All Our Wrong Todays

All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai

Penguin Publishing Group: 2/7/17
eBook review copy; 384 pages
ISBN-13: 9781101985137

All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai is a highly recommended novel of a screw-up, time travel, alternate universes, and romance.

Tom Barren comes from the world we were supposed to have in 2016, the future as envisioned by all the science fiction in the nineteen fifties, and The Jetsons (1962-63) - flying cars, all automatic doors, food and clothes synthesizers, etc. This is because in his universe on July 11, 1965 Lionel Goettreider turns on his invention, the Goettreider Engine, in front of the sixteen witnesses, and changes our future. His machine generates an unlimited source of clean energy. But Tom screwed that all up, and maybe Penelope did too.

Tom's father is a brilliant scientist in the field of time travel and is developing the first successful time travel machine. Although his father is arrogant and treats Tom with disdain, Tom is working for him, sort of, because he can't seem to find his place or a direction to his life in his 2016. When Tom falls in love, a totally unexpected occurrence, it sets into motion an impetuous decision that sends Tom into our 2016, a sharp contrast to the advanced 2016. Surprisingly, this reality may be better in many ways, but is this where Tom really belongs or does he need to try and get his 2016 back.

All Our Wrong Todays is a novel that you need to stick with through what may seem like a weak start. Tom's lack of self-esteem and confidence at the start of the novel as he tells us that he made a mistake and changed our future doesn't make sense until you get further into the novel. This means that the rather blundering diffident character you meet at the beginning doesn't seem very appealing. What Mastai is doing is developing Tom's character, which will contrast nicely with what happens later. Once the novel takes off, it is remarkable.

Mastai has created a time travel novel with interesting twists that open up alternate paths, but also seems to promote the idea that of a soulmate through all universes. It is extremely well written and, after the sluggish start, pick up speed and is an intelligent novel filled with insights. The dialogue sets it apart and elevates the plot. As other reviews have mentioned, this would make a fantastic movie.

Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher/author.

Searching for John Hughes

Searching for John Hughes by Jason Diamond

HarperCollins: 11/29/16
advanced reading copy; 304 pages
trade paperback ISBN-13: 9780062424839

Searching for John Hughes: Or Everything I Thought I Needed to Know about Life I Learned from Watching '80s Movies by Jason Diamond is a very highly recommended coming-of-age memoir about growing up in Chicago and New York, and a poignant look at following your dreams.

After viewing his first Hughes movie, Jason Diamond was hooked. He felt as if the writer/director understood him and he knew through Hughes' oeuvre that, in the end, after all the angst and anxiety, everything would turn out okay. Growing up in Chicago, Diamond also closely knew the areas, homes, and life John Hughes portrayed as the writer and/or director for many of his classic '80's movies. Hughes movies include, in part:  National Lampoon's Vacation ('83), Mr. Mom ('83), Sixteen Candles ('84), The Breakfast Club ('85), Weird Science ('85), Pretty in Pink ('86), Ferris Bueller's Day Off ('86),  Some Kind of Wonderful ('87), Planes, Trains, and Automobiles ('87) She's Having a Baby ('88), Uncle Buck ('89) and the Home Alone movies ( '90, '92, '97)

In reality Diamond's life was anything but a Hughes movie. He was an abused kid from a broken home. As a teen, his mother left him in Chicago, alone and homeless, and he went through some horribly difficult trials. Through all of it, even in adulthood, Diamond could make sense of his life and the social castes in high school thanks to Hughes's movies. After high school, Diamond went to NYC where he worked various low-paying jobs, telling people that he was a writer. However, once he started claiming that he was writing the unauthorized biography of John Hughes, he devoted himself earnestly to that project for years. He may have been delusional and his methodology for writing the biography illogical, but he put his heart into it. Needless to say, no book resulted in his years of work.

