May 2020 Book Reviews and Recommendations

This month’s book reviews include a 5-star book! I hope you all are getting as much reading done as I am. This quarantine blows but I am reading so many books being stuck at home. More good news – libraries are now doing curbside pickup. If you are a person who likes to read physical books take advantage and go to your library’s website to find out how you can pick up some new books. Maybe select one from my book reviews down below.

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The Husband’s Secret

Okay, funny story. Apparently I purchased this book years ago. I found this out when I went to add the picture to this blog post. I have zero recollection of ever reading this book and my memory is fantastic. Oh well, here is my review of the book after my second reading of it.

As is typical for this author, The Husband’s Secret has multiple storylines going on simultaneously that interweave and all come together at the end. It’s an easy read that will keep you interested.

The storylines include one couple whose marriage is falling apart, a woman who finds a letter written by her husband to read in the event of his death, and an elderly woman who is still mourning the death of her daughter.   Will marriages be able to survive?  Will someone else end up dead?  Will the murderer ever come to light?  Find out by picking up this book.

   

Prep

Even though I didn’t especially like Prep I did find it hard to put down. I think I kept waiting for something positive to happen and for the main character to have a change of attitude but that never occurred.

An Indiana teen convinces her parents she wants to go to an east-coast boarding school and after she receives major tuition help they agree. Once she starts she is lonely and constantly second-guessing herself. The teen is insecure about friendships, grades, and boys.

Some parts of the book are interesting such as a few of her friendships and prep school in general. But overall it is a depressing book about a teen who could have it all and instead wastes her opportunities out of fear and lack of effort.

   

Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, & Me

Wild Game is a memoir of a woman starting when she was 14. The girl’s mother confides in her about a sexual affair she is starting. The teen becomes an integral part of keeping the affair a secret from her stepdad. She is so happy to be her mother’s friend that she doesn’t realize how much of her own life is affected because her mother’s needs come first. Now, well into adulthood, she now wants to break the cycle of narcissism with her own daughter.

I don’t understand how a mother could possibly do this to her daughter. While reading I also kept trying to understand why the daughter allows herself to get used and dragged into this drama. If it weren’t a true story you wouldn’t believe many of the events that occur. It’s an interesting read but the book might leave you a little angry.

   

The Girl Who Wrote In Silk

I couldn’t put The Girl Who Wrote In Silk down, it was so good! The past and present are woven perfectly together to unravel history. Although fiction, the brutality and laws surrounding the Chinese in America during that time period are definitely true.

A Chinese-American woman is forced to flee her home when the white population of Seattle make all the Chinese board a ship for China. Something terrible occurs on the ship that will affect the rest of her life.

In the present time, the daughter of a wealthy shipping magnate is torn between taking a job her father pulled strings for or rehabbing her great-aunt’s estate on Orcas Island. When visiting the house she finds a piece of embroidered silk hidden away for generations that helps to tell the story and weaves the past and present together. Love, love, loved it!

   

Need more book recommendations? Take a look at my April book reviews and recommendations.