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Biblioholic Review: Dolci di Love

31 Mar

In Dolci di Love, our lead Lily looks to have everything, a Manhattan apartment with a view, the most perfect husband and a powerhouse career but as we all know, nobody has everything.  Lily’s veneer begins to crack when she discovers a photo hidden in Daniel’s, her husband, golf shoe.

You see Daniel is posing in the Italian countryside with what looks like this perfect other family, a curvy dark-haired woman with a baby boy on her hip and a young girl who is the spitting image of Daniel.  Lily is flabbergasted, especially after all her and Daniel have been through, trying to have their own family.

Lily, in a moment of “tipsy tourism”, books a trip to the small Italian town where the picture was taken to confront her husband and his other family.  Upon arrival, the beauty of Tuscany begins to have a different effect on Lily. She is momentarily distracted by the troubles of finding a place to stay and maneuvering her rental car around the quaint little villages but it does take long for her thoughts to turn back to Daniel and his other family.  Lily hunkers down in little cafe after little cafe, to think about Daniel but mostly feel sorry for herself.  After one too many glasses of the local wine and fully entrenched in self-pity, her GPS of all things, offers some perspective on her situation.

Meanwhile, a group of meddlesome widows have plans of their own and Lily is unknowingly and unwillingly instrumental to their end goal.  The wealthy, handsome man that seems to always be exactly where Lily is, always rescuing her from one bad decision after the next, is no accident.

Lynch specializes in writing stories of women in far flung corners of the world and has clearly spend some time in Italy to capture the flavor of the small hilly towns and local foods and characters.  Lily is supposed to be a Manhattanite, unfortunately the time in New York rings a little less true but the time spent there is so limited it does little to disrupt the flow.

Lily is a flawed woman who is busy pretending to be perfect and through the help of a colorful cast of townsfolk, she begins to stop pretending to be prefect and as a result starts living a perfect life.  Daniel, the wayward husband is key to Lily’s story but barely makes an appearance until the end and for someone so instrumental, he has very little page time.  However the other supporting characters like Luciana, Violetta, Alessandro and Francesca add depth to the story.

If you want to be transported to the hills of Tuscany, sipping a cool, shimmering glass of Prosecco and nibbling on a heart-shaped cookies, this book is for you.  Really, who doesn’t want cookies and sparkling wine?

Dolci di Love by Sarah Kate Lynch was received for free by Boston Book Bums

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Biblioholic Review: A Vintage Affair

6 Oct

How often we overlook history, both world and personal history, refusing to learn our lessons.  At the same time, how often we do we live in the past, refusing to let go of an old argument or a desire to relive our supposed glory days.  Isabel Wolff produces a novel about vintage clothes, a woman at a crossroads and a little lesson about history in A Vintage Affair.

Phoebe Swift’s life has drastically changed in recent months, her best friend has died, she has ended her engagement, quit her job and opened a vintage clothing store.  Phoebe is mired in regret about her relationships but her new store is a great step forward and an avenue to meet new friends that help her move on with her life.

Wolff fills the pages with descriptions of beautiful, elegant suits from the 40’s and fun flirty dresses from the 50’s that transform the wearer’s life, give them hope or confidence or just bring a smile to their face. But none of the gorgeous articles of clothing have the same impact as the little blue child’s coat that Phoebe comes across when purchasing an elderly French woman, Therese Bell’s clothing collection.  This coat has a secret that the owner has carried around for 60 years like an albatross around her neck and near the end of her life, Therese needs to share the secret.  Phoebe is carrying around her own secret that weighs heavy on her conscience and these women create a transformative friendship over their shared secrets.

Phoebe’s job as the proprietress of Village Vintage is to give “these clothes as new lease on life” but actually, it seems the clothes give Phoebe and her customers a new lease on life.

