667 Ways to F*ck Up My Life by Lucy Woodhull

Title: 667 Ways to F*ck Up My Life

Authors: Lucy Woodhull

Pub Date: August 16th, 2016

My Rating: ★★★☆☆

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 I rarely choose a typical chick-lit with a woman chasing a man as my read. I prefer to watch romantic comedies, not read them. But the blurb said that this is a great book for fans of Broad City and Bridget Jones, so I decided to give it a try. And I stand with my initial preferences – I’d rather watch a 1.5h movie with the same plot than read the book. But I still quite enjoyed reading the book, so I gave it three stars – it’s not bad, and it’s not great, and I’ll probably forget all about it soon.

Dagmar Kostopoulos is having the worst day – she just got fired from a publishing job because she didn’t want to have sex with her boss (someone else wanted, and now she’s taking over Dag’s job), her boyfriend told her he just got a great job in L.A., and he’s moving there, without her, also, he cheated on her.

Underground Airlines by Ben Winters

Title: Underground Airlines

Author: Ben H. Winters

Pub Date: July 5th, 2016 (US)

Honors:  

My Rating: ★★★★☆

View on Goodreads | Buy on  amazon.co.uk | amazon.com | Book Depository | Wordery

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This book really surprised me. I was not expecting such a fast paced alternative history thriller with a bit of sci-fi at the end.

Alternative history of United States, we are in Indianapolis where we meet Jim, or Victor or what he’s name at a given time is, who is trying to infiltrate an organization The Underground Airlines. He’s a free black man, that is searching for an escaped slaves from the states with legalized slavery, the Hard Four, where slavery is legal and very much in use. He lives in a completely different version of our modern world, where slavery is either accepted or practiced, but overall legal.

The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel

Title: The Summer That Melted Everything

Author: Tiffany McDaniel

Pub Date: July 26, 2016

Honors: 

My Rating: ★★★★★

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The heat come with the devil. It was the summer of 1984, and while the devil had been invited, the heat was not. It should’ve been expected, though. Heat is, after all, the devil’s name, and when’s the last time you left home without yours?

Those opening lines should be enough reason for you to start reading this book, but if you still not sure, let me tell you how fantastic this book is.

The Muse by Jessie Burton

Title: The Muse

Author:  Jessie Burton

Pub Date: June 30th, 2016

Honors: 

My Rating: ★★★★☆

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 The Muse is a fantastic read with well-plotted twists. Odelle Bastien comes to London from Trinidad looking for better life, more chances for success. She’s hired by mysterious Majorie Quick to work as a typist in Skelton Institue. Odelle is a writer, and one of her poems is a starting point of her relationship with Lawrie Scott. Lawrie is an owner of a painting that as it turns out was painted by a very promising Spanish author that we don’t know much about. Lawrie brings the painting to the Skelton for examination – an event that shakes Quick and excites gallery’s owner. All this is happening in 1960s London. In parallel to how we follow Odelle’s steps to finding out what is Quick’s connection to the painting, we are taken back to 1930s Spain when the painting depicting Saint Rufina was created. It was painted in an uncertain time in Europe but in a somewhat happy time for the artist. Olive Schloss moved to small rural town Arazuelo with her parents, and there she meets Isaac and Teresa Robles. Isaac is a socialist that is passionate about helping workers; Teresa is his half-sister who is hired as a help in Schloss’s house. Robles change Schloss lives in many ways, leaving us wondering how the painting ended up in London thirty yeats later.

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

Title: Behold the Dreamers

Author: Imbolo Mbue

Pub Date: August 23, 2016

My Rating: ★★★★☆

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Behold the Dreamers perfectly captures the sad truth that so many people need to fly they countries, their homes to find a better life or at least find a chance to get a decent life somewhere else. It also shows wishful naiveté of people believing that in a wealthy country that they know from TV their life is granted to be better. Escaping is just the first step.

I enjoy books with an immigration theme and Behold the Dreamers a great book about immigrants. In the days before the collapse of Lehmann Brothers illegal immigrant from Cameroon – Jende Jonga gets a job as a chauffeur for a Wall Street man Clark Edwards. Jende is fighting cruel American immigration system trying to get a green card; his lawyer advised him to petition for asylum. Jende believes that America is the place for him to become somebody and for his family to have a good life,  surely better than the one they could have in Africa. His wife Neni believes in America even more.

The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang

Title: The Wangs vs. the World

Author: Jade Chang

Pub Date: October 4th, 2016

Rating: ★★★☆☆

More on Goodreads.

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I thought I would really like this book. The blurb made the story sound so promising. It was supposed to be some hilarious novel, ‘hysterically funny from the first page’. I have a different sense of humour than guys at the book’s publishing house. It was ok, the humour in it was a bit embarrassing, not funny. The story was a bit too ‘jumpy’ for me, a lot was happening and the plot line was a bit blurry. And there is a lot of events packed into the story which are not necessary needed to be in the book… It just didn’t hold together very well.

It is a story of Wang family, a story of immigrants, of riches to rags. Charles Wang came to America and lived his American dream. He becomes a wealthy man building a cosmetic empire, married a pretty model and had three children. Charles remarried later, to Barbra (also immigrant, she named herself after Barbra Streisand), when his first wife died in a helicopter accident that he survived. Now he has to face bankruptcy. His whole cosmetic empire is being repossessed, and he has nothing left. So he packs his family and embarks on a road trip across the States to upstate New York where his oldest daughter is living. All this time he has the plan to come back to China and reclaim his ancestor land that was taken from them by Communists.