cmclarabee's reviews
627 reviews

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson

4.0

The Coast Road by Alan Murrin

3.0

I may just have read too many Irish novels this year but this one felt to me like it never had much momentum going. It kept my interest, but it didn’t make much of an impression.

Sandwich by Catherine Newman

5.0

Can a book be absolutely hilarious and also incredibly moving and heartbreaking but also hopeful? I wouldn’t have thought so, but this one is. Bravo, Catherine Newman! So good.

When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O'Neal

4.5

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

5.0

So good! 

Summer Sisters by Judy Blume

medium-paced

• Loveable characters? No

2.5

I will always adore Judy Blume, and wound up being glad I saw this one through, but it’s not her best. Oddly, I’d thought it was new, but it was actually first published in 1998, which explains some things. 

Sisters of Belfast by Melanie Maure

4.25

Memories of the Lost by Barbara O'Neal

4.5

Thoroughly enjoyed this!

Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Edward Durham

medium-paced

3.5

Harrowing and charming, but Durham’s tale also packs effectively grim lessons about events beyond those of the fictional Hollow and Addington’s Isle. Well done.

The All of It by Jeannette Haien

5.0

Did NOT go where I feared it might. Instead, Haien delivers a subtle meditation on one of the priest’s favorite sermon topics: “To work one’s imagination on someone else is evil.” Brilliant.