The Bottom Line, #5

The Bottom Line is a feature to designed to give quick and dirty reviews of books I've read, but I either don't have the time or the inspiration to write full reviews on them.

Just Take My Heart by Mary Higgins Clark
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (April 7, 2009)
ISBN-13: 9781416570868
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Source: My Shelves
Rating: 2/5

I first discovered Mary Higgins Clark in middle school and I devoured all of her back list. And while I remember loving her older books, Just Take My Heart didn't measure up. I found the story to be completely predictable and the book as a whole was forgettable.


Good Harbor by Anita Diamant
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Scribner (September 17, 2002)
ISBN-13: 9780743225724
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Women's Fiction
Source: My Shelves
Rating:3.5/5

I loved Diamant's Red Tent, and while Good Harbor is a very different kind of book I really enjoyed it as well. The characters were vibrant, and while they were older than me, the story of their friendship was one that most women will understand and be drawn to.


Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal by Julie Metz
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Voice (June 9, 2009)
ISBN-13: 9781401322557
Genre: Non-Fiction
Source: Publisher
Rating: 3/5

I expected to like this book much more than I actually did. I read it this summer while on vacation and maybe it just didn't fit with my mood at the time. Perfection was very well written, and while I sympathized with Metz and understood her need to learn everything she could about her husband's affairs, I just wasn't pulled into the story.

Review: Down To A Sunless Sea by Mathias B. Freese

Book Info:
Down to a Sunless Sea by Mathias B. Freese

Paperback: 148 pages
Publisher: Wheatmark (November 15, 2007)
ISBN-10: 1587367335
Genre: Short Stories

Rating: 2/5

Down to a Sunless Sea plunges the reader into uncomfortable situations and into the minds of troubled characters. Each selection is a different reading experience-poetic, journalistic, nostalgic, wryly humorous, and even macabre. An award-winning essayist and historical novelist, Mathias B. Freese brings the weight of his twenty-five years as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist into play as he demonstrates a vivid understanding of-and compassion toward-the deviant and damaged.

I finished this book quite a while ago and have been letting it roll around in my head before I wrote my review. I thought with some more time, maybe the book would grow on me, but I have come to realize this one just wasn't for me.

There were a couple of stories that I really did like, but the majority didn't appeal to me. My favorite story was I'll Make It, I Think. It is the story of a young man who is physically disabled. You get a glimpse into his life and mind, and what you see isn't always pretty. He is angry and sometimes unhappy, but the story is unflinchingly honest.

I also enjoyed Little Errands a lot. It is a stream of consciousness type story and I really related to it. I occasionally have days when I feel like I am always second guessing myself and feel ragged and run down, like the character in the story.

I didn't really connect to the characters in the other stories though. It wasn't the writing, but more the feeling that I just didn't have anything in common with them. These stories are very short, sometimes only a few pages. I usually like my short stories to be a little longer so that I am able to get a sense of the character before moving on to the next story.

This collection has gotten really good reviews both on Amazon and from other bloggers though, so I will leave you with a couple of those reviews for a different viewpoint.

Literary License

J Kaye's Book Blog

Errant Dreams

Booking Mama

Melody's Reading Corner

Love Junkie by Rachel Resnick

Rachel Resnick hits her forties single, broke, depressed, childless, a train wreck. After an ex-boyfriend breaks into her home and vandalizes it, Resnick takes the time to look back over her romantic and sexual history to ask the question: What is wrong with me? Thus begins her quest to uncover the roots of love and sex addiction, every bit as toxic and damaging to life as heroin. Love Junkie charts Rachel Resnick's harrowing emotional journey from addiction to intimacy, from despair to hope. By peeling back one painful layer after another, what she discovers is a glaring pattern: she is addicted to the fantasy of romantic bliss, marriage, and children. Yet all her relationships proved impossible. At the root of her issues: a Dickensian childhood experience. Finally she confronts her alcoholic mentally ill mother' suicide. In this groundbreaking, compulsively readable memoir, Resnick flays her own psyche in search of the truth, cracking open one of the more elusive and pervasive addictions of our time.

