booksdanilikes

The Holdout by Graham Moore

Hello Kittens! I’ve got a courtroom thriller for you today. Even as I write it I can’t believe that this is what I’m offering you right now. Can I tell you a secret? Courtroom thrillers are some of my least favorite books of all time. I had a few unfortunate Grisham and Turow experiences and I’ve never fully recovered. This book, however, may just have turned things around. Not for Grisham or Turow. Nope. That is never going to happen again. But Graham Moore has redeemed this category for me. He’s given us pleasant but flawed characters and a story where you want to root for everyone and no one all at the same time. Everyone’s a winner and everyone’s a loser with this one. It’s complex but deeply satisfying. It seems like everyone has been talking about this one so I hope you all will enjoy it as much as I did.

Title: The Holdout

Author: Graham Moore

Author website: https://mrgrahammoore.com/

Publisher: Random House

Publish date: February 18, 2020

ISBN: 9780399591778

Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Summary:

It has been 10 years since Maya Seale sat on the jury that handed down the fate of Bobby Nock. In the years since, Maya has been vilified by the court of public opinion and has been publicly blamed by other members of the jury for the outcome of the case. As far as the general public is concerned, that jury let a guilty man go free, and they did it because of Maya.

In the years since, Maya has built a good life. She’s a lawyer, fighting legal battles with the perspective that she gained from her time as a juror. She believes that their verdict was the right one, even with everything that has happened since. But when she is approached in the courthouse by another one of the jurors from that trial, one who quickly and vehemently threw her under the bus after the trial, she is forced to confront what she has spent years trying to move on from.

A podcast turned Netflix-special called Murder Town is reuniting the original jurors to look at the case on its 10-year anniversary. Maya is reluctant to participate. The trial is done and laid to rest and no significant new evidence has ever appeared, or so she thinks. This other juror swears to her that he has found new evidence that proves their verdict was wrong beyond the shadow of a doubt. He won’t tell her what he knows yet, but his belief in this new evidence is absolute.

Against her better judgment, and with outside pressure guiding her decisions, Maya ultimately joins the other jurors for the reunion. Unfortunately, that decision will lead to serious consequences for Maya when a juror ends up dead and Maya is the prime suspect. Now she will have to face the justice system in yet another new role. Will she get the kind of juror that she was? Does she want to?

Why I liked it:

This story is a fascinating look at the justice system that we think we know. As these jurors discover: the lawyers are there to tell a story, the judge is there to make sure everyone plays by the rules, and the jury is there to make sure that justice is served. Can you ever be truly sure about something like this? Aren’t they all guilty of something?

I like how Moore handled the racial tension throughout the story. We got some really powerful monologues about identity and the role it plays in decision making. I also really enjoyed that all of the characters were changed so deeply by their participation on the jury, some for better and some for worse.

I also loved all of the twists. At one point or another I suspected nearly everyone throughout the course of this novel. While some of my guesses turned out to be correct, and I did guess a major plot twist, there was still plenty that I didn’t see coming.

Favorite quotes:

“Out here, maybe somebody goes to jail. Maybe somebody doesn’t. But we never know the truth. The real, whole, definite truth. It’s impossible.” pg. 112

“Their punishment for being people who demanded answers was that they would be forced to go on in perpetuity with their doubts.” pg. 183-184

“It wasn’t that any of them made Carolina nervous. It was that once you combined them all…well, somehow it felt like these people were going to collide against each other like marbles. They were going to send each other in directions none of them saw coming.”

What I would like to change:

This is such a small thing…but there are spoilers for 3 Agatha Christie books included, and I don’t feel like it was necessary. I haven’t read much Agatha Christie, and maybe these were well-known plot twists, but they weren’t known to me and I was a little miffed.

Disclaimer: No disclaimer necessary. I chose this book for one of my Book of the Month subscriptions.

My library rating: I wish this could have been a completely unobjectionable recommendation, but there is a sexual assault (it mostly takes place off the page) and a sex addiction and there are a few scenes involving drugs. It’s really not that bad and I still think it would be a great book club selection for talking about the criminal justice system.

lemonade_icon 4 glasses of lemonade= a book you could recommend to a book group or anybody who reads. You might find controversial subject matter, but it is handled delicately.

My personal preference rating: I gave this title 5 stars. I’m not a fan of courtroom thrillers usually, but this one was fast-paced, had entirely believable characters, more red herrings than you can shake a stick at, and still managed to expound upon some deep issues. It was a joy to read.

Additional Info:

Investigation Discovery started a book club recently and they picked this as one of their selections. You can find more information about the ID Book Club here.

