REVIEW: The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin by Stephanie Knipper

Genre: Women’s Fiction, Contemporary, Magical Realism
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Publication Date: August 2, 2016
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Summary

Sisters Rose and Lily Martin were inseparable when they were kids. As adults, they’ve been estranged for years, until circumstances force them to come together to protect Rose’s daughter. Ten-year-old Antoinette has a severe form of autism that requires constant care and attention. She has never spoken a word, but she has a powerful gift that others would give anything to harness: she can heal things with her touch. She brings wilted flowers back to life, makes a neighbor’s tremors disappear, changes the normal course of nature on the Kentucky flower farm where she and her mother live.

Antoinette’s gift, though, puts her own life in danger, as each healing comes with an increasingly deadly price. As Rose—the center of her daughter’s life—struggles with her own failing health, and Lily confronts her anguished past, they, and the men who love them, come to realize the sacrifices that must be made to keep this very special child safe.

Written with great heart and a deep understanding of what it feels like to be “different,” The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin is a novel about what it means to be family, and about the lengths to which people will go to protect the ones they love.

~* My Review *~

5 Stars

As I sit down to write this review, I’m a little shocked to learn thatThe Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin is Stephanie Knipper’s debut novel. Aside from the pacing, which dragged a little especially in the first half, I can think of nothing but good things to say. Most of the story takes place on a commercial flower farm in Kentucky and Knipper immerses the reader with vivid imagery, allowing us to see, hear, feel, smell, and taste everything about that beautiful place. Add to that exquisite writing, complex characters, heartrending conflict, and a dash of magical realism, and I’m happy as a clam. I can’t wait for Knipper’s next book. I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

 

REVIEW: Breathe Again by Sydney Logan

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Enchanted Publications
Publication Date: July 22, 2016
Formats Available: Kindle, Paperback

Carrie Malone has seen enough heartbreak to last a lifetime. Her family’s demons gave Carrie the courage to move away from home and leave her past behind. Now a college senior, she stays busy with her classes and her job at the diner. It may sound boring to some, but to Carrie, the very best thing about her new life is that every day is calm and blissfully uneventful. That all changes the night Josh Bennett walks into her diner. 

With his dirty designer suit and mud-caked shoes, Carrie’s not sure what to think about the broken man sitting at her counter. She’s even more confused when he doesn’t touch his coffee…and leaves his Rolex watch as a tip.

Josh Bennett has nothing to live for. Starved for affection and deep in despair, he’s looking for a tender touch. A kind word. A giving heart. A shattered and broken Josh finds himself standing on a city bridge, looking down into the freezing river that will undoubtedly bring an end to his pain. 

He’s prepared to jump. He’s prepared to die. He’s not prepared for the pretty waitress who finds him there by the river’s edge.

When two lost souls find each other in the dark of night, can they give each other a reason to breathe again?

MY RATING:    

 

Sydney Logan’s readers often compare her to Nicholas Sparks, with the caveat that she doesn’t kill off major characters. After reading Breathe Again, I find that this description, while accurate, doesn’t do Ms. Logan’s writing justice. Breathe Again is everything I love in a contemporary romance–sweet, heart-wrenching, and uplifting with just the right amount of passion. I don’t like steamy romances, preferring authors to leave most of the action to the imagination, so I did appreciate this relatively clean romance. Josh and Carrie are both flawed, loveable, and interesting characters, which I appreciated since those aren’t always present in a romance. If you’re looking for a quick read that will warm your heart and bring a smile to your face, I recommend Breathe Again wholeheartedly. I can’t wait to read more from Sydney Logan!

REVIEW: The Imperial Wife by Irina Reyn

Genre: Women’s Fiction, Historical Fiction
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Publication Date: July 19, 2016
Formats Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Paperback, Audible

Two women’s lives collide when a priceless Russian artifact comes to light. 

Tanya Kagan, a rising specialist in Russian art at a top New York auction house, is trying to entice Russia’s wealthy oligarchs to bid on the biggest sale of her career, The Order of Saint Catherine, while making sense of the sudden and unexplained departure of her husband. 

