Huntington Public Library Adult Reading Challenge

  James was a gripping, gritty, and disturbing novel regarding the horrific slave trade and abuse of blacks. Taken from the perspective of "Jim" of Huckleberry Finn , James has an intelligence and moral depth in his struggle to escape, survive, and save his family. Well written and historically harsh.

  Beautifully written. An engrossing retelling of the Russian folktale Snegurochka set in Alaska. The winter is rendered as a character alongside Mabel, her husband, and her snow child. I am not an enormous fan of the ending but that is partially because of my knowledge of Slavic folklore - I suppose that those coming in fresher would not have the annoyed reaction I did to the choices Ivey made. Regardless, this is a nice summer read when you want something snowy!

  For a long time now when people online ask for a book that lifts your spirits, "The Guncle" comes up repeatedly. So I moved it up to the top of my list and am so glad I did. It's a very touching story which is funny and charming while the thread underneath it all is how we deal with grief in different ways and the lasting impact of our loved ones and our decisions. I didn't want it to end, but also couldn't wait to see how it all resolved.

  This is the book if you have ever wanted to know what it’s like to live on a space station.

  A well written and keen insight into aging and being pushed out of a job.. not a happy or up book ..well worth reading.

 This book asked more questions than it answered. Glimpses of personalities and behaviors were well written. A story that could have easily gone in may different directions.

This story centers around the life of a woman (Lara) who now lives on a cherry farm in Michigan with her husband Joe. When her three adult daughters return to the farm during the pandemic, they insist on their mom recounting the tale of a portion of her life when she was an actress, and later having a relationship with a famous actor, "Duke". The novel goes back and forth between the past, the tracking of Lara's acting career, the people she was involved with over the years, the various decisions she made, and the present and how she ended up on the farm, married to Joe and the mother of these three women. The character development was interesting and well done, and I liked how the pieces came together at the end of the book. I actually listened to it as an audio book, narrated by Meryl Streep, who did an excellent job! I did find it to be a little too long and drawn out.  

This book is the basis for the Academy Awards nominee "American Fiction." Protagonist Monk Ellison is an author, although not well-known and often rejected by publishers for his latest book. Angry at the rise of unsophisticated and popular writing, he ventures into an arena of satire he's unable to escape.

  Life is complex. We are all human. What is the price of achieving the "American Dream"? The reader follows the story of a new arrival from Haiti. She was supposed to arrive with her mother to live with her family in Detroit. Instead, mother and daughter are separated at a U.S. airport and Fabiola has to come alone. She has to learn how to navigate through her new life. Technically, this is a young adult novel, but it feels like an adult one. There are a lot of layers here that touch on many of the things we hold close us- faith, loyalty, family, power, choices and consequences. A great novel full of emotion. *Contains complex adult situations and language

 What a struggle reading this book!! The author was a Pulitzer Prize winner for this book, which is what prompted me to slog through this book. While beautifully written, almost poetically descriptive, the story line dragged; what a waste of my time!!

This uplifting novel is a story of the redemptive power of friendship between strangers and how food can be an intergenerational link. Paying a debt from the past, Sentaro runs a tiny confectioners stand specializing in dorayaki, a pancake filled with sweet bean paste, He meets Tokue, an elderly woman disfigured by Hansen's disease who asks to work for him and teaches him to make the most delicious sweet bean paste. The shop is frequented by students and Wakana begins stopping by daily. A friendship ensues between these three characters and the reader is given a glimpse into the history of the ostracism those suffering from Hansen’s disease faced in Japan. At its core, this is a story of how compassion opens new possibilities.

  Set in post crash Ireland in the 2000s, The Bee Sting is narrated by several characters of the Barnes family. There is Dickie, whose once lucrative car business is going under and his wife Imelda, who spends her days shopping until realizing that her lifestyle is no longer sustainable. Their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams and their twelve-year-old PJ, who is on the brink of running away to meet someone he has met on an online chatroom. This is a novel that begins slowly and builds up into a crescendo that mirrors the economic crisis and is a thoughtfully written picture of family dynamics and failure of communication.

The emotion in this story, which takes place in Manhattan in the 1970s, permeates every single page. Love, race, justice, hope, injustice, life, death. All those themes pour into this heart-breaking story of the despair that exists in America, especially for African Americans.  

  A beautifully-written book that switches back and forth in time and place, tracing a variety of characters all related though their love and interest in horses. I learned a lot about Lexington, a celebrated race horse and stud.

 I have always been a big fan of Lorrie Moore. She publishes infrequently, though. Her last book published was a best seller, A gate at the Stairs. An excellent rendition of a small town's after effects suffered after 9/11. But this book -- a zombie!!?? whose ex-husband takes her cross country??!! Horrible book, bad premise!!

 An amazing book and a must read. A story about migrants and migration to the United States, policy issues and humanitarian concerns, fellow human beings, and issues of morality!

 Loved this book! It's exciting and tells a great story about Southern Appalachia. Easy read.

Emily, I love you but you really lost me with this one. I'm still confused by the ending and I've been processing it for a day already. I liked the thought, and I really wanted to like this book. I was just so confused with where you were going with this. You definitely made a good switch going to romance and you should keep with that.  

  This is a difficult novel to parse, but it is well worth the effort. Wright has done something truly unique here, bridging the "White" Australian world with the "Waanyi" Australian world. Individual sentences will simultaneously check every box of beautifully written Western literary fiction and plop readers into the dream world of Waanyi magical realism. Vocabulary of both, worldviews of both, combine into a saga not only of a family but of a town caught between cultures. There's a lot here; it's long, and it's a slow read. It's also truly immersive. I learned a lot about the unique Australian postcolonial landscape and the Waanyi culture's experience contemplating (white) modernity. I also enjoyed the story.

  In this short novella, a young woman looks back to when her mother brought home a crane who dressed like a man. Kelly Barnhill gives her twist on the story of the Crane Wife, exploring the lives of the children of a woman obsessed. Great story, only 120 pages long.