The Field Guide to the North American Teenage by Ben Philippe

Hello Kittens! It’s been a while since I went in blind to read a book, but I saw this title recommended a few times on BookTube and I decided to just take a shot. I’m taking you back to high school with this read. In the middle of reading this story, I was feeling the nostalgia. I was a nerdy semi-jock with a close-knit but utterly weird and unpopular group of friends. While the main character in this book falls into decidedly different categories than I did, his experience still rings true. This book is full of witty teenage sarcasm and drama. You may be thanking your lucky stars that this wasn’t your high school experience, but this fish-out-of-water story is thought-provoking and I hope it takes your mind off of everything else right now.

Title: The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

Author: Ben Philippe

Author website: http://benphilippe.com/

Publisher: Balzer + Bray (HarperCollins imprint)

Publish date: January 8, 2019

ISBN: 9780062524134

Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Summary:

Norris curses Texas and Stephen Fuller Austin the very first day he and his mother land in Austin, TX. He’s a black French Canadian kid from Montreal and he can tell before they even finish their airport layovers that he is a spectacle for the American people. They don’t get his hockey jersey, they openly stare, and they are resistant to his efforts to educate them. Thus begins our introduction to the sassy teen who is the focus of this YA novel. Norris is less than enthused to be starting over midway through his high school career. The only thing worse than his first impressions of his new classmates and teachers are their first impressions of him.

With a mouth that speaks long before his brain fully engages sometimes, Norris is perfectly happy to wait out the next few years in exile, not interacting with the natives. He takes to jotting down his observations in a diary given to him by an overenthusiastic guidance counselor on his first day of school. Considering how his writings revolve around examinations of the Texan-American species, with entries about “jocks and cheerleaders”, “Male bonding”, and “The American Prom”, the diary can be considered a minor character in the story.

As time goes on, Norris makes a few connections with the locals, trying out several new experiences. With a cheerleader named Madison acting as an unofficial guide to romance and a girl named Aarti acting as his unofficial guide to living, Norris is in better hands than he realizes. He even manages to form a hockey team with the help of a persistent new “friend” named Liam. Texas may not be as horrible as he first imagined (except for the relentless heat). Just when things start looking up, everything comes crashing down in typical teenage drama fashion.

While the book comes off as light reading, the truth is it examines several hot button topics in American culture. In particular, we get looks into the immigrant experience, pervasive racism, homophobia, mental health, and the continual threat that everyday life holds for young black men. None of these get a particularly deep examination, but the everyday nature of how Phillipe treats them in the story is almost more damning than any intense scrutiny would have provided. Norris and his friends are all encountering different aspects of these subjects and they all handle them in different fashions, not all of which are completely healthy. The story is not without consequences for typical teenage decision-making, and the inherent lessons are clear for any reader.

Why I liked it:
A lot of YA treats relationships at an accelerated pace, and I really appreciate that Phillipe didn’t artificially speed those up in here. The friendships and the romances develop at a reasonable pace. Old slights aren’t completely forgotten even once they are forgiven. That lines up a lot more closely with the teenage experience that I remember than a lot of YA does. (Seriously though. Pay attention to the timeline in the next couple of YA romances you pick up and see how unnaturally fast the relationships develop.)

I also really enjoyed finding out in the Acknowledgments section that some of the characters are based off of people in the authors life. In particular, I really like knowing that there is a real Aarti out there somewhere, hopefully taking over the world.

What I would like to change:

I know it’s more realistic this way, but I was hoping for a less ambiguous ending. I can’t say too much without spoilers, but there were some things I was hoping for a resolution on.

Disclaimer: No disclaimer needed. I borrowed a digital version of this title from my library.

My library rating: There were a fair number of curse words in here, including sexual and racial slurs, so I’m going to limit the recommendable audience just slightly.

lemonade_icon 4 glasses of lemonade= a book you could recommend to a book group or anybody who reads. You might find controversial subject matter, but it is handled delicately.

My personal preference rating: I gave this one 3 stars. I liked it but didn’t love it. That won’t stop me from recommending it to most people who are looking for a good contemporary YA story.

Fate of the Fallen by Kel Kade

Huzzah huzzah, Kittens! A library near me (not mine yet) is opening for curbside this week and I might get a few books! Also, (for shame) I put in an order for 9 books that should be coming in soon. After 8 weeks of being good and only ordering 1 book from Amazon, I finally cracked under the pressure. Being home so much has given me too much time to peruse the internet looking for recommendations and since I have now discovered BookTube, my TBR is doomed. But in a round of kudos for me, today I am sharing a book that I already had on my shelves and had been meaning to get to for a few months! Go me! It’s a fantasy book that features a guy who’s not-your-average-hero/not-really-a-hero-at-all. It’s funny, beautifully written, and the start of a series. Give it a try if you thought you’d like Game of Thrones but were put off by all of the blood, gore, and general horrid nature of those characters.