As questions arise over the provenance of the Order and auction fever kicks in, Reyn takes us into the world of Catherine the Great, the infamous 18th-century empress who may have owned the priceless artifact, and who it turns out faced many of the same issues Tanya wrestles with in her own life. 

Suspenseful and beautifully written, The Imperial Wife asks whether we view female ambition any differently today than we did in the past. Can a contemporary marriage withstand an “Imperial Wife”? 

MY RATING:

 

True Rating: 3.5 Stars

Classic Russian literature is one of my newfound loves, but other than the bits of Napoleonic trivia I gleaned from War and Peace and the period surrounding the Bolshevik Revolution, I know shockingly little about Russian history. I’ve heard of Catherine the Great, of course, but the details of her life and the reason she was considered great was an unanswered question. I was excited to pick this book, hoping it would at least temporarily sate my ever-growing curiosity about the magical mystery that is Russia.

Surprisingly, I found myself enjoying the current day story of Tanya much more than the historical aspect. Perhaps this stems from Sophie/Catherine’s sections being written in third-person compared to the first-person of Tanya’s story. The high-end nature of Tanya’s career juxtaposed with her own humdrum living situation and the unexplained tension between her and her husband Carl provided a much more intriguing mixture of conflict than the politics of 18th-century royal matchmaking. I also appreciated the post-Soviet attitudes and ideas that inundated Tanya’s story.
The writing is overall beautiful, although the frequent use of sentence fragments made the editor inside me twitch at times. Reyn is clearly a skilled writer and painted a delicate, detailed picture of both intersecting plotlines.

The reason for the 1.5 star deduction–The pacing was slow, especially in the beginning, and I did not feel connected or sympathetic to either of the main characters. I can understand why Catherine acted as she did, given her own situation and the time, but Tanya’s actions revealed at the end–SPOILER rewriting her husband’s entire manuscript without his permission and then presenting it to him as a present END SPOILER–are unthinkably selfish. It was an intriguing story, but I wished there was some positive emotional connection made with at least one of the main characters.

If you enjoy historical and women’s fiction, intersecting plotlines, and Russian influences, I recommend that you pick up a copy of this book. Despite the issues I had with it, it’s a beautifully written story and definitely on my list of top 10 reads of 2016.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

REVIEW: The Invoice by Jonas Karlsson

Genre: Satire, Literary Fiction
Publisher: Hogarth
Publication Date: July 12, 2016
Formats Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Audible

Hilarious, profound, and achingly true-to-life, Jonas Karlsson’s new novel explores the true nature of happiness through the eyes of a hero you won’t soon forget. A passionate film buff, our hero’s life revolves around his part-time job at a video store, the company of a few precious friends, and a daily routine that more often than not concludes with pizza and a movie in his treasured small space in Stockholm. When he receives an astronomical invoice from a random national bureaucratic agency, everything will tumble into madness as he calls the hotline night and day to find out why he is the recipient of the largest bill in the entire country. 

What is the price of a cherished memory? How much would you pay for a beautiful summer day? How will our carefree idealist, who is content with so little and has no chance of paying it back, find a way out of this mess? All these questions pull you through The Invoice and prove once again that Jonas Karlsson is simply a master of entertaining, intelligent, and life-affirming work.

MY RATING:  

First off, I think calling this a novel is a stretch. It’s just over 150 pages, and it took me less than 3 hours to finish it. The premise was interesting and the writing solid, but something was missing. I finished the book not really understanding why this single middle-aged guy with a dead-end part-time job was somehow the happiest guy in Sweden. His “few precious friends,” as the synopsis describes them, are really just immature losers who pop in and out of his life. Before the invoice arrives, our unnamed hero is a boring gray blob of a person–the only interesting aspect of this story are his repeated conversations with Maud, the phone representative for the agency who sent him the astronomical invoice.

Additionally, I would have liked more details about what W.R.D. really is. Are they a government agency? A corporation? Some kind of bureaucratized karmic institution? I have no idea. Our hero doesn’t seem to be able to pay attention to any of the information given him, so the readers are left just as confused at the end as they are at the beginning. I would have been fine with the level of information we received were this a short story, but when you read something of this length you expect more answers than what Karlsson was willing to give.

