Customer 5 Star Favs

August 17, 2023

Are you ready for 3 mini book reviews of 3 wildly different books?

Crossings by Alex Landragin

Here is what our customers said:

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️: Intriguing book, I liked the mystery and how there were multiple ways to read it.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️: Books about books, libraries, or bookstores are things I tend to like. I'm also generally like slow paced books. Overall this was a fun book.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️: This book was so good! The first bit was kinda strange but it got really good! Loved the magic of the crossing and how it was all connected at the end.

This is on my tbr list, but keeps getting pushed back because I keep reading books with friends, and there is nothing I love more than a buddy read.

But I really want to read this book despite having already decided that I am not reading any more books about Nazis. But this book seems different, and I want to give it a whirl because it has three narratives, each as unlikely as the next. And the narratives can be read one of two ways: either straight through or according to an alternate chapter sequence.

American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Here is what one customer said:

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️: Complicated relationships! Big fan. I truly did not know what was going to happen next in this book but it also kept a slower pace that I do enjoy. I didn’t like the portion of the book that was just correspondence via letters, but it was still very good overall!

I agree with the 5 star review above except the part about the letter correspondence… that was where I felt the most frustrated with both of these characters. Oh, it is so good!

I think about this book way too often. Jones does an amazing job at getting you to like all of the main characters while at the same time wanting to shake the shit out of each of them at various times. In the first pages of the book this happens: young black newlyweds are at a hotel. The man goes to the ice machine and there he sees an older white woman on crutches struggling. He helps her with her ice bucket and takes it back to her hotel room. Later that night she is raped. We know it was not him. But she accuses him and of course his fingerprints are there. He is arrested and is found guilty. The rest of the book is how his wife, his family and friends and her family and friends handle this. They were after all young and just getting started with their careers and relationships. It is so overwhelmingly frustrating and sad and ahhhhh.

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

Here is what our customers said:

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️: I thought the story telling was incredible and I enjoyed the unexpected story turns.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️: I liked that it is character driven and a Pulitzer winner.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️: Great writing, but didn’t stay on the story path constantly.

I have never read this book. I have no interest in reading it and I am quite shocked that it received this many 5 star ratings. The only reason we ever send it out is because it is on the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge, and we have lots of customers working on that.

I say all of that and then I remember–IT WON THE PULITZER in 2002 (something I can never remember when I think of this book). So I am wrong and will be adding it to my tbr.

It is about a guy in a small blue collar town. It is about his family. It is about him and the town. It has wonderful reviews on Goodreads and our customers have loved it.