Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney

Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025--San Antonio

Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney has been named by NPR as a top book of 2025.  It's a mystery novel that takes place in England and Scotland.  The central characters are a man and a woman who are married.  They love each other, but there are problems.  The man is a bit set in his ways, and the woman is upset that he won't compromise on things she would like to happen.  The man is an author who has just begun to have some success with his books, and the woman is a reporter who has been their main provider but is getting some threatening messages related to her stories.  He seems to think that all is well with their marriage.  But she disappears.  The book begins a year after her disappearance.  We learn all of the above from his memories and worries about what has happened to her and from what she told a psychologist in sessions before her disappearance.  As the story progresses, it is revealed that there is much more to the story than either of them were admitting.  Much of what happens in the book occurs after he, who has been unable to write a contracted second novel since his wife's disappearance, is provided a last-ditch opportunity by his editor who also is the godmother to his wife--a chance to stay in a cottage the editor owns on a small remote Scottish island that has only 25 residents, no cell phone service, and an infrequent ferry service.  You'll have to read the book to learn what happens after he arrives on the island and what mysteries are revealed.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Three Days in June by Anne Tyler

Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025--San Antonio

Three Days in June by Anne Tyler is a slice-of-life book that has been listed as a top book of 2025.  It covers three days in the life of an aging woman in which several things are happening.  She has been the assistant director of the private school where she teaches mathematics, but is told she is being passed over for the director's job at the end of the year when her boss will retire because she just isn't a "people person."  Her only child, a daughter, is being married.  Her ex-husband is staying with her during the 3-day weekend of the wedding.  And he has brought a cat from the shelter where he volunteers in hopes that she will adopt it.  She reflects on her marriage and what went wrong with it.  She worries about the daughter and whether she is making the right choice in terms of the man she is marrying.  She questions decisions she has made in life.  And she questions what decisions she should make for her future.  It is an interesting short book which is well written and is likely to cause the reader to reflect on his/her own life.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

One Good Thing by Georgia Hunter

Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025--San Antonio

One Good Thing by Georgia Hunter surprised me by how much I enjoyed it.  Set in Italy during WWII and dealing with the consequences of actions by the Fascists against Jews, I worried that it could be the same old, same old.  But it proved I didn't know that much about WWII in Italy.  I didn't know that it was years into the war before it became a big problem for Jewish residents there.  I didn't know about the resistance to Mussolini that caused him to be jailed for a time.  The story of this book revolves around 3 main characters--a native of Italy who is Jewish, her best friend who is Jewish and married to a man from Greece, and the very young son from that marriage.  The husband from Greece leaves the story early on to return to Greece to try save his parents.  So that leaves just the 2 women and the boy and all the people they meet on a short-time basis as their story happens.  They go on a journey from town-to-town built around trying to stay safe from the German soldiers and the Italian Black Shirts.  They are also involved in underground efforts for creating and delivering false IDs that "disguise" the Jews as being Aryans in an effort to keep them safe.  I just kept wanting to read more and more without putting the book down.  It is a novel, so it is a fictional story, but it is based on known stories of people and events from the war and even includes some real characters in "cameo" appearances based on what is known about their actions during the war.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5. 

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

Monday, Sept. 22, 2025--San Antonio

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee was published 8 years ago.  It was a nominee for the Kirkus Prize and listed as a top book of the year by NPR and the New York Public Library.  Set in the late 1600s, it's 3 main characters are teenagers.  Henry and Percy have just turned 18, finished their education, and are going on a tour of Europe.  Felicity is the younger sister of Henry who they are taking with them for a month in Paris followed by plans to deliver her to a girl's finishing school in Marseille.  Henry's and Felcity's father, a British Lord, has arranged it with notice to both of them--that Henry must return a more responsible young man or he will be disinherited and Felicity must give up her interest in science and medicine and return acting like a lady and ready to be married.  Percy is Henry's best friend.  He comes from a wealthy family, has been living with his uncle and aunt since he was a child and his father, a Caribbean merchant died.  Percy is half-Black, and his aunt and uncle are ready to be released from the responsibility of caring for him now that he is an adult.  Henry is very irresponsible and has survived on his charm.  He has no ambition at all.  And he is always ready to drink himself into oblivion on a nightly basis.  His constant mischief begins causing problems almost immediately after they arrive in Paris.  Taken to a party at Versailles by an acquaintance of his father's who has been asked to introduce him to the people of note he will need to know once he takes over the family estate, he over drinks, insults the Bourbon advisor to the King, disrobes in the Bourban advisor's bedroom to have sex apparently with the mistress of the advisors, steals what proves to be a very valuable trinket, and runs nude into the celebrating crowd of dignitaries outside at the party.  This causes the 3 of them, being chased down by the Bourbon official and his officers, to go on the run to escape them and leaving behind the escort the father has sent on the trip with them.  With little money and led by Henry's irresponsible brain, the story takes them on adventure after adventure involving lucky escapes from the Bourbon ministers men looking for them--from a highway robbery, from a family in Barcelona holding them, from being stowaways on a boat that is attacked by "pirates." etc.  Throughout all of this, Henry remains as immature and irresponsible as ever.  He's not a likable, much less a lovable, character.  His young sister proves to be the responsible and intelligent one in the family.  And Percy is a caring, reliable friend.  If you like a book where the main character is quite distasteful and irresponsible, then maybe you will enjoy this story.  I just kept looking forward for it to end because I was so tired of Henry being Henry with his stupid decisions and his drunkenness. It wasn't until the last 5% of the novel that Henry showed any signs of maybe starting to mature, but that was enough for me to raise my rating half a star higher to 3 1/2  stars out of 4.   