That leads to my biggest problem with The Invoice–I feel like the author beats us over the head with his satirical point, without actually telling us what the point is. Are we supposed to feel critical of the government? Businesses? Society? Materialism? Consumerism? Responsibility? Attachment? The symbolism, and at times the story itself, is so vague that I walked away not quite sure that I’d “gotten” whatever it was Karlsson desperately wanted me to get.

Despite these issues, I did enjoy this book. There was a scene toward the end between the protagonist and Maud that was especially touching. I think this would be a good film, actually, if the idea of W.R.D. was fleshed out a little more. If you’re not usually bothered by the issues I mention above and you enjoy literary satire, I would definitely recommend it.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

REVIEW: Baggage Check (The Marriage Pact #3) by M.J. Pullen

Genre: Women’s Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Publication Date: July 12, 2016
Formats Available: Kindle, Hardcover

Baggage Check is the third in a charming series about a group of thirty-somethings in Atlanta making surprising discoveries about friendship, love, and happily-ever-after. 

At 35, Rebecca Williamson is surrounded by happy endings. Her friends Suzanne and Marci are living out their own personal fairy tales in Atlanta. But despite Rebecca’s best efforts four years ago, her adorable college friend Jake Stillwell has officially slipped through her fingers and broken her heart. When Rebecca gets a frantic phone call from her mother back in Alabama, Rebecca is pulled back to the tiny town she worked so hard to leave behind and forced to face the hard truths about her family and past. A past that includes Deputy Alex Chen, who thinks of Rebecca as more than just an old friend’s kid sister. Can Rebecca navigate the chaos and get her life back to normal? Will Alex prove himself to be the friend she’s always needed? Or will she discover that the door to Jake is not as tightly closed as she thought?

M.J. Pullen returns in this final installment to the same captivating group of lovelorn friends, this time following the girl group’s frenemy, Rebecca, as she’s forced to confront her past. Raising the stakes, Pullen delivers an absorbing, romantic novel that poses the question, what if everything you were looking for was right where you started?

MY RATING:    

After enjoying Regrets Only earlier this year I was excited to read Baggage Check, even though I wasn’t thrilled to learn that Rebecca was the main character. I haven’t read The Marriage Pact yet, but I know enough of its events that I already had a strong dislike for Rebecca. But Ms. Pullen’s characters are deep, complicated, and complex, and I found that the change in perspective allowed me to see a side of Rebecca that I never thought existed.

One of Ms. Pullen’s real strengths is her ability to engage readers with serious subject matter–mental health, infidelity, divorce, death of a child, marital problems–without overwhelming them with darkness. Despite the heavy topics broached, I would still classify this as a fairly light and uplifting read. As with Regrets Only, I appreciated that the romantic element was strong and sweet, but played second fiddle to Rebecca’s personal transformation.

As a side note, it was nice to see a realistic depiction of the south. I’m a native and current resident of Alabama, and it was refreshing to read a story set in the Birmingham area that didn’t depict everyone as backwoods morons. The drive times and road names were also correct, which is surprisingly something many authors don’t bother to research.

All in all, I loved this book and the series! I do still need to read The Marriage Pact, but it’s ready and waiting on my Kindle. M.J. Pullen is definitely on my list of favorite women’s fiction authors now, and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

REVIEW: The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

Genre: YA, Contemporary
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: May 3, 2016
Formats Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Paperback, Audible

Andie has a plan. And she always sticks to her plan.

Future? A top-tier medical school.
Dad? Avoid him as much as possible (which isn’t that hard considering he’s a Congressman and he’s never around).
Friends? Palmer, Bri, and Toby—pretty much the most awesome people on the planet, who needs anyone else?
Relationships? No one’s worth more than three weeks.

So it’s no surprise that Andie’s got her summer all planned out too.

Until a political scandal costs Andie her summer pre-med internship, and lands both she and Dad back in the same house together for the first time in years. Suddenly she’s doing things that aren’t Andie at all—working as a dog walker, doing an epic scavenger hunt with her dad, and maybe, just maybe, letting the super cute Clark get closer than she expected. Palmer, Bri, and Toby tell her to embrace all the chaos, but can she really let go of her control?

