All That Is by James Salter

Buoyed by the 5 star ratings on Goodreads, I was excited to dive into this one by a respected author. I ususally don't do spoilers but seeing as how NOTHING happins in this book spanning 4 decades, I'm not giving anything away.  We start out on a promising note with a protagonist in the Pacific Fleet during WW2, and find out he was raised by a single mother.  OK, maybe these forces somehow shape his later life?  Nah!!

He ends up in New York, goes into publishing, marries, divorces, has a career and several love affairs, gets hollow revenge. But there's no emotion, no dramatic crescendo, no storyline - just an average white guy and his ordinary life, with ordinary friends and lovers meandering through their ordinary lives.  Salter definitely knows how to turn a phrase, but EXCUUUUSE ME - - I would like a PLOT please!!!    Sexist, with vacuous characters, this book feels like bad B/W movies from the '40s - - no wait! At least they had plots.  

Oh, and by the way, that guy swimming on the front cover?  Has nothing to do with the book.  

A Really Awesome Mess by Trish Cook and Brendan Halpin

  Alright, so let me start by saying that a major perk of being a librarian is getting to read books before they hit the street.  This is one of those books.  Its official release date is July 23rd and you will definitely find it on our shelves after that.
  A Really Awesome Mess is a really awesome book.  The story is told through the alternating voices of Emmy and Justin.  Both have been sent to Heartland Academy (a.k.a. Assland), a reform school for emotionally disturbed youth.  Emmy earned her ticket by bullying a bully on Facebook (among other things) and Justin arrives after swallowing a fistful of Tylenol (among other things).
  Despite the seemingly grim circumstances surrounding their intake, neither Emmy nor Justin believes that they should be there.  As they get to know the other kids in their group, and one another, they find that they are all more alike than they want to admit.
  Ultimately, A Really Awesome Mess acts as a window, and sometimes a mirror, into the difficult lives of teens.  Family issues, eating disorders and sexual promiscuity all make an appearance within its pages.  Throw in friendship, romance and an escapade with a pig, and you've got one entertaining ride.  This book should not be missed. 

The Dinner  by Herman Koch

Translated from Dutch & billed as "A European Gone Girl", this book is a dark psychological study of parents & children, love & ambition. I am more apt to compare it to a Gillian Flynn novel ala We Need to Talk About Kevin,  except ALL the characters are - - uh, creepy?

The entire plot unfolds over dinner in a posh Amsterdam restaurant where 2 couples dance around an uncomfortable incident involving their children - who knows what? and how much? and when did they find out? and what do we do now?  Flashbacks abound to keep the reader puzzling - who ARE these people????   and what WERE they thinking????   Often described as fascist and voyeuristic, The Dinner is a delicious serving of evil that will leave your brain unsettled.  What a read for a book club!

The Diviners by Libba Bray

Let me confess: I have hit a reading slump.  I decided to jump back into the pool with The Diviners by Libba Bray, simply because I had heard too many good things to ignore it any longer.  While the buzz was positive, I'm not a read-a-review before reading the book type of girl.  I like the element of surprise and the ability to form my own opinions.
The Diviners settles around our main character Evie who has been banished from her boring mid-west town for performing unusual party tricks.  This banishment suits Evie just fine, as her exile leads her to Manhattan.  The downside?  She has to stay with her uncle Will, an expert in all things creepy and the curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult.
As Solomon's Comet prepares to make an appearance, strange murders begin to occur, murders that mirror those that started fifty years ago, the last time Solomon's Comet came through town.  The police tap uncle Will to consult on the cases and Evie tags along.  Soon she realizes that her party trick may help them catch the killer.
The plot and characters are thorough and delicious.  The book is a certifiable tomb, but I found myself breezing through the pages, completely invested in the outcome.  I was annoyed once I got to the end and found that this is the first book in a series.  I guess that's where reading reviews, before reading the book, is helpful (sigh).  No doubt, Libba Bray has a set the stage for an unforgettable and un-put-downable new series.
 

I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections  by Nora Ephron

Several years ago I read Nora Ephron's "I Feel Bad About My Neck" and loved it.  However since then, she became ill with leukemia and has since passed, so it was with trepidation that I decided to read this. It includes many personal memories and anecdotes. . . and lots of name-dropping. She grew up in Hollywood among stars, producers, and screenwriters, & it was all she knew. In 1962 with an Ivy League degree, she started out in the mailroom at Newsweek while her male counterparts were sent to the newsroom. Lots of history about her parents, marriages (one to Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame), and successes as a screen writer for such mega-hits as When Harry Met Sally & Sleepless in Seattle. But the book is less comedic and more wistfully sad.  Less mid-life hilarity, more mid-life reflection on aging.  Don't get me wrong - women of a certain age are sure to find themselves in this book, and smile at the relevancies - "I have no idea who anyone in People magazine is".  Bittersweet for anyone who admired her life. 

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

   I normally never pick up a Western but after reading the reviews on Goodreads, this looked promising - and it had an extremely cool cover. Alas, the reviews were much more fun than the book itself - however, I seem to be in the minority on this.
   Advertised as a dark, comedic "cowboy noir" genre, it's the story of 2 notorious gunslingers for hire during the 1850's California Gold Rush.  deWitt has been compared to Cormack McCarthy? - - puuuullllllease!!!  Shallow, boring, unfunny.  I felt like I was watching a B-grade movie complete with bad acting, minimal plot, gratuitous violence, then everyone goes home.
Snoozzzzzzzzzz. . . .
But as I said, I am in the minority on this one.  What do you think?

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

   I may be the only person on Earth to have never read a Harry Potter book so I have nothing with which to compare J. K. Rowling's first "adult" book. In my mind it stands alone as compelling & complex, a scathing pronouncement on English Society.  There are those who dismiss this book saying she "should stick to kids' books" and I can't disagree more. Yes some of the characters are dull, dim-witted, and unlikeable - really?  That's the point - and it's crucial to the story. Rowling's writing style gives them incredible dimension and credibility.

   In the modern rural English countryside, a popular council member dies of an aneurism triggering an oh-too-sophisticated scramble for the vacant seat. As the characters are slowly introduced, their relationships are woven together in a complex plot towards a tragic end. Rowling peels back their thin veneer of respectability to reveal the secrets, prejudices, pretentiousness, self-absorption and shame.
   One can understand why the Potter books are so popular once you glimpse Rowling's portrayal of children, which figure so prominently in this story.  She gets into their brains, makes you see through their eyes, feel their pain.   The adults brood about, nursing petty jealousies and feuds, either completely unaware or painfully mistaken of the effects their actions are having on the young residents of the town - until it's too late.

Her writing style is sometimes explosive and visually graphic:
“Onwards and outwards the news of Barry’s death spread, radiating, halo-like, from those who had been at the hospital....Gradually the facts lost form and focus; in some cases they became distorted. In places, Barry himself was lost behind the nature of his ending, and he became no more than an eruption of vomit and piss, a twitching pile of catastrophe, and it seemed incongruous, even grotesquely comical, that a man should have died so messily at the smug little golf club.”

This is not your grandmother's English drama.  Those expecting fast-paced action or paranormal activities will be sorely disappointed. But this is another kind of classic - more "Room With A View" with a bit of "Deathly Hallows" thrown in.