Columbine.

GoodReads Synopsis: On April 20, 1999, two boys left an indelible stamp on the American psyche. Their goal was simple: to blow up their school, Oklahoma-City style, and to leave "a lasting impression on the world." Their bombs failed, but the ensuing shooting defined a new era of school violence-irrevocably branding every subsequent shooting "another Columbine."

Now, in a riveting piece of journalism nearly ten years in the making, comes the story none of us knew. In this revelatory book, Dave Cullen has delivered a profile of teenage killers that goes to the heart of psychopathology. He lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris, and the quavering, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who went to prom three days earlier and obsessed about love in his journal. 

The result is an astonishing account of two good students with lots of friends, who came to stockpile a basement cache of weapons, to record their raging hatred, and to manipulate every adult who got in their way. They left signs everywhere, described by Cullen with a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of police files, FBI psychologists, and the boy's tapes and diaries, Cullen gives the first complete account of the Columbine tragedy.

In the tradition of Helter Skelter and In Cold Blood, Columbine is destined to become a classic. A close-up portrait of hatred, a community rendered helpless, and the police blunders and cover-ups, it is a compelling and utterly human portrait of two killers--an unforgettable cautionary tale for our times.

My Thoughts:  Wow, this was a fascinating book.  It's incredibly well-researched and well-written.  I found myself in places wishing a bit that the author would stop bouncing back and forth between before and after the shooting.  But by the end of the book, it make complete sense how he peeled back the onion bit by bit instead of chronologically.  

I learned so much about the tragedy, mostly that everything I knew about it was untrue.  Columbine was quite damning to the media and its coverage of such tragic events, and how their poor coverage resulted in so much false belief even ten years later (when this book was published).  

If you're curious about Columbine, school shootings/terrorism, or the psychology of people who commit mass murder, then this would be a great read for you.  I read it in less than three days, despite the heaviness of the subject matter.  Incredibly fascinating and incredibly sad, all in the same book.

Rachel Knight Series.

Overview:  Rachel Knight is a Los Angeles County prosecutor in the Special Trials Unit.  As such, she prosecutes (and apparently investigates...) high-profile cases in LA.  Along with her BFFs LAPD Detective Bailey Keller and prosecutor Toni La Collier, Rachel navigates life, work, and romance as a highly visible local figure with her own childhood baggage and a love for vodka martinis, expensive LA restaurants, and sarcasm.  GoodReads synopses (slightly edited by me for length) for each book:

Guilt by Association:  When her colleague, Jake, is found dead at a grisly crime scene, Rachel Knight is shaken to the core. She must take over his toughest case: the assault of a young woman from a prominent family.  But she can't stop herself from digging deeper into Jake's death, a decision that exposes a world of power and violence and will have her risking her reputation--and her life--to find the truth.  

Guilt by Degrees:  Someone has been watching D.A. Rachel Knight--someone who's Rachel's equal in brains, but with more malicious intentions. It began when a near-impossible case fell into Rachel's lap, the suspect-less homicide of a homeless man. In the face of courthouse backbiting and a gauzy web of clues, Rachel is determined to deliver justice. She's got back-up: tough-as-nails Detective Bailey Keller. As Rachel and Bailey stir things up, they're shocked to uncover a connection with the vicious murder of an LAPD cop a year earlier. Something tells Rachel someone knows the truth, someone who'd kill to keep it secret.

Killer Ambition:  When the daughter of a billionaire Hollywood director is found murdered after what appears to be a kidnapping gone wrong, Rachel Knight and Detective Bailey Keller find themselves at the epicenter of a combustible and high-profile court case. Then a prime suspect is revealed to be one of Hollywood's most popular and powerful talent managers--and best friend to the victim's father. With the director vouching for the manager's innocence, the Hollywood media machine commences an all-out war designed to discredit both Rachel and her case.

The Competition: A Columbine-style shooting at a high school in the San Fernando Valley has left a community shaken to its core. Two students are identified as the killers. Both are dead, believed to have committed a mutual suicide. In the aftermath of the shooting, Rachel Knight teams up with her best friend, detective Bailey Keller. As Rachel and Bailey interview students at the high school, they realize that the facts don't add up. Could it be that the students suspected of being the shooters are actually victims? And if so, does that mean that the real killers are still on the loose?  

