Ms. Wordopolis Reads

Category: U.S.

  • American by Day by Derek Miller

    The most accurate blurb/ review I’ve read about American by Day is that it’s a hybrid sort of crime novel. But a hybrid of what, exactly? It’s a story about a crime, and it’s a story about a Norwegian police chief taking an unexpected trip to America. But it’s not really a thriller, and it’s…

  • The Chalk Artist by Allegra Goodman

    Allegra Goodman is on my auto-buy list. I really, really liked The Cookbook Collector about a pair of sisters in California, a bit of a taking down of dot com business culture, a bit of a love story with smart characters. I like her for the same reasons as I like Meg Wolitzer: sweeping drama,…

  • Startup by Doree Shafrir

    I had high hopes when I started Startup by Doree Shafrir. It starts at a ridiculous MorningRave, a “clean living dance party” populated by all sorts of denizens of New York City’s startup scene, notably Mack, the founder of an app of questionable value, and Katja, a journalist covering the tech scene. I was expecting…

  • You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott

    You Will Know Me fits into the last few Megan Abbott books centered on the heightened world of teenage girls (see Dare Me, The Fever, and The End of Everything). You Will Know Me is the story of Devon, a gymnast on the cusp of qualifying for elite status and trying out for the Olympics,…

  • Desert Vengeance by Betty Webb

    It’s been awhile since I’ve read a PI book with a tough female main character, and I’m glad I read Desert Vengeance, book 9 in the Lena Jones series. Fair warning: the subject matter is incredibly tough. The book centers on the murder of Brian Wycoff, the foster parent who abused Lena when she was a…

  • The River at Night by Erica Ferencik

    So I picked out this book because I’m extremely fond of a little movie called The Edge, which is a thriller-in-the-wilderness movie that seriously has a bear attack or something incredibly exciting every 8 minutes. It’s not a movie I rewatch and rewatch, but it sticks in my head as a very memorable ride, and…

  • Soulmates by Jessica Grose

    I was interested in this book because I spotted the word thriller in the jacket copy and I was familiar with the author’s journalism in all sorts of places. I was even more interested when I found out the story is about a young lawyer investigating her estranged husband’s death outside a new age retreat…

  • Not What I Expected: Wilde Lake by Laura Lippman

    My experience of reading Wilde Lake was a mixed one. I adored the first hundred pages, and I even went to so far to tell people to read it on the basis of the beginning alone. It’s so specific about growing up in a planned suburb in the 1970s that I  was fascinated. Now that…

  • Finishing Up Jane Smiley’s Last Hundred Years Trilogy

    I stayed up late this holiday weekend finishing up Golden Age, the last book of Jane Smiley’s Last Hundred Years Trilogy. It’s a sign that I liked the book and that I was involved in the book, but now that I’ve had time to reflect, I feel myself dissatisfied with it. Like I said in…

  • The End of Miracles by Monica Starkman

    Next up in my heavy-themed reading is The End of Miracles by Monica Starkman. It feels a bit like a case history as novel. Starkman is a psychiatrist who studied phantom pregnancies, and this book deals with that subject in part. The story centers on Margo, in the midst of fertility treatments, who requires psychiatric care.…