MY RATING:    

This was my first trip into Morgan Matson territory, and I’ve been looking forward to it ever since I heard her favorably compared to Sarah Dessen, who has been my YA contemporary goddess since I was fifteen. I feel almost guilty saying this, but I think I may actually like Matson better!

When I realized how long The Unexpected Everything was–over 500 pages–I won’t lie, I was a bit nervous. I’m not a reader easily deterred by length–as I’ve mentioned before, War & Peace is one of my all-time favorites–but I just couldn’t imagine a YA contemporary standalone needed that much time to tell a story. But the good news is that the font is on the larger side, and while the first 100 pages or so move rather slowly, the pacing picks up from there. I actually read the last 400 pages in one sitting, which is a rare occurance for me these days.

Ms. Matson was able to pull off several story elements I don’t usually like, one being the quintessential large group of best friends. Normally I find it difficult to keep track of the characters, and even when I can manage to remember their names, I always come away from it feeling a little unconvinced. No one has friendships that perfect, right? But Andie’s friend group is well-developed, with even the most minor of characters having a backstory and a personality. I grew attached to and cared for them all, rather than just worrying about Andie, and I found that very refreshing.

Another YA trope I can’t stand is the aloof, distant parent who doesn’t really change over the course of the story. Ms. Matson takes that trope and turns it on its head with Andie’s father. He starts out being the stereotypical clueless parent, but over time turns into a flawed, loveable character just like the rest.

The romance element . . . sigh. I won’t spill details for fear of spoiling the story for those of who you haven’t yet read this, but suffice it to say that I had heartwarming goosebumps long before I reached the last page. I’m hoping these characters crop up again in subsequent Matson novels, because I’m dying to see what they’re up to.

If you’re looking for a novel that will remind you of summer as a teenager, this is the one to grab.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. I then promptly lost said digital copy, was unable to download it again, and decided to check it out from the library. So…do with this information what you will.

REVIEW: Learning to Swear in America by Katie Kennedy

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Publication Date: July 5, 2016
Formats Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Audible

An asteroid is hurtling toward Earth. A big, bad one. Maybe not kill-all-the-dinosaurs bad, but at least kill-everyone-in-California-and-wipe-out-Japan-with-a-tsunami bad. Yuri, a physicist prodigy from Russia, has been recruited to aid NASA as they calculate a plan to avoid disaster. 

The good news is Yuri knows how to stop the asteroid–his research in antimatter will probably win him a Nobel prize if there’s ever another Nobel prize awarded. But the trouble is, even though NASA asked for his help, no one there will listen to him. He’s seventeen, and they’ve been studying physics longer than he’s been alive. 

Then he meets (pretty, wild, unpredictable) Dovie, who lives like a normal teenager, oblivious to the impending doom. Being with her, on the adventures she plans when he’s not at NASA, Yuri catches a glimpse of what it means to save the world and live a life worth saving. 

Prepare to laugh, cry, cringe, and have your mind burst open with the questions of the universe. 

MY RATING:    

(True Rating: Infinite Stars, and an Asteroid Too)

Even though we have five months and some change left to go before we bid 2016 adieu, I’m fairly certain that this will be my favorite NetGalley read of the year.

I’ve had a lot of disappointing and mediocre reading experiences this year, so I wasn’t expecting much from Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America. Sure, the blurb sounded fantastic, but when you read as much as I do, you quickly learn not to place much hope on that back-cover text.

The writing is excellent. The story is excellent. The characters are–brace yourself–excellent. This book is endlessly quotable. I tried to choose just one snipped to include in this review, but that simply can’t be done, so prepare yourself for a beautiful literary onslaught:

Dovie exerted a giant gravitational force. She was the closest thing to Jupiter of anyone he’d ever met, but you probably couldn’t say that to a girl.

“I’m late because I’m raging against the machine, Mrs. Lee.”

He hit “send,” and wondered how good NASA’s bullshit detector was. Their other detectors were pretty good.

“So I have to give you advice without any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes.”

“In that situation, I always turn to Immanuel Kant.”

