Locke & Key: Volume 5: Clockworks

by Joe Hill (story) and Gabriel Rodriguez (art), 159 pages

Discovery of yet another key lets Tyler and Kinsey (and the reader) at last see the origins of the keys and some of the history of the house and the family, but will it be enough to help them--especially when the enemy is so much closer than they realize?

Ah ha!  So that's how the jar got in the wall and the soul got in the well house.  Also, ack!  The Omega key isn't as safe as it once was and now I think things are going to get very hairy very quickly.  This supernatural horror series succeeds at sucking the reader in and holding her anxious attention.  I want the next (last?!) book!

"The Red House" by Mark Haddon

264 pages

Richard, a wealthy doctor, invites his sister Angela and her family to join him, his new wife, and his stepdaughter for a week at a vacation home in the English countryside. His invitation is an attempt to repair his relationship with Angela, as they haven't been in touch since they drifted apart as their mother died years earlier. Angela brings her husband and three children, all of whom she is feeling alienated from. Needless to say, putting this group together for a week creates a new level of familial dysfunction and drama. 

I picked this one up because I loved Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The Red House just didn't do it for me, though. It lacks the charm and intrigue of Curious Incident.  In that story, I was totally interested and invested in Christopher, the autistic narrator. In this book, I just didn't care about any of the characters. I didn't think they were good people. I like for characters to have flaws, but I also need them to have some redeeming qualities and I didn't find any here. I did like Angela's youngest son, but he's forgettable enough that I can't remember his name. Bottom line: if I don't care about any of the characters, I usually don't care about the book. 

"Carry the One" by Carol Anshaw

253 pages

In the wee hours of the night after Carmen's wedding reception, a car filled with her stoned and drunk family, including her brother and sister, accidently hits and kills a little girl on a dark road. For the next twenty-five years, every involved struggles to deal with their guilt in different ways. Some throw themselves into their work; some have extramarital affairs, some drink. In the end, some learn to deal and learn on while others self-destruct.

I am sort of torn on this book. I found the writing beautiful and the characters seem very real, but I felt like it didn't go anywhere. It's interesting in that it explores how individuals' lives all affect each others and how different people deal with tragedy differently, ultimately I felt like it didn't go very deep with that. At the end, I thought "What was the point?"

"Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting" by Pamela Druckerman

304 pages

Due to the nature of her work and her husband’s, American journalist Pamela Druckerman found herself living in Paris when her first child was born. Unlike many foreigners living in France, Pamela didn’t idolize Paris. She admired the city and its residents but still considered herself a true American and was determined to raise her daughter that way. Still, as Pamela observed French children and compared them to the ones she remembered from back home and saw on visits to the States, she realized that French parents must know something Americans don’t. The French little ones threw fewer fits. They ate at tables with adults, eating what the adults ate and entertaining themselves for hours if need be. French parents’ lives didn’t revolve around their children, and (gasp!) their children seemed to actually flourish, not suffer. Pamela set out to study French parenting and explore the philosophy that produced these well-behaved, well-adjusted children. What she learned in the subject of this book.

I had a few problems with this book, but I got a lot of out it. The bad stuff: I think Druckerman generalizes too much. I do see a lot of the behavior that she calls “American” parenting here in the US. There are lots of so-called helicopter parents, who don’t let their children out of their sight and have no life outside of their children. I know plenty of parents who think their children who think their children can do no wrong and parents who think they should be friends with their children instead of disciplining them. Still, there are plenty of parents in the US who don’t do that—in fact, many children are somewhat or completely neglected. My husband and parents, who are all teachers, have plenty of kids in their classes whose parents never show up to their school performances, sporting events, or parent-teacher conferences. I think Druckerman’s perspective is strictly upper-middle-class, so her views are limited. Still, I think she makes some very valid points, and there is a lot of wisdom in French parenting that many American parents would do well do learn from. I also think Druckerman does a good job of offering practical suggestions for putting the French philosophy into practice, with specific examples of what they do that works. I got a lot of ideas that I plan to try if/when I become a parent (note that I said “try”—I know every child is different and it’s impossible to come up with practices that will work for every kid). This is definitely a book I’d recommend to anyone I know who’s expecting a baby. 

