Book Review: Save What's Left

 

I loved this book!  I started it late one evening and that's the only reason I didn't read it in one day!

 

Kathleen Deane is a woman who, due to an unexpected life event, uproots her life and moves to another state.  I totally related to this because I did this last year.  The author discloses the year Kathleen was born and it was the year before I was born so I also had that in common with the heroine of the story - similar life experiences.

 

Kathleen moved to this town because it had been "presented" to her as charming and lovely and just heaven.  (Same for where I moved - difference was I had been here before and came to that conclusion on my own and not just told that's how it was, like Kathleen.)  But when she arrives, she finds that things aren't as she believed and she finds it hard to fit in.  She ruffles a few feathers.  (seriously, with minor modifications, this could be MY story!)

 

What I liked about it is that it was relatable, at least for my situation.  It made me have to laugh at it - as well as laughing at the situation I find myself in!  It's kind of like how you find humor in someone else's "disasters" (for lack of a better word) but in this case, it was even more funny because I could see how it applied to my own situation.

 

So, I mentioned Kathleen experienced an unexpected life event that caused her to make the move, right?  Well, her situation was that her husband of thirty years left her and went on a world cruise to "find himself".  He bores of the cruise life and shows up at her house one day, unannounced, with an Airstream in her driveway that he decides to live in . . . in her driveway!  Tom (her husband) starts meeting people and everyone LOVES him - adores him even, he fits right in while Kathleen remains the town pariah.  Tom adopts a dog (Roger), that he walks daily.  Everyone loves Roger too.

Things happen and while Tom finds himself recovering from an accident and Kathleen is in the hospital for poisoning, their daughter, Hattie, shows up unexpectedly (and doesn't know her parents are dealing with medical issues).  While there, she takes up walking Roger.  When asked who she is, she tells people she's Kathleen's daughter and no one knows who Kathleen is, but they know Roger and know he belongs to Tom.  This was hysterical to me.  Kind of reminded me of What About Bob? where Bill Murray's character endears himself to everyone while Richard Dreyfuss' character is hated - I just found it funny.

The ending was a bit of a letdown but it wasn't that it was bad - it just didn't meet the high bar set by the rest of the book's story, in my opinion.  There is more to the story than I've conveyed here but I really enjoyed it and it made me laugh - a LOT.  I'd recommend it to anyone who has picked up their life and moved somewhere new or even if you've just considered picking up your life and moving, or if you just want to laugh.  It was a fun read!  😀

Book Review - Central Park West

I hadn't intended to read James Comey's book, Central Park West but I did put a hold on an ebook copy at the library.  There weren't many people in line for the ebook copy and there were no people in line for the TWENTY THREE copies of the audio book the library had gotten copies of, which I found interesting.  By the time the library emailed me that a copy of the ebook was available, I decided to check it out.  The reviews on amazon were good.  There was a one star review but the review was basically "I don't like James Comey" with nothing about the book so I took that with a grain of salt.

Very early on I noticed something that continued throughout the book - he "head hopped" . . . a LOT.  And the writing was bad, in my opinion.  The first head hopping incident I came to, I thought I had zoned out and missed the scene change for the new head we were in, storytelling-wise.  So I went back to see where I lost the thread, only to realize, I hadn't missed the scene change - he just changed points of view mid-scene.  In at least one instance, he did this mid-paragraph!  It was very distracting.  I've been told that only Nora Roberts can successfully head hop.  I've met Nora Roberts and James Comey is no Nora Roberts!

There were a lot of "data dumps" as well. We're talking data dumps that added NOTHING to the story, literally nothing!

He would describe things - like rooms - without the benefit of anyone's point of view.  It wouldn't be something like "Louise felt the history of the courthouse,, every time she entered the majestic building" followed by a description of the building and what struck her most about it and what she thought about it.  No, he would start with a data dump about the building - sans description - before going into Louise's point of view . . . in the same scene.

 

For the record, I don't think "Louise" was one of his characters but they were so unmemorable that I don't recall any of the character's names!  Which brings me to another point.  I like character driven stories.  If I don't care about the characters, I'm not likely to like the book.  There wasn't one single character that I found sympathetic in the book.  It's a murder mystery / thriller and I couldn't have cared less who did the killing or why.  I only kept reading because I figured it HAD to get better.  It did not.

The characters in the book made me question his competence as our attorney general (and I know he no longer is).  He said his wife corrected some things he got wrong in processes and procedures (I guess she holds some position in the judicial system?).  Shouldn't a former AG know those things?

Books borrowed from the library can only be borrowed for two weeks at a time.  Ebooks get snatched back at the end of that time, whether you've finished the book or not.  I was so disinterested in the book that I didn't think I would be able to finish in time so I thought I'd nab one of the 23 copies of the audio book, only to discover that the library had chosen not to keep those versions (I guess since no one seemed interested in them) and was literally trying to finish the book with minutes left before it was snatched back.

I did finish the book and all I can say is, I wish I could get the time I wasted on reading it back.  Not a book I would recommend and I don't understand all the high ratings it has gotten on amazon.  The one star review was pretty accurate and I don't think that person even read the book