The Free

This is a book told in the third person. Although it is well edited for the most part the centre of focus changes so often and so many principal characters are introduced it becomes difficult for the reader to figure out who the book is about or how all these disparate people fit together. There doesn’t appear to be any one main character.

The nurse
Her favourite patient
Her father
The runaway girl
Her squat mates
The night man at the group home
His second job
The gal where he buys donuts
The injured PTSD Vet
His roommates
His mother
His girlfriend

The hospital where Pauline works and most of the rest become patients or their visitors appears to be the unifying force. And in a parallel storyline in italics which appears to be Leroy’s hallucination or dream the Free of the title are a vigilante group who  hunt Leroy and his partner. The name is ironic because they are imprisoned by their hate.

This isn’t the kind of book that leads the reader to expect happy endings. It does paint a realistic picture of these people’s onging lives and struggles. There are no climaxes or resolutions, the final chapters seem to jump forward several years and then it abruptly ends.

The Lobster Kings

The story is narrated by Cordelia who helps work her father, Woody’s fishing boat. There is a sense of outrage, injustice that underlies the tale when her mewling baby brother, her father’s first-born son is seen as the inheritor of the family fortune and business. Ironically, it is her mother who believes that a daughter’s place is onshore, not on the sea.  Even more ironic that the boy lacks interest in being a fisherman. Life on the sea is a hard one and the book pulls no punches. The tale is told matter-of-factly. People die and get injured, grow old and retire. Sibling rivalries flare and on a small island justice is meted out vigilante style. Wars over fishing rights are fought.

Lobsters are termed Bugs.

And, since this is a novel of this century and the bountiful harvests of yore are no longer so plentiful the lure of easy money from drug running rears its ugly head. The patriarchal progenitor of the Kings Clan was a painter of some note and his paintings are described at fitting points in the story.

Four

This book is a series of novellas that are told in the first person from Tobias Eaton's point of view forming a prequel to the Divergent series documenting Four's own initiation and the rivalry between he and Eric. The final section parallels Tris' arrival at Dauntless.

The book assumes the reader has read the Divergent Series and would be hard to follow without that prior knowledge. For Divergent fans this is a useful addition to the canon.

One is disposed to like Four and reading this book brings him back to us. The fact that he here admits to and confronts his own frailties, vulnerabilities, and misgivings somehow makes him more real to us. Having seen the movie versions one cannot help but picture him as Theo James.

Virgin River

First in a lengthy series of Romance Novels set in the mountainous Redwood region of Northern California. The author's books are well written with decent plots that make the love-making scenes an adjunct to the main storyline. Still I don't read them for the vicarious titillation value.

Some Luck

The opening chapter of this book provides the best description I've ever read about an infant's perception of the world around him. Piaget would be proud. It continues to see the world from a child’s perspective highlighting sibling rivalries and disputes. Why do some children insist on testing the limits and defying their parents no matter how many times they get punished for disobedience?

As the story continues the lives of the children continue to have an important role in the plot. Each chapter begins a new year from 1920 to 1953, the Depression, The Dust Bowl, and WW#2 playing prominent roles.

Following the lives of the various family members we are introduced to a remarkable number of themes all narrated in the third person. The novel is sweeping in its scope.

Let It Ride

Second in L.C. Chase’s trilogy it follows the same characters but concentrates on another pair, here Bridge Sullivan and New York-born Paramedic Eric Palmer. The crew is rounded out by fellow rodeo rider Kent Murphy and the pair we met in book one pickup man Marty Fairgrave and former Bull rider Trip Colby. Early on we are introduced to Toby and his brother Cory who announces that he is gay telegraphing the plot for book three.

If the path to true love had no obstacles Romance Novels would be rather short and sweet but mankind would seem a fallen race and the lovebird's foibles and emotional hang ups seem to invariably get in the way raising the question, is anyone truly normal? The facades we put up to mask our inner turmoil often get in the way.

This book is more bump and grind than story for my taste and the book is not well edited, being filled with grammatical and spelling errors which detract from the storyline further. Frequent use of profanity may be fitting for the characters involved but it begins to feel inappropriate, especially in the hands of a female writer.

Unless you're reading books like this for their titillation value it will quickly become tiresome. 

I've quipped that Romance Novels supply employment for bodybuilding models. This one's eyes, if you go by the book it fronts should have been blue-purple.

Allegiant

This is book three in the Divergent trilogy. The off again, on again romance between Tris, Beatrice Prior  and Tobias Eaton, (Four), continues its rocky road. The plot thickens as the central characters leave the city and learn new dimensions and meet new people. Plot lines become more convoluted and confusing both to the reader and the characters we are following. Nothing is as it first seems, it appears. Matters become increasingly confusing and unsettling. Don’t expect Hollywood endings  here, this isn’t a fairy tale.

The Reason You Walk

The author's name, Wab Kinew, as used here and on radio is a shortened version of his true Anishinaabe name. All First Nations writers talk of residential schools it seems. Government policy at the time supported by the church was aimed at assimilating Native Children by seizing them from their parents and depositing them in church-run schools. As his fellow writer Thomas King would say policy was aimed at either annihilation or assimilation.

This book is autobiographical. Whether or not it is exactly true in all its details it documents the myths of the author's life. The writing style is very readable. I particularly like that he always provides an English translation for Native languages.

In telling his story the author documents many traditional Native rituals including the Lakota Sundance and fasting which some have called a vision quest. Many of these seem strange to those of us who share European Ancestry and even the author shares his doubts.

In concluding Kinew decides that holding on to grievances allows them to claim he who holds the grudge. Healing will come through reconciliation, not separation; understanding, not suspicion; and most powerfully love, not hate. It is these principles that underlie his writing style and make this book so appealing.

The Things a Brother Knows

The story is narrated by the younger of two sons of an immigrant Jewish family who live in Boston. Levi and Boaz share a bathroom but when his brother returns from a stint in Marine Service a relationship that was distant when his brother, older by three years, hit high school has now become completely withdrawn. The man who returned from war is not the boy who enlisted.

Levi has two best friends, Zim, the boy across the street and Pearl, a Jewish Chinese girl adopted by a single mother—a friend, not his girlfriend.

Essentially this is a story about PTSD and a loving family's attempt to understand and support a troubled young man.