It's about a tradwife influencer whose chirpy public self masks a very different person underneath with opinions that would shock everyone around her if only they knew. No one in the book is likeable, including the protagonist, but you still want to know how things will turn out, and you get that the protagonist is doing what she thinks she must in order to survive. There's a vicious understory that's occasionally very funny. Very hard to put down! And it leaves lots to think about.
'My name is Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive...'
Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle - and her followers are sick with envy. Her charming farmhouse on her working ranch is artfully cluttered, her husband is a handsome cowboy, her homemade sourdough boules are each more beautiful than the…
It's not a quick or easy read but very intense and propulsive, beautifully written by one of our greatest writers. As with other T. C. Boyle stories, the lead character becomes obsessed, flailing outside of his comfort zone, making decisions on the fly, out of control. Every step along the way, you get how this could happen and go along for the ride.
Terrence Tully, work-obsessed and a naif in the arenas of sex and love, is at work when he receives news that his mother has died. A third-year medical resident in a gritty community hospital in downtown Los Angeles, he sees death daily, but the news that his mother has passed away, delivered to his cell phone by the voice of a stranger, jolts him like no other, even as he is in the act of trying to save the life of a patient undergoing cardiac arrest.
Turn the page and he's heading north on I-15 though a lifeless desert to…
Story gradually reveals how the protagonist became known as Mad Mabel, and the nature of her relationship with a lifelong friend, and her growing connections with her small neighborhood after one of her neighbors is murdered and she, with her notorious past, becomes a prime suspect. Funny in parts. Always engaging.
You can change your name. But you can't change your past . . .
Eighty-one-year-old Elsie Fitzpatrick lives a quiet life in the suburbs. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else's business, few would suspect she harbours a secret she's worked hard to bury.
Because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick - once a little girl and now an old lady - has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.
When an elderly neighbour is found dead, no one suspects…