“You’re very grave.”

“I’m always grave about gravity.”

But it had only taken him a cell phone and fifty seconds to hack in–not because he was a genius, but because he was a teenager.

If you follow my reviews, you know I normally go into a little more detail as to why I like or dislike a particular title, but here, words are insufficient. Learning to Swear in America is so many things: a young adult novel, a coming-of-age tale. It’s a story of first love and near apocalypse and what it means to be human–not Russian, not American, just human. If I were a betting woman, I would bet a fortune and a half that this book will be considered a classic in fifty years.

Read it. Read it now.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

REVIEW: First Comes Love by Emily Giffin

Genre: Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: June 28, 2016
Formats Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Audio

Growing up, Josie and Meredith Garland shared a loving, if sometimes contentious, relationship. Josie was impulsive, spirited, and outgoing, Meredith hardworking, thoughtful, and reserved. When tragedy strikes, their delicate bond splinters. 

Fifteen years later, Josie and Meredith are in their late thirties, following very different paths. Josie, a first grade teacher, is single–and this close to swearing off dating for good. What she wants more than the right guy, however, is to become a mother–a feeling that is heightened when her ex-boyfriend’s daughter is assigned to her class. Determined to have the future she’s always wanted, Josie decides to take matters into her own hands. 

On the outside, Meredith is the model daughter with the perfect life. A successful attorney, she’s married to a wonderful man, and together they’re raising a beautiful four-year-old daughter. Yet lately Meredith feels dissatisfied and restless, secretly wondering if she chose the life that was expected of her rather than the one she truly desired. 

As the anniversary of their tragedy looms, and painful secrets from the past begin to surface, Josie and Meredith must not only confront the issues that divide them but also come to terms with their own choices. In their journey toward understanding and forgiveness, both sisters discover that they need each other more than they knew–and that in the search for true happiness, love always comes first. 

MY RATING:  

(True Rating: 2.5 Stars)

Emily Giffin has long been one of my favorite women’s fiction authors, but something was missing in this one. The writing was well-done as always, and the characters interesting, but it failed to snag my heart.

Neither Josie nor Meredith seemed like a real person to me. I had to keep reminding myself that Josie was 38, not 22, because honestly she acted like a very young, immature person. It was hard not to think of her as unstable when she constantly obsessed over her ex of eight years. And Meredith . . . Meredith is difficult, as I see a lot of my own negative personality quirks in her, but there’s nothing redemptive about her as a character. She spends her life being angry at everyone and everything, constantly justifying poor treatment of her sister, her husband, and even her small daughter.

It was hard to like either of them, although Josie has a slight edge because she’s not constantly miserable. Their relationship was just awful. A book with a setup like this had me braced for a new, reimagined version of Jennifer Weiner’s In Her Shoes, which does a great job of showing a contentious sister relationship, but here there just didn’t seem to be a good reason for why these women hated so many people–and each other. They’re both obsessed over things that have happened in the past. Josie’s still mad because her ex-boyfriend broke up with her over a misunderstanding eight years ago (although honestly, I don’t blame him). Meredith and Josie both are mad because the woman who had just started dating their brother FIFTEEN YEARS PRIOR has had the audacity to move on with her life. I couldn’t believe what I was reading.

As another reviewer pointed out, sources of conflict seem to fade in and out. First Will and Andrea, then Pete, then Leslie, then Nolan, then . . . There is no moment of resolution at the end that ties all lose ends together, as I’ve come to expect in a Giffin novel. It simply ends.

I wanted to like this book, because again I’m a Giffin fan from way back, but for a book called First Comes Love, I have to say love was shockingly absent from both the characters and the plot. The 2.5 stars I’ve given here are for the strength of the writing and pacing alone.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

REVIEW: Just a Girl by Ellie Cahill

Genre: New Adult & College, Romance
Publisher: Loveswept
Publication Date: June 21, 2016
Formats Available: Kindle

After getting kicked out of her own band—by her own boyfriend—Presley Mason finds herself back in Wisconsin, helping her parents run their renowned music store. Instead of belting out powerhouse vocals to sold-out crowds in L.A., she’s stocking shelves and inspecting rental violins. But the shop isn’t all bad: When she’s vacuuming up late one night, she bumps into the guitar teacher with the smoldering amber eyes and the killer tattoo. And that’s when things take an interesting turn.

