Plot summary (with spoilers): Liam Pennywell is a 60-year-old teacher who has been forced to retire early when the mediocre private school he works at decides to combine their two fifth-grade classes into one. Liam looks upon the event philosophically–which makes sense since his degree is in philosophy. How he ended up teaching history to [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Set in Mississippi in the early 1960′s, The Help is told from three alternating viewpoints. One narrator is Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, a progressive young college grad from an upper middle-class white family who dreams of being a writer. Another narrator is Aibileen, a middle-aged black woman who has been a maid [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Claireece “Precious” Jones is a functionally illiterate 16-year-old girl who is still in junior high school. Though not a good student, Precious finds school to be a refuge of sorts, as whatever she goes through there feels like paradise compared to the physical, verbal, and sexual abuse doled out by mother [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is an epistolary novel that takes place in 1946, shortly after the conclusion of World War II. Thirty-something Juliet Ashton is a promising author whose first book was a minor success, and who is now being pressured by publisher (and good friend) Sidney [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): It’s a few months after Operation Vestal took a huge toll on the Dublin Murder Squad, particularly Detectives Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox. Ryan was so messed up that he transferred out of town, and Cassie ended up moving to the less demanding Domestic Violence squad. She seems to be happy [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Tassie Keltjin is a 20-year-old college student from a small, Midwestern farming community. During winter break, instead of wanting to travel new york or do anything exciting, Tassie applies for a nanny position and is hired by Sarah Brink, a forty-something woman who is getting ready to adopt a child with [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Rebecca Davitch is a 53-year-old woman who wakes up one morning only to wonder how she ended up with the life she has. She can’t help feeling that she took a wrong turn somewhere along the line, and should be in a completely different place — literally and metaphorically — right [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Mari Asai is a smart, studious 19-year-old girl with a habit of staying up all night in Tokyo reading books in family restaurants such as Denny’s and Skylark. On one such night, she runs into Takahashi, a young man who insists that he knows Mari through her sister Eri. The two [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Pemberton, the head of a major logging company in North Carolina in 1929, surprises all his men by returning from a week in Boston with a beautiful new wife in tow. Her name is Serena, and she soon proves to be every bit as knowledgeable about logging as her husband. More [...]
Plot summary (with spoilers): Offred is a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. Bit by bit, as Offred tells her story, the reader gets a better idea of what her world and her position in it are like, and how things came to be that way. For example, the Republic of Gilead is really the [...]