WELLNESS by Nathan Hill

I am giving this book four stars, but I may have more negatives than positives to say about it.  On the positive side, the opening chapter and the ending are marvelous.  However, the middle sections sink into the tedium of a marriage that has lost its luster with a tantrum-prone child who refuses to eat anything but mac and cheese.  The wife/mother, Elizabeth, is a behavioral scientist of sorts who administers a psychological test to Jack on their first date—unbeknownst to Jack.  She also tries a behavioral modification experiment on her son, but she realizes that the test is flawed when her son explains why he failed.  I found this kind of stuff fascinating.  Also, in an effort to spice up their marriage, Elizabeth convinces Jack to attend an event where spouse-swapping may occur.  This possibility perked up my interest, but the whole scene fizzles.  Even more annoying are multiple chapters describing various algorithms ostensibly used by facebook.  Ugh.  A major tragedy that took place during Jack’s childhood is not revealed until very late in the book, and I didn’t really understand the reason for this delay.  Plus, I don’t know if Jack ever tells Elizabeth about it.  Both Jack and Elizabeth are estranged from their parents who are seriously flawed—envious of their own children.  Jack reunites briefly with his father over social media, trying unsuccessfully to deter his father from buying into conspiracy theories.  Given their lack of good relationship role models, it’s a wonder Jack and Elizabeth’s marriage is not a bigger mess than it is.

HOLLY by Stephen King

The title character is a private investigator who has been hired by the mother of a missing young woman named Bonnie.  We readers know that Bonnie was abducted by two conniving and depraved elderly professors—Emily and Rodney Harris.  In other words, this is a thriller but not a mystery, or at least not a whodunnit.  We also know that Bonnie is not the first abductee whom the Harrises have locked in a cage and forced to eat putrid raw liver.  What?  In fact, we get to know all of the victims, so that the grisly fate that befalls them is all the more heartbreaking.  Holly is diligent in her quest to find out not only what happened to Bonnie but to determine if a serial killer is at work, as she becomes aware of one disappearance after another.   What these victims have in common, besides being acquainted with the Harrises, is that their disappearance is not deemed strange enough to warrant investigation, at least until Bonnie comes along.  Even in Bonnie’s case, the police are not entirely convinced that a crime has taken place.  If gruesome stories are not your thing, then you are probably not going to pick up a Stephen King book anyway, but be warned that he pulls no punches here.  Holly as our intrepid sleuth has no idea what motive is behind these abductions, but we readers learn soon enough and can only hope that Holly will prevent any further abductions.

FAIRY TALE by Stephen King

“The past is history.  The future is a mystery.”  I had never heard this saying before reading this book, but I plan to quote it often.  Seventeen-year-old Charlie Reade loses his mother to an accident and then is basically losing his father to alcoholism.  He attributes his father’s eventual recovery to a bargain Charlie made in a prayer and then goes out of his way to perform good deeds, including befriending and taking care of his grumpy, reclusive neighbor, Mr. Bowditch.  The reason for the title does not become apparent until about two hundred pages in.  Then Charlie embarks on a magical but dangerous adventure in an effort to rejuvenate Bowditch’s dog.  OK, I think we need a more pressing motive here, but then Charlie finds a kingdom in need of a superhero.  Whether or not Charlie fits the bill remains to be seen, but the author goes wild with the fairy tale references, plus some homage to the movies Star Wars and Gladiator.  I actually found the first part of the book more engaging and something of a feel-good story while Charlie was repaying the gratitude he felt for his father’s sobriety.  The fantasy that follows is a swashbuckling kind of thrill ride but also very predictable.