"Making Babies: Stumbling Into Motherhood" by Anne Enright

196 pages 

After eighteen years of marriage and almost reaching middle age, Enright found herself becoming a mother. Before she knew it, she had two children running around. She was already a successful author in her native Ireland, but she soon realized that she was much less confident at being a mother than writing. During the first few years of her children's lives, she took time between feedings and diaper changes to write about all the messiness as well as the joys of motherhood, particularly motherhood at a later stage of life. I found this collection charming, funny, and thought-provoking. I like that Enright loves her children and wants what's best for them but she doesn't bow to the guilt and pressure associated with trying to be a perfect parent. I feel like this is a book that would comfort a lot of new parents who feel overwhelmed. 

"Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Lawson

318 pages

Jenny Lawson has had an interesting life, to say the least. As a kid growing up in rural Texas, she just wanted to fit in. It wasn't easy to do, though, with her dad being a professional taxidermist who had been known to create dead-squirrel hand puppets and throw live bobcats on people (as a joke, of course). Her mom was a little more tame--her main idiosyncrasies involved mild things like making winter shoes out of bread sacks to save money. Jenny thought she could escape all the weirdness when she grew up, but she was mistaken. Whether she's trying to identify pictures of employees' penises as part of her human resources job or having to dig up and rebury her beloved dead dog, goofy things just seem to happen to Jenny wherever she goes. Through it all, though, she learns that the crazy things make her the person she is...and, of course, provide hilarious material for her now-famous blog.

It has been a long, long time since a book--or anything, really--has made me laugh as hard as Let's Pretend This Never Happened did. I seriously could not read it in public because if I had I would have made a scene. Jenny's humor is definitely not for the faint-of-heart, as there are plenty of f-bombs and nothing--sex, bodily functions, cow vaginas, etc--is sacred. Nevertheless, her writing is just hilarious. I mean, she obviously has some good material to start with. Her family is nuts but totally lovable. Her childhood sort of reminded me of my own rural upbringing, and I too often find myself thinking, "This could only happen to ME." I think everyone can relate to that sometimes. The difference, though, is in the way Jenny tells these stories. I don't know how she does it, but she turns a situation that is pretty funny into a story that is downright hilarious. Reading her book reminded me that instead of being frustrated or embarrassed by the ridiculous, I should see the humor in it and recognize that life would be pretty boring without it. 

"Happy Families" by Tanita S. Davis

240 pages


Teenage Ysabel and Justin have their share of adolescent problems, but their family life has always been great. The two of them are close friends, and their parents have a loving relationship and are supportive of both their children. Then, all at once, Ysabel and Justin discover a secret about their father that changes their world forever. They each tell their stories in alternating chapters as their family falls apart and tries to come back together again.

Spoiler alert: It's almost impossible to write this review without giving anything away, so stop reading now if you don't want to know what the big discovery is...anyway, I really like this book and it's going to stick with me for a while. In some ways, it feels like a pretty realistic portrayal of what a family goes through when one of the parents is transgender. Ysabel and Justin deal with it differently, but both of them struggle terribly with the news. They are totally confused and sometimes angry, but they still love their dad. At first I didn’t quite buy their parents’ behavior. Their mom is totally supportive and accepts her husband’s desire to live as a woman, and he still loves her and wants to be with her. This didn’t seem realistic to me at first, but when I thought about it I decided that it’s good for this book to defy stereotypes and show that people can be transgender and still be technically heterosexual, and for their significant others to accept them as they are. The ending is a bit cheesy, but overall this is an interesting story that addresses a very complicated issue in an entertaining way.

"Dead to You" by Lisa McMann

243 pages

We begin this story with what is supposed to be a happy ending. Ethan was abducted from his front yard when he was seven. Now he's sixteen, and he's just been reunited with his family: his parents; his brother, Blake, who is two years younger and witnessed the kidnapping all those years ago; and Gracie, the six-year-old sister he's never met. As happy as the reunion is, Ethan is struggling. He can't remember anything about his life before he was taken, so everything feels foreign. He feels like he doesn't fit in and wonders if he's been gone too long to become part of the family again. As time goes on, he becomes more and more troubled by missing memories, from both before and after the abduction. What terrible thing is his mind blocking?

