Thursday, June 01, 2017
[BOOK REVIEW] HILLBILLY ELEGY by J.D. Vance
Nonfiction/Memoir
I am going to admit I was very skeptical to read this because so many customers had asked about it or asked me to read it. I thought surely it could not be that good. I mean, several times when a book is so good and named a bestseller, I have not liked the actual book.
Anyway, I am glad to be mistaken about Hillbilly Elegy, the bestseller by Appalachian native, J.D. Vance. The author claims this book is not recounting his own triumphs and accomplishments but it is about the trials, tribulations, and victories of his mother’s parents, Mamaw and Papaw.
Like the author, I was blessed to have a wonderful relationship with my own maternal grandparents whom I also called Mamaw and Papaw. They also came from a poor, humble background but always wanted for their descendents to push hard and strive for upward mobility.
This memoir is well-written in the fact Vance relays stories about his childhood (some heartwarming stories, some heartbreaking tales) but also peppers the book with grim, cruel truths about Appalachia.
This book will either break your heart or else it will warm your soul. Whichever happens does not matter because most likely you will not forget the Vance family.
Labels: Memoir, Nonfiction, Reviews by Andrea K., Staff book reviews
Tuesday, May 09, 2017
[BOOK REVIEW] The Girl Before by JP Delaney
Fiction/ Suspense/ ThrillerAndrea K. reviews THE GIRL BEFORE by JP Delaney (Ballantine Books, 2017)
This is the story of two young women, Emma and Jane, who will never meet, but their stories will intertwine in this prickly, eerie story.
Emma and Jane both have experienced some kind of loss in their lives. Emma was robbed and raped while she was home alone, and Jane suffered giving birth to a stillborn baby. Both women know it’s time to start over and so they begin the pursuit of living at One Folgate Street. The building itself is an amazing architectural masterpiece but its designer, Edward Monkford, is an eccentric control freak. In the lease it is mandated there will not be any personal effects, and the renters must relinquish full control to Monkford.
Things get curiouser and curiouser when Emma finds out Edward’s wife and son were buried under Folgate after dying in a freak accident. Later, Jane finds out Emma fell down the glass staircase and sustained massive brain bleeding.
If Edward knows from separate occurrences that One Folgate Street is a deathtrap, why isn’t he changing its architectural structure? Or maybe, because the place is a deathtrap, Edward refuses to change anything?
Readers will be mesmerized by the cunning Edward and will plead with Emma and Jane to get away from him before it’s too late.
Andrea K., Staff
Labels: Fiction, Reviews by Andrea K., Suspense, Thriller
