Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon

Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon begins when twenty something year old Rhona sees a young girl kidnap by someone dressed as a rabbit, a crime so odd she can't help but watch until it is too late. Heartbroken about failing to act, Rhonda joins the quest to search for the young girl, but it brings up feelings and memoirs about another young girl who disappeared: her childhood best friend Lizzy. Maybe by finding one abductor she can close the story on two missing girls.

After devouring and loving McMahon's debut, Promise Not To Tell, I admit I had high expectations for her follow-up, Island of Lost Girls. While I didn't love this one quite as much, I certainly enjoyed it. I think the main difference from an enjoyment perspective between the two books was that I didn't appreciate the narrator of this novel quite as much. Rhonda is much younger than Kate (the main character of Promise Not To Tell) was, and possibly as a result she often comes across whiny and needy in a way that made me less sympathetic to the struggles she faced. That said, Island of Lost Girls is still a thrilling experience from the unique and spooky mind of McMahon. The story is fast-paced and impossible to put down, and even if you have a little bit of an idea what is coming there were certainly be twists you can't predict thrown into the mix as well. Still, for some reason I found myself not a hundred percent happy with the ending and resolution.

Just like Promise Not To Tell McMahon is perfectly able to capture childhood friendship and the strong relationships that form. Both the characters and the setting are richly developed in Island of Lost Girls, but what really has the reader turning the page is the enchanting yet creepy mystery. The chapters alternate between the past and present storylines, which is a style McMahon does with great skill and ability even if in both cases the main character was one I found lacking. Still, if you are looking for an easy and exciting page turner definitely add Island of Lost Girls to your list, even if McMahon's second novel wasn't quite as flawless as her first she is definitely a writer I will be continuing to watch.

Release Date: April 22nd, 2008
Pages: 272
Buy the Book
Source:

This review was a part of TLC Book Tours. Click here to read what other tour hosts thought. For the purpose of this review I was provided with a copy of the book which did not require a positive review. The opinions expressed in this post are completely my own.

Waiting on Wednesday: Smuggled

Smuggled sounds like an extremely powerful and interesting book, I guess I will find out when it is released. This is also a book where the cover definitely caught my eye, the image is very intriguing.

Sweeping from post–WWII rural Romania to the cosmopolitan Budapest of 1990, Christina Shea’s Smuggled is the story of Eva Farkas, who loses her identity, quite literally, as a young child when she is smuggled in a flour sack across the Hungarian border to escape the Nazis.

Five-year-old Eva is trafficked from Hungary to Romania at the end of the war, arriving in the fictional border town of Crisu, given the name Anca Balaj by her aunt and uncle and instructed never to speak another word of Hungarian again. “Eva is dead,” she is told. As the years pass, Anca proves an unquenchable spirit, with a lust for life even when political forces threaten to derail her at every turn. Time is layered in this quest for self, culminating in the end of the Iron Curtain and Anca’s reclaiming of the name her mother gave her. When Eva returns to Hungary in 1990, a country changing as fast as the price of bread, she meets Martin, an American teacher, and Eva’s lifelong search for family and identity comes full circle as her cross-cultural relationship with Martin deepens through their endeavor to rescue the boy downstairs from abuse.

An intimate look at the effects of history on an individual life, Smuggled is a raw and fearless account of transformation, and a viscerally reflective tale about the basic need for love without claims.

Smuggled by Christina Shea on July 5th 2011 by Grove Press, Black Cat.

What are you Waiting on this Wednesday?

Giveaway Reminders (Low Entries!)

Hi Guys,

I have quite a few giveaways running at the moment and they all have low entries, under 15. So you should definitely check them out and enter.

Open to Canada only and ending May 11th: There's Lead in Your Lipstick (ends tomorrow and has only ONE entry)

Open to Canada and the US ending May 15th: The Pun Also Rises

Open to Canada only and ending May 18th: 4 winners, books of poetry

I really hope to see some more entries, especially the Canadian ones! As a Canadian I find so often we get out-numbered or left out of giveaways and I love hosting ones from Canadian publishers so I hope to get more entries and host more in the future.