My Thoughts:  I absolutely love the character of Rachel Knight-- she's tough, sarcastic, quick-witted, and smart.  Plus, she hates mornings as much as I do.  These stories are all fantastic with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing, but not so much to give you whiplash.  Marcia Clark definitely has a great storytelling talent, which has now served her well in two careers.  The Competition is my least favorite of the four.  It annoyed me slightly how a prosecutor was awfully involved in the investigation of a school shooting.  There were almost no courtroom scenes.  But it was otherwise a fascinating whodunnit thriller.  The first three were all five star books to me.  I gave the last one only three, which upon reconsideration might be a bit harsh.  Perhaps it's closer to a 4.  But definitely all are entertaining and worthy of reading!

The Nightingale.

GoodReads Synopsis:  In the quiet village of Carriveau, France, 1939, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France...but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When France is overrun, Vianne is forced to take an enemy into her house, and suddenly her every move is watched; her life and her child’s life is at constant risk. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates around her, she must make one terrible choice after another. 

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets the compelling and mysterious Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can...completely. When he betrays her, Isabelle races headlong into danger and joins the Resistance, never looking back or giving a thought to the real--and deadly--consequences.

With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah takes her talented pen to the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women’s war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France--a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime. 

My Thoughts:  I don't know why, but I did not want to love this book.  Probably because there was so much hype about it that I wanted to buck the trend.  But alas, I could not.  It truly is a beautiful, inspiring, and devastating story.  Like most, I've read many, many novels set during World War II, some set in battle, and some on the home front.  It's almost impossible to write from a fresh perspective in such an oft-covered time period.  But Kristin Hannah has done so.  I loved the characters of Vianne and Isabelle.  They were beautifully deep and vibrant despite the author only having 438 pages to make us love two women.  And love them I did.  This book is definitely a roller coaster.  A slow build-up, some early bumps and turns, then hang on for a wild ride to the end.  Five stars.

Top Ten Tuesday-- Fall To-Read List.

Fall is an exciting for me and books. While I read the most during the summer, some of my favorite authors release new books in the fall!  Plus, I still have stacks of books from the library that I didn't get to during the summer to read in the next few months.  There are so many books I want to read before the year is over!  In no particular order, here are the top 10 books on my fall To-Be-Read list:

 

1. 8 Sandpiper Way by Debbie Macomber-- I am desperate to finish the Cedar Cove Series.  I've really slowed down reading these books because they've become a bit tedious with more and more additional characters.  But I've read seven of twelve, and darn it, I will finish them all!

2. The Competition by Marcia Clark-- I've read the first three Rachel Knight books this summer and LOVED them.  The only reason I haven't finished this one yet is because it's currently the last one.  So I'm holding off as long as I can, but it won't be long before I get back to it. 

3. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah-- The reviews surrounding this book have been phenomenal.  I'm very much looking forward to reading this one! 

4. The Crossing by Michael Connelly-- Hands down, my favorite fiction author, is Michael Connelly.  I anxiously await every fall when his new books are released, and I'm so excited for another Harry Bosch/ Mickey Haller crossover this November! 

5. Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham-- Another author whose books are always must-reads for me.  I can't wait to pick up this one in October. 

6. The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo-- After finishing all of the Harry Bosch series last year, I needed another detective series to read.  And Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole series has filled that spot wonderfully.  Since they are translated from Norwegian, sometimes the stories aren't the smoothest, but they are still fantastic.  The Redbreast is next up for me from the library.

7. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins--  I started to read this book a few months ago but wasn't very into it.  But I am determined to finish it this time once I get it from the library after waiting months in the 700+ person queue...

8. Killing Monica by Candace Bushnell-- I've never read a book by Candace Bushnell, so I'm not sure what prompted me to get this one from the library.  There are some very bad reviews about the end of this book, so I think it's mostly curiosity that makes me determined to pick this one up soon. 

9.  Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella-- Most YA books are not my cup of tea.  But I love Sophie Kinsella (outside of the Shopaholic books), so I'm hoping that this one will be as cute and fun as her adult stories. 

10.  Desiring God by John Piper-- This book has been on my to-read list for almost a year.  It stares at me from my bookshelf.  I will read it by the end of this year!

Down the Rabbit Hole.

GoodReads Synopsis:  A former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner describes how her years inside the Playboy Mansion went from a fairytale of A-list celebrity parties to an oppressive regime of strict rules, scheduled sex, and a total loss of identity, so much so that she even contemplated suicide.