This is a well-written, intelligent, heartbreaking memoir with an abundance of self-deprecating humor. Simultaneously, it is an exploration of how one man's movies influenced his life and choices. As I read, my heart went out to Diamond. I supported him, wished him well, and wanted him to succeed. Diamond proves within these pages that he is a writer. Perhaps he could have written the definitive biography of John Hughes, but what Jason Diamond truly succeeded at was showing how, while struggling through his 20's, he learned his craft, found a purpose for his life, let go of his tragic past, and grew up. I enjoyed this memoir immensely.

Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from HarperCollins. 

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The Seventh Plague

The Seventh Plague by James Rollins

HarperCollins: 12/13/16
eBook review copy; 448 pages
hardcover ISBN-13: 9780062381682
Sigma Force Series # 12

The Seventh Plague by James Rollins is a very highly recommended addition to the Sigma Force series. This time Rollins takes the Sigma Force on globe-trotting investigations and confrontations as they try to prevent a world-wide threat of Biblical proportions. Rollins is guaranteed to provide bookish action/adventure junkies the escapism they crave.

Professor Harold McCabe, the leader of a British archeological expedition in the Sudanese desert, dies before he can explain where he was and what he was uncovering.  The professor was a believer that the plagues Moses brought down upon the Egyptians were real events and had been looking into this. An autopsy reveals that his body was in the stages of being mummified while the professor was still alive. But, when the medical team who performed the autopsy all become ill with a mysterious disease that threatens to spread across the globe, it becomes essential to discover where the professor was and what he had discovered.

Painter Crowe and the Sigma Force are called in to help, but when a mysterious group destroys all evidence and the body they must try to retrace his steps. The professor's son, Rory is still missing. Jane McCabe (some reviews are calling her Jean, but my review copy calls her Jane) his daughter, and Derek Rankin, the professor's young protégé, are being protected and helping to try and solve the puzzle. Historical guests in this one include Mark Twain, Henry Morgan Stanley, Nikola Tesla, and Dr. David Livingstone. 

This is an exciting thrill-ride of a novel that provides plenty of action and adventure. Those who have never read any of Rollin's Sigma Force novels can jump into this one and I think they will still find it enjoyable and the perfect choice for escapism, especially on a cold winter night. Fans of the series know all the characters and at this point they are all well-developed. Expect plenty of notes about the research into a wide variety of facts, including historical and scientific, that Rollins undertook when writing The Seventh Plague.  Sure, I'll concede the point that Rollin's novels may be following a formula, but even if that is true, he is one of the best around at this genre, he still adds twists and surprises, and his novels are always entertaining and compelling.

Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher/author.

Kill the Next One

Kill the Next One by Federico Axat

Mulholland Books: 12/13/16
eBook review copy; 416 pages
hardcover ISBN-13: 9780316354219

Kill the Next One by Federico Axat is a highly recommended psychological thriller.

In the opening Ted McKay is in his study, planning to kill himself, when the doorbell rings. Whoever is there is very persistent, so Ted opens the door and meets Justin Lynch. Lynch offers him a bizarre proposal: if Ted will kill two men, one criminal who deserves to die and one man who has terminal cancer and wants to die, then Ted will become the next target and spare his family the shame of his suicide. Ted, who has been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, accepts the proposition and kills the two men.

Only the men aren't quite who Lynch said they were. And Ted isn't quite what he seems to be. Then Ted's reality/story resets itself and changes. Nothing in the opening is quite what it seems and Ted may be hallucinating. His therapist, Laura Hill, is trying to help him through his crisis. What is reality and what is the truth? What do Ted's dreams mean? And why is Ted being admitted to the psychiatric unit at Lavender Memorial?

Honestly, I was ready to set Kill the Next One aside after the first two parts (at 30% of the novel) because the premise seems so absurd and there were so many holes in the story - but then I started the third part and was immediately hooked. After this point the novel dramatically changes so, first things first: you have to get through the first two parts of this four part novel for events to suddenly start to get extremely intriguing and the plot takes a twist. Is Ted sane? You will know that he might not be a reliable narrator from the first two parts. You are going to have an inkling that what you think is true might not be reality. It is also at this point that a mystery takes hold of the narrative as you try to untangle the facts.