The details of the vintage couture in A Vintage Affair are enough for a fashion lover to turn each page but it is Wolff’s characters and the relationship between Phoebe and Therese is the real substance.  This book is touted as a romantic chick lit but the romance is the weakest and really the least important part of the story.  Although there are flowers, and expensive dinners, the romance is clearly a rebound.  The man of interest in Phoebe’s life is actually the least interesting of all the characters and really plays a minor role in Phoebe learning to let go of the past.

The true heart and soul of the story is the way the characters learn from their own personal histories to accept themselves from Phoebe to Therese to the unhappy young woman who buys the turquoise cupcake dress.

We would have read A Vintage Affair just for the clothing descriptions, like watching Mad Men for the wiggle dresses, but the likability of the characters and the friendships formed are an even better reason to read A Vintage Affair.

A Vintage Affair by Isabel Wolff was purchased for review by the Boston Book Bums

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Biblioholic Review: Everything Is Going To Be Great

25 Aug

Ever read a story where a hapless twenty-something woman with no discernible income, travels the world, having enough sexual misadventures to make even the most liberated blush straight to their ears to find true love by the last chapter.  If you ever read the women’s literature made popular by Helen Fielding and her cohorts, you are, of course, familiar with this plot.

Rachel Shukert tells a similar story in Everything Is Going to Be Great, An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour, except this is a memoir.  Yes, the ill-advised calamity that follows Bridget Jones, Carrie Bradshaw and like actually happens in real life to Rachel Shukert and she lived to tell the tale, not to mention meet and marry Mr. Right.

This is Shukert’s second memoir, and considering the memoirs are sequential and this second book takes place sometime during Shukert’s 24th year of life, she has lead an abnormally audacious life for a twenty-something Jewish girl from the Midwest.

Shukert is sardonic in the telling of her exploits, as the woman says, “…bad sex is a story” and Shukert has plenty of stories to tell.  She is imaginative, sarcastic and crosses the line of TMI more than once, which can all be wickedly funny.  There is clever dialogue which always seems slightly suspect in a memoir.  It is not like one would take notes or tape-record moments that would later be memoir-worthy.

That is not to say the dialogue isn’t authentic but doesn’t it seem like the perfect moment to write exactly what you wish you had said and played back in your mind over and over than the “duh, what?” that most of us would say at any given moment?

Shukert is funny.  She knows it too.  There is a continuing question among the B3 crew that comes to mind in reading Everything is Going to Be Great.  Can you write a memoir without being a narcissist? We don’t know, but we can say that Rachel Shukert seems to fit the stereotype and writes fun memoir in the process.

Everything is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grant Tour was received as a free review copy by the Boston Book Bums

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Biblioholic Review: Waxed

9 Aug

We at BBB support all genres of writing and have more than one occasion posted reviews of books that would fall under the “chick lit” category.  We appreciate the frivolity of the genre as the ultimate in escapism and these busy summer days beg for such relax and read kind of novels.  Waxed, Robert Rave’s second novel, definitely falls into this category.

What made Waxed stand out among the thrones of other beach ready chick lit is it is not written by a “chick”.  This is Rave’s second foray into women’s literature following last year’s Spin.

We have to admit that Rave doesn’t shy away from the nitty gritty, this second book centers on the lives of three sisters in Manhattan as they run a successful business.  They’re personal lives are not nearly as successful as their waxing business.

That’s right, a waxing business.  We’re not talking cars or even eyebrows, this is a successful bikini waxing business.

Now you may ask yourself, what does this man know about bikini waxes?  Well, it turns out that Rave knows quite a lot about bikini waxes, sometimes too much.  Some of Rave’s descriptions are surprisingly similar to stories we heard from our esthetician friend and just as graphic.

You may not recall the the TV show, Related, which had a short run in the mid 2000′s but it followed the dysfunctional lives of four sisters in Manhattan, the Sorelli sisters.  Waxed is reminiscent of this WB drama.  It follows the Impersario sisters from Queens as they live the New York City dream but up ante with aging socialites, handsome lawyers, old boyfriends and gay “boyfriends”. 

