of the postcard were four names – Ephraïm, Emma, Jacques, and Noémie – the names of four members of the Rabinovitch family, all of whom lost their lives during the Holocaust at Auschwitz. Ephraïm and Emma were the parents of Anne’s grandmother Myriam who was the only member of the Rabinovitch family who survived the Holocaust. However, that traumatic era in family history was seldom discussed at the Berest home and though Anne and her mother were Jewish, faith did not play a significant role in Anne’s upbringing. In fact, after the postcard arrives, it is filed away without much thought given to it. This novel is inspired by the author’s investigation of her family’s history. Fifteen years later, after an uncomfortable Passover gathering at a friend's home and an unfortunate incident ...

My Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This series never fails to make me smile. It was so much fun meeting Heart , Brain and the rest of the gang again! I love how important topics such as mental health, anxiety, work-life balance, and self-acceptance, among others, have been addressed with sensitivity and humor. Divided into three segments, each of which begins with a heartfelt message from the author, this installment of the exceptional Heart and Brain series is, in turn, thought-provoking,  laugh-out- loud funny and inspiring! It's definitely one of the best in the series!

My Rating:  4.5⭐️ A year to the day former FBI Agent Sheriff Titus Crowne is elected the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia, the community is shocked by a school shooting that results in the death of a much-loved school teacher by a local young man who is cornered and shot to death by the police who respond to the call. The investigation into the incident reveals a sinister side to the deceased teacher and his shooter which ultimately leads to the discovery of several acts of heinous crimes against children. Evidence points to the existence of another accomplice, who seems to have ties to the community and an agenda of his own and personal scores to settle. When more people are brutally murdered and the threats become more personal, Titus and his team race against time to uncover the identity of the killer and catch him before it’s too late. With its powerful writing, intriguing plot and compelling characters,  S.A. Cosby ’s  All the Sinners Ble...

My Rating:  4.25⭐️ “You know someone, and then you don’t know them, and in their absence you wonder what their life was made up of.” The Librarianist  by  Patrick deWitt  is a quiet, contemplative novel that revolves around seventy-one-year-old retired librarian Bob Comet. When we meet Bob, he lives alone in his mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon, surrounded by his books and his memories of a life lived with dignity and mostly, in solitude. Divorced after a brief marriage over forty-five years ago, he doesn’t have any close friends or romantic entanglements. He lives a simple, lonely yet seemingly content life. One day, he sees an elderly woman, lost and wandering in a shop near his home. An ID card with her address indicates that she is a resident of Gambell-Reed Senior Center. Bob eventually decides to volunteer at the Center, hoping to fill the time in his retirement as well as indulge in sharing his love for literature with the residents. Though everything do...

My Rating: 4.25⭐ Set in the late 1970s and 80s   Fire Rush   by   Jacqueline Crooks   follows second-generation Jamaican –British Yamaye, as she embarks on a journey of self-discovery. We meet her in her early twenties, living with her father, who, for the most part, ignores her in a run-down apartment complex in Norwood, London. Her mother, a midwife, never returned from a work trip to Jamaica when she was a child. Working a night-shift factory job, the only vibrant aspect of her life is the time she spends with her friends at The Crypt, an underground dub reggae club amidst the music and the ganja clouds, or in the local record store. When she meets Moose, a carpenter and fellow Jamaican, at the club, she begins to dream of a life different from her own. But when tragedy strikes and violence erupts, she escapes to Bristol with a recent acquaintance who forces her into a life of crime. Fortunately for her, she finds a way out. Eventually, she travels to Jamaica on a...

My Rating: 4.5⭐ " All families have secrets, but not all secrets are meant to deceive.” Dr. Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water follows three generations of an Indian Malayali Christian family in Kerala spanning from 1900 to the 1970s. As the novel begins, we meet twelve-year-old Mariamma preparing for her wedding day. Her groom is a forty-year-old widower with a young son – the owner of a vast expanse of land in Parambil. Unbeknownst to her at the time of marriage (and revealed to her after a tragic loss) is the fact that her husband’s side of the family is plagued by a “condition” that has caused several family tragedies related to drowning across generations. We follow Mariamma or Big Ammachi as she is called and her family through the following decades, and how the condition impacts the lives of those whom she holds dear. Parallel to the Parambil narrative we also follow the stories of Digby Kilgour a Scottish doctor who joins the Indian Medical Services in British India ...

My Rating: 4.5⭐ “There will come a time when songs are sung about her, about the people she loved and the ones she hated. They will sing of her mother, the queen seduced by a god, of her brothers, boxers and horse-breakers, of her sister, a woman so vain who couldn’t stay in her husband’s bed, of Agamemnon, the proud lion of Mycenae, of the wise, many-minded Odysseus, of the treacherous, cursed Aegisthus, of Clytemnestra, cruel queen and unfaithful wife. But it doesn’t matter. She was there. She knows songs never tell the truth.” Daughter of King Tyndareus of Sparta and his Queen Leda, the sister of Helen, and ultimately the murderous Queen of Mycenae who killed her husband Agamemnon, Clytemnestra has always been a lesser known character in comparison to her sister, and what we do know of her is in the context of her scheming and ultimately successfully executing her plan to murder her husband after he returns home after the victory at the Battle of Troy. In her debut novel, Contanza C...

My Rating: 3.5⭐ Murderpalooza- the annual conference for thriller writers, being held in New York, is about to become the scene of a real murder mystery. Attended by publishers, writers (established and aspiring), it draws a large crowd for panel discussions, book purchases and of course the coveted M-TOTY (Murderpalooza Thriller of the Year) award. One of the nominees and a crowd favorite is famed author Kristin Bailey. However, when Kristin is discovered stabbed to death in her hotel room, it is suspected that the culprit is someone from inside the venue – staff, guests, or attendees of the conference- who killed Kristin and why? Four of the attendees begin receiving cryptic text messages, indicating that each of them could be connected to what happened to Kristin and they might be the next victim. Soon after, an anonymous Twitter account begins to post tweets directing attention (and suspicion) toward each of these four individuals – the immensely successful Davis Walton who is mint...

My Rating: 4.25⭐ “Each pod has pride and virtue, each feels above the other. They do not know they share one fatal flaw: they think they know this ocean.” Atmospheric and immersive  Laline Paull’s Pod  takes us on an exploration of cetacean life both in its beauty and in the struggle for survival against threats – from environmental and man-made to the struggle among various species of marine life for dwindling resources for sustenance and a safe space to call home. The narrative is shared by Ea, a spinner dolphin separated from her pod after a tragedy who ultimately ends up forced to become a member of the Megapod of bottlenose dolphins a lone Rorqual whale whose sad song Ea hears; a giant Napoleon Wrasse who also finds himself alone; and Google, a military-trained dolphin who has spent most of his life in the company of “anthrops”. In the course of the story, we also meet a parasitic Remora fish that attaches itself to Ea and the...