Tainted by Brooke Morgan

Tainted by Brooke Morgan is a tense thriller about a single mother who is swept off her feet by a charming British man she meets by chance when he moves to her small town.  He seems out of her league and too good to be true.  Slowly she discovers that he has a great deal of secrets and is not who he claims to be.  If you are looking for a good thriller to pass the time, this may be the book for you.  It was somewhat predictable, and at times it felt that scenes in which she, her family, and friends were figuring things out went on way too long.  Overall it was pretty good. 3/5

Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai

This very charming story, set in the Indian village of Shakhot, centers on Sampath Chawla.  Born on a magical night when a terrible drought comes to an end and food accidentally drops from the sky, it seems that he is destined for greatness.  Fast forward about twenty years, and he is disappointing his family with a string of failures and disgraceful incidents which cause him to seek an escape by climbing a guava tree.  He is then mistaken for a holy man, sending his town into chaos.  Oh yeah, the town is also being terrorized by a pack of brazen monkeys.
This book is simply a lot of fun to read.  If you are looking for something entertaining, what could be better?

Cowboy & Wills by Monica Holloway

Last night I finished Cowboy & Wills: A Love Story by Monica Holloway.  This is only the first part of the description on the book flap:   The day Monica learns that her lovable, brilliant three-year-old son, Wills, has autism spectrum disorder, she takes him to buy an aquarium. It's the first in a string of impulsive trips to the pet store to buy animals as a distraction from the uncontrollable, crushing reality of Wills's diagnosis. But while Wills diligently tends to the growing menagerie, what he really wants is a puppy. And one Christmas, when Wills is six, Cowboy Carol Lawrence joins their family....

There were times that I felt like this book was written just for me.  Many of Monica Holloway's experiences and emotions were very similar to my own during the diagnosis and acceptance stage of autism.  Her impulsivity and need to find control were easy for me to relate to, although I know that they seem unreasonable to some.  I've read some criticism of her way of dealing with the situation, but I don't agree.  As a parent, you do what you can to make things better for your child, and nobody is going to deal with that in the same way.

There is a part when she is given feedback from the professionls after months of testing and she says, "The diagnosis was expected, but reading paragraph after clinical paragraph, forty-eight pages of what Wills could not do--how ill at ease he was with the world and himself--was crushing..."  She captures it right there.  This is why I hate IEP meetings.

What I loved about this book was that it was hopeful.  She took the situation and found a way to laugh about things, to enjoy her son's individual strengths, and help him move on.  The stories about Cowboy's puppy days were wonderful.  I also felt connected to those.  Cowboy ate horse poop, and hey, Dixie likes goose poop!  I am so glad that a friend brought this book to my attention.  It's comforting to know that somebody has been where you are, and that they found hope and humor in it.  5/5  

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

I just finished The Lotus Eaters, a story about wartime Vietnam.  It took me longer to read than most, but I didn't want to rush it.
Helen Adams is a photojournalist who goes to Vietnam to find out how her brother died, planning to stay just a few months.  She is fresh and inexperienced, and she wants to prove herself in a world dominated by men.  Through her experiences she becomes hooked on the war and in love with the country, and she remains in Vietnam until the war comes to an end.  Helen meets Sam Darrow, a seasoned war photographer who becomes her lover.  The story is also about Linh, Sam Darrow's Vietnamese assistant with a secret past.  The story opens as the war is lost and Helen and Linh are trying to make their way to the American embassy to escape.  The suspenseful beginning hooked me right away.  The story then goes back to when Helen first arrived in Vietnam, and we gradually learn about the past of these characters.  I loved each one of them, especially Linh.  The book gave me a look at Vietnam that I've never had.  It was disturbing to read at times, but Soli gave a very complete picture of the war and the Vietnamese people.  I thought this book was excellent.  It was definitely a 5/5 for me.

Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji

Description: In a middle-class neighborhood of Iran's sprawling capital city, 17-year-old Pasha Shahed spends the summer of 1973 on his rooftop with his best friend Ahmed, joking around one minute and asking burning questions about life the next. He also hides a secret love for his beautiful neighbor Zari, who has been betrothed since birth to another man. But the bliss of Pasha and Zari's stolen time together is shattered when Pasha unwittingly acts as a beacon for the Shah's secret police. The violent consequences awaken him to the reality of living under a powerful despot, and lead Zari to make a shocking choice.

This book surprised me.  I was expecting something very intense and serious from the description, and it was that but also so much more.  There is a lot of humor in this coming-of-age in 1970's Iran story.  The funny and the sad blended so well.  I loved the friendship between Pasha and Ahmed.  I would definitely suggest this one to others. 4.5/5

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

partial description from the flap:  THE NAMESAKE follows the Ganguli family through its journey from Calcutta to Cambridge to the Boston suburbs. Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli arrive in America at the end of the 1960s, shortly after their arranged marriage in Calcutta, in order for Ashoke to finish his engineering degree at MIT. Ashoke is forward-thinking, ready to enter into American culture if not fully at least with an open mind. His young bride is far less malleable. Isolated, desperately missing her large family back in India, she will never be at peace with this new world.

Soon after they arrive in Cambridge, their first child is born, a boy. According to Indian custom, the child will be given two names: an official name, to be bestowed by the great-grandmother, and a pet name to be used only by family. But the letter from India with the child's official name never arrives, and so the baby's parents decide on a pet name to use for the time being. Ashoke chooses a name that has particular significance for him: on a train trip back in India several years earlier, he had been reading a short story collection by one of his most beloved Russian writers, Nikolai Gogol, when the train derailed in the middle of the night, killing almost all the sleeping passengers onboard. Ashoke had stayed awake to read his Gogol, and he believes the book saved his life. His child will be known, then, as Gogol.

I originally started reading this novel a few years ago.  For some reason I could not get into it and set it aside for another time.  After reading (and loving) Interpreter of Maladies I decided to give it another try.  What a different experience it was this time for me.  I loved the story of Ashima and Ashoke, especially Ashoke's backstory.  I felt both frustration with and sympathy for Gogol.  The transformation that he makes throughout the book didn't seem to be completely believable to me at times.  I am looking forward to seeing the film version now because I have heard so many people say that they enjoyed it even more than the book.  I do adore Jhumpa Lahiri's writing style.  She is quickly becoming a new favorite for me.  I would rate this a 4/5.