Waxed has all drama, high fashion and sibling rivalry you could ask from in a beach read but it delivers more.  We get to know Carolina, Anna and Sophia but Rave really shines in the development of the supporting characters. The character JJ Powers brings a new level of sass to the story, all while being good-hearted and generous.  Tim plays the shining knight sublimely and Dennis is Machiavellian in his pursuit of  Sophia.

If you have a weekend by the water planned, or want to save it until the winter doldrums set in, Waxed is worthy of a Rave.

Waxed by Robert Rave was received as a review copy by Boston Book Bums

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B3: The Week That Was

11 Jul

A brilliant holiday weekend segued into a short week for the B3 crew. We kept up the normal pace providing a trio of reviews; as well as features on e-readers and the habits of online or on foot book buyers.

Monday: We hopped into the Way Back Machine and reviewed Peter Benchley’s 1974 summer-time pot boiler, Jaws. We realized that while the book has its moments, the movie adaptation might actually be the better, tighter story.

Tuesday: With the rise in e-reader use, we wondered what kind of cases, sleeves or covers are being produced for the major e-book readers. But, as stalwart supporters of the less ephemeral printed page, we profiled a few new and old fashioned methods of covering a bound book.

Wednesday: Catherine Delors For the King, a historical piece of fiction, is reviewed by the team. More policier than bodice ripper, For the King surprised us as an engaging mystery.

Thursday: We pondered how people shop online and on foot for books; and whether they are similar, different, better or worse?

Friday: The team grabbed a copy of Cammie McGovern’s Neighborhood Watch at the local library. We cracked the spine to find a tale of an apparently wrongly incarcerated librarian that goes from the high walls of prison to the mental barbed wire of suburbia.

Saturday: After a recent book store trip, some on the team wondered why some ‘classics’ are so slender or downright literary waif-like when compared to their blockbuster, cinderblock sized modern brethren?

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Biblioholic Review: As Husbands Go

28 Jun

As Husbands Go, author Susan Isaacs 12th novel, is the story of the demise of a seemingly perfect life and picking up the pieces afterward, but in as happy go lucky way as possible.

One would think the unexpected, seedy murder of a beloved husband and father in NYC would leave a mother of 4-year-old triplets in despair but Susie, the rich, long island mother and wife has what could only be described as chutzpah.

When her successful plastic surgeon husband is found murdered in a Manhattan call girl’s apartment, she trusts her gut and doesn’t believe the open and shut case the DA’s office is pushing.

Standing up to her overbearing, snobby in-laws and finding unlikely but infallible support in her spunky look alike grandmother, Susie asks questions that nobody wants to hear and finds herself in some potentially dangerous situation in pursuit of the truth.

The main character, Susie,  reminds us of a conversation had with a writer friend a few months back. The conversation was about what would motivate a character who would not normally seek out dangerous situations, knowingly pursue danger and still be believable.  This was a major sticking point for the local writer, but not for Isaacs. The author doesn’t let something like believability stop her heroine from leaving her gated Shorehaven community to knock on the doors of whorehouses or impersonate a reporter to interview the accused hooker.

Maybe Issacs has some chutzpah of her own or a good sense of humor.  I  guess when you name you character Susie B. Anthony Rabinowitz Gersten , you are asking your readers to let loose a bit and enjoy the ride.

This book is marketed as a mystery and yes there is a bit of who-dunnit to the story,but  one wouldn’t expect to find this in the mystery section at your local bookstore. 

As Husbands Go is fun, frivolous women fiction that really belongs more to genre of chick lit than murder mystery.  The wacky characters are more to the point than the mystery and Isaacs doesn’t pretend it is otherwise.

As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs from Simon & Schuster (to be released July 6th) was received for free from the publisher.

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B3: The Week That Was

27 Jun

We came out with a tentacle whipping crack this week with a review of China Mieville’s Kraken and ended with questions whether vampires and werewolves are still “monsters.”

Monday: China Mieville’s Kraken is an occult shell game, bursting with trippy slang, pop-culture riffs & tentacle like plot that twists to climax.