Translated from the original Spanish by David Frye, the writing is quite good. This is one of those psychological thrillers/mysteries that you can't say too much about or you are going to give away parts. In the end, know that reading the first two parts is essential to understand all the twisty bits that follow.
Warning: There is one horrific scene of animal torture toward the end that you can just skip right over, but the presence of it might be way too much for some readers.

Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher/author.

Of All That Ends

Of All That Ends by Günter Grass; translated by Breon Mitchell

Houghton Mifflin: 12/6/16
eBook review copy; 176 pages
hardcover ISBN-13: 9780544785380

Of All That Ends by Günter Grass is a highly recommended final collection of short pieces and drawings.

This collection is Grass's swan song, his final musings on growing old, writing, and the end of his life. This doesn't mean that the collection is melancholy or depressing throughout; his prose and poetry can really be quite touching, honest, and matter-of-fact. Several of the pieces are simply his observations of everyday things. His original black and white drawings are closely tied into the prose and make his thoughts, stories, and poems even more poignant and, sometimes, whimsical or nostalgic.

Here are two of the shorter pieces

IN FRANKFURT AM MAIN
where Money lives,
Fear has moved in.
Thanks to tenant-protection laws they can’t throw her out,
nor her children, who are noisily playing Black Friday outside the stock exchange.

SO THEY CAN CONVERSE
The soft pencil suggests
that beside the bare elk skull
- a dusty birthday present -
I lay my dentures
to make a five-line poem.

CONTENTS: Free as a Bird; On Each New Leaf; Sepia au Naturel; In an Endless Line; Swoon; Evening Prayer; Abundance; Snail Mail; My Own Sounds; Soliloquy; With Staying Power; I Lack the Strength; On the Inner Life; Which Came First; Farewell to What Teeth Remain; Over the Abyss; The Last One; Self-Portrait; Standing Singly and in Fairy Rings; Complaints of a Traveler Grown Sedentary; Innards; Once; On Payments; in Frankfurt am Main; Everyday Events; Property; What Bird Was Brooding Here?; Letters; Libuše My Love; Where His Humor Fled; In the Rollwenzelei Inn; A Late-Night Visit; After Endless Torment; And Then Came Xaver; According to the Weather Report; Still Life; A Lingering Aftertaste; Roasted Almonds; When My Sense of Taste and Smell Deserted Me; Farewell to the Flesh; Stacked Lumber; Xenophobia; How and Where We Will Be Laid to Rest; To Pass the Time; That’s by Me?; Farewell to Franz Witte; Light at the End of the Tunnel; Mutti; Homesickness; When, as Required by Law; These Are Facts; Before It’s Too Late; Covered Losses; A Winter Too Mild; The Owl’s Stare; About Clouds; Rising to Heavenly Heights; On Writing; Grandpa’s Beloved; Yours and Mine; When the Monster’s Eyes Turn Green; Fear of Loss; Gone Gone Gone; In the Greenhouse; March Again; Unteachable; The End; My Boulder; What the Beachcomber Finds; Last Hope; Now; So They Can Converse; Nail and Rope; Suggestion for a Souvenir; Twisting a Rope; Painting Portraits; Stared Right Through Me; On the First Sunday; On the Back Pew; Superstition; He Called Three Times; Dear Schnurre; Stolen Goods; Found Objects; In What’s Left of the Altstadt; Dances of Death; Stared Right Through; Tracing Tracks; Hunting Season; Open Season; Summing Things Up; Balancing the Books; August; In This Summer Filled with Hate; Herr Kurbjuhn’s Question; Of All That Ends.

Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher/author.

Ocean of Storms

Ocean of Storms by Christopher Mari, Jeremy K. Brown

47North: 12/1/16
eBook review copy; 400 pages
ISBN-13: 9781503938779

Ocean of Storms by Christopher Mari and Jeremy K. Brown is a so-so science fiction novel.

An explosion on the moon causes an EMP that affects all of the earth. A deep fissure is now on the Moon's Ocean of Storms and it is believed that an alien ship long buried on the moon has caused the event. The effort to get a team who can explore the suspected anomaly on the moon requires cooperation between the USA and China. Tensions are at an all-time high globally, so hopefully some answers will calm down the human race.