Presley soon finds that Paul Kellerman is as good in bed as he is on guitar. So why isn’t he stoked to share his band, Jukebox Bleu, with her? Turns out Paul has crippling stage fright, which he’s been self-medicating without much success. But when Jukebox Bleu’s lead singer gets called for military service, the other members beg Presley to front them. Even though she swore never to mix men with music again, the temptation to perform is almost as intense as her chemistry with Paul. Now Presley must decide what’s more important: a second chance at love . . . or rock stardom.

MY RATING:   

This is my second brush with Ellie Cahill, having read Call Me, Maybe last December. I have to say, I enjoyed Just a Girl much more. Placing the story in the music industry, rather than the world of shy bookish bloggers, provided more of an escape for me. The writing here is excellent, which didn’t surprise me a bit since the writing was one of my favorite parts of Call Me, Maybe. The characters are quirky, well-developed, and unique, which is not always the case for a cute new adult romance these days.

Ms. Cahill handles pretty serious issues, such as mental illness and substance abuse, with a careful hand. Speaking as a female who has an anxiety disorder, it was refreshing to see a male character struggling with panic attacks. I understand why anxiety is usually foisted on female characters, since significantly more women are diagnosed with anxiety disorders, but it was nice to show that we’re not the only ones who struggle.

The only reason I’m deducting a star is personal preference with regards to sex and language. Ms. Cahill tends to write romances that go from zero to “let’s take off our clothes” pretty quickly, and that’s just not something I find realistic or fulfilling as a reader. I did enjoy the relationship aspect of this story more than that of Call Me, Maybe, but I’d rather get to know the characters a bit more before things get physical. It’s hard for me to root for two people to be together if I don’t know them yet. As far as language goes, cursing doesn’t bother me, but there were parts in the story where it felt like the author chose strong language for shock value rather than actually enhancing the story. Moments like that don’t offend me, but they do tend to pull me out of the reading experience, which is the reason for the one-star deduction.

Despite the issues I’ve had with both books of hers I’ve read, I am eagerly anticipating new reads from Ellie Cahill. Star deductions aside, her books are always a quick and heartwarming experience.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

REVIEW: Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler

Genre: Women’s Fiction, Retellings, Literary Humor
Publisher: Hogarth
Publication Date: June 21, 2016
Formats Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Paperback, Audible

Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister, Bunny? Plus, she’s always in trouble at work – her preschool charges adore her, but their parents don’t always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner. 

Dr. Battista has other problems. After years out in the academic wilderness, he is on the verge of a breakthrough. His research could help millions. There’s only one problem: his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. And without Pyotr, all would be lost. 

When Dr. Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he’s relying – as usual – on Kate to help him. Kate is furious: This time he’s really asking too much. But will she be able to resist the two men’s touchingly ludicrous campaign to bring her around? 

MY RATING:    

I grabbed this up as soon as I realized this was a modern retelling of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Given that I love Shakespeare, and also that one of my all-time favorite movies is 10 Things I Hate About You, I couldn’t wait to dig in.

Worried though I was that my expectations for this book were too high, I took the plunge. I’m so glad I did. Anne Tyler’s rendition of this Shakespearean classic pays homage to the original tale with a twist of creativity. Some may criticize this short read for being too simplistic in comparison with the original play, but I actually appreciated how Tyler presented us with the essence of The Taming of the Shrew, rather than creating a turn-for-turn rehashing.

I love this version of Kate, which I couldn’t help but associate with Julia Stiles’ amazing performance as Kat Stratford. For Parks and Recreation fans, she’s rather like April Ludgate. Her dry wit and constant state of being unimpressed completely won me over. The other characters likewise were loveable. The father in particular I found amusing, despite his craziness.

I can’t wait to read some of the other installments in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, and I will most definitely be checking out more of Anne Tyler’s titles. I recommend this book for everyone who appreciates modernizations, Shakespeare, and just the right amount of whimsy.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.