All of my library holds have become available at the same time and I can’t keep up! I’m currently in the middle of reading/listening to three different books. What a problem to have, right? I hope you started your year by reading some wonderful books too. Take a look at my book reviews below to see what should be next on your must-read list.

   

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A Nearly Normal Family

A Nearly Normal Family is a story told in three distinct sections (father, daughter, and mother). The sections made the book unique and I quite liked it compared to most books that flip back and forth between characters throughout. It was a nice change.

In this book, the adult daughter has been accused of murder. Her father is a pastor and her mother is a lawyer. It brings up the moral question of how far would you go to protect your child.

I quite enjoyed this book. The answer to the murder is not always obvious. The story takes you back in time to the daughter’s upbringing and even how the mom and dad met. Told through different viewpoints your opinion of each character may change as you continue reading.

   

The Unhoneymooners

If you need a pretty cheesy book with a predictable plotline (which sometimes we do!) this is the book for you.

The Unhoneymooners is about a maid of honor and best man who go on a non-refundable honeymoon together after everyone else at the wedding (including the bride and groom) get food poisoning. The catch is the two have hated each other for years. Will they kill each other on the trip or will they learn to tolerate one another (or more)?

Luckily, a few surprises in the book keep the story interesting and a little less predictable than you originally think. If you need a good beach or plane read this might be a good one.

   

The Tiger’s Wife

I kept thinking The Tiger’s Wife would get better, it didn’t.  This book apparently has received many accolades so maybe the appeal is above my literary intelligence.

A doctor going on a trip to help vaccinate orphaned children finds out her grandfather just died coming to visit her. She’s tasked with picking up his belongings at the clinic where he died.

The story goes back through her youth and the beginning of the war.  Her grandfather told her many folklore stories from his past that are written in great detail including a deathless man and the tale of the tiger’s wife.

While I appreciate the storytelling aspect of the book, the whole thing was a little too “out-there” for my taste. I found the stories to be random without following any real sense of order and the ending vague.

   

The Song of the Jade Lily

The Song of the Jade Lily is a fantastic book, I highly recommend!

A woman travels back home to Australia for the death of her grandfather. She is very close to her grandparents because they raised her after her parents died.

Soon the granddaughter will be leaving to go to Shanghai for work. Shanghai brings back a lot of memories for her grandmother, as it is the place she fled with her Jewish parents when escaping Austria as Nazis took over.

The story tells of the war years in Shanghai. How initially the family enjoyed the new culture but then were forced to move to the ghetto as the Japanese took over.

There is a lot of loss and love in this book. The story takes turns between real-time and the past as the granddaughter tries to learn more about her biological family. It’s a great new view on WWII that I personally hadn’t known much about.

   

Need more great book recommendations? See what I read last month in my January Book Reviews and Recommendations post.