Tuesday: What the bloody umlat!? We wondered why Scandinavian crime fiction has suddenly become so popular? Considering how gentile they seem to us in the States, when did places like Sweden and Norway become hot beds of murderous writings?

Wednesday: Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy is a collection of short stories are concise and deep, not something you often find together. Eleven stories in 232 pages that universally explore loneliness in all sorts of characters.

Thursday: It crossed our minds recently that vampires and monsters when we were growing up were monsters, something to be feared and hunted. Now, the fanged ones are hunky loners with blood lusts but hearts of gold. Are they still monsters to you?

Friday: We tackled the review of Metrophilias, a short story collection that tracked and delved into the nature of lust and desire in 36 stories spread through 36 cities.

Saturday: Sometimes you think you have an iron clad memory when it comes to books read as a kid. Well recently we were reminded of two foundation books that changed one readers life.

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Biblioholic Review: Stay

9 Jun

While the heart of the Boston Book Bum team is Boston bred (minus the accent,) one of the crew is a transplant, originally from very up upstate NY.  And just as we love to read books located in Boston, that member of the B3 cohort also revels in books that take place in Rochester, NY (although there are far less books in that Flour City locale.)

Stay - the debut novel from Allie Larkin- just so happens to be one such story.

Little hometown smiles break out when the city’s favorite grocery store- Wegmans- is seen in type.  If you knew this grocery store, you’d understand (one part Whole Foods, another part adult Disney Land.)  Reading Stay, the transplanted Rochesterian loved trying to figure out where scenes by the canal were set or if the Greek restaurant in another scene is inspired by the Mediterranean eatery in an old neighborhood.

There are enough tidbits in Stay to satisfy our honorary Bostonian’s roots regional lust; however there also enough to the story that if Wegmans didn’t make print, it was engrossing to the final page.

But enough about the locale, to the story, Stay.

Stay is Larkin’s first novel and it’s a love story. There is a girl, there’s a boy and another boy but the real protagonist in this novel is Joe, the German shepherd.  The girl, Van, is a very lonely young woman who struggles as her best friend marries the man of Van’s dreams.  But that is just the tip of Van’s loneliness iceberg.

Her mother is recently deceased and it seems like Van’s grip on her old life is slipping way without another life to grab onto.  Her two best friends are now husband and wife, the only mother figure she has left has bribed her to stay away.

Like so many before her, Van, in a drunken stupor, finds the answer to her loneliness on the Internet.  But not the way you might expect…she buys a dog named Joe from Slovakia.

As the story begins, Van came across as too mired in her own self-pity. Van hardly seems capable of getting herself out of bed but soon she becomes someone worthy of Joe, and realizes she is not as alone as she thought.

Van’s slow transformation- from depressed to purposefully content- begins the moment Joe first slobbers all over her.  Now that there is some one dependent on Van, who needs to be fed, walked and taken care of , she has to pick herself up and focus on the present.

It doesn’t hurt that Joe’s well-being also relies on the local veterinarian, a very hunky lumberjack kind of vet (And in Rochester that’s not actually far from the truth as B3 knows someone who lived next door, literally, to a lumberjack.)

Larkin mixes sharp-witted Van, goofy and lovable Joe, a wounded but open vet; a couple of confused best friends and a Czarina-like mother figure into a funny, sad, evolving story that leaves one satisfied but wanting to know what is next for this ragtag group.

Van’s character is so well-developed that it feels like she can carry any plot and one can’t help but feel like this is just the beginning for Van. It is also really nice to read a story in this genre that doesn’t take place in fast-paced NY, London, or LA; perhaps making it a bit more emotionally accessible to many of readers.

Stay is so very worthy of a read, for at least Joe’s crazy dog antics or to  get a peek inside Van’s adventurous heart.

However you’ll have to wait until tomorrow when Stay hits the shelves to find out where Van’s heart lands next.

Stay, by Allie Larkin, was received as a free Advanced Reader Copy from Dutton.

