4 Reviews: Good Mothers Don’t – by Laura Best; A Soldier’s Sketchbook – by John Wilson; You Had Me At Hola – by Alexis Daria; When Late the Sweet Birds Sang – by Kate Wilhelm

Hi there! Ready for another four book reviews? This is quite a varied selection.

Title: Good Mothers Don’t

Author: Laura Best

Published: April 2021

This is a thought-provoking story about mental illness and a family trying to function when mental illness takes the mother away from her husband and children. Told from several points of view, it keeps the reader paying close attention.

A woman struggles to survive and exist in a world that often makes no sense to her. Her father is the one who holds her together, who understands her best, and when he dies it is as if she is cut adrift. Her world collapses around her. As she struggles to get well many changes occur in the family she had to leave.

I marvel that writers come up with such amazing stories. Laura Best is very convincing, writing as if she has personal knowledge and understanding of what goes on in the mind of someone so distraught, whose life is so disjointed, that no one in her family knows how to help her anymore. The reader wants to hang in there to find out what happens to this woman, why does she think that way and feel that way, how her life turns out and if her family wants her back.

For the Indigo challenge, I chose this book as my read for the category “A book by a local author.”
For the 52BookClub challenge, I placed it in the category “a book with multiple character POV” for prompt #25.

Laura Best is a talented Canadian author who takes the reader on a marvellous journey every time.

Author: John Wilson

Published: March 2017

This is my selection for the 52BookClub under prompt #24 – “a book you think they should read in schools.”

This true story is about World War I from the experience and diary of 18-year-old Russell Rabjohn from Ontario, Canada. When he came of age he immediately joined the Canadian military and eventually was shipped overseas to fight. Russell began a diary September 7, 1916, which is how this book was compiled by the author who included Russell’s amazing drawings.

When it was discovered that Russell was very talented at drawing, he became the official artist for the war. This book uses his diary entries in which Russell expresses his horror of things that happened. His drawings are accurate and descriptive and give the reader more understanding of warfare at that time.

This book could be used in schools in history and in art.

Author: Alexis Daria

Published: August 2020

This a romance novel, a genre I don’t usually read. Except for the erotic scenes, which I preferred to skip over, it was a good read. I chose it for the 52BookClub challenge and used it for prompt #32 – “a selfish character.”

It is about an actress who is quite selfish (but who has a good heart underneath her feelings of insecurity) and who is just out of a relationship gone bad publicly. She and an actor/singer with a life-changing secret he has been keeping are cast in the main roles in a remake of a telenovella. Along with the stress of feeling very uncomfortable with one another at first because of media gossip, they have to play the roles of a divorced couple who still love each other. Things get steamy, and then things get really complicated.

Title: Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang

Author: Kate Wilhelm

Published: December 1977

I chose this book for prompt #49 – “a book with a flavour in the title” for the 52BookClub challenge.

What a read! It took a little while to get into it, and I thought, “What have I gotten myself into here?” because it was slow and a trifle boring. That changed quickly enough the further I got into the story, and I discovered I was reading (listening to) a dystopian novel.
Cloning, routines, mindless obedience, breeding chambers, everyone thinking the same … except not quite everyone. One girl was exceptional. She thought and heard things apart from the others, she was creative, she was more independent. She was trouble because no one of the newer generations was supposed to do that!
This is a story that takes the reader through a generation and the changes that are bound to occur because of one different person being defiant and adventurous. When she is brought back into the fold … there is no reasonable way to prevent the continuing of what she had started.
Great story very well narrated in audio format – borrowed from library.

I hope you find these books appealing. You can see I have a wide range of interest in my reading.

Have you read any of these, or now want to?

Thanks for reading, and … Happy Musings! 🙂