Whiplash River

Whiplash River, by Lou Berney.

Shake remembered the real Roland Ziegler. The real Roland Ziegler had been feeling pretty good about himself back in Panama City three years ago, about to walk away with both the money and the merchandise, back to his private island in the Caribbean. Next thing he knew, his hopes had gone up in smoke and he was staring at twenty years in the federal lock.

It was like poker. You might be zooming right along, a killer hand, picking up speed on the flop and the turn. But the game wasn't over yet. That last card, the river, it could jerk you around fast. Shake knew it.

I had never read any of Lou Berney's novels before this one, including Gutshot Straight, to which this is a follow-up novel, but he has been compared to Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard. I actually found him to be more of a Harlan Coben-type - writing good mystery/suspense,  but with some of Elmore Leonard's wittiness thrown in as well.

Ex-con Charlie "Shake" Bouchon lives in Belize and operates a small restaurant. He still never got over his ex, Gina, and he owes a few dangerous people a lot of money, including the gangster Baby Jesus, who is now threatening to kill him if Shake doesn't pay up. When Harrison Quinn shows up at his restaurant to dine one evening and is almost killed by a masked gunman, Shake starts to get nervous; when his restaurant is blown up by the same people shortly after, and Shake now can't pay Baby Jesus, Shake decides it's time to run. Mr. Quinn decides to help him, but it later turns out that there are other people besides Baby Jesus after Shake too.

This novel will definitely keep your attention, although it's not the type I usually read so it did take me a while to get through it. The ending had more than one twist to it, and was very good, as was the writing and the one-liners sprinkled throughout it. I may read Gutshot Straight now when I get a chance, just to read about Shake and Gina's backstory, but this novel can definitely stand on its own; I didn't know until about midway through that Berney's previous novel was about the same core characters. I recommend this book if you're looking for a fast-paced travel and robbery story similar to the Ocean's Eleven movie series or if you're looking for an overall entertaining read.

3.5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I was given a copy of this novel to review. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

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The Chaperone

The Chaperone, by Laura Moriarty.

"Alan. Do you know Leonard Brooks?"

She waited for his nod, though she already knew the answer. Alan knew all of the other lawyers in town.

"Well," she said, "his eldest daughter got into a dance school in New York. He and his wife would like a married woman to chaperone her. For the month of July, and some of August." She rubbed her lips together. "I think I'll go."

She glanced at him only briefly, seeing his surprise, before she turned back to her window.

Louise Brooks was an actual silent film star of the 1920s and '30s, though I had not heard of her until reading this novel. There's a quote from her at the beginning of the book which tipped me off that she was real, and I Googled her and read a bit about her after I finished the novel. She was known for having a "lively" private life, so to say, and eventually her drinking and carousing ended up negatively impacting her film career. She wrote an autobiography called Lulu in Hollywood that was very well received, though, and was said to have a quick wit and was sharp in her writing.

The Chaperone focuses on Louise in the summer of 1922, or more specifically, the chaperone, Mrs. Cora Carlisle, that accompanied her to New York City that summer when she took classes with the Denishawn dance company. Cora has her own reasons for going to New York - she was an orphan there and was shipped to Kansas on a train, where a nice family adopted her, and she wants to see if she can find any information about her birth mother. Her husband, Alan, knows this is why she wants to go to New York, but no one else knows she was originally from there. Louise's goal is to eventually join the dance company at the end of the summer, but since she is only 15 her parents insist a chaperone go to New York with her. Cora ends up finding more about her past than she would have liked, and Louise does eventually earn a coveted spot in the Denishawn dance group; after that, the book follows them all the way into Cora's elderly years.

This book was very well-written. In an interview of the author by fellow author Curtis Sittenfeld on the Amazon page for the book, Moriarty says that she's always been intrigued by Louise Brooks, and that the story of her first going to NYC with a 36-year-old chaperone was a true one. This novel, though in the third-person, sets out to tell the story of that chaperone. On the outside, Cora looks like a very traditional housewife; we soon learn that her home situation isn't exactly what it appears to be, and although Louise sees her as a "stick-in-the-mud" type persona, she has some secrets she's keeping from her.

The characters were all very relatable in this book too, regarding their motivations, and it may just inspire you to watch one of Louise's movies from the black and white era after you finish it.

