The Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion

The Best of Adam Sharp is not the best of Graeme Simsion. Readers longing for the charm and humor of The Rosie Project will find an entirely different novel in Adam Sharp. In his twenties, Adam, an itinerant IT expert, travels from England to Australia for an assignment. While there he meets Angelina in a pub where he plays piano in his spare time. He falls in love with Angelina, a TV soap opera star, while being sure that she’s too good for him. They share a love of music and the best of this novel is its use of songs as the playlist for their lives. 

Adam moves on to another assignment, returns to England and marries Claire. They’ve been content for more than twenty years but their marriage has hit a rough patch and they rarely share their bedroom anymore. Claire’s involved in a business deal that may entail a move to the U.S. and both she and Adam don’t believe that he’d follow her. Thus, when Adam receives an email from Angelina, he’s open to her entreaties and their internet flirting escalates. 

The first section of the book when Adam and Angelina’s romance blossoms in Australia is a harmless “chick-lit” of a tale with the musical playlist making it more than the sum of its parts. The second section changes tone so dramatically that it feels as if the reader has entered a different novel. When Adam heads to France to meet Angelina and her long-time husband Charlie at their vacation home in the country, the novel takes an ominous turn. Successful Charlie seems affable and welcoming yet his actions hint at the Machiavellian. While Adam and Angelina renew their romance, the reader is left wondering which one of the three will be hurt or if all are victims.

The plausible ending almost makes up for the unruly second half of the novel and the playlists and a strange musical trivia contest add spice to the book, but The Best of Adam Sharp doesn’t work. Reading the playlists and singing along with the songs Adam Sharp plays is enjoyable, yet the novel is more of a flat than a sharp. 

Summing it Up: Reread The Rosie Project or turn to the back of The Best of Adam Sharp and stroll down memory lane via the novel’s fabulous playlist but skip the novel itself. It’s a slog.

Rating: 2 stars   

Category: Fiction, Overcooked

Publication date: May 2, 2017

Author Website: http://graemesimsion.com/

What Others are Saying:

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/graeme-simsion/the-best-of-adam-sharp/

Publisher’s Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-250-13040-2

'Round Midnight by Laura McBride

‘Round Midnight is Laura McBride’s second novel following the wonder We Are Called to Rise. In the 1950s, June leaves her boring New Jersey marriage and Jewish community and moves to Las Vegas where she marries Del, the owner of El Capitan, a small casino. When June hires rising African-American singer Eddie Knox, his unique voice brings the customers into the casino’s Midnight Room and the place rocks. June’s attraction to Eddie soon upends their lives. 

 

The novel shifts to 1990s Chicago where Jimbo buys Honorata, a mail-order Filipino bride, from her uncle without her knowledge. Honorata’s life changes when she hits a jackpot at El Capitan and meets June. Coral is a music teacher whose father was Del’s best friend and she’s searching for her identity after learning that she was adopted. Her mother tells Coral “Life is long. There’s a lot of ways for a secret to come out.”  McBride reveals those secrets as Coral’s story develops. Later, Coral and Honorata buy homes on the same street and meet through their children. In 2010 Honorata’s priest asks her to hire Engracia, a Mexican immigrant, to clean her home. Engracia had worked as a housekeeper at El Capitan and she ties the women and their stories together and brings the book to its breathtaking climax. 

McBride tells the women’s stories in a third person narrative that allows the city of Las Vegas and its growth and changes to mirror the lives of the protagonists. The book is primarily about the four women and their relationships with their children and the men who populate their lives. The men are catalysts for the women’s actions, but this is primarily a book about the four women and the sacrifices and decisions they make for love. 

Engracia is the least examined of the women, yet it’s her grief, her faith, and her kindness that tie the tale together. That McBride can write so little about Engracia and still make the reader yearn to step into the book to help her is a tribute to the power of McBride’s writing. 

‘Round Midnight is like a story told around a campfire. The introduction of each character at just the right time is a testament to the brilliant pacing of this novel. At the transitions in the women’s stories, the chapter endings lead the reader directly to the next woman. McBride allows the stories to unfold with a natural rhythm at a speed that builds as the stories reach their climax. She then slows the pace to a crawl inside the closed room where the past seems destined to ruin lives. When a page-turner forces a reader to hold a deep breath to await the climax, that’s a master class in pacing.

Watch Laura McBride in this book trailer to learn more about the book and the power of love, courage, and grace. 

Summing it Up: ‘Round Midnight is a fine novel with a spectacular climax and ending. Its focus on four women of different ages, ethnic backgrounds, and socio-economic statuses showcases the myriad ways love grows. The questions it raises would make it an excellent book club choice.

