Review: The Darlings by Cristina Alger

The Darlings
Author: Cristina Alger
Published: February 16, 2012
Genre: contemporary fiction
Hardcover: 352 pages
Source: borrowed from the library


My Rating: 3 stars


Synopsis (from GoodReads): Now that he's married to Merrill Darling, daughter of billionaire financier Carter Darling, attorney Paul Ross has grown accustomed to New York society and all of its luxuries: a Park Avenue apartment, weekends in the Hamptons, bespoke suits. When Paul loses his job, Carter offers him the chance to head the legal team at his hedge fund. Thrilled with his good fortune in the midst of the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression, Paul accepts the position. But Paul's luck is about to shift: a tragic event catapults the Darling family into the media spotlight, a regulatory investigation, and a red-hot scandal with enormous implications for everyone involved. Suddenly, Paul must decide where his loyalties lie-will he save himself while betraying his wife and in-laws or protect the family business at all costs? Cristina Alger's glittering debut novel interweaves the narratives of the Darling family, two eager SEC attorneys, and a team of journalists all racing to uncover-or cover up-the truth. With echoes of a fictional Too Big to Fail and the novels of Dominick Dunne, The Darlings offers an irresistible glimpse into the highest echelons of New York society-a world seldom seen by outsiders-and a fast-paced thriller of epic proportions.


My Thoughts: I picked up this book for one main reason: the cover. I know, I know, how vain am I? Seriously though, that black and white shot taken in Central Park had me swooning. And I've always wondered about the people who are lucky enough to live in those apartments overlooking the park. So, once I read the description of this book, I thought, "How perfect that I found this book!" It would give me an idea of what these people's lives are, how they live and have little idea of what it's like for those of us who are impacted by their greed. Cristina Alger is a lawyer who worked in New York City and lived through the turmoil that marked the downfall of the financial industry in 2008. She writes this novel as someone who knows how it all happened, and that definitely comes across in her writing. 


This story is told by different characters, with each character getting a chapter to tell us what is going on at that point. Each chapter is a specific date and time, so it might be Paul telling you about how it is the morning after the incident, and then Merill, his wife, telling you how she feels about it a few hours later. It created a rich story when you had so many people contributing their voices to this tale, because circumstances like these had so many people involved. The only characters that I didn't care for were those from the SEC, but I think that their chapters just weren't developed enough. Their stories had to be told, since they are supposed to be investigating this fraud, but they just weren't developed enough.


I found this book to be very interesting. The financial crisis of 2008 was an awful time in our country and this fictional story reads like something that actually happened. Alger is a gifted writer and hopefully, she continues in this vein of stories in the future.

Waiting On Wednesday (8-29-12)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. Each week, you highlight an upcoming release that you are eagerly anticipating. This week, I'm looking forward to My Berlin Kitchen by Luisa Weiss (release date: September 13, 2012).

Synopsis (from BN.com): It takes courage to turn your life upside down, especially when everyone is telling you how lucky you are. But sometimes what seems right can feel deeply wrong. My Berlin Kitchen tells the story of how one thoroughly confused, kitchen-mad perfectionist broke off her engagement to a handsome New Yorker, quit her dream job, and found her way to a new life, a new man, and a new home in Berlin—one recipe at a time.

Luisa Weiss grew up with a divided heart, shuttling back and forth between her father in Boston and her Italian mother in Berlin. She was always yearning for home—until she found a new home in the kitchen. Luisa started clipping recipes in college and was a cookbook editor in New York when she decided to bake, roast, and stew her way through her by then unwieldy collection over the course of one tumultuous year. The blog she wrote to document her adventures in (and out) of the kitchen, The Wednesday Chef, soon became a sensation. But she never stopped hankering for Berlin.

Luisa will seduce you with her stories of foraging for plums in abandoned orchards, battling with white asparagus at the tail end of the season, orchestrating a three-family Thanksgiving in Berlin, and mending her broken heart with batches (and batches) of impossible German Christmas cookies. Fans of her award-winning blog will know the happy ending, but anyone who enjoyed Julie and Julia will laugh and cheer and cook alongside Luisa as she takes us into her heart and tells us how she gave up everything only to find love waiting where she least expected it.

So, what are you waiting on this Wednesday?