This story has a very interesting premise, but I was disappointed. I wanted more character development. This is such a complicated issue, but I felt like I didn't know any of the characters enough to really get invested in the story like I could have. Also, Ethan's family's reaction seemed totally unrealistic to me in many ways. Ethan returns out of the blue after being gone for almost a decade, missing most of his childhood, leaving his parents thinking that he was dead, and yet the family basically goes about their business as usual immediately after he returns. They go to work and take Gracie to soccer or whatever the very next day and even make Ethan go to school the Monday following his Friday homecoming. It just didn't ring true. Yeah, I know I'm nitpicking, but I reserve the right to complain about whatever bugs me in my reviews :). There's some decent enough suspense leading up to the end, but it's ultimately pretty predictable due to clues throughout the story. It's too bad, because this could have been a really good story.

Locke & Key: Volume 4: Keys to the Kingdom

by Joe Hill (story) and Gabriel Rodriguez (art), 152 pages

More keys get unearthed by both sides as offense and defense ratchet up--but who's coming out ahead?

Dang it! The Locke kids finally start to notice a pattern and connect the dots, but their antagonist is frustratingly quick on the draw and every step forward seems to be countered by their too-clever enemy. So close! Now what?! He's even scarier than he was before! How many exclamation points can I put in one paragraph?! When's the next book coming out?! :P So good, so good.

Day for Night

by Frederick Reiken, 323 pages

A manatee-watching detour starts off this novel of connections and takes the reader from one voice to the next, from Florida to Utah, California to New York, Poland to Israel, World War II to the 1990s, laying out linked personal narratives one by one to little-by-little reveal a larger shared story.

A patron recommended this engaging, by-snippets tale of slowly-unraveling family history, memory, and coincidence. It does require some suspension of disbelief, as the coincidences are (intentionally) many. I think the cult element and Goldman's character feel a little too convenient and insufficiently explored, and there's not enough differentiation between the diverse voices (with the possible exception of addled but endearing Timmy). But fans of Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated will nevertheless find much here to ponder and appreciate.

Locke & Key: Volume 3: Crown of Shadows

by Joe Hill (story) and Gabriel Rodriguez (art), 144 pages

Villain Dodge finds one key only to lose another. But he /she still doesn't have the one he / she really wants. Now-fearless Kinsey makes friends (real ones) and talks back to her disintegrating mother, sweet little Bode stumbles on more keys and needs a bandage, and big brother Tyler fails once more to impress the girl he likes and gets fed up with forces trying to hurt his family.

Ooh! Sneaky, twisty goodness! It's fun trying to piece together all the little clues from the panels and dialogue, from the past and the present. Observant rereading is highly recommended! How many keys are there? What locks do they fit? What do they do? Where'd Dodge come from originally? How long has he / she been around? Who or what is pulling his / her strings? Questions, questions, questions.

Locke & Key: Volume 2: Head Games

by Joe Hill (story) and Gabriel Rodriguez (art), 151 pages

What if you could just reach into your (or somebody else's) head and suddenly know things (like how to make fettuccine alfredo) or forget things (like fear, or how to cry)? Keyhouse is full of power, just waiting to be unlocked. But if they don't want it used against them and the ones they love, the Locke children will have to make sure they don't let the keys fall into the wrong hands. This is when not knowing your enemy when he / she's standing right in front of you becomes a bit of a problem....

Eek! Dodge is scary! But he /she's not infallible, which is the most comfort the reader's going to get at this point. The giggles help, too. It's surprising how funny this series is, considering the dark themes and violent doings. But the humor just makes the characters that much more endearing and the villain that much scarier.

Locke & Key: Volume 1: Welcome to Lovecraft

by Joe Hill (story) and Gabriel Rodriguez (art), 158 pages

When their guidance-counselor father is inexplicably murdered by a student, the three Locke children and their mother move back East to live with their paternal uncle in the home their father grew up in. But Keyhouse has its own secrets and may not be quite the refuge they'd hoped for....

*shudder*

This Eisner-nominated series would be perfect Halloween reading. As Robert Crais states in the introduction, retreating to a town called "Lovecraft" after a personal tragedy is probably not the wisest of decisions. Not for the faint of heart, this, as the bullets and axes and other unpleasantly murderous implements are wielded early and often (though thankfully usually just off-panel). But if you can handle the bloody results, the scary story of a tightly-knit family under siege from an enemy most of them don't even realize is there will suck you in and keep you rooting for them. Unfortunately, their troubles have probably only just begun....