Title: Fate of the Fallen Fate of the Fallen (The Shroud of Prophecy, #1)

Author: Kel Kade

Author website: https://kelkade.com/

Publisher: Tor

Publish date: November 5, 2019

ISBN: 9781250293794

Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Summary:

This was a great re-imagining of the typical “prophesied hero saves the world” story. What do you do when the only “chosen one” dies and prophecy says no one else can save the world? You try anyway.

Aaslo is a Forester, literally a person whose job it is to care for and manage the forest in the land of Aldrea. His best friend is a multi-talented golden boy named Mathias. Aaslo and Mathias have been friends since they were children and do everything together as, “brothers in all things”. When Mathias is struck down before his time, Aaslo begins to learn that his friend was more than just an average man. Mathias had a destiny that has been disrupted and Aaslo cannot let his friend’s quest fail.

They are brothers in all things, so if Mathias cannot complete the quest, then Aaslo reasons that he’ll have to do it himself. He leaves the forest for the first time in his life and heads out on an adventure to save Aldrea from seemingly insurmountable odds. He’ll begin unintentionally building a band of followers as he goes about his business. For reasons he doesn’t understand, many of the people Aaslo meets believe in him and what he is trying to do and they won’t abandon him no matter how many times he tells them to go.

Fate of the Fallen is the beginning of a fantasy book series set in Aldrea, so don’t expect to have everything tied up in a nice pretty bow by the time you get to the end of this 344 page novel. Think of this novel as The Lord of the Rings, but told from Sam’s perspective. While Aaslo is way more than a sidekick, he’s constantly underestimated by the people around him and by himself. He didn’t ask for any of this, but he pursues this mission like his life depends on it, even while frequently lamenting the fact that doing all of this is probably going to get him killed.

At times Aaslo thinks he’s losing his mind, and not everyone he meets disagrees. He travels all over Aldrea seeking assistance, but finds defeated mindsets wherever he goes. The one prophecy that allowed for their continued survival has been destroyed, but Aaslo doesn’t think that’s any reason to give up without a fight. If they’re all going to die anyway, why not go down swinging?

I think readers will like the plucky hero/not-a-hero and the world that Kade has built. In terms of fantasy elements there is magic, prophecies, gods, multiple lands and kingdoms, and all manner of strange creatures (including at least one dragon so far). Fantasy readers should really enjoy this book, but I think it’s just compelling enough to attract non-fantasy readers as well. It’s fast-paced with plenty of twists brought about by bored, power-hungry, and occasionally well-meaning Gods.

Why I liked it:
I really love seeing characters in fantasy series who are facing incredible odds, but don’t necessarily have “underdog” status. The main character in this book wasn’t even on anyone’s radar, but he still commanded respect where he went because his profession comes with status. He’s the unexpected hero and he doesn’t seek glory. He’s completely put upon for the entire novel and I love it.

Also, for some reason the meaning behind the title didn’t hit me until after I finished reading the book, but oh man did it give me some goosebumps. It’s packed with meaning and a really great title in retrospect. Sorry! I can’t tell you more than that without spoilers.

Plus, this book is written by a woman and fantasy in general is a very male-dominated genre. So…you know…girl power!

Favorite quote: “Our weakness is merely the vessel that holds our strength. If you choose not to look into the vessel, all that you will see is your weakness.” pg. 168

What I struggled with:
There are a lot of characters so far! There’s a “Cast of Characters” listed in the back of the book and it has 71 names on it. This does make things a little confusing for the reader. I’m pretty sure there were a few times in the story where a name came up that had surfaced before, but there were so many names that I couldn’t keep them all properly connected.

Disclaimer: None needed. I picked this book back in October for my Book of the Month selection, and finally buckled down to read it.

My library rating: Fantasy isn’t always everyone’s glass of tea, but I think that’s the worst that someone would say if you recommended this one to them. I don’t recall any major objectionable scenes and the storyline is complex without going over the reader’s head. There are humorous moments to balance the gravity of the story. I’ll be recommending this one pretty widely once I’m back in the land of the socially distanced library.

lemonade_icon 5 glasses of lemonade= you could recommend this book to anyone. There is nothing in here that is going to upset anyone and you could start handing it out on street corners. This kind of book is a Librarian’s dream. As much as we love good literature, suggesting a book for someone can be nerve-wracking work that can backfire BIG TIME.