Top Ten Tuesday (8-28-12)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. Each week, 

they post a different topic, and you get to create your own top ten list. So, this week's 

topic is:

Bookish Confessions

1) I check out an insane number of books from the library and only read about 1/3 of the one's that I check out. I don't know why, but I just have to check out a bunch, even thought I know I won't read them!

2) I judge people when I hear that they read certain books. Like, people who read and loved 50 Shades of Grey. I just can't help it!

3) I love to go into a bookstore and just wander around. There's something about just walking among the books that is so calming to me.

4) I try not to buy new books unless they are by an author that I absolutely love.

5) Since I don't buy new books, I love to get mine from a used book sale hosted by my local library. And, I go crazy. Like, I end up with stacks of books.

6) I sometimes dog-ear my pages. I know, that's a sin to some people, but there are times when there is nothing around for me to use!

7) I'm slowly coming around to e-books and readers (I feel so guilty admiting this!) They aren't totally bad, and super great whenever I travel.

8) If I'm not feeling a book within the first 5-10 pages, I stop reading it. I don't post anything about it on my blog, but I just let it go.

9) While I typically scorn the Twilight series, I devoured all 4 books in about a week. I loved it at the time.

10) I set reading goals for myself and then forget about them. I always want to do certain things in terms of my reading, but then just say, "Oh, screw it!"

So, what are your bookish confessions? Let me know!

Audiobook Review: Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani

Big Stone Gap
Author: Adriana Trigiani
Narrator: Grace Bennett
Published: January 1, 2000
Genre: fiction
Audiobook: 10 CDs (10 hours)
Source: borrowed from the library


My Rating: 2.5 stars


Synopsis (from GoodReads): Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the tiny town of Big Stone Gap is home to some of the most charming eccentrics in the state. Ave Maria Mulligan is the town's self-proclaimed spinster, a thirty-five year old pharmacist with a "mountain girl's body and a flat behind." She lives an amiable life with good friends and lots of hobbies until the fateful day in 1978 when she suddenly discovers that she's not who she always thought she was. Before she can blink, Ave's fielding marriage proposals, fighting off greedy family members, organizing a celebration for visiting celebrities, and planning the trip of a lifetime—a trip that could change her view of the world and her own place in it forever. Brimming with humor and wise notions of small-town life, Big Stone Gap is a gem of a book with a giant heart. . . .


My Thoughts: I discovered Adriana Trigiani's work a few months ago and fell in love with it. She is a gifted writer and has a way of pulling her readers into her character's lives. I had high hopes for this novel but they fell far short of what I have come to expect from a Trigiani novel. Now, I'm not sure if this is because it was in audiobook form, but there was something that just didn't flow with this book. It felt a bit disjointed at times, like we were jumping around with no real direction. I did enjoy parts of the story and I liked the character of Ave Maria, but there was something that was just off.


For me, part of the problem with this novel was the narrator. I don't think I've ever had an issue with a narrator before, or one who I thought ruined the entire audiobook experience, but I felt that way with this story. Grace Bennett narrated this story and her pacing was awful! There were long pauses, as if a new chapter was beginning. Instead, Bennett would take a pause in the middle of a conversation with two characters. It was awful and made for a poor listening experience. It really upset me, and I have never felt that way about a narrator before.


This is the first book in the series, and I debated for a few days whether I should continue with it or not. I decided that I would give it a try based on how much I've enjoyed Trigiani's other books but decided to do the print version instead of the audiobook. Have you read this series? What are your thoughts on it?

Review: Summer Breeze by Nancy Thayer

Summer Breeze
Author: Nancy Thayer
Published: June 5, 2012
Genre: chick lit
Hardcover: 320 pages
Source: borrowed from the library


My Rating: 2.5 stars


Synopsis (from GoodReads): Morgan O’Keefe feels trapped in a gilded cage. True, the thirty-year-old mother agreed to put her science career on hold to raise her young son while her husband  pursued his high-powered job. But though Morgan loves many things about staying home with her child, she misses the thrill of working with her colleagues in the lab. She’s restless and in dire need of a change.
 
Fed up with New York City’s hectic pace, Natalie Reynolds takes up her aunt’s offer to move to the Berkshires and house-sit her fabulous lakeside house for a year. Passionate about applying brush to canvas, Natalie is poised to become the artist she has forever longed to be. But life on Dragonfly Lake is never without surprises, and for a novice swimmer like Natalie, the most welcome surprise proves to be the arms of a handsome neighbor pulling her up from the water for a gulp of air.
 