Good luck everyone!

Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps edited by Dave Isay

When I picked up Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps edited by Dave Isay I had no idea what StoryCorps was or what I was in store for. StoryCorps is an American project, starting 2003, which gives ordinary people the opportunity to interview each other and be recorded for forty minutes. Two copies are made of these oral histories, one is given to the participants and the other is stored away for future generations at the Library of Congress. For Mom, Isay selected from more than fifty thousand interviews particularly memorable ones in which the person talks about their mother in some way. They are slightly edited for grammar and clarity, but each story maintains the distinct voice of the narrator, and at the end of the stories a photo of the participants is included. The non-fiction book is divided three sections: wisdom, devotion, and enduring love, with the histories separated based on the underlying theme. I thought it was a great way to emphasize three very important characteristics of a good mother.

The stories included in Mom definitely tend to be those that are unique or interesting in some way- a woman who married her daughter-in-law's father, one who gave birth to quintuplets over twenty years ago, a woman who finds her adopted son after fifty years apart- so they definitely don't blur together which was one of my initial concerns. Also, because they are basically transcripts of oral histories, as a reader it really feels like you are getting to know the person through their unique voice. Because of the huge array of stories and people included in the book despite its short length (only about 200 pages) I feel like every reader would be able to relate to at least a few stories within the book. I also loved how Isay didn't just include one type of mother, but also adoptive mothers, stepmothers, and mothers whose child had passed away. The stories range from humourous to heartbreaking, but they are connected by their ability to touch your heart. Overall, Mom is a great book which leaves you with an important message, to ask questions and make memories before it is too late.

Release Date: April 10th, 2010
Pages: 208
Buy the Book
Source:

This review was a part of TLC Book Tours. Click here to read what other tour hosts thought. For the purpose of this review I was provided with a copy of the book which did not require a positive review. The opinions expressed in this post are completely my own.

Far To Go by Alison Pick

Far To Go by Alison Pick is a historical fiction novel which takes place in Czechoslovakia during World War II. After part of the country, the Sudetenland, is give to Hitler the Nazi influence begins to sweep the country. The lives of Jews are changed forever, including the secular businessman Pavel Bauer, his son Pepik, wife Annelise, and their loyal governess Marta who feels like one of the family. However when Marta learns of an impending betrayal from her lover Ernst, she becomes the one who holds the Bauers fate in her hands and her actions will have consequences none of them could have imagined.

Far To Go was a novel I was very conflicted over. On one hand, I love Pick's writing. But the story, especially the ending, left me dissatisfied and disappointed. Interspersed with the historical story are tidbits of present-day action, and although I actually found them probably even more beautifully written I didn't really feel like they added to the story and it was too little to allow me as a reader to be really connected to that storyline. That said, the historical period that Pick used was extremely interesting as even though I have read many books about Holocaust, this is the first one that has taken place in Czechoslovakia, a very unique country. It is heartbreaking to read Pavel insist again and again that nothing is going to happen to them, even as the reader knows that nobody, especially Jews, was safe during that time period.

Pepik makes an adorable little boy and it is very easy to see how Marta bonded with him, and the possessiveness she feels when it comes to Annelise. The Bauer family and Marta have a very unique relationship as she is part employee, part family member and sometimes it is difficult to know which. For a historical fiction novel, Far To Go certainly manages to pick up the pace and keep the reader turning the pages. The strong element of suspense and foreboding that the reader feels made me even more disappointed in how things turned out in the end and what was ultimately revealed to the be the premise of the book. Ultimately, Far To Go is a rich and compelling story for which Pick certainly did her research, but in the end things wrapped up a little too neatly and quickly meaning that the novel didn't have quite the lasting impact it could have.

Release Date: September 1st, 2010
Pages: 336
Buy the Book
Source:

This review was a part of TLC Book Tours. Click here to read what other tour hosts thought. For the purpose of this review I was provided with a copy of the book which did not require a positive review. The opinions expressed in this post are completely my own.