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater

Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025--San Antonio

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater has been named a top book of 2025 by several sources. It is a story that pulls the reader into it with interest and excitement--an historical novel with a touch of magical realism. It takes place at a resort hotel in the mountains of West Virginia during the first few months of WWII. The government has taken over the hotel to house diplomats and other non-citizens of the US who are from the countries of the Axis powers. Used to serving the richest of the rich, the hotel management and staff are charged with providing the same kind of service to these guests as has provided for elite guests. They do this in hopes that the Axis countries will be matching the services for the US diplomats and foreigners who were caught unexpectedly in those countries when the war began. Swiss diplomats are working with all the countries to create a plan for exchanging them all. Along with the foreigners, there are members of the Coast Guard, State Department, FBI Swiss diplomats to guard, debrief, negotiate, and manage the situation at the hotel during the approximate 6 months it took before the next stage of repatriation could occur. Although set in a fictional hotel with fictional characters, the events are based on true ones that happened at the various hotels where the US actually held Axis diplomats and citizens during this historical period in time and the hotel, its operation, and the reactions/expectations of its staff are also based on those from the hotels that were actually used for this purpose then. The magical realism aspect relates to the "powers" of the mineral waters that are piped through the hotel to bathrooms, the kitchen, to drinking spouts on each floor, and to the grand fountain inside the front entrance--the water's constant effort to take control of the hotel and the efforts used by the general manager of the hotel to temporarily mollify them on a regular basis. There's a love story. There's a famous guest who disappeared from public decades ago and has never left the room she occupies in the hotel since. There are the conflicts within the hierarchy of the country groups which have leaders who are not used to their "underlings" being treated the same as themselves, there are relationships that develop over time, there is a German family with a child they are afraid will be at a minimum sterilized, but more likely killed, by the German government once they leave the US because she still does not talk at the age of 5 years and also throws occasional tantrums. There's a lot in this book and it is all fascinating. I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

The South by Tash Aw

Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025--San Antoniio

The South by Tash Aw has been longisted for the Booker Prize this year and is set in southern Malaysia during a summer.  Although the reviews talk about it as the story of two young boys gradually finding themselves attracted to each other and eventually establishing a sexual relationship between them, the book is really so much more than that.  It is the story of a family--an official one by law and an extralegal extension of it.  Within the legal family, the passage of time has been eating away at happiness.  The male professor is resentful for having been passed over multiple times for promotion and is argumentative with students who are complaining to the administration.  His wife, who is 15 years younger than he is and who was once his student is unhappy with her life in regards to a number of awarenesses--that she feels distant with her children, that she feels betrayed by her husband who has been having a long-distance affair with another woman for years and may have another child with that woman, that she gave up her plans for her own life to build this one.  And their story is somewhat a mirror of the husband's father's life who has just died and who also had an extra-marital relationship that resulted in a child.  There are secrets and "secrets"--things that are being kept from almost everyone and things that no one talks about but which everyone seems to know.  The family is spending a summer at an old farm which is failing due to a long-term drought and mismanagement--a farm that the husband's father left to his legitimate son's wife when he recently died.  It's also a farm that has been managed by the man who is the illegitimate son of the deceased father and, therefore the half-brother of the new owner's husband.  The two boys who are falling in love are the children of these two half-brothers.  The man's wife seems to feel closer to the half-brother who is not her husband.  And no one knows that her husband, the professor, was fired just before they left for this vacation.  It's not just the farm that seems to be dying.  All the relationships between the members of these families (including the budding one between the two boys) seem to be beginning an unraveling process with little hope for the future and a great likelihood of lots of depression ahead.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Flashlight by Susan Choi

Monday, Sept. 8, 2025--San Antonio

Flashlight by Susan Choi is longlisted for the Booker Prize this year.  It is the best book out of 3 of hers that I have read.  It's not a book one can say, however, "I enjoyed."  It is a book about lives that are frustrating and often lived without adequate love between characters.  The central character is a man of Korean parents who was born in Japan because his parents went there due to job opportunities during WWII.  Because he was very intelligent, he went to a Japanese school where he was a top (if not THE top student).  The family remained in Japan until The Korean War settled into a static situation with the Communist North and the U.S.-sponsored Democratic South.  By that time, Japan wanted to get rid of any of the Koreans that had come there and our main character was finishing school and had been accepted for studies at an Ivy League university in the U.S.  He married an American woman and they had a female child.  He accepted a professorship at a regional American university.  Throughout the years, there are lots of secrets kept from everyone and life has been difficult.  But what I have told is only the first third of the book.  Lots is about to go wrong!  It's a complicated story, but a fascinating book that I couldn't put down.  I gave it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.