My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal

A special thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Set in England in the 80s, this deeply touching story is about two brothers who end up in foster care when their mother is deemed unfit to look after them; Leon is nine years-old and black, and Jake is four months old and is white.  Jake is quickly adopted while Leon must learn to navigate his life without his baby brother in a new home, that of his carer Maureen.  When Maureen takes ill, he is shuffled to another home, that of Maureen's sister, Sylvia.  Leon struggles to make sense of his feelings of abandonment, and his separation from his baby brother.  He is also endeavours to find acceptance, love, and to understand what went wrong with his mother.  Usually I find unreliable child narrators trite, but de Waal nails it!  

I love British authors, I love their cadence, their phrasing, and feel a sense of kinship.  de Waal is no exception, and I cant wait to read what she publishes next.

Mischling by Affinity Konar

A special thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Hauntingly lyrical, and shattering, Mischling is a recount of some of the Holocaust horrors that children in Auschwitz were subjected to at the hands of Dr. Joseph Mengele.  Interested in twins, the emotionally stunted Mengele subjects them to horrific experiments.

Our narrators, thirteen year-old twins Pearl and Stasha are two halves of a whole.  Stasha is in charge of the funny, the future, and takes on the bad.  Pearl is the sad, the good, and the past.  They are despair and loss, they are hope and light.  Through Konar's thoughtful and magical prose, the girls deliver their story in two halves to the reader in the hopes of becoming whole again.

Like Doerr's quote on the jacket—if your soul can survive the journey, you'll be rewarded by reading one of the most powerful and beautifully written books of the year.

The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver

A special thank you to Edelweiss and HarperCollins for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Not my favourite of Shriver's work, in fact, I struggled with even finishing.  A futuristic dystopian story is an acquired taste and not really at the top of my heap, so I guess your are wondering why I even requested this title.  The truth is, I find Shriver brilliant and her works fascinating and couldn't wait to get my hands on this.  Unfortunately, it totally missed the mark.  It is too heavy on the economics and the reader is bogged down with way too much detail; this should've been the backdrop of the story, not forefront.

There was a lack of character development partly because there are so many characters, and partly because she simply covers too much ground, thus the story becomes ineffective and misses the mark.  I did appreciate her cheeky humour, but feel I may have missed a lot of the subtle nuances that make Shriver great because I simply checked out.  

The Bones of Grace: A Novel by Tahmima Anam

A special thank you to Edelweiss and HarperCollins for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was simply a beautiful read.  Each sentence ebbs and flows in a lyrical nature and Anam executes her conversational narrative perfectly.

I felt privileged reading this book, Anam trusts her readers with Zubaida's innermost thoughts, and feelings.  She is torn between love, culture, and class.  We are taken on her journey of self-discovery – she is adopted and is struggling to find herself, and where she belongs.  Zubaida is conflicted with her identity both in terms of being adopted and not having a biological history, but also with the identity of being someone's wife in Bangladesh culture.

My only criticism is when she switched between POV and time periods it was a little clunky for me, perhaps the finished copy will read a little smoother in this regard.

Thank you Tahmima Anam for your exquisite work.

The Red House by Emily Winslow

A special thank you to Edelweiss and HarperCollins for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Like the other novels in the series, this one is told from various points of view in first person narrative.  Again Winslow falls down with this format, there are too many points of view and she would be so much more effective if she would just stick with her detective team—there is the potential to have great chemistry and it would be an interesting juxtaposition.  While this book has less supporting characters, the multiple points of view stall the plot at times.    

I was intrigued to read Winslow's books because they are marketed for fans of Kate Atkinson and Donna Tartt.  I don't think anyone should have their work compared against Tartt, I feel that she is in a league all her own.  That being said, I would definitely check out other books in the series because I think Winslow has the capacity to be a great writer.  This book was marginally better than The Start of Everything.    

The Start of Everything by Emily Winslow

A special thank you to Edelweiss and HarperCollins for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The body of a young girl has washed up just outside Cambridge, England and we are introduced to the detective team of Chloe Frohmann and Morris Keene.  The detectives each are battling their own issues while trying to solve the case before the press takes off with the story.

Told from five points of view in first person narrative, we hear from Chloe, Morris, Mathilde, Grace, and George.  Where Winslow falls down is through the introduction of too many other characters that really muddy the waters; while I realize this might have been intentional because of the thriller/mystery genre, but there were a lot of unnecessary characters that disrupted any momentum she had with the plot.

This story had so much potential and could have really benefited from a substantive edit.  The characters could've been developed more and the story line tightened up.  There were times where I had no clue what was going on and I had to go back and try to figure out who was who and what was going on, again because there were simply too many characters that were not developed.

I was intrigued because it was marketed for fans of Kate Atkinson and Donna Tartt.  I don't think anyone should have their work compared against Tartt, I feel that she is in a league all her own.  That being said, I will definitely check out the other two books that feature Frohmann and Keene, I'm not ready to give up on them, I just think that Winslow hasn't hit her stride yet.