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

2011/290pgs



After Jen telling me about this author forever, I finally read one of her books! It's a nice blend of romance and magical realism and I would recommend this to readers who enjoy woman's fiction with a bit of magic. The ending is a bit simple and there were some storylines I felt the book could do without-for most of the book I didn't know why I needed to know about or care about Emma and her husband. There is one small point in the end that ties everything together, but this could have been taken out. I did enjoy it though and I'd love to have some of the Waverly's magical cooking! I'll read more from this author.

Angel Diary: Volume 13

by YunHee Lee (story) and Kara (a.k.a. Yoon-Gyeong Kim and Eun-Sook Jeong, art), 156 pages

Chapters focusing on the stories of three side characters fill up this final volume of the series. We learn how Bi-Wal's right-hand-man came into his service, how Dong-Young met two of her Guardians, and about a classmate's experience with one of those Guardians.

Apparently, this series almost didn't get to finish in Korea, with the creators having to find a new publisher partway through. I'm glad they were able to finish their story. The telling is complicated and a little disjointed at times, and the large cast of characters (and their job titles) can be hard to keep straight, but if you can read the series without too much of a lag between volumes, it makes more sense. :)

Angel Diary: Volume 12

by YunHee Lee (story) and Kara (a.k.a. Yoon-Gyeong Kim and Eun-Sook Jeong, art), 181 pages

Dong-Young runs away from home (that would be Heaven) and falls in love with a boy, Bi-Wal, at the school she orders her minions to hide her in. It's only after-the-fact that she realizes he is the arranged fiancé she'd been running away from in the first place and not so awful as her imagination had made him out to be. Just because he's the next King of Hell doesn't mean he's a monster. She decides that the only way to make everything right that long-held misconceptions and misunderstandings have made wrong is to become the next Queen of Heaven and change some laws. So she asks Bi-Wal to go home to Hell and wait for her while she returns to Heaven and works toward her goal.

This series is a little hard to follow, politics-wise, and there are lots and lots of characters to keep straight, but it's fun and fluffy and even made me a little sniffley once a few volumes back. The main story mostly wraps up in this penultimate volume along with two extended side stories on the pasts and futures of a number of the characters.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

"I'll know when you get your memory back."
"How?" said Alice.
"The way you look at me. As soon as you remember, I'll see it in your eyes."

Alice wakes up after a fall from her bike in Spin Class (boy have I been there) believing she is 29 and about to have her first child. Life couldn't be grander with her adoring husband Nick and the new fixer upper they just purchased. Trouble is, Alice soon discovers that she is actually 39, the mother to three children she doesn't remember and is in the middle of a horribly nasty divorce from Nick. Every single memory of the last ten years of her life is gone.

This could easily have been a fairly light chick lit book. Instead it is a unique take on the midlife crisis. What if everything you've become in the last ten years is wiped away and you are dealing with the present with your past mentality? How does that help you or harm your growth as a person? A strong character study with a touch of mystery as the reader hangs on wondering what really happened with Nick and how it will all play out. Two side stories-journal entries from Alice's sister about her troubles having a child and letters her Aunt Fannie writes to a mysterious man-add to the journey of discovery the book provides.

2011, 432 pages.

"The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things" by Carolyn Mackler

246 pages

Fifteen-year-old Virginia just doesn't fit in with her family. They're all thin and good-looking while she's increasingly overweight and insecure about her looks. Her 24-year-old sister Anais and 19-year-old brother Byron are athletic, suave, and popular; Virginia puts herself somewhere between "regular" and "dork." Although her mother is a hot-shot adolescent psychologist, she can't seem to understand or accept Virginia as she is. On top of all this, Virginia's best friend has recently moved across the country and she's developing romantic feelings for her secret makeout buddy, Froggy Welsh the 4th, but he doesn't seem to want to acknowledge her in public. Then, out of nowhere, Virginia's so-called perfect family is shaken when Byron is accused of an awful crime.

The plot surprised me, in a good way. When I started reading, enjoyed Virginia's funky narration but I thought it would be a typical teen book about boys, friends, parent troubles, etc. Then Byron's incident came out of nowhere and added a lot of depth to the story. It got me thinking on a lot of different levels.

