Concussion by Jeanne Marie Laskas

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

I wanted to read Laskas' book because I have children in competitive contact sports.  My boys wear helmets.  As parents, we spend a lot of money and research on said helmets to ensure we are protecting our kids.  This is not the case. 

"Then again, unlike boxers, football players wear helmets, good protection for the skull.  So it would be reasonable to think that the brain would be spared damaging impact.  But plenty of people know better.  Anybody who knew anything about the anatomy of the head knew better.  It was a simple matter of physics.  The brain floats, is suspended in a kind of thick jelly inside the skull.  If you hit the head hard enough, that brain is going to move, no matter what kind of protection you put around the skull.  A helmet protects the skull. A helmet can't keep the brain from sloshing around in that skull.  If you hit your head hard enough, the brain goes bashing against the walls of the skull.  Bennet had seen plenty of cases of brains destroyed despite helmets.  People in motorcycle crashes wore helmets.  On the surface is nothing, but you open the skull and the brain is mush."

I don't know much about American football, and neither did Dr. Omalu, but this football wasn't the catalyst for wanting to study the brain of Iron Mike Webster who died from a heart attack at the age of 50.  Webster, one of the greats of the game, went from living the dream as a professional athlete, to forgetting how to live.  He tried to glue his teeth back into his mouth, and had to taser himself into unconsciousness to get some sleep.  Omalu suspected that Webster's crazy behaviour was as a result of an underlying brain disease and set out to prove just this. 

This story is absolutely riveting and amazing.  I enjoyed reading about Omalu's background and growing up in Nigeria, as well as the relationship between Omalu and Wecht (a forensic pathologist who has been involved with any and all high-profile cases, including being on the panel that supported the two bullet theory).  Laskas is a wonderful and detailed writer and I would highly recommend this book. 

Don't You Cry by Mary Kubica

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

Twentysomething Quinn is awakened one Sunday at 6:00 a.m., suffering from a hangover, by her roommate Esther's blaring alarm clock. Esther's window is open which is odd during a Chicago winter, but Quinn becomes concerned about her roommate's absence only when she selfishly craves the breakfast Esther usually brings her after church.

The police aren't worried yet, but Quinn enlists the help of her cute coworker, Ben, to help find out where her roommate might be. They duo uncover clues that lead to Quinn suspecting Esther of murder—is Quinn next on her roommate's death list?

Meanwhile, an hour up the coast of Lake Michigan, 18-year-old Alex has given up a college scholarship to wash dishes at a diner so he can care for his alcoholic father. When he notices a mysterious, beautiful girl in his restaurant, he befriends her, hoping for a romance.

Told in alternating voices, Alex's and Quinn's separate mysteries combine in a surprising way.

I really enjoyed The Good Girl and was really excited to get my hands on another book by Mary Kubica.

Each story could stand on its own as a novel, the way Kubica intersects them is quite clever. There were just enough plot twists, both subtle, and dramatic to make this book a contender to appear on various "best of" lists for 2016. The writing is tight, descriptive, and the pace is fast enough to keep the reader engaged to polish off this book in one sitting.

Thank you NetGalley, this page-turner was just what I needed on a winter's day.

MARY KUBICA is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in History and American Literature.

She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children and enjoys photography, gardening and caring for the animals at a local shelter. 

The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

A special thank you to Goodreads First Reads for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“I’ve been following her for the past few days. I know where she buys her groceries, where she has her dry cleaning done, where she works. I don’t know the color of her eyes or what they look like when she’s scared. But I will.”

Mia Dennett is a 24-year-old art teacher from a predominant Chicago family. One fateful night, Mia Dennett is at a bar, waiting for her sometimes boyfriend.  When he fails to show, Mia leaves with a mysterious stranger. As far as first impressions go, Colin Thatcher seems like a norma,l one-night stand kind of guy. However going home with Colin will prove to be the worst mistake of Mia’s life.

Instead of delivering Mia to his employers as promised, Colin instead hides Mia in a cabin in a secluded area of Minnesota. Mia’s mother, Eve, is desperate to find her daughter and so is detective Gabe Hoffman. Almost nothing turns out as expected, especially when Mia returns and has no memory of what happened to her or her former life before the kidnapping.

Kubica's debut is a powerhouse! In the genre of thrillers, Kubica asserts herself as a top player. Her writing is clever, sharp, and tight. There were just enough plot twists, both subtle, and dramatic to make this book a contender to appear on various "best of" lists for 2015. The pace is fast enough to keep the reader engaged to polish off this book in one sitting which is exactly what I did.

MARY KUBICA is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in History and American Literature.

She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children and enjoys photography, gardening and caring for the animals at a local shelter. 

The 20/20 Diet: Turn Your Weight Loss Vision Into Reality by Phillip C. McGraw

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

This book was a solid 2.5 out of 5 for me.  There was some really great information here, but completely bogged down by the Dr. Phil-isms, but I guess that's why people are going to buy this book.  He has some good tips and breaks things down into more palatable sections, but there is nothing new here.

The High Mountains of Portugal: A Novel by Yann Martel

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

I absolutely loved Life of Pi, and like that story, The High Mountains of Portugal was very hard to get into however, I did like this book more than Beatrice and Virgil. 

This novel is made up of three separate narratives, all of which are connected and come full circle in the last story which takes the reader back to Portugal. The first story takes place in the early 1900s. Tomás sets out on a quest that takes him from Lisbon to the High Mountains of Portugal by one of the first motor cars. The second story takes place thirty-five years later. A pathologist is visited by his wife who juxtaposes the novels of Agatha Christie to Bible verses and then is possibly murdered when she leaves his office. He is then visited by a lady who bring him the body of her dead husband in a suitcase and wants and autopsy performed on him. And finally, fifty years later we meet Senator Peter Tovy of Ottawa who is grieving the death of his own beloved wife. Peter, on a whim, rescues a chimpanzee from a primate research facility in Oklahoma. He takes the chimp to Portugal, home to his ancestral village and this is where all three stories weave together. 

In true Martel fashion, the story has themes of love and loss, a strong animal presence, and almost a fable-like quality. His writing is beautiful, but at times too complex, especially in the beginning. I'm glad I finished the book, but I really had to push through the first story to do so.

A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding by Jackie Copleton

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

This incredibly moving page-turner set in present day and 1945, was one I couldn't easily put down.  Described as being in the same vein as Memoirs of a Geisha and The Piano, this debut novel is a heart-wrenching story of love, loss, hope and forgiveness, against a historical backstory equally as heartbreaking.

Amaterasu Takahashi opens her door to a badly scarred man who claims to be her grandson that perished in the bombing of Nagasaki along with his mother/her daughter Yuko, nearly forty years earlier.  He brings with him a collection of sealed letters that drag Ama back to her memories in Japan that she tried to forget when she and her husband fled to America.  Each chapter reveals more of her past life, the life of her daughter, their mutual love affair, and the death of her daughter and grandson, Hideo.

I would have given the novel five stars, but at times, it was hard to determine which character was telling the story with Ama and her daughter - perhaps this was done on purpose since they shared the same antagonist.