It feels like it’s taken me AGES to read the last few books, and April has soooo many books coming out, I need to get cookin’! Here’s the latest reviews from me…
–Marissa
The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes was a Reese Book Club pick so I had it on my radar, and was able to nab the audiobook. It had a good premise (Maya’s friend dropped dead in high school, then she saw another woman do the same thing with the same man that was with her friend back then), but… this just kinda plodded along and didn’t carry me with it. It’s supposed to be ‘captivating’ and ‘unputdownable’, but I didn’t find that to be true. It just seemed… silly. Eh.
All That is Mine I Carry With Me by William Landay was given high marks from friends and reviews, so I was psyched to start reading it. in 1975, Jane Larkin disappears and her children never find out what happened, though they wondered if their father was somehow involved. Two decades later, Jane’s remains are found and everything is brought to the surface again, and the children have to decide what truth that stand with – and are willing to fight for. I think I’m in a reading funk, because this dragged along for me more than I expected, but had some good twists.
Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson was a good palate-cleanser after the last couple of suspense novels! I love a “peek behind the curtain” at 1% families, and this one has love, money, class, First World problems, family, houses, and more in a tony Brooklyn neighborhood. This was escapist, funny, smart and easy to read. I was a fan of this audiobook!
The Kind Worth Saving by Peter Swanson is the (long overdue) sequel of sorts to the fantastic debut, The Kind Worth Killing, and brings back several characters from that book, but one certainly doesn’t have to read the first to get into the second! A private eye is hired by a former student to investigate a potentially cheating husband, and then the story is off and running with infidelity, past tragedies, star crossed lovers, and oh, murder murder murder. This one was a return to form for Swanson for me (some of his more recent work have been snoozy), and I enjoyed flying through this audiobook!
Homestead by Melinda Moustakis is a sloooow, literary, so not happy story about Marie and Lawrence marrying in 1956 and beginning a homestead in Alaska. During this hard-fought novel (which I listened to) we have love (and lack thereof), living off the land, struggles, tragedy, and two people who are suited to some things in Alaska and not others. I love a live-off-the-land, Alone-style story, but this was… plodding and depressing and not at all ‘joyful’ as one review said. I ended up listening at 2x speed just to finish it!
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano I was *so* looking forward to after devouring Dead Edward, but this took me close to TWO WEEKS to finish (that’s a LONG time for me). It wasn’t a zillion pages long or unengaging, it just… was slow. A sort of send-of of the four sisters in Little Women, we have sisterly dynamics, family rifts, marriages, divorces, mental health struggles, death and dreams. This is a dense text, not easy to fly though, and while I overall give it a thumbs up, I don’t know WHAT it was that made it so long and arduous for me to read. 
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