I decided to read this book as research for my
latest YA novel. I was curious how Walter managed different timelines. Little
did I know how engrossed I would become by this sweeping story of love and old
Hollywood?
I was gripped by the characters and surprised by the
turns in the plot. I found myself hoping for a very specific ending, which I
usually try not to do as that’s the author’s job.
One storyline takes place
during the production of the ill-fated Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
epic Cleopatra, and that’s all I needed to keep reading. Yet, it was the
relationship between the two main characters that hooked me and made me
restless, thinking about when I could continue reading.
The #1 New York Times bestseller—Jess Walter’s “absolute masterpiece” (Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author): the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 and resurfaces fifty years later in contemporary Hollywood.
The acclaimed, award-winning author of the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets returns with his funniest, most romantic, and most purely enjoyable novel yet. Hailed by critics and loved by readers of literary and historical fiction, Beautiful Ruins is the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962...and is rekindled in Hollywood fifty years later.
I
always avoided reading Patricia Highsmith because I thought her writing would
be too smart for me. Frankly, I was intimidated. I was right about the level of
intelligence she employs to confidently tell a story and unravel her characters,
but her writing is accessible. It’s not heavy prose—in fact, she has a light
touch while building the layers of a character study.
This
is a book with a lot to say about its characters, and I was dragged into their
worlds and misdeeds and dreams. It was a weird sensation to root for Ripley since he’s a sociopath, but I did.
When he gets away with one crime only to
start planning the next, I practically yelled at the page, “Tom, you
already won! Walk away!”. But that’s the thing with Highsmith: you can never walk away.
It's here, in the first volume of Patricia Highsmith's five-book Ripley series, that we are introduced to the suave Tom Ripley, a young striver seeking to leave behind his past as an orphan bullied for being a "sissy." Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley's fascination with Dickie's debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie's ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game. "Sinister and strangely alluring"…
Recipe for a Perfect Wife is elegant and intriguing
and hits on many of the character and thematic notes that I look for. The relationship
between the main character, Alice, and the house that she moves to and comes to
resent is palpable and relatable.
I was all in from the moment Alice finds a
mysterious cookbook in the house, waiting for her next move and for Brown to
reveal more about Alice and what makes her tick.
The best compliment I can pay to any novel is that I
was sad when it ended. I don’t know how to explain that feeling, but I know it
when I feel it.
*LJ-"Brown kills it, a captivating winner" BL-"The pacing is brisk, the characters are appealing, and both time lines are equally well realized. Thoughtful, clever" Kirkus-"engaging and suspenseful."
Sixteen-year-old Sam Sullinger lives in the shadow of adolescence. He's lost among his overachieving siblings, constantly knocked down by his harsh father, and bullied daily. His only solace is his best friend and crush, Harper.
In a grand plan designed to help him confess his love to Harper, Sam accidentally sets off a series of events that lead to her being kidnapped and taken to Hell. Racked with guilt, Sam makes a bold decision for the first time in his life: he’s going to rescue his only friend.
Sam is thrust into a vivid world fraught with demons, vicious beasts, and a falling city. And every leg of his journey reminds him that he isn’t some brave knight on a quest — he’s an insecure teenager yearning to make his mark on at least one world.
