Bookin' It Thru Life

In a desperate state and without a lead, I did a search for old fantasy novels and stumbled on these gems.  Asimov is known for his science fiction and while I enjoy good sci-fi, its not at the top of my list.  Like fantasy, there is so much very, very bad science fiction out there - I tend to just avoid it for fear of getting sucked into something that is a waste of time.  I had never read any of his work.  In this case, I was delighted to find that Asimov deserves his reputation as a leader in the genre.  This also crosses over to the detective genre which again, is not my favorite, but I dabble in it occasionally.  And thanks to this trilogy, I now have a new second favorite literary detective (Cormoran Strike, your first place spot is not in any danger).  Its worth mentioning that the first two books were written relatively close together (between 1953 and 1957, depending on whether you count the serialized publication or only the actual book) wi...

Yeah, I'll admit it.  Once again I was a victim of the Nook "cheap books to drag you in" gimmick.  Yes, I paid under $3 for this.  Yes, I read the whole thing. No, I won't be reading the sequel.  No, I did not find it to be a great book.  I really just should just learn my lesson. I hate to label it a "trope" but there it is-I'm going to call it.  Middle age woman abandons her newborn and years later longs to get in touch and explain her "why".  Young woman on the brink of big changes in her life struggles, in the face of her loving adoptive family, with her longing to find her birth mother.  Twists on the traditional story such as a cut short and potentially illegal adoption process and the situational complexities of a long distance marriage and an ill-conceived affair don't do much to bring this book out of the mundane.  The daughter and her love interest have a g-rated relationship that seems right out of a Christian novel (kill me no...

According to google this is the second book in a series- a fact that I had no idea about when I read the actual book.  Honestly, knowing that may have prevented me from reading it, as I don't generally pick up right in the middle of a series.  Our hero here is Kate, an investigative reporter looking for a story.  She finds one in the hint of a reference to the remains of a newborn discovered on a construction site.  The story is told by Kate and two other narrators and the telling moves between them.  In all honesty, I am doing this write-up well after I read this book and I simply don't recall any of the details.  I remember the end of the book and how the mystery resolves but how we get there-I don't recall.  I'm looking at an online review thinking, yeah, that sounds familiar, and yeah, I remember what happened (the reviewer is trying desperately not to divulge any spoilers) but nothing else really comes to mind.  I do recall that I liked it ju...

I'm not sure that "dystopian" is the right description for this novel ( dystopian-relating to or denoting an imagined state or society where there is great suffering or injustice ), though each of the characters does have their own moments of suffering.  Its science fiction-y, but not too over the top and in most sci-fi, the characters are well aware that they are in a sort of fantastic situation for whatever reason and here, they all seem to be struggling just to deal with their generally normal lives.  The novel is set in a town on the edge of a mountain (in Oregon I think) and a handful of neighbors are the focus of the story.   Over the course of the novel they each start to experience odd visions of themselves in alternative realities.  Some of the "visions" come across as hallucinations; some as live experiences.  The twist for me was that by the end of the book I was not really sure which "lives" were being lived in the same times...all the wa...