COLORED TELEVISION by Danzy Senna

Jane, a novelist, and her husband, Lenny, a visual artist, are house-sitting for Jane’s friend Brett in his opulent L.A. home while Brett is in Australia.  Jane is writing a sprawling novel about mulattos, like herself, and Lenny is working on paintings for a show in Japan.  Their credit card debt is mounting, but they are treating Brett’s possessions as their own, even drinking all of his very expensive vintage wines.  When Jane finishes her novel and her editor tells her that it will tank Jane’s career if published, Jane decides to take a page out of Brett’s book, so to speak, and get work in television.  Lying to her husband and to Brett about the fate of her novel, among other things, Jane soon finds that she has spun a tangled web of lies that is probably going to unravel at some point and cause her life to spiral out of control.  The first one hundred pages or so of this book fell completely flat for me, and then it became a book about a woman doing incredibly stupid and dishonest things.  I just totally ran out of sympathy for Jane, who aspires to Brett’s lifestyle but is going about it all wrong.  Eventually we discover that she is not even the most deceitful character in the book, nor does she have the gumption to confront that person, perhaps because she is just as guilty herself.  There is some karma in the stealing-of-intellectual-property department, but, other than that, everyone here gets off the hook too easily.

IRON FLAME by Rebecca Yarros

Buckle up!  Fourth Wing was not a one-hit wonder, as this follow-up is just as breathtaking.  The author keeps a lot of plates spinning in the air without dropping a single one.  Violet and Xaden tackle a whole new set of problems in this world of dragons and magic that includes wielding lightning and commanding shadows.  Here we get some additional insight into Xaden’s past, some of which does not sit well with Violet.  I finally realized that their world does not seem so primitive, since magic basically replaces electronics, particularly when it comes to communication.  Magic even fuels their lighting.  Does it go too far?  Maybe occasionally, as new forms of magic keep popping up.  I can’t help wondering how much of this was in the author’s master plan and how much she makes up as she goes.  In any case, it’s a thrill a minute and a wildly exhilarating reading experience, with frantic battles, moral dilemmas, and a steamy love story that never quite settles into a comfortable relationship.  As for the non-human characters, Violet’s huge dragon, Tairn, gets all the best lines.

THE BIRD HOTEL by Joyce Maynard

Irene’s name used to be Joan, but her mother’s involvement in a radical group’s bomb detonation forces her and her grandmother to adopt new identities.  Then another tragedy strikes in Irene’s life. She contemplates suicide but instead impulsively joins a group of strangers on their bus headed south of the border.  She has left all her belongings behind, but she does have her passport, thinking that it might be useful in identifying her body after jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.  A man on the bus implausibly gives her $1500, and she eventually lands at a small hotel somewhere in Central America.  Despite this auspicious start, the rest of the book is mostly serene, and the pace is just too pokey.  Even devastating natural disasters and personal betrayals seem to be accepted as par for the course, although maybe nothing is as bad as what Irene has already been through.  I just felt that this novel lacked zing, despite the revolving door of characters who stay at the hotel.  It also has way too much foreshadowing for my taste; I prefer to be surprised.  I did like that the author dishes out a heavy helping of karma for the scoundrels.

THE BERRY PICKERS by Amanda Peters

There is just not enough happening in this novel.  I guess you could say that it is long on characters and short on plot.  A four-year-old Indigenous girl from Nova Scotia named Ruthie disappears from a Maine berry farm in 1962 where her family works every year.  The family receives only cursory help from local law enforcement in searching for her, and that racial bias repeats itself when her older brother is killed in a fight, trying to protect a drunken man.  Ruthie then re-emerges as Norma with a white family, questioning why her skin is darker but receiving flimsy answers.  As an adult, her biological brother Sam recognizes her in Boston and calls to her by her birth name, which she recognizes, but her white mother’s sister whisks her away.  The only real mystery here is how Ruthie/Norma got from point A (her real family) to point B (her white family).  That’s all I really wanted to know.  The writing is good, with a few grammatical annoyances that may or may not have been intentional, but the book overall just did not offer any other incentive to keep reading.  A side plot involves her biological brother Joe who becomes volatile and then a wanderer as he deals with guilt related to both siblings’ deaths, but his story is just not that compelling.  Neither is Norma’s, for that matter, given that she never makes an effort to find out her true story until she overhears a conversation that shocks her into reality.