As I was reading this, I was reminded of my 15-year-old self so many times. Although I didn't experience many of Virginia's specific issues, I totally related to her general self-consciousness and her struggle to identify herself as an individual instead of a member of her family or peers. She's trying to figure out how to be herself instead of conforming to the roles that she's always filled with her family and at school, and that's something that teens and adults alike can connect with.

Send Me

by Patrick Ryan, 310 pages

Once upon a time, Theresa married Dermott and gave him two children, Matt and Katherine. And then he left them. Then Theresa married Roy and gave him two children, Joe and Frankie. And then he left them. These seven lives intersect, part, and ricochet off each other in random yet believable patterns as they each try to make their way, sometimes relying on one another, sometimes hurting one another, over the next forty-odd years. The one thing that will never change, however much they may or may not appreciate it at any given time, is that they are forever a family, and one with Theresa as their anchoring link.

Told in the form of non-chronological, short-story-like chapters, this novel draws the reader into the emotional life of each family member, revealing clues about what they've done in one chapter and hints as to why they've done it in another, letting the reader piece it all together little by little. From the first page to the last, I was invested in the mystery of who these people were and what kept them together and what tore them apart. Art, NASA, the mafia, in-laws, the economy, hurricanes, high school, college, love, death, jealousy, drugs, sex, gossip, Star Wars, Slip 'n' Slides, aging dogs, AIDS, and a million other things all come crashing down on their heads or lift them out of the miasma that is the dysfunctional American family.

And I want more. Ryan has said in recent interviews that he's working on another novel about these characters, and I can't wait to read it. While Theresa is the keystone, and while utterly sympathetic Joe is very loosely based on the author, Frankie is by far my favorite and the one I most want to protect. He is both the most resilient and the most vulnerable. His precocious, adorable childhood obsession with all things science fiction resurfacing as a psychological buoy later in his troubled life just breaks my heart...and comforts me at the same time. At turns funny and sad, surreal and familiar, this touching debut novel promises good things to come (and having read and enjoyed Ryan's three subsequently published YA novels, I speak from experience). It'll make you cry, too, but somehow that's ok.

In Mike We Trust

by P. E. Ryan, 321 pages

After his boat-loving father's drowning death during a storm, high-schooler Garth spends his time building detailed ship models, wishing he weren't so short, and trying not to give his overly-anxious mother more reason to worry. She's so consumed by fear that, when he tells her he's gay, she begs him to keep it to himself until he's "older"--not because she can't accept it, but because acknowledging it could expose him to the dangers of bullying and hate crimes. She even freaks out when he tries to call a counseling hotline for LGBT youth. So, he hides his sexuality from everyone (except his best friend Lisa), builds his models, and has nightmares about not being able to save his father. Until, that is, his Uncle Mike--his father's fun-loving, estranged twin--shows up at their dingy apartment door asking to crash for a few weeks. Suddenly, Garth has a male role model again, a sage confidante, and a social life. How could Garth's dad have had a falling out with such a seemingly great guy? So Uncle Mike drags Garth into some questionable business ventures...and gets him to lie to his mother...and his best friend...and his new friend.... It's only for a couple of weeks. No big deal, right? Right?

The dangers of lying--whether about where you went today or who you are inside--take center stage in this coming-of-age YA novel. While I enjoyed the story and characters very much, I didn't like it quite as well as Ryan's other teen books. Garth's naïveté and impressionable nature are understandable given his age and home life, but even after he realizes early on that his uncle isn't as ideal as he'd convinced himself he was, the boy still goes along with his schemes, desperate for whatever father-figure-ish companionship he can get. It's frustrating watching the train wreck he knowingly helps make of things as he becomes almost as blame-worthy as his inveterate charlatan of an uncle. One of the things I like about the book, though, is Mike's fairly realistically flawed character. He really cares about Garth and gives him some good advice about being himself, but then turns around and pressures the boy into lying about nearly everything else in his life. He's neither a conveniently perfect role model nor a completely heartless villain. Also, I appreciate that not all of Garth's messes are neatly tied up before the final page. I just wish he had a little more backbone and that his story wasn't so overtly message-driven, as the latter element is distracting and takes away from the book's realism. Quibbles aside, I still wish Garth good things. He's just a kid, after all. And they need all the support they can get.