5 Book in One Review

I’m doing this just to catch up.  I’ll give you the summary from Goodreads and then my rating.

The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus: A Novel About Marriage, Motherhood and Mayhem by Sonja Sones

Celebrated YA novelist Sones delivers her first adult novel, weaving together a seamless narrative in free verse--a funny, fierce, and piercingly honest coming-of-middle-age story about falling apart and being put back together.

I love book that are in an innovative format. This one was extra-fun and a very quick read as it is all told in free verse.

4 stars (Can’t remember anything too objectionable.)

The Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks

When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition. As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love. As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders."

Awesome book. Geraldine Brooks is a master!

5 Stars (PG-13 for gruesomeness)

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Winner of the 1933 Femina Vie Heureuse Prize, COLD COMFORT FARM is a wickedly funny portrait of British rural life in the 1930s. Flora Poste, a recently orphaned socialite, moves in with her country relatives, the gloomy Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm, and becomes enmeshed in a web of violent emotions, despair, and scheming, until Flora manages to set things right.

Funny, funny, funny book!  When you read it, print out the family tree on WikiPedia it will help you keep the characters straight.  Then, after (and only AFTER) you read the book, watch the movie on streaming Netflix. You’ll love it!

4 Stars (Rated PG)

Marshmallows for Breakfast by Dorothy Koomson

Kendra Tamale is looking for a fresh start and a simple life when she rents a room from Kyle Gadsborough. But against her better judgment Kendra soon finds herself drawn into her new landlord’s household: a young father in way over his head, a beautiful mother out the door, and six-year-old twins, Summer and Jaxon, with hearts full of hurt. Kendra has plenty of issues of her own, but this family seems to need her so desperately that she’s soon falling in love—with Summer’s constant chatter, Jaxon’s soulful eyes, and the sugar-laden Saturday breakfasts she invents. But when a secret from Kendra’s past resurfaces and the children are taken away by their mother, the only way to fix things is to confess to the terrible mistake she made many years ago—and the choice she makes now could break more than one person’s heart.
Nice chick-lit book with a good message.
3 Stars (Rated PG-13, some mild sex)

In the Shadow of the Ark by Anne Provoost
Re Jana and her family are driven from the marshes that were their homeland by rising waters and follow other fleeing refugees towards the desert. There, a boat of unprecedented proportions is being constructed to save a select few from the coming flood that will drown out the rest of humanity.
And as the rain shows no sign of subsiding, Re Jana falls in love with the builder's son, presenting her with an opportunity to save her family-but in the end, she will have to act to save herself.
Interesting re-telling of Noah’s Ark.  Brings up some issues I hadn’t thought of; however, I did not feel it was reverent enough.  Being a Christian I believe Noah was a Prophet of God and was a good man and his son’s were just as good as he was.  I enjoyed it until at the end where it takes a very odd and unnecessary turn.
3 stars (PG-13)