I received this book as part of Elle's early reader program. I was picked this time as a non-fiction reviewer. They pick a theme for the month and send you three books to read on that topic. At the end of the year, you also review the top non-fiction books from the other months. This months theme, loosely, was mental illness and addiction. I probably wouldn't have picked this book up if it weren't for this program.

I have pretty much been staying away from the "I had a terrible childhood and now it ruined my life" type books. I have found them, for the most part, to be depressingly similar. The authors put themselves in poor situations time and time again, and wonder why the outcome never changes. This one wasn't much different.

Resnick claims to realize she is a love junkie, and maybe she really does see the problem and want to change. However, this book seems to be written more to shock, and as a catalog of her sexual exploits. The writing also rambled a bit, switching from past to present without much rhyme or reason. Overall, it was a quick read, but not very satisfying. 2 stars

The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti

Twelve year-old Ren is missing his left hand. How it was lost is a mystery that Ren has been trying to solve for his entire life, as well as who his parents are, and why he was abandoned as an infant at Saint Anthony's Orphanage for boys. He longs for a family to call his own and is terrified of the day he will be sent alone into the world.

But then a young man named Benjamin Nab appears, claiming to be Ren's long-lost brother, and his convincing tale of how Ren lost his hand and his parents persuades the monks at the orphanage to release the boy and to give Ren some hope. But is Benjamin really who he says he is? Journeying through a New England of whaling towns and meadowed farmlands, Ren is introduced to a vibrant world of hardscrabble adventure filled with outrageous scam artists, grave robbers, and petty thieves. If he stays, Ren becomes one of them. If he goes, he's lost once again. As Ren begins to find clues to his hidden parentage he comes to suspect that Benjamin not only holds the key to his future, but to his past as well.

From the description I thought this book would be something I really enjoyed and I couldn't wait to read it. I have been disappointed though. I thought it would have some mystery with Ren looking for clues to his parents, and some adventure along the way. What it turned out to be was the story of some petty thieves that really weren't all that interesting to me. The storyline of Ren's parents doesn't even really get brought up until the last hundred pages.

There were some mildly interesting minor characters, but those couldn't keep me reading. As a disclaimer, I haven't currently finished this book. Maybe it all comes together beautifully in the end. But, even though I don't know who Ren's parent's are, I don't really want to spend the time reading the last hundred pages to find out. 2 stars

Her Last Death by Susanna Sonnenberg

Her Last Death begins as the phone rings early one morning in the Montana house where Susanna Sonnenberg lives with her husband and two young sons. Her aunt is calling to tell Susanna her mother is in a coma after a car accident. She might not live. Any daughter would rush the thousands of miles to her mother's bedside. But Susanna cannot bring herself to go. Her courageous memoir explains why.

Glamorous, charismatic and a compulsive liar, Susanna's mother seduced everyone who entered her orbit. With outrageous behavior and judgment tinged by drug use, she taught her child the art of sex and the benefits of lying. Susanna struggled to break out of this compelling world, determined, as many daughters are, not to become her mother.

Sonnenberg mines tender and startling memories as she writes of her fierce resolve to forge her independence, to become a woman capable of trust and to be a good mother to her own children. Her Last Death is riveting, disarming and searingly beautiful.

I don't know if I have just read too many my-mother-was-terrible-and-it-wrecked-my-life type memoirs, or if it was my frame of mind (I've had a hard time getting through books lately), but I couldn't have cared less about this story.

The author came across as whiny to me. Yes, her mother was a drug addict and far from a good role model, but that doesn't excuse the author's poor choices at nearly every stage in her life. At some point you have to grow up and take responsibility for yourself, and I never felt Sonnenberg did that.

There wasn't all that much in the book that I found all that interesting or humorous. I keep reading, expecting it to get better and finally put it aside with about 40 pages left. If I have made it that far in a book I will almost always finish it, but I couldn't justify wasting anymore time when I have so many other books to read.