When her mother breaks her leg, Bella Barnaby quits her job in Austin and returns home to help out her large, boisterous family. Among her new duties: manning the counter at the family business, Barnaby’s Barn, an outdated shop sorely in need of a makeover. While attractive architect Aaron has designs on her, Bella harbors long held secret dreams of her own.  
 
Summer on Dragonfly Lake is ripe for romance, temptation, and self-discovery as the lives of these three women unexpectedly intertwine.Summer Breeze illustrates how the best of friends can offer comfort, infuriate, or even—sometimes—open one’s eyes to the astonishing possibilities of life lived in a different way. This captivating novel displays a prestigiously gifted writer at the height of her storytelling powers.

My Thoughts: So, I read a Nancy Thayer book last summer (Heat Wave) and didn't like it at all. But, I have seen so many people rave about her books that I thought, "Maybe I just picked up one of her bad ones. I'm gonna give her another try." Let me just say that I was just as disappointed with this book as I was with the last one. While I don't expect chick lit to make me look at the world differently or question my understanding of the universe, I do look for something that could be real, or at least is so hilarious that I can forget the world for a little bit. Nancy Thayer's books do neither for me. They feel so forced that there is no possible way that they could be real. It's all so fake and the dialogue between the characters so jilted that I have to shake my head at how unreal it is.

The premise behind the book is interesting. That's the only saving grace of this novel. Each woman's storyline has something to offer, but Thayer doesn't really develop any of them. There aren't any real struggles. The one who comes a bit close to this, Bella, just decides to give up and follow her boyfriend across the country, seemingly just giving up her life so that she can tag along with him. The other two, Morgan and Natalie, are written so simply. And everything works out perfectly for them, which makes the novel even harder to stomach.

I would compare Nancy Thayer's work to an overly sweet dessert. It's so sickeningly sweet that it hurts your teeth and you hope that the pain subsides quickly. While I was looking for a light summer read, I found something that was so bad that not even the beautiful sunshine could save it. I have decided that Thayer's work is not for me and will not be reading any of her novels in the future.

Book Blog Hop and Follow Friday (8-24-12)

Happy Friday! Enjoying the last few days of summer? I am anxiously looking forward to my summer vacation in London! I leave next Tuesday, so I won't be able to participate in these memes next week, but I will have lots of updates for the week after! In case you didn't notice the link at the top of my page, I am hosting a giveaway for The Shoemaker's Wife (my review). Make sure to enter for a chance to win this great novel!

Jen at Crazy For Books asks:

Blogging Question: What is your favorite thing about blogging?

I love connecting with people. I love reading other people's thoughts on things, learning about new books, and discovering great people who I might not have met otherwise. 

Parajunkee asks:

Worst cover? What is the worst cover of a book that you’ve read and loved?

Hands down, Jane Eyre.

I hate this cover and I think Ms. Bronte would, too.

So, what do you love about blogging? What's the worst book cover you've ever encountered? Let me know, and have a great weekend! (And make sure to enter my giveaway!)

Waiting On Wednesday (8-22-12)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. Each week, you highlight an upcoming release that you are eagerly anticipating. This week, I'm looking forward to Wicked Pleasures by Penny Vincenzi (release date: September 27, 2012).

Synopsis (from BN.com): 

All families have secrets—but could one scandalous secret tear this aristocratic family apart? Sexy, glamorous, and fun, Wicked Pleasures, set on a canvas as American as English, is the story of a brother and two sisters who discover that they all have different fathers. None of them are the children of Alexander, Earl of Caterham, who was married to their mother for almost twenty years.

A family saga that takes the reader right from the 1950s to the end of the twentieth century, and set between the Hamptons summer homes of New York’s elite and the English countryside familiar to any fan of British period drama, it’s a tale of the power and greed of the mega-rich, as the great banking business upon which the family’s fortunes are won and lost comes to the brink of ruin. Intense relationships, both old and new, are tested to the utmost in this grand and unputdownable summer read.

While I'm not a huge fan of the title of this book, I do love Vincenzi's writing. So, what are you waiting on this Wednesday?

PS - make sure you check out my giveaway for Adriana Trigiani's The Shoemaker's Wife!