4.5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I was compensated and given a copy of this novel to write this review for the BlogHer Book Club. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

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Shatter Me

Shatter Me, by Tahereh Mafi.

He opens my door with immense difficulty and I realize someone's hurt him where I can't see it. Warner's words come back to me and I recognize his airy good-bye as a warning. A warning that severs every nerve ending in my body.

Adam will be punished for my mistakes. For my disobedience.

I want to bury my tears in a bucket of regret.
...
"The purple dress," he says, his voice broken and a little breathy like it hurts to inhale. I have to wring my hands to keep from running to him. "Wear the purple dress." He coughs. "Juliette."

I will be the perfect mannequin.

It's no secret that I love dystopian lit, and this is one of the best examples of it I've seen in quite some time. Ever since Juliette was little, she's found that when people touch her they die - at least if she holds them long enough. Her parents were ashamed of her, and after an accident in a grocery store when she kills a little boy, they send her away. She eventually ends up in the mental institution, where she lives in isolation for about 3/4 of a year, until they give her a roommate: Adam. Juliette knows Adam - they went to grade school together - but she thinks that he doesn't remember her.

Soon, though, they are taken from their cell, and Juliette finds out it was all a set-up. Warner, a leader in The Reestablishment, has been obsessed with Juliette forever, and he wants to use her for evil - to make her torture their enemies. Adam is a soldier for The Reestablishment but he's not entirely what he appears to be; for some reason, Juliette is able to touch him with no consequences. Adam and Juliette make plans to escape, but first they have to get past Warner and out of his locked-down fortress.

I read on the author's website that this film is being optioned by 20th Century Fox (see below for my cast picks), and it would make an awesome movie. It's going to be a trilogy, too: the next mini-book, Destroy Me, will be released on October 16, 2012 as an e-book, and will be told from Warner's perspective, as he's still obsessed with getting Juliette back.

The way this novel was written was almost poetry - filled with metaphors - and I loved it up until the very end, when it kind of veers in an X-Men direction, though that part is still interesting. I am very interested to read the next book, and also the second full book in the series, Unravel Me, which will be out on February 5, 2013, and the last book, which is unnamed and will be released fall 2013.

5 stars out of 5.

*Cast picks for the movie version:
Adam: Soldier. Very muscular, intense blue eyes, blonde. Age 17 or 18.
My pick: Liam Hemsworth.
Liam was last seen in The Hunger Games, and he's who I was picturing as Adam when I was reading the novel. He's 22 but could definitely play 17/18.

Juliette: very small and fragile. Long dark hair, very pretty. Age 17.
My pick: Either Aubrey Plaza, Amanda Seyfried, or Ellen Page.
This was hard to "cast." All of these actresses are talented, but I'm not sure they would make a good Juliette ... I mostly cast them based on their looks.

Warner: Age 17. Refers to himself as "a perfect specimen" at one point in the novel. Obsessed with Juliette and with power.
My pick: either Alex Pettyfer - but he would have to bulk up for the role - or Sebastian Stan, though Stan is almost 29 so probably too old for the part. I could see Pettyfer playing an evil role, and I've seen Sebastian Stan in evil roles before, and he'd be great as Warner.

Kenji: Age 17 or 18. Another soldier in The Reestablishment who we later find out is a mole. Friend to Adam who later helps him and Juliette immensely.
My pick: Leonardo Nam ... but he's probably too old. He's exactly who I picture as Kenji. Currently almost 33 years old, though.

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The Girl Below

The Girl Below, by Bianca Zander.

Mistaking me for Hillary meant Peggy didn't know, or had forgotten, that my mother was no longer alive. When people forgot I often couldn't bring myself to correct them. Sometimes they started reminiscing about Hillary's beauty, the way she'd lit up a room with her grace, or her legendary abilities to sew and cook, and by the time they asked the appalling but inevitable question, "How is she, your dear mother, Hillary?" the weight of their admiration bore down upon me so hard I told them what they wanted to hear. "She moved to Scotland to look after Grandma," I'd explained to one old acquaintance, telling another that she'd gone to India in the midnineties to find herself and was still there on an ashram. Lousy fibs but much kinder on us all. Everyone had loved my mother - no one more so than I - and if I never said out loud that she'd died, then I sometimes believed that she hadn't.

