Great way to start the new year, huh? I got to thinking that I’d read these three books and enjoyed them immensely because they’re all the type of story in which you start out thinking one thing and then gradually you find out that everything you believed was wrong. Two of them are novels, and I’ve said before that I’ve sort of lost my taste for fiction. They must be pretty good! I will just issue my usual warning about strong language, for the novels at least. Having said that, if you’re just looking for some good reads, something to curl up with on a cold winter evening, these should fill the bill.
Happens Every Day: An All too True Story by Isabel Gillies, first published in 2009 by Scribner, now available in multiple formats from multiple outlets. Visit the author’s website at isabelgillies.com.
I ran across this great book, as I have so many others, by spotting it on the shelf at the library. It wasn’t even on the new book display; I think the title on the spine just jumped out at me. What a delight this author is. She tells a sad story without a particle of self-pity. There she is, living in a small university town in Ohio, madly in love with her darkly handsome (or handsomely dark, take your pick) professor husband, working to decorate the fabulous old house they’ve bought, raising two boys, trying to get back into acting or at least teaching others to act, when everything falls apart. Her husband falls in love with someone else. It seems so incredible that a whole life, a whole family, can be devastated just because one person decides to pursue his or her adulterous feelings. Anyway, the book isn’t a downer at all. Gillies is very funny, for one thing. I did find myself wanting to shake her at times, though, and tell her pre-revelation self, “Isabel, wake up!” I found out when I looked up the image for the book that she wrote a second book about the aftermath of her divorce, which I have now loaded on Hoopla and will report on when I finish it.
You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, first published in 2014 by Grand Central Publishing, now available in multiple formats from multiple outlets. Vist the author’s website at jeanhanffkorelitz.com.
The premise of this novel is a delicious irony: the main character, Grace Reinhart Sachs, is a therapist who has written a book titled You Should Have Known. She sees women in her practice all the time who have fallen for terrible, destructive, deceptive men. But guess what? Well, it’s no spoiler to say that she’s done the same thing but just doesn’t know it yet. The way Korelitz unwinds the story is truly masterful. It falls into two parts, with the first half about Grace going through the process of being brought face to face with the truth and then the second dealing with what she finds out from other people after the fact. At first I didn’t want to read the second half, as I thought it would just be a re-hash, but I pressed on and am glad I did.
As with the book above, I discovered that there’s more to read by this author and now have one of her other books loaded on Hoopla.
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, originally published by Riverhead Books in 2015, now available in multiple formats from multiple outlets. Visit the author’s website at paulahawkinsbooks.com. Recently made into a movie, which I don’t plan to watch unless I’m snowed in with a cold, as there’s no way a movie could do this book justice.
Everyone was talking about this novel, and I’m sure it was on the new books display at the library. Some reviews said that it was better than Gone Girl. Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I hated Gone Girl. So the comparison wasn’t much of a promo for me. I think I picked it up figuring that I’d read a chapter or two and see what all the fuss was about; I would warn anyone who does this that you’d better just figure your life is over until you’re finished. It is really amazing how Hawkins has crafted her novel. I’m very reluctant to say anything more than that. You have to read it for yourself. Or listen. I ended up using an Audible.com credit to go through it again and, again, found it hard to do anything else until I finished.
Hawkins has a second book coming out in May, Into the Water. I don’t see how she can produce anything up to the level of this one, but we’ll see.