This is an interesting mix of sci-fi and thriller. It starts out slow, so be prepared for a long, slow build up before they actually get to the moon. After that the novel jolts forward like it is a race to make sure they have as many varied events occurring as they possibly can in one novel. This has the novel heading more in the direction of a thriller.

I'm in a quandary over the rating of this one. There are numerous examples of poor science/no science here. Research would have helped enormously, especially since many sci-fi readers like real science in their science fiction. This lack became problematic for me as the errors mounted. For example, a world-wide EMP (electromagnetic pulse) would not be an event that we would recover from as easily and quickly as depicted in Ocean of Storms. Certainly Mari and Brown could have written this as some other world-wide occurrence and skip calling it an EMP. As the errors began to add up, I was ready to stop reading. Then the novel takes this leap and starts running off in a new direction, which made me realize that Mari and Brown weren't actually writing a sci-fi novel, they were writing a thriller that needed the sci-fi elements. This realization lessened my harsh judgement of Ocean of Storms.

It is entertaining. The writing is okay; there are numerous errors in the science. There was one huge, glaring plot mistake where a character wasn't in the scene and then suddenly was. I re-read the previous pages thinking I missed something, but, no, I didn't. All the characters are caricatures of various standard types. The thriller element tackles more popular hot topics and a conspiracy. In the final analysis it is an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink plot peopled with standard characters.

Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher/author.

Road to Paradise

Road to Paradise by Paullina Simons

HarperCollins: 11/29/16
advanced reading copy; 544 pages
trade paperback ISBN-13: 9780062444332

Road to Paradise by Paullina Simons is a novel about teenage girls on a cross-country road trip in 1981.

After graduating from high school and before she heads off to college in the fall, Shelby Sloane plans to drive across country from Mamaroneck, NY, to Mendocino, CA. Her mother, whom she hasn't seen since she was a young child, supposedly lives in Mendocino. Her father died years earlier. Emma has taken care of Shelby. Emma also gives Shelby a classic bright yellow 1966 Shelby Mustang as a graduation gift. Shelby's former friend Gina hears about her cross-country plans and begs to go with her. Gina wants to reunite with her boyfriend who is living in Bakersfield, CA.

Soon Gina is part of the planned road trip but her addition adds other problems, like several side trips to run "quick" errands for various family members. Oh, and Gina forgets to tell Shelby that she doesn't have her driver's license, so Shelby has to do all the driving. Along the way the two girls run into a hitchhiker who calls herself Candy Cane. Once she joins the two, their road trip takes a dark turn.

First things first: I would read a few pages of Road to Paradise, and then have to set it aside so I could rant at all the characters. Mainly, at the beginning, I wondered how Shelby could be so foolish and stupid. I wondered who in their right mind would not say it was a bad idea to take this trip, especially to a young woman who has never traveled anywhere. Now, I was a young adult in 1981, in college and a few years older than these girls, but still.... Even then I would have considered this a bad idea. Then I was wondering why Emma would buy her that car. Why not save the money for her college fund. Don't even get me started on what Shelby didn't realize about Emma's relationship to her. How could this have never been discussed?

There were so many ignorant, incompetent decisions that it was incomprehensible. And they just kept coming. Why wouldn't they have just left  "Candy Cane" at a gas station and keep going. Why couldn't Shelby just say "No." No I won't drop these dogs off 250 miles out of my way. No, that is not going to happen. No, Gina, I don't want you to go with me. UGH!

I would have set this book aside and informed the publisher that I simply could not finish it because it was not a book I was enjoying at all, but I had a commitment to TLC. I dearly love reviewing books for TLC, so I finished reading the whole hot mess. I admittedly did start skimming through the middle of the book because it is 544 pages of a hot mess. The epilogue did make it all a wee bit better - not enough to raise my rating, but at least I didn't feel as much resentment over reading it.

Obviously, I don't recommend this book, but be sure to read other reviews and see how other readers felt. It just wasn't a good choice for me.

Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from HarperCollins and TLC. 


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