Note: ‘Round Midnight simply begs to be a Mother’s Day gift.

Rating: 5 stars   

Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Book Club

Publication date: May 2, 2017

Author Website: http://lauramcbrideauthor.com/

Read an Excerpt: http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Round-Midnight/Laura-McBride/9781501157783

Interview with the Author: Nevada Public Radio https://knpr.org/knpr/2017-04/author-laura-mcbride-explores-racism-las-vegas-round-midnight  

Reading Group Guide: http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Round-Midnight/Laura-McBride/9781501157783/reading_group_guide

What Others are Saying:

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/laura-mcbride/round-midnight/

Publishers Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-501-15778-3

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Beartown is some book. Fredrik Backman, the author of the delightful novel, A Man Called Ove, presents a cast of captivating characters in a universal tale set in a small, isolated Swedish town where hockey reigns. The novel’s opening sentence sets the reader up for the intrigue to come: “Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barreled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else’s forehead and pulled the trigger.”

 

And so we enter the world of Beartown on a Friday in March when everyone is waiting for the Beartown Ice Hockey junior team to play in the semi-final game in the biggest youth tournament in the country. Many think that winning this game will revive the dying town’s fortunes. Others simply want to win because it’s Beartown. 

Peter is the general manager of the hockey club that includes the junior team. He’s a hometown hero who returned after playing in the NHL. He loves hockey, but his family means everything especially since their son’s death back in Canada. He and his wife, Kira, appreciate that Beartown protects their children as they do. Their daughter, fifteen-year-old Maya is a great kid, but when she goes to a party after a big game, things get out of hand. Kevin is seventeen and he’s the star of the team, a player who can take them far. His best friend Benji’s father committed suicide and hockey is his life. He protects Kevin on and off the ice but some wonder if he might go too far. Amat is fifteen and the coach has moved him up to the junior team because they need his speed. He lives on the wrong side of town with his mother and most people don’t want someone like him on their team. 

For the men in town who have dead-end jobs or no jobs at all, the coming game is everything. They spend their nights (and some of their days) at the local bar. “There’s a constant threat of violence hidden just beneath the surface of a certain type of person in this town that Peter never noticed when he was growing up, but which struck him all the more plainly after he came home from Canada. Neither hockey nor school nor the economy ever managed to find a way out for these people, and they emanate a silent fury. They’re known as “the Pack” now, even If no one ever hears them say that themselves.”

For the hockey parents, it isn’t just a game either. “The children’s hobbies aren’t only the children’s hobbies – the parents put just as many hours into them, year after year, sacrificing so much, paying out such huge amounts of money, that their significance eats its way even into adult brains. They start to symbolize other things, compensating for or reinforcing the parents’ own failures.”

When a violent event strikes, it may mean the end to the town’s dreams. Backman brilliantly notes how the townspeople behave. “So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that’s easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe – comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy.”

Because of the tragedy and the plight of the town, the novel veers toward darkness in places, but Backman’s glorious characters shine through. Each one offers a case study in friendship, loyalty, love, sacrifice, and hope. 

This novel will break your heart then put it back together and make it stronger. The narrator's aphorisms could have been pretentious, but instead, they made this reader feel as if one of the town's wise residents was talking directly to me. The best novels about sports are never actually about sports. Friday Night Lights was so much more than a football novel and Beartown showcases the world as seen through hockey's lens. It's a masterful, coming-of-age thrill-ride of a novel.

Summing It Up: Beartown is a wondrous tale of family, friendship, love, and hope packed with unique characters. If you love hockey you’ll adore Beartown. If you don’t care a whit about hockey, you’ll still love Beartown. Fredrik Backman is one fine storyteller and Beartown is a winner. I loved A Man Called Ove, but Beartown is a stronger book. It’s more nuanced, yet it has the heart and humor that was the best of Ove.

Note to Chicagoans: with the Blackhawks’ early exit from the playoffs, Beartown is just what you need to get through the Stanley Cup.

Rating: 5 stars   

Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Soul Food, Book Club

Publication date: April 25, 2017

Author Website: http://fredrikbackmanbooks.com/

Read an Excerpt: http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Beartown/Fredrik-Backman/9781501160769 

Interview with the Author:

Reading Group Guide: http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Beartown/Fredrik-Backman/9781501160769/reading_group_guide#rgg

What Others are Saying:

Booklist: https://www.booklistonline.com/Beartown-Fredrik-Backman/pid=8703891

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/fredrik-backman/beartown/ 

Publishers Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-5011-6076-9