Deluged With Books Cafe

You know when they say something is too beautiful, too close to the heart it hurts. That is how I see this book. In piercing waves that could be brought only by sharp truth and bittersweet recollection, this book engulfed me. Dusty Answers is nostalgia in its purest form, of memories stirring with fleeting delights and drawn out melancholy. It may be that the wistfulness of the story is what makes it appealing. Its characters remain with you long after you finish it (and I could almost not let go of that last page). It enthralls not with the plot but in the beauty of Lehmann’s prose and how she draws the scenes, the characters and their sentiments. She captures on point those young delightful years of childhood and that seeking sense of belonging in each of us. There are moments, passages that almost feel like the author peeped into my head, picked out my brains and put it down on paper; that kind of creepy feeling because it related so much. Dusty Answer is a coming of ...

Title:   Just Pru   Author:   Anne Pfeffer Genre: Contemporary Women's Fiction, Romance Published: March 2, 2015 Rating: ♨♨♨♨♨  5 out of 5 c ups  Review: There are so many reasons why I love this book but mainly it was because Pru was just a great character. Equal parts humor and pathos she is definitely going to be unforgettable. As a whole the book was just all out entertaining and insightful, why in so many ways our neuroses can actually make life more interesting. The plot can be categorized as a coming of age story. Pru comes late to the party called life but when she bravely defies all her programmed anxieties and fears she goes all out to try everything. Hello we've all been there, looking for roads to drive where we just turn right to avoid left turns (and this is literal and not figuratively I might add). For this alone  Just Pru is a must read. Synopsis: "My mother once joked that my dad had wanted to name me Obedience. As...

"Find a map of British Columbia.” The rugged coasts of Pacific Northwest are almost familiar to me now. I came across its breathtaking and raw beauty when I first read Susan Vreeland’s The Forest Lover of where she waxed poetic about it. So here again I meet the majestic mountains, the dark forests, the tumultuous sea, the mystical dreams and the people of Kitamaat who breathe life into the book. Monkey Beach tells the nostalgic recollections of Lisa Marie, a young Native American woman from Haisla, as she sailed to the sea in search of her missing brother. Her hasty journey is fraught with peril and reminiscences which eventually bring light to the unfolding drama and mystery surrounding her family, her brother’s death, her unique supernatural gift and the social struggle of the residents in their remote Indian village being at a cultural crossroads. This originally came out more than a decade ago and I would have totally missed it had it not been published ag...

Title :  Love and Other Unknown Variables Author :  Shannon Lee Alexander Genre : Contemporary Romance, Young Adult Published: October 7, 2014 Publisher : Entangled: Teen Rating : ♨♨♨♨ 1/2 ( 4 1/2of 5 c ups) Review: Beautiful, funny, poignant. It had me laughing and crying, face palming and trying to hide the tears falling, while at work or commuting or anywhere not in the safety of my room. Who knew that mathematical equations hold their own romantic poetry?  Or that Charlie and Charlotte are pieces of the same puzzle who just fit like so. Or that love is one equation that holds infinite possibilities if you take the chance . Synopsis: Charlie Hanson has a clear vision of his future. A senior at Brighton School of Mathematics and Science, he knows he’ll graduate, go to MIT, and inevitably discover solutions to the universe’s greatest unanswered questions. He’s that smart. But Charlie’s future blurs the moment he reaches out to touch the tattoo on a beautifu...

Doll-baby portrays New Orleans at a time of the Civil Rights Movement in the summer of 1964 through the eyes of a twelve-year-old, Liberty Bell.  After the death of her father, Liberty was unceremoniously left in the care of her grandmother she had not met who lives in an old Queen Anne Victorian house with black servants. Coming from the Northwest Coast, Liberty has not seen such eccentricities like the ways of the South or her grandmother, Fannie, who sometimes gets admitted to an asylum. Quennie, Fannie’s black cook, and her smart-mouthed daughter, Doll-baby, take to Liberty like family and introduce her to the traditions of the South along with old secrets that abound the old house in Prytania Street. In this debut novel, Liberty is confronted with her painful past, her difficult relationship with her mother, the strangeness of Fannie’s house where his father grew up and a new city on the brink of a revolution.

Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . . But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving. Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere. Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to. Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has ...

One of the classics in Chicano literature, Bless me, Ultima  is a poignant novel about a boy who, on the threshold of manhood, seeks himself through his own roots, pushing the confines of his upbringing, opening his mind to the magic and changes in the world and the exploration of other beliefs. Through it all, there is Ultima, who is his guide to wisdom. There's something sultry in the pull of magic realism. Not only that, the colorful textures of Chicano and Latin America literature, such as  this , bring about a cauldron of tastes and tempestuousness in the air. The book reminisces of the old vaqueros of what is now New Mexico, the little towns and family ranches, the infiltrating pagan faith that still exists and always, the feel of the beating sun and the mystery of spirits in nature.