My Thoughts:  Like many, I watched Girls Next Door with morbid fascination.  Life inside the Playboy Mansion seemed like life on another planet.  With that same curiosity, I was oddly excited to read Holly Madison's book.  She seemed like a genuinely nice person on the show, even if rather dim.  As you can imagine, Holly's tales of her time with Hugh Hefner are not rainbows and unicorns.  Rather, she describes a tyrannical and ruthless Hef with extreme rules and expectations and a gaggle of "girlfriends" who would do anything to climb their way to the top over the others.  I'm glad to read that Holly has seemed to find some normalcy for herself now and has gained some confidence.  The writing is as you would expect-- cliched and clearly biased in many places.  But it's a memoir of a former Playboy bunny.  You're not reading it for it's beautiful prose.  Three stars.

Stay Close.

GoodReads Synopsis:  Megan is a suburban soccer mom who once upon a time walked on the wild side. Now she’s got two kids, a perfect husband, a picket fence, and a growing sense of dissatisfaction. Ray used to be a talented documentary photographer, but at age forty he finds himself in a dead-end job posing as a paparazzo pandering to celebrity-obsessed rich kids. Jack is a detective who can’t let go of a cold case—a local husband and father disappeared seventeen years ago, and Jack spends the anniversary every year visiting a house frozen in time, the missing man’s family still waiting, his slippers left by the recliner as if he might show up any moment to step into them. Three people living lives they never wanted, hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect, will find that the past doesn’t recede. Even as the terrible consequences of long-ago events crash together in the present and threaten to ruin lives, they will come to the startling realization that they may not want to forget the past at all. And as each confronts the dark side of the American Dream—the boredom of a nice suburban life, the excitement of temptation, the desperation and hunger that can lurk behind even the prettiest facades—they will discover the hard truth that the line between one kind of life and another can be as whisper-thin as a heartbeat.

My Thoughts: In the last two years, I've read every single one of Harlan Coben's books except one.  The was the next to last one I had to finish to finally catch up with his current publishing schedule.  He's easily one of my favorite writers.  But this was not my favorite of his books.  Perhaps it was because I've read so many recently that I was slightly burned out on them.  Or perhaps it genuinely was not as good as the others.  Who knows.  

It's a perfectly fine thriller, don't get me wrong.  The story was gripping, and there were plot twists that I did not anticipate.  But I guessed who the killer was early on and was proven right.  The journey to the end was entertaining and fun, just not up to Coben's usual standard.  Three stars.

(If you want to read some of his best work, go with Gone for Good, Tell No One, or the Myron Bolitar series.)

The Dress Shop of Dreams.

GoodReads Synopsis:  Since her parents’ mysterious deaths many years ago, scientist Cora Sparks has spent her days in the safety of her university lab or at her grandmother Etta’s dress shop. Tucked away on a winding Cambridge street, Etta’s charming tiny store appears quite ordinary to passersby, but the colorfully vibrant racks of beaded silks, delicate laces, and jewel-toned velvets hold bewitching secrets: With just a few stitches from Etta’s needle, these gorgeous gowns have the power to free a woman’s deepest desires.

Etta’s dearest wish is to work her magic on her granddaughter. Cora’s studious, unromantic eye has overlooked Walt, the shy bookseller who has been in love with her forever. Determined not to allow Cora to miss her chance at happiness, Etta sews a tiny stitch into Walt’s collar, hoping to give him the courage to confess his feelings to Cora. But magic spells—like true love—can go awry. After Walt is spurred into action, Etta realizes she’s set in motion a series of astonishing events that will transform Cora’s life in extraordinary and unexpected ways.

My Thoughts:  I desperately wanted to love this book.  After the beautiful works of Sarah Addison Allen, I sought out other "magical realism" books, and this was recommended by many.  Unfortunately, I found it greatly lacking.  

First the good-- the magic in this book is Etta's dress shop and her ability with her magic needle and thread to reveal to a person his/her deepest desire and give them the courage to pursue it.  I loved the discussion of her shop and how it changed for each customer, and then how it changed each customer.  Beautiful.  The relationship between Etta and Cora was also beautiful and touching.

But, the story relied heavily on my least favorite plot device ever-- a misunderstanding or lie that one character relies upon that changes their life (and therefore guides the story).  So, I spent almost all of the book incredibly frustrated and desperate for the truth to come out.

I also enjoyed the bit of mystery in the book, but it was clear early on who the bad guy was.  

Overall, it wasn't the worst book ever, but it didn't make me want to pick up another by this author.  Two stars.