Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club set a new standard for memoirs when it came out in 1995. In it, Karr tells the story of her well-educated, artistic, alcoholic mother and the uneducated, hard-drinking, doing-the-best-he-can dad her mother married as they struggled with life in east Texas and Colorado. It isn’t a story of a financial struggle;Continue reading “Book Review: The Liars’ Club”
Author Archives: Sandra Yeaman
Book Review: The Glass Castle
In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls tells of her unorthodox upbringing by her artist mother and inventor father, during which she and her siblings—older sister Lori, younger brother Brian, and younger sister Maureen—survived frequent moves across the country, inconsistent access to school, and long periods of poverty so severe the children had nothing to eatContinue reading “Book Review: The Glass Castle”
Book Review: The City
Dean Koontz knows how to tell a story. And his readers know there will be some fantasy, magic, or horror in his stories. In The City, there is no horror, and the fantasy or magic is understated, treated almost symbolically, as nine-year-old piano prodigy Jonah Kirk’s tells his story of confronting evil and protecting hisContinue reading “Book Review: The City”
Book Review: Death at Bishop’s Keep
At the end of the 19th century, plucky, Irish-American Kathryn Ardleigh, orphaned as a child and raised in New York by an aunt and uncle on her mother’s side of the family, is without employment due to the recent death of her employer. Satisfied that she will be able to support herself minimally as anContinue reading “Book Review: Death at Bishop’s Keep”
Book Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns
During years of occupation by the Soviet Union and inter-tribal warfare in Afghanistan, two Afghan women of different generations and regions and very different socioeconomic situations find marriage to the same older man the immediate solution to stay alive when each loses her parents. But marriage brings its own problems, including brutal beatings by theContinue reading “Book Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns”
Book Review: Uprising
The young adult historical novel, Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix, is a well-researched and well-written story of immigrant teenage girls forced to take on adult responsibilities without protection from family or education. One of the three chief characters is the exception–she has abandoned the wealth and advantages of her birth when she realizes her fatherContinue reading “Book Review: Uprising”
Book Review: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
In On Writing, King introduces himself through his early life experiences, suggests what tools I should keep in my toolbox, and then shares what works for him when he writes. His unpretentious writing style made me feel as though King were sitting in my living room, sharing a cup of coffee along with his stories.Continue reading “Book Review: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”
Book Review: The Crossing
Retired LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch reluctantly agrees to help his half-brother defense attorney Mickey Haller investigate a murder Haller is convinced his client did not commit. Along the way, Bosch crosses lines he never wanted to face, including involving his former partner in spite of the risk to both her reputation and career. ConnellyContinue reading “Book Review: The Crossing”
Book Review: The Twleve Tribes of Hattie
The novel tells the story of each of Hattie’s 11 children and one grandchild over a period spanning 1925 to 1980 with Hattie and her husband, August, as the only continuing presence in each chapter. Beginning with Hattie as a 17-year-old mother of twins in Philadelphia, two years after her father died in Georgia andContinue reading “Book Review: The Twleve Tribes of Hattie”
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