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Author Q & A: Allie Larkin

8 Jun

Allie Larkin, the author of the STAY, kindly agreed to answer a few BBB questions about her new novel.  STAY- a book about a woman, lost loves and a dog- will hit bookstore shelves Thursday June 10th. The Boston Book Bums team had a chance to read STAY and a review will be coming tomorrow.

And now, Allie Larkin…

Q: How did you get your start as a writer?  And describe your growth from those early days to the publication of Stay?

A: I actually started out in college as a theatre major. I loved the character development work.  I enjoyed taking scripts apart and studying characters beyond the text, but I wasn’t a huge fan of being up on stage (which was kind of an important part of the process).  I eventually dropped out of school, floundered around for a while, and did that whole “finding myself” thing.

A few years later, I went back to school to study Communications.  A few of my professors were really encouraging about my writing. Once I started to focus on writing, things really clicked for me.  STAY started as a short story in one of my college classes. A couple years after I graduated, I joined a writing group, and decided to revise the story.  Eventually, I realized it was a novel.

Looking back at it, I am so thankful for my theatre training.  I use so much of what I learned about character development in acting in developing characters in my writing.  And I’m thankful for the time I spent floundering too.  It was good to have a little more life experience when I went back to college.

Q: How did you get from a manuscript on your laptop to a publisher?  How did you get an agent?  What were your thoughts when you found out you would be published?

A: I read every publishing blog and agent blog I could find.  I also read a book called Give ‘Em What They Want and another called The Sell Your Novel Toolkit, to learn how to write a query letter and synopsis, and get a better understanding of the submission process.  Then I started sending query letters to agents I researched on AgentQuery.com.  My agent, Rebecca Strauss at McIntosh & Otis, pulled my query letter out of the slush pile.

When Rebecca called to tell me that Dutton wanted STAY, I was in Target.  I still don’t remember what I’d run in there for, but I do remember bursting into tears in the middle of an aisle.  I was too excited to be embarrassed.  I called my husband from the parking lot.  I was such a big weepy mess that it took him awhile to realize I was telling him good news.

Q: Obviously, your dogs are a big influence on your writing.  What else inspired Stay?

A: The original short story grew out of a writing exercise. We had to pick words from a worksheet, make a sentence from them, and then use that sentence in a short scene.  My sentence was “Separation is a battle.”  If you read the original writing exercise, there’s no way you’d recognize it as being related to STAY at all.  Van was a secondary character in the scene, but there was something about her that I liked.  From there, it just kept evolving.  Van very quickly turned into a character I fell in love with, and everything else grew from her.  Once I realized she needed a dog, the story took off.

Q: Is the main character Van a little bit of you? Your friends? Your family?

A: It’s funny, because one of my friends read an earlier version of STAY and said, “Oh, Van is SO you!”  But, when another friend – who probably knows me better than anyone – read it, she told me she found it interesting that I’d written a story about someone who was so obviously not me.  I think in broad strokes, Van and I have some strong similarities, but when you get down to the subtle details, we’re quite different. Were she real, she’s absolutely someone I’d be friends with.

Q: What are your favorite types of books to read?

A: I have a pretty broad range of books I enjoy reading, but I’ve always loved women’s fiction.  I love flawed characters, and I tend toward books that are very character driven.

Q: What advice would you give readers about choosing a story when the author is not well known?

A: I’m a big fan of reading the first few pages of a book to see if I’ll like it. I also love getting a chance to chat with the booksellers at my local bookstore.  They are amazing when it comes to having an idea of what I might enjoy reading.

Q: Living in Rochester, how do you think your hometown influenced your novel?

A: Like Van, I’m a transplant to Rochester.  I’ve been here for ten years now.  Rochester is a very easy place to live, and there’s a great community of supportive, creative people here.  So on the technical side of things, Rochester played a big role in my ability to write STAY.  And I really enjoyed using Rochester as the setting and placing Van in environments I know and love. Now, I enjoy it even more.  I went for a bike ride over by the University of Rochester the other day, and rode past the bridge where Van drops her coffee cup into the river.  It made me smile the same way I do when I drive by Cobbs Hill Park, where I met my husband.  There are little reminders of STAY for me all over the city now.