My personal preference rating: I gave this one 4 stars on Goodreads, but honestly it’s 4.5 stars for me. I really loved it and eagerly await the next title in the series which is supposedly coming out this year!

Rewind by Catherine Ryan Howard

Hello Kittens! I hope you and yours are all doing well as we enter the 15^th year of Quarantine. Just kidding! Things will be getting back to the new normal soon and I hope that if you, like me, are going to be forced back into the real world, that you can do so in as safe a manner as possible. For today, I have a murderous distraction of a book for you. If any of you read Adrian McKinty’s The Chain last year, then I think you will really like this story. There’s a murder, there’s a recording of the murder, there’s a creepy Irish setting, and plenty of suspects to keep you guessing. This one first hit my radar when it was reviewed over at Crime By The Book, which is any excellent blog for mystery/thriller/nordic noir fans. Enjoy and take care!

Title: Rewind Rewind

Author: Catherine Ryan Howard

Author website: https://catherineryanhoward.com/

Publisher: Black Stone Publishing

Publish date: September 3, 2019

ISBN: 9781538519684

Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Summary

It all begins with a gruesome murder. Picture it: a woman is sleeping in a dark room and suddenly a figure appears along the side, obviously intent on harm. But wait, you don’t have to picture it, because it is all on tape. Why is it on tape? Who is she? Why is she being murdered? All of these questions will be answered in good time, but two questions are going to chill your bones as you finish the first chapter: why does the killer destroy the camera and how did they know the camera was there?

In Rewind, the reader is going to meet Natalie, a social media influencer who appears to be living her best life. But looks can be deceiving, especially on the internet. In reality, strange things have been happening around Natalie, seemingly as a result of her fame. Her husband won’t take any of it seriously and questions her commitment to her job. Her best friend thinks her work is a hobby and that her life is a breeze.

We also meet Audrey. Audrey is a wannabe serious reported who is currently trudging her way through an assignment in the Entertainment department of an online magazine. Her soul crushing job everyday is to create short, pithy, click-baity stories regarding celebutantes. She is aching to be promoted to the hard news division, and with her living situation deteriorating and her finances draining fast, she could really use the extra money. When her boss tasks her with looking into the social media disappearance of a well-known star, she jumps at the chance.

We are also going to meet Andrew. Andrew runs a set of vacation cottages in a remote area. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t get cell reception and where wi-fi spots are limited. Andrew is a loner who local townspeople regularly gossip about and who fails to put his latest guest at ease. Andrew is a man with many secrets and we learn a good bit about his life in all of this.

Why I liked it:

A really compelling story. Fast-paced plotting. We start at the end of things and work our way back and forth in a way that makes it hard for the reader to piece everything together too quickly. I also loved the way the story ended with the structure of a published news article. I thought that was a particularly nice touch given how most of the story plays out.

***Spoiler alert: I will say this, I called a major twist really early on…like 4 chapters in early. That being said, I absolutely loved the story anyway.***

What I would like to change:

I actually didn’t love the structure of the story as much. It reveals itself as though it was a videotape, with chapter headings such as “Fast-Forward”, “Pause”, etc. I loved that we started with the murder, but the non-linear structure was hard for me to follow at times, and since it had non-traditional chapter titles, it was even harder. I think I would have liked all the “before” chapters grouped together and all of the “after” chapters grouped together just as much.

Disclaimer: No disclaimer needed. I borrowed this title digitally for free from my local library.

My library rating:

lemonade_icon 2 glasses of lemonade= a book that you could probably recommend to family and close friends. They may not like everything that’s in it, but they’re not going to start sending you cards with holy scripture written in them as messages to get you back on the path of righteousness after reading them either.

There are scenes involving child rape, pedophilia, sexual blackmail, gaslighting, and we get a fairly graphic description of a murder. That’s a lot in one book, but the majority of the scenes involving those first two take place off the page or using a fade-in technique.

My personal preference rating: I gave this one 5 stars. I was totally hooked on this one from the first chapter and basically flew through it in a day and a half (Goodreads will say it took me 5 days, but I was a little behind on my reading and didn’t really start until a few days later). I’ve already added Howard’s backlist to my TBR.

