book review Archives

Malignant Summer

Bad Dreams, Bad Storytelling Author: Tim Meyer Malignant Summer starts with a coming-of-age treasure-hunt-across town but ends with the Mother of Dead Dreams and a haphazard team of kids trying to save the world. As the plot slowly, slowly, slowly inches across five hundred plus pages, the kids (mostly three interchangeable boys) make dick jokes and speculate about the end of the world and their friendships. Meanwhile, a malevolent entity that may or may not have something to do with the insidious chemical plant in town is invading dreams, sending dire warnings, and claiming the town’s children with a rapid cancer, [...]

Frances Carden2023-12-19T18:31:12-07:00December 19th, 2023|Tags: book review, horror, read, reading|

Great Gimmelmans, The

Coming-of-Age as a Bank Robber Author: Lee Matthew Goldberg In this high-speed, crime-ridden, coming-of-age-tale, twelve-year-old Aaron Gimmelman watches his family lose everything, go on the run, and turn into a group of murderous bank-robbers. The real kicker? Aaron is the sensible member of the family, the only realist in the disturbed bunch, and he started his own family down this road of crime. It begins with the stock crash of ’87. Formerly affluent, high-roller Barry Gimmelman (the father) is suddenly broke. Everything was bought through debt, through promises, through the assurance that the future held success. It’s all going back now. [...]

Frances Carden2023-12-14T19:36:05-07:00December 14th, 2023|Tags: book review, crime, drama, read, reading, thriller|

Grapes of Wrath, The

A Nihilistic Classic Author: John Steinbeck Tom Joad, convicted murderer, is walking the long, dusty road to his Oklahoma home. He doesn’t regret what he did – he would do it again. But he does miss his family and wonder what happened to them while he was in jail. What he finds, after teaming up with an ex-preacher (Casey) on the road, is his family preparing to abandon their only home, the farm that has been with them for generations. It seems that there is hope, there is money, to be made in California. The government is taking over the farms, [...]

Frances Carden2023-12-08T16:24:56-07:00December 8th, 2023|Tags: book review, classic, grapes of wrath, historical fiction, history, read, reading|