Category: Book Review

Book Review

Book Review: Manners

Tiffany Renee Harmon

When I was in junior high, I checked out every book on etiquette that I could. I remember scouring that section of the library and checking out every Emily Post or Miss Manners book. I was take them home and read them and pretend that someday I would grow up to be one of those effortlessly chic women with tons of confidence and impeccable manners. I would go to a different dinner party or gala each weekend, and I would know exactly how to behave and what to wear. Now that I’m an adult – I can assure you that I did not become one of those women. I’m far too anxious and awkward. Still, a girl can dream.

I recently read the book Manners by Kate Spade, a phenomenal designer.

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I’ve always loved Kate Spade. She has the perfect blend of classic minimalism and exciting whimsy. Her designs are amazing, so I was so excited to read this book with a more personal flair. I was not disappointed. The book Manners was peppered with fantastic personal anecdotes while still giving lots of practical advice. There’s truly something in here for everyone. Even the most well-mannered etiquette expert would still enjoy fun facts interspersed in this book. Something about this book gave me hope that maybe the adult version of myself that I used to dream about could still come true someday with a little effort. We’ll have to see.

Book Review

Book Review: Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century

Tiffany Renee Harmon

I work in a library, and when a patron came in ranting and raving about Anne Perry committing a murder, I thought maybe she was confused. However, after I googled it, I discovered that Anne Perry had helped to commit a murder when she was just 15 years old. To learn more about this situation, I read the book Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century by Peter Graham.

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I must say that this story was fascinating. Back in the 1950s, Perry was known by her birth name Juliet Hulme. She and her friend Pauline had a bizarrely close relationship and together murdered Pauline’s mother. In this book, Graham did a great job at showing how their home lives and psychological issues might have contributed to what they did. He shows many factors that could have led to the murder and also discusses what happened to both women after they were let out of prison. Hulme served five years in prison because she was minor and then was reinvented as Anne Perry and became a wildly prolific author of murder mysteries.

After learning more about the situation, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to read another Anne Perry book. I feel like I’d just be distracted by thinking of her life and wouldn’t be able to separate that from the fiction. What do you think? If one of your favorite authors committed a horrible crime, would you still be able to read his or her works? I’m very curious!

Book Review

Book Review: Small Great Things

Tiffany Renee Harmon

Jodi is a tour de force in contemporary literature, and her latest book is no exception. Small Great Things is a book that is timely and tackles the difficult subject of racism in America.

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In this book, an African American nurse named Ruth is on trial after a baby in her care dies. This baby’s parents are white supremacists who had requested that Ruth not be allowed to touch their child. But when the baby starts having a medical emergency when Ruth is on duty, she has to make a decision whether to jump in anyway or respect the parents’ racist request.

This book is told from three different perspectives: the nurse, her public defender, and the white supremacist father. It took me quite a while to get into this book, but the ending was really great. While a lot of characters seem to rely on stereotypes, I felt like there were really good intentions by the author, and I think that a lot of people will hopefully understand the world a little better after reading this book.

I found that I identified with the public defender’s perspective more than the other two perspectives, so I enjoyed those sections more. However, the sections from Ruth the nurse’s perspective were also very enlightening. I’m sure Picoult was trying to be balanced by including the white supremacist father’s perspective as well, but I must admit that I skimmed over most of his portions and rolled my eyes a lot. I know people like him exist in the world, but it’s pretty impossible to sympathize with him in any way.

Overall, I think this is a good book with a slow beginning. However, the ending more than makes up for the beginning. I would definitely recommend this one to people looking for contemporary fiction. This doesn’t tackle racism as deeply as other books do, but it is still a good read.

Book Review

Book Review: My Sweet Angel

Tiffany Renee Harmon

I’ve been reading a lot of true crime books recently, and I came across this well-written book: My Sweet Angel by John Glatt.

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This book tells the true story of Lacey Spears, a woman convicted of murdering her son as she suffered from Munchhausen’s by Proxy. Glatt does an incredibly job at telling this story. Unlike many true crime books that start with the crime and reveal details as they were revealed during court, Glatt tells the story linearly. He begins by talking about Lacey in her pre-motherhood days and goes linearly through time until we reach her conviction. I thought this was a very effective way of showing us the progression of Lacey’s decline. She was clearly ill before she was even a mother – there is a lot of evidence that she was obsessed with and hurt other children – but things escalate after she has her own child.

Glatt’s research shows the many lies that Lacey told over the years. She seemed obsessed with being the center of attention, and she used social media to find bigger audiences. She manufactured tragedies to get more and more sympathy. Lacey is a truly fascinating person, and I’m still curious as to whether or not she believes her own lies. Unfortunately, she hurt people to get this attention, and her poor son died as a result of her actions. The evidence definitely shows that she murdered him deliberately. I will say that this book was very hard to get through because of the subject matter. I’m not even a mother and I found it emotionally devastating to read, so I imagine it would be even harder for most mothers to read. Still, Glatt is one of the best true crime writers out there, and I’d love to read more of his style.

Book Review

Book Review: Sarah’s Key

Tiffany Renee Harmon

There have been so many wonderful books written about World War II, but sometimes I get tired of reading them. It’s emotionally difficult for me to read about the holocaust over and over again, so I’ll admit that when I’m in the mood for historical fiction, I often prefer to grab something based in a different time period. However, there is one book that I’m so glad I read because it was quite the gem: Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.

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This book is set in Paris and has two timelines: half of the book takes place during World War II and the other half takes place in the present. Both halves are intricately intertwined as the narrative in the present is also working towards discovering what happened in the aftermath of the events of the past. Typically, when I read books that have two big storylines or timelines, I find myself strongly preferring one over the other and wishing that there was a singular focus, but that was not the case for this book. I actually thought this worked beautifully and I was engaged with both timelines.