Notes: Billed as Pyscho meets Fatal Attraction. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen either movie so I can’t comment on the accuracy of that. 😦

The Fallen Girls by Kathryn Casey

**Update 5/31/20. I was contacted the publisher who let me know that you can access this book from a few other online platforms. I’ve added links below and updated my intro for you. Now you have even more opportunities to pick up this great read!**

Hello Kittens! I’ve got one that may be a little more limited to access than my normal recommendations but I think it is a worthy read for crime fiction fans. This title is currently only being released in digital formats, but I highly recommend it. There’s an interesting setting, a haunted investigator, and an intriguing premise. I figured out whodunnit about 16 chapters from the end, but I was so hooked that I kept reading anyway. Also, there was always the possibility that the author could throw another curve ball and I would be wrong. Do you try to guess the killer when you read mysteries? I’ve started noting my guesses in my personal notes to see how quickly I can guess. My first guess on this one was wrong, but the plot helped straighten my thinking out over time.

Title: The Fallen Girls

Author: Kathryn Casey

Author website: http://www.kathryncasey.com/

https://www.facebook.com/KathrynCaseyAuthor/

Publisher: Bookouture

Publish date: June 3, 2020

ISBN: 9781838886011

Buy the Book: Amazon, Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play

Summary:

Detective Clara Jeffries has been working in Dallas PD’s Crimes Against Persons Unit for 3 years. She’s a workaholic who gets the job done and never seems to take time off. When her boss orders her to take a few days of leave, she’s at her wits end for what to do with herself. Around this time she gets an unexpected call from an old acquaintance, Max Anderson, who tells her that he believes her half-sister has gone missing. Clara agrees to return home to help Max work the case because he is having trouble speaking with Clara’s family.

Clara left Alber, Utah, years ago to escape the fundamentalist lifestyle of her Mormon community. While we only get glimpses of her past, we know that her childhood was a happy one and something happened to her in her teens that changed her life and made her want to run away. With help from a woman named Hannah to escape, Clara hasn’t been back since and hasn’t kept in touch with her family. Clara’s family considers her an Apostate, an outsider who has betrayed the faith, and they’re not anxious to talk to her or even acknowledge her existence. When Clara gets to Alber, she discovers that the case is extremely complicated because Max is certain that her sister is missing and has reason to believe that she has been taken, but Clara’s family refuses to confirm that the girl is missing or provide the police with any information.

To make matters worse, Clara’s family aren’t the only ones denying that her half-sister is gone. The police aren’t anxious to investigate a crime that they can’t prove has even happened, especially without the cooperation of the families. The harder that Clara digs into this, the more threatened the townspeople and the local police departments are getting. She is told repeatedly to drop the case and return to Texas, but Clara is certain that her sister is missing, and according to Hannah, she may not be the only one.

Why I liked it:

This was an intriguing mystery with a setting that I didn’t know much about. Casey writes about the intricacies of this Mormon community and the struggles that they have gone through. She gives a thorough treatment to the religious aspects as well as the pitfalls of this faith community, including the mistrust they have of outsiders. Ultimately, this was a thoroughly plotted mystery with a healthy amount of twists and turns. It’s not overly gory, but there is some violence and there is definitely a villain. I can easily see this novel being turned into a movie.

It’s told in alternating chapters between Clara, Max, and Clara’s half-sister, Delilah. With each chapter you get another piece of the puzzle, but the plotting is intricate enough that I didn’t put everything together until about 60% of the way through the book. I figured out who the villain was, but not everyone might, and I really don’t mind a mystery every now and then where you actually are given enough information to figure things out. Not to mention, just because you think you know who did it doesn’t mean you know why they did it, and the why is just as interesting to find out.

Also, the first chapter is seriously creepy and I loved the tone that it set. The cover art is perfect for this title and I’m not sure I’ll ever look at cornfields without thinking about this read again.

What I would like to change:

The first half of the story was really heavy on gaslighting Clara. For me, that’s always a little tough to read. It made me wish that we got to the action of the story a little quicker.

I also wish I was seeing more promotion for this title. I couldn’t find it on the author’s website (only on her Facebook page). It’s a strong story and it would be more accessible to most people in print… But I suppose that won’t matter if lots of people pick it up in digital format (which you should do). I still prefer print despite the fact that I increasingly read digitally, but I could be in the minority on this.

Disclaimer: I received an electronic advance copy of this title via the publisher on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My library rating:

lemonade_icon 4 glasses of lemonade= a book you could recommend to a book group or anybody who reads. You might find controversial subject matter, but it is handled delicately.

While there is violence in the book, none of it takes place on the page so I think a book club could handle this one, and they might like reading about a community that is very different from their own.

My personal preference rating: I gave this title 5 stars. I think it is a really solid start to a mystery series. I’m going to be taking a look at the author’s backlist, which includes a lot of true crime too. Yay!