Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Without a doubt, this is the best book I’ve read this year. I was so caught up in the story and did not realize, until I read the Acknowledgements, that this is based on real people and real events from World War II. Real. Brave. Women.

The book follows three women. One, a New York socialite, Carolyn. The second, a Polish teen, Kasia. And third, a German Nazi doctor, Huerta.

The stories of the three women are initially woven separately but I knew that they would eventually come together which they did. Kasia was sent to Ravensbruk concentration camp wtih her sister, Zuzanna, her mother, and a friend. Kasia and her sister become part of a group eventually referred to as Rabbits because they had heinous operations done on their legs which caused them to hop rather than walk.

Herta, the Nazi doctor, is the one that operated on them. Carolyn, the socialite, works with the French to try and keep children clothed, families together, during the war. Eventually, she arranges for the Rabbits to come to America to be operated on to become whole. She also finds out that Herta, who’d gone to jail for her war crimes, had been released after serving only 5 years of her sentence. She wants to see her medical license revoked permanently and arranges what Kascia needs to get her to the town in Northern Germany where Herta is a practicing family medicine doctor.

The is a gripping story of real events that happened during World War II. The characters are wonderful and I loved getting to know them. Herta was a villain and was written about well.

I can’t recommend this book enough. I loved it!

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The New Guy by Amy Spalding
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a really cute book and I liked it. Jules is looking forward to senior year when she would work on the school paper and work on her dream of getting into Brown University for the following year. Alex comes to school and changes all that.

Alex is a former boy band member and he likes Jules. When TALON (an in school TV station) starts and Alex is a part of it, Jules is devastated and breaks up with him. She then plots and schemes to get TALON shut down so the newspaper, Crest, can exist after she goes to college.

Through her single minded focus to make the paper win over new media, Jules puts her relationship with Alex in jeopardy but also all of her relationships with all of her friends.

I laughed a lot while reading this book because it’s cute. I highly recommend it!

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Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really liked this book. It takes place in WWII Amsterdam. The Nazi’s have occupied the country and Hanneke is trying to get by. She works as a receptionist but then her boss asks her to help him procure and sell items on the black market. She feels that she is doing a good service until she realizes that her friends are into even more than she is.

While trying to find a girl for a woman who is her customer, she realizes that her boyfriend’s (who died in the war) brother and his friends are doing a whole lot more than she is to save Jewish people. They want her to become involved with them but she is single minded in her quest to find one girl, Mirjam.

The story is full of twists and turns and I wasn’t really sure how it would end up. I liked this book a lot and would recommend it to those who like historical, especially WWII fiction.

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Mean Sisters by Lindsay Emory

This was a fun book! I got right into the story because Margot, the main character, was so cute. The story is set in the Delta Beta sorority, Margot’s employer and her sorority. She just loves the sistershood she had when she was in college and can’t quite let it go. She loves her job working for the sorority even though she lives out of a suitcase as she travels from campus to campus. Margot is sent to visit her alma mater. When the house adviser drops dead during the chapter meeting, Margot feels it’s her place to keep the girls calm and figure out whodunit.

What ensues is funny and quite unexpected. Not your typical murder mystery. This is a great book. The only thing I wondered is why it was called Mean Girls. Yes, there were a couple of mean girls but overall, because of Margot and her love for her sisters, I didn’t find the girls mean.

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Multiple Listings by Tracy McMillan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I just finished this book and said, “That was a really good book!” I loved it.

At first, I wasn’t so sure. Ronnie being in jail made me wonder how I was going to like this story but he ended up being my favorite character. This book has great characters. Nicki, Ronnie’s daughter grows so much through the book as does her son, Cody.

There much love and happiness woven through a tale of this unconventional family that truly becomes a family over the course of the book. Ronnie has been in prison for 17 years. When he’s let out unexpectedly, he shows up on Nicki’s doorstep. She doesn’t’ want to see him but Cody is intrigued.

My biggest thought as the book progressed was I hope Ronnie gets to be the chef at the restaurant. This is a great, heartwarming book and I highly recommend it!

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Liar by Rob Roberge
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a hard book to read. I was interested because I’ve recently become a concussion awareness advocate and Rob Roberge suffers fro post concussive syndrome along with addiction, bi-polar and who knows what else.

The book is told in a fragmented way. Snippets from different periods of time all jumbled up. At first, all I could think about what how in the heck am I going to review this book. It is messed up. But then I realized that a real person with these disorders would probably think this way and it became easier to read.

The narrator thinks he’ll eventually lose his mind. He feels bad, a lot of times, for his crazy behavior and doesn’t like to share it with people because he fears their reaction. I became extremely sympathetic to his character.

It’s a tough book to read but it grew on me the more I read.

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Heart Conditions by Phoebe Fox

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love this series so much and it has the BEST dog character ever, Jake.

I was excited to read the next installment of the Breakup Doctor. I love the characters and, although we met Jake in an earlier book, I feel like we really got to know him in this book. A good dog makes a great book, in my opinion.

In this book, Brook struggles to make sense of her relationship with Ben and the reappearance of her former fiance’, Michael. On top of that, her bestie, Sasha becomes pregnant and is struggling with how to accept that kind of responsibility.

The book is fun and endearing and, Jake of course, is fabu. I highly recommend this book and can’t wait for the next one!

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The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really loved this book. I didn’t know too much about Truman Capote before reading the book except that he wrote In Cold Blood. While this was a fictional account of the time, the story was so interesting to me. I love the way people lived back in earlier days and it was fun to read about.

I loved the relationship between Babe and Truman. I felt sorry for Babe. It seemed like she always had to be “on” for everyone but herself. With Truman, she got to be herself. When he betrayed her, I was crushed for her.

Love the story, the writing, the characters. I also loved that the author included other works that she read before writing the story. I’ll be reading those myself!

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The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss by Max Wirestone

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Okay, when I first started reading this book, I was a little leery. It’s about gamers. I’m not a gamer and don’t really know the genre but I had to keep reading.

Why? Because it’s so funny and quirky and I wasn’t sure what was going to come next.

Dahlia Moss is an down and out, unemployed girl who has lost her boyfriend. It seems that her life is never going to get better when she is approached by Jonah to investigate the theft of one of his game pieces – the Bejeweled Spear of Infinite Piercing.

Then Jonah winds up dead. The story takes us through her sleuthing to find out who stole the spear. But ultimately, Dahlia also figures out who killed Jonah.

Funny, zany, loved it!

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