Suki is a complicated narrator, and this novel was incredibly detailed; therefore, don't expect it to be a quick read. She's also an unreliable narrator, or so we think - she's either going crazy or really seeing apparitions and is able to time travel. Yet, the novel doesn't fully revolve around that, and it makes up a small part of what is the story of Suki's life.

Suki Piper fled to New Zealand from London ten years ago, in 1993, after her mother died from cancer. Her father had started a new family with another woman many years before, and he happens to live in New Zealand. Now, in 2003, she has decided to return to London, only to find that the friends she has left there aren't really her friends anymore, and the city as a whole has changed drastically. She goes to her old apartment building to visit Peggy, an older lady who used to live upstairs from them, and Peggy is in declining health. Her daughter Pippa offers Suki a job to stay in the apartment and care for Peggy, and since Suki has no other living options she accepts. This re-starts Suki's relationship with the family, as well as with Pippa's family - her husband Ari and 16-year-old son Caleb - and she soon finds herself more attached than she thought she would be.

The novel jumps back and forth between 2003 London and Suki's history, starting in 1981 London and continuing through her move to New Zealand. Suki remembers an epic party that her parents threw in 1981, and it is that party that she visualizes when she finds herself in the garden as it was then, late one night. There was a bunker there that night that her father decided they should investigate, and she almost died there, which was a traumatic experience for her. It is this night that Suki is able to "time travel" to, even when she travels with Pippa's family to Greece as Peggy becomes unwell.

Suki's story is definitely interesting; one of the other characters comments at one point that Suki has had a "hard life" but should now try living more for the present. Because the novel is so incredibly detailed, it took me a while to get through it, but overall the novel is worth reading because of this. In the Q&A with the author in the back of the book, the author was asked if she could see this being a movie, and I think it would definitely be a great movie - it spans many years, so a lot of actors and sets would be involved, but if the script stuck to the book it could be something spectacular.

3.5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I received a copy of this novel to review. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

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What Alice Forgot

What Alice Forgot, by Liane Moriarty.

My husband just yelled at me like I was his worst enemy. My lovely Nick. My Nick. I want to tell him about it, because he'd be so angry if he ever heard somebody speak to me like that. He's the first person I want to tell when someone upsets me; my foot pressing on the accelerator, desperate to get home from work just to tell him, the moment I tell him, the moment his face lights up with fury on my behalf, it's better, it's fixed.

Nick, you will never believe how this man spoke to me. You will want to punch him in the nose when you hear. Except it's so strange, because it was you, Nick, you were the man.

Alice Love bumps her head one day in her spin class, in 2008, and when she wakes up, she has lost all her memories from the past ten years. In 1998, she was blissfully married to her husband, Nick, and pregnant with their first child; now, in 2008, they are in the middle of a nasty divorce and she has three children, two daughters and a son. She's also turned into the kind of woman who exercises every day, is mean to her neighbor, and is bent on getting whatever she wants. Alice is horrified when she learns about all this, and she wants to reconcile with her husband, but he knows that when she gets her memory back, she will hate him. The same as with her sister, Elisabeth, who has tried to conceive these past ten years but never been able to. Alice must also learn how to be a mother to three children and try to piece together her memories, so that "Young Alice" and "Present-day Alice" can again reunite.

This book was fantastic. I've never read anything else by Liane Moriarty, but I am definitely going to read more of her novels after this. The characters are Australian, and have little British-isms, almost (they say "Mum" instead of "Mom," etc.), but they are all very relatable. The humor in the novel was great, too - a few of the lines made me laugh out loud, as "Young Alice" tries to figure out what she can't remember from the past ten years. There are also side plots with Elisabeth, Alice's sister, and her writing to her shrink (keeping a diary), and her grandmother, Frannie, writing to a long-long ex-fiance, both of which help to enlighten us about Alice's situation too and how her relationships with both had changed over the past ten years.

I definitely recommend this book, and I can't wait to pick up some of Ms. Moriarty's other novels soon.

4.5 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I received payment and a copy of this book to review as part of the BlogHer Book Club. The opinions expressed, however, are my own.

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Size 12 and Ready to Rock

Size 12 and Ready to Rock, by Meg Cabot.

I shoot him a dirty look since he's spoiled my plan, but he only frowns at me. Cooper doesn't like it when I "diminish my extraordinary accomplishments," as he puts it, by not introducing myself as the Heather Wells, youngest artist ever to top the Billboard charts with a debut album, and the first female to have both an album and a single simultaneously at number one (Sugar Rush).