In this New Adult debut by Robin York, a college student is attacked online and must restore her name—and stay clear of a guy who’s wrong for her, but feels so right.   When Caroline Piasecki’s ex-boyfriend posts their sex pictures on the Internet, it destroys her reputation as a nice college girl. Suddenly her once-promising future doesn’t look so bright. Caroline tries to make the pictures disappear, hoping time will bury her shame. Then a guy she barely knows rises to her defense and punches her ex to the ground.   West Leavitt is the last person Caroline needs in her life. Everyone knows he’s shady. Still, Caroline is drawn to his confidence and swagger—even after promising her dad she’ll keep her distance. On late, sleepless nights, Caroline starts wandering into the bakery where West works.   They hang out, they talk, they listen. Though Caroline and West tell each other they’re “just friends,” their feelings intensify until it becomes impossible t...

Four friends Lena, Bridget, Tibby and Carmen discovered that an old pair of jeans, bought on a thrift shop, happens to fit them all. And they look good on it too despite their different builds. So, they chuck it to magic and formed a friendship vow of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (with its list of pros and cons) and decided to pass around the pants as they spent their first summer apart. Lena (the beauty) travels to Greece, Tibby (the rebel) is stuck at the department store, Bridget (the athlete) is kicking off at the soccer camp and Carmen (the one who cares the most) is dealing with a big family surprise . Each of them wishing some magic dust in the pants will bolster them through the trying episodes they will encounter along the way, that by wearing it something good happens. It was fun reading the quirky lists and letters on the book. There's certainly more snark and angst, more scattered thoughts and spontaneous quips here. I like the nuance of the handwr...

It starts with a serene day in Brooklyn in the early years of the twentieth century, a description of a little fire escape, a little corner facing a big tree in the yard; a metaphorical figure looming over Francie Nolan's growing years. It is a quiet coming of age classic about a girl's dreams, about Brooklyn and the American social classes, about immigrants and being poor, about the luminescent characters of two different families: the strong Rommely women and despairing Nolan men. In the outskirts, it is also about a tree. Francie Nolan is an eleven-year-old girl living in a small apartment with her brother Neeley, her mother Katie, a pretty scrub woman and her father Johnny, the impeccably handsome Irish singing waiter with an on and off job at the union. With the book spanning Francie's life from a young girl to a budding young woman against the backdrop of the shifting years in Williamsburg, we are given glimpses of her honest thoughts and struggles, despair again...

Clodagh is an Irish girl who lived in a crumbling manor house, cold and drafty, with her sickly twin sister Mare. She is enamored by her distant beautiful mother, Agatha, whom she hasn't really known despite living with her. They said she tired of life and went away to the sea and that she was half a selkie . It seems Clodagh, too, is feeling out of place in ordinary and most normal places. So she is out to find herself. What started as a daughter's yearning for a mother's love and grief for her twin ended with a journey on unfamiliar landscapes, self discovery, and a mysterious stranger. Regina McBride writes like a poetry and nostalgia rolled into one. It has that quality of melancholic memory, as if remembering things in a coat of sepia. I was definitely enthralled by her tones, Clodagh's voice, and was only regretful that the character's decision in the end propelled her into a territory that disturbs me somewhat.

I haven't read a graphic novel/ comic book for a very long time  but Little Fish is something quite different.  For one its an autobiography.  Ramsey Beyer chronicles her first year of college in Baltimore, living far away from her small hometown in Michigan.  It's a young woman's journey into discovering who she is and how big the world is outside of her safe environment, crafted by way of drawings and artful notes.  Initially, it looks very simple almost plain even in the storytelling however as you keep reading you noticed the way each zine, graphic, note enhances the tale being told directly to the reader. It is a story within the art, simple yet charming, captivating and heartwarming.  A different reading experience that most can appreciate and enjoy. By the end of the book, I was so invested in her story that I wanted to learn more about her experiences. A coming of age novel that feels like the person is definitely living it.

Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina, a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters (August, June and May), Lily is introduces to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come. ( * )

Abbey Garner is used to killing time by reading questions from the snarky tabloids in Granny Po's struggling beauty shop.  It's not like there are a lot of customers to help, anyway.  Mostly just the feisty Gray Widows, who are there to primp, polish, perm... and of course, gossip.   Abbey is there to work- to get a head start on the million dollars she intends to earn by the time she's thirty-five.  She doesn't have much time for boyfriends, parties or hanging out with friends.  But with the arrival of a trendy young woman who rents the beauty parlor and turns it into a modern-day spa, at least Abbey has a chance to make some real money.  Then all of this fades into the background when Abbey's mother, who abandoned her on Granny Po's doorstep four years ago, suddenly shows up with a wild scheme of her own.  ( Book Blurb)