Q: Is there a new book in the works that continues to focus on Van?  If so, what happens next for Van?

A: Officially, there’s nothing in the works yet, but I do have some pretty concrete ideas of what everyone is up to.  I also have some questions about Van and the rest of the gang that I want answered.  I write like a reader. I want to know what’s going to happen, and that’s what keeps me going through the first few drafts.  I really do hope to have the chance to spend time with these characters again, and get some more answers about them.  I’d say more, but I think the questions I have are probably STAY spoilers.

Except for this one: Where is Van’s father?

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Biblioholic Review: 20 Times a Lady

24 May

Boston has been a-buzz these last couple of weeks with the filming of What’s Your Number?, starring Anna Faris, Zachary Quinto and Chris Evans.  There have been Anna sightings here and there, street closures in the North End and there is more movie magic to come since filming continues all over Greater Boston.

With filming in our backyard, we at Boston Book Bums decided to read the source material for What’s Your Number?, Karyn Bosnak’s 20 Times a Lady.  The main character, Deliah, to be played by Faris, has just read a survey that states the average number sexual partners people have is 10.5. Her number is well above that.

Deliah decides at 19 partners, she will stop there until she finds Mr. Right and he will be number 20. Her final number. Umm yeah…you know what’s coming next.

Then Deliah’s employer sacks her, then she gets drunk, then ends up in the sack with Number 20.  Oops.  Number 20 is not Mr. Right.  What now?  She backtracks.  She looks up all her old boyfriends and decides to revisit all of them to see if perhaps Mr. Right is someone she’s already had sex with, then there would be no need to alter her number or live a celibate life.

She drives to Philadelphia to stalk a guy who wasn’t really a boyfriend but a serial hook-up.  He, of course, is a total loser.  So is the next guy, and the next.  You see how the story goes.  Of course, there is a little irony here.  Deliah judging all these men as losers but yet she is the one is blowing her severance check on traveling around the country, stalking ex-sex partners.  If there is ever an occasion to turn your thumb and index finger into the shape of L and stick it your forehead…

Of course, this is a romantic comedy so everything works out in the end.  And why shouldn’t it? Deliah doesn’t look for a new job, she spends all of her money on an ego-driven, obsessive quest. How deep does Bosnak plunge Deliah, without any true emotional repercussion? Well, she has her lead fake a drug addiction to stalk an ex-bf inside a rehab facility.

In the tradition of Hollywood endings, she gets the guy, the job and even improved familial relations.  The Hollywood ending is not the only cliche in the book, in fact, I’m hard pressed to find the non-cliched moments. We’re pretty sure it was Bosnak’s intention to be this cliched, it couldn’t have possibly happened by accident.  It seems Bosnak was energized by watching reruns of Sex and the City, imagining John Cusak from his Say Anything days while drawing inspiration from her personal experience.  After all, Bosnak found her fame by asking the public for a dollar each to pay off her $20,000 debt.  Seriously, it is chronicled in her first book, Saving Karyn. Yeah, the digital age pan-handler. But we guess it’s OK, because she is a bubbly Manhattanite. Right?

Bosnak shows us she can construct a story and write it in an engaging fashion. However, will she fashion something deeper in the future. And should she? Is this the perfect escapist genre book for today’s 20-something reader? Sort of like an emotional ATM with no moral overdraft fees?

I think Faris and cast will do a fine job and this could be entertaining film but given the choice to spend $7 on a 2 hour matinee or  $14 and decidedly more than 2 hours of reading, we’ll choose the movie.  This is one, big old predictable, morally questionable book that will not likely suffer from translation to the big screen.  If anything, it might be improved.

20 Times a Lady was purchased by the Boston Book Bums for our biblioholic enjoyment.

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