Honestly, though, what person who is practically thirty goes around reminding people of something they did when they were fifteen? That's like using a picture of yourself as your high school's quarterback or homecoming queen as your Facebook photo.

I am a huge fan of Meg Cabot's, as you can probably tell since I've reviewed a few of her books here, so I was happy when I was offered the chance to review her newest novel, book #4 in the Heather Wells series. I've read all of the previous Heather Wells books but it's been a while; luckily, you don't need to know her backstory in order to enjoy this installment, as Cabot gently reminds her readers of salient details throughout.

Heather is again working at "Death Dorm," aka Fischer Hall, over the summer, along with a few student employees that work twenty hours a week for room and board. It's relatively peaceful there, until Tania Trace, famous pop diva and the wife of Heather's ex, Jordan Cartwright, decides to move her Rock Camp for teenagers there, as their previous location in the Catskills didn't work out. Heather is currently engaged to Jordan's brother, Cooper, but they're keeping it a secret for now - the Cartwright family doesn't even know they were dating, actually - but this all changes when Cooper is hired to be Tania's bodyguard, and Heather must find out who sent Tania some poisoned cupcakes that one of Tania's crew ate and died soon thereafter.

Tania technically stole Jordan from Heather, and this novel provides Tania with a more "human" face, as she's pregnant with Jordan's child and wanting to find the (spoiler) man she used to be married to, as he's now extorting her for money to keep that secret out of the press. Cabot's writing is always hilarious, and I found myself laughing out loud at some of the lines, a la The Princess Diaries, another series of hers. The Heather Wells series will appeal to mystery lovers as well as fans of smart writing and snappy dialogue, and although it can be read as a stand-alone novel I recommend starting the series at the beginning, since the other books in the series are very good too.

Size 12 and Ready to Rock will be in stores on July 10, 2012. 4 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I received an e-galley of this book to review. However, the opinions expressed here are my own.

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Beach Colors

Beach Colors, by Shelley Noble.

Nick watched the girls join another girl. His heart tightened - just a little - when he saw her halo of red curls. She had been his talisman ever since the summer after his father died. Then she was just a kid, sharing his table at the library. Drawing pictures with the tip of her tongue pressed to the corner of her mouth as she concentrated. Pushing curls out of her face with an impatient hand. He could hardly wait until school was out and she came back to sit across from him.

Only this summer was different. She had grown up, become one of them, and that put an end to everything.

He would become a history professor someday. The army would pay for his education. And she would become - he didn't know. He just knew that she would always be a summer person, and he, just a townie.

This novel is being marketed as "the perfect book to drop in your beach bag," and I agree with that; however, at times it seemed more of a romance novel than just fiction, though generally the writing was decent throughout. Margaux Sullivan has returned to Crescent Cove, Connecticut, after her slimy husband Louis took their money and ran. Her fashion line, M Atelier, is broke, and so is she; luckily, her family has a beach house in Crescent Cove to which she is able to retreat. Everyone is glad to see her back in town, especially interim Chief of Police Nick Prescott, who had a major crush on her when she was a teenager. His life has become more complicated, though, with the arrival of his nephew Connor, after his mother abandoned Connor and his father died overseas while fighting for his country. Margaux must figure out what she wants to do with her life, and Nick must figure out if he and Margaux can strike up a relationship of sorts, or if she is just going to be another "summer person" again and go back to New York when the summer is over.

I liked the characters in this novel a lot, as they were all very easy to relate to. Margaux wants to start up another fashion line, but she's broke and will need help to do this. Nick puts his family first but can't help himself when it comes to Margaux, who likes him but finds him rather distant. The entire town, because it's so small, is super nosy, and everyone knows everything about all its inhabitants; when Nick spends the night at Margaux's for the first time, everyone is buzzing about it the next day.

However, I felt that sometimes the novel was hard to get through. The story was good, but I often found myself wishing the pace would pick up a bit, or that one of the characters would make decisions faster, if that makes sense. You could blame this on the fact that it's set in a beach town and therefore life there doesn't move fast; or you could blame it on the writing itself. My consensus is that this novel is fine for a "beach read," as it's being sold as, but don't expect it to become one of your favorite novels.

3 stars out of 5.

*Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of this novel to review. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

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