This book explores very complicated themes but does so in a relatable and entertaining way. Whenever the past of World War II is getting too dark, the narrative switches to the complicated domestic relationships of the present. It has a good balance of light and dark and past and present and history and domesticity. I read it in one sitting because I was just so enamored that I didn’t want to put it down.

So, for anyone who is looking for historical fiction, I would highly recommend Sarah’s Key. And if you, like me, are getting tired of reading World War II narratives, I assure you that this one can be set apart from the rest. It was a great reading experience.

Book Review

Book Review: Thr3e

Tiffany Renee Harmon

Sometimes, when I’m looking for escapist fiction,  I am just not in the mood for something light and fluffy. I think that exciting, action-packed fiction can work just as well as an escape. One book that really sucked me in with all the danger and plot twists was Thr3e by Ted Dekker.

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Ted Dekker is a Christian author whose books, while containing religious themes, can appeal to an ever wider audience. Even if you are not a Christian, I think that you can absolutely still enjoy his books as well as Frank Peretti’s books. They are very similar and write excellent horror thrillers.

Thr3e was one of the wildest literary rides I’ve been on. It was very fast-paced and I just couldn’t put it down. I had been told that there was a big plot twist at the end (and there is) so I just wanted to discover it as soon as possible. It was well worth the read!

In this book, the character of Kevin receives a mysterious phone call from someone who tells him that he has three minutes to confess his sins to the world or there will be dire consequences. When he ignores the phone all, his car explodes, and he embarks on a path of danger and self-discovery, trying to uncover the identity of caller and making peace with his own past. I don’t want to say too much more because I don’t want to risk revealing too much about the exciting twist, but this is a great book. It was filled with a wonderful amount of suspense and a thrilling plot. I definitely recommend this one for anyone who is looking for a high-octane escape.

Book Review

Book Review: Confessions of a Shopaholic

Tiffany Renee Harmon

Things have been very busy for me lately between work and school and my writing projects. Normally, when this happens, I pick fluffier things for my leisure reading to help me escape for a while each day. One book that I picked up a few years ago during a similar time of life is one that has stuck with me: Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella.

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This is a fun, feel-good romp through the world of journalism and credit card debt. Becky Bloomwood is a funny protagonist who makes lots of mistakes but feels constantly endearing. As she pursues her dreams and has to try to learn how to take care of herself, she finds happiness in unexpected places.

This book inspired a movie by the same title, but it is actually VERY different from the movie. I love them both in very different ways. The movie is actually a bit more lighthearted than the book, but I so enjoyed the tone of the book and the additional character development. Currently, there are 8 books in this series, and I really enjoyed the first 3. The later books in the series were less engaging, but I couldn’t help but continue to read them to see what would happen to Becky Bloomwood.

So, if you’re looking for a fun escape, I highly recommend giving Confessions of a Shopaholic a try.

Book Review

Poetry Review: The Rain in Portugal

Tiffany Renee Harmon

Billy Collins is absolutely one of the best contemporary poets, and his latest collection The Rain in Portugal does a lot of work to show off his strengths.

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Billy Collins is a masterful poet, and he is able to play with convention successfully. In fact, the title of the book is a play on the traditional rhyme, “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.” Most contemporary poetry does not rhyme, and Collins’ deliberate mockery of rhyme with his title and the the title poem works because he understands the rules enough to break them.

This poetry collection of 160 pages would be a great primer for anyone who wants to try to experience poetry. While Collins does play around with convention, he does not take it to the extremes as some contemporary poets do. He is one of the most accessible poets that is out there, and he is perfect for beginners. While his poems are fraught with meaning, they are easy to understand at their surface and they do a lot to prevent reader alienation. This is one of the best collections I’ve read in a long time.

Book Review

Book Review: The Mists of Avalon

Tiffany Renee Harmon

I love mythology and other legendary stories that seem to transcend time. There’s something about these stories that have enchanted us since the beginning of time. Recently, I decided to try to learn more about Arthurian legend, and I stumbled across a great re-imagining of this traditional story from the perspective of the female characters: The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

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While this book leaves out a lot of the original legend, it is a fresh retelling, and it was interesting to see the differences in having the stories told from the female character’s perspective. The much-maligned Morgaine is shown in a much more sympathetic light in this version.

I was awed by the expansiveness of this book. It is almost 900 pages long and seems to encompass the entire Arthurian time period. It’s definitely not a light read, but it is an entertaining one. I felt fully pulled into this world, and I loved the historical insertions about Christianity and Paganism, which I somehow hadn’t considered before during reading about Arthurian legend.

I’m not sure how die-hard scholars of Arthurian legend will feel about this as some things are definitely portrayed differently here, but I think the casual enthusiast or someone who is just interested in learning more about these legends will find the book interesting.

Book Review

Book Review: State of the Onion

Tiffany Renee Harmon

Well, the inauguration has happened, and that made me think about a White House-themed cozy mystery series which starts with the book State of the Onion by Julie Hyzy.

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This series follows White House chef Olivia Paras who stumbles across a murder and a threat to national security. She spends the novel trying to figure out what is really going on while avoiding sharing too much with her secret service boyfriend. And, to make the stakes even higher, she’s in the running to become the next head chef, so she’s trying to make a good impression with the First Lady in order to finally snag the job.

This was a really fun read, and I’m delighted that the next few books which I’ve also read were just as fun. I’m really enjoying this series. In this first book especially, there is even more action and adventure than in the typical cozy mystery. It was a fun romp that is sure to charm mystery lovers. You don’t have to love politics or cooking to enjoy this one!