Staff Reviews: For Adults
Check out these reviews written by the staff of the Marathon County Public Library, featuring books DVDs for adults! (For reviews of books for all ages, visit our main Staff Reviews webpage.) Staff book reviews are also published at Goodreads.com; follow us for the latest updates.
"Educated"
Tara Westover has an impressive academic pedigree that includes Harvard and Cambridge, but she did not set foot into a classroom until she enrolled at Brigham Young University at the age of seventeen. This compelling memoir immerses the reader into the isolated world in which she was raised in rural Idaho as the youngest of six children. Her father, a...
Audience: Adults | Genre: Nonfiction
"Lady Bird"
Lady Bird's life is at a crossroads, of sorts. It’s her senior year at her Catholic high school and she yearns to spice up her life and make the year a memorable one. More than anything, though, Lady Bird (played by Saoirse Ronan) wants to make sure she gets out of Sacramento after high school and moves a place where she feels she can...
"Good As Gone"
When she was just 13 years old, Julie Whitaker was abducted from her bedroom at knifepoint. The kidnapping was witnessed by Julie’s younger sister, Jane, who watched in horror from the interior of her closet. The abduction, which was never solved, left the Whitaker family in shambles, forever changing the dynamic between Jane; her father, Tom; and mother,...
Audience: Adults | Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, Mystery, Suspense
"The Missing"
Fifteen-year-old Billy goes missing in the middle of the night, plunging his family into a chaotic mess of unanswered questions and public appeals. Six months later and the mysterious disappearance still isn't solved, but when a public appeal goes horribly wrong, the family starts to crack. The mother, Claire, starts experiencing black-outs as the world...
"The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi"
The Star Wars universe is a vast and constantly growing thing. But did you ever stop to wonder what makes something look like it belongs in a Star Wars movie?
In The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, readers see the various stages of planning that went into creating new creatures, vehicles, costumes and locations for the latest film in the franchise....
Audience: Adults | Genre: Nonfiction, Movies, Movie Tie-ins
"The Death and Life of the Great Lakes"
Dan Egan, a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, provides a comprehensive portrayal of the Great Lakes, past and present, and a thorough analysis of the challenges the lakes have endured and continue to face. After establishing a portrait of the Great Lakes as they would have been experienced by the first European explorers, Egan traces the history...
Audience: Adults | Genre: Nonfiction
"Year of Yes"
Shonda Rhimes is the creative mind behind of some of the hottest shows on television, including Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder. Though Rhimes was thriving professionally, her personal life had devolved into a cycle of sleeping, eating, working and just getting by. After being told by her older sister that “You...
Audience: Adults | Genre: Nonfiction, Biography, Biography And Memoir
"The Wife Between Us"
Vanessa can’t believe that her ex-husband Richard is remarrying so quickly! She thought her replacement was going to be a short term fling, but news of their impending wedding has her in a tailspin. She’s barely holding it together as it is—she’s living in her aunt’s spare room, living off commissions as a saleswoman in a swanky department store (where she...
"Herbs for Flavor, Health, and Natural Beauty"
Looking for ideas on how to use fresh herbs? This book is covered with gorgeous, fully illustrated pages packed full of ideas on how to utilize fresh herbs, from recipes to health and wellness ideas. I grabbed a few recipes that were included that I'm excited to tweak to make vegan and try. My only critique is that I wish there was more to it! I would have...
Audience: Adults | Genre: Nonfiction
"The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl"
Issa Rae is the creator, head writer and star of Insecure, a dramedy on HBO about the lives of a group of African American millennials. Watching that highly-entertaining series is what me aware of this book and Rae’s semi-autobiographical web series Awkward Black Girl (on which Insecure is based).
This book, chapter by chapter, outlines the various ways...
Audience: Adults | Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, Humor
"American Fire"
American Fire is the true story of a five month arson spree in rural Accomack County, Virginia that started in November 2012 when four fires were set in a 24 hour period. By its conclusion, more than 60 fires were set. Hesse, a Washington Post reporter, provides a compelling account of the crimes, the public hysteria, and efforts by law enforcement to...
Audience: Adults | Genre: Nonfiction
"Vegan Burgers & Burritos"
Are you looking for healthy, vegan recipes for you and even the pickiest of eaters, or for those meat-eaters in your life you're trying to convince to eat healthier? If so, this book is a must read! Full of incredibly enticing burger, burrito, dip and sauce recipes, as well as a few dessert and side dish recipes, I flipped through this cookbook and decided...
"Sing, Unburied, Sing"
Thirteen-year-old JoJo is eager to prove himself as a man in the eyes of his grandfather, Pap, whom he considers his true father figure. Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, who thrives on his nurturing attention, live with their African-American grandparents, who have raised them in their rural Mississippi home in the absence of their incarcerated white...
"Uncommon Type"
Tom Hanks is an avid collector of typewriters, is obsessed with space travel and (who knew?) is a writer. This is what I learned while reading the collection of short stories, Uncommon Type, authored by Tom Hanks. That’s right, America’s favorite Hollywood star has broken into a new medium. As a fan of Hanks the actor, it took me a couple stories to lose...
Audience: Adults | Genre: Fiction, Short Stories
"Spill Zone"
In the early 70’s the Soviet science fiction authors, Arkady and Boris Sturgatsky, wrote ”Roadside Picnic” about the changes in the environment in places around the world after what is assumed to be an alien visitation. They wrote about a changed world, where artifacts from these locations displayed unusual and bizarre properties and effects, and the ways...
Audience: Adults, Teens | Genre: Fiction, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction
"Manhattan Beach"
Anna Kerrigan is an observant twelve-year-old who enjoys going with her father, Eddie, on his visits for his work, unaware that he works as a bagman for an Irish gangster. She knows something is different when they visit the home of Dexter Styles, a nightclub owner with syndicate ties and a society marriage, for the first and only time at Manhattan Beach....
"The Child Finder"
Naomi is a child finder. Once a lost child herself, she is now hired out by parents searching for their missing children. She has proven that she has great skill (and luck) at finding missing children, whether they are dead or alive. Her latest case, locating a 5-year-old girl named Madison, takes her to the Skookum forest where Madison went...
"The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir"
As the men are heading off to war in 1940, the small village of Chilbury is subject to the ramifications of encroaching war, but a free-spirited female professor of music decides (to the shock of many) that the village choir need not be a casualty and forms a ladies’ choir to take its place. Through journal entries, letters, and other written correspondence...
Audience: Adults | Genre: Historical Fiction
"Little Fires Everywhere"
Almost every member of the Richardson family has something going for them. The family, headed up by matriarch Elena, lives in the wealthy and picture-perfect Cleveland suburb of Shaker, where people’s lives are practically planned out for them before they’re born. One day, the family wakes to find their home on fire. A fire that is, without a doubt,...
Audience: Adults | Genre: Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
"Janesville: An American Story"
Janesville, Wisconsin was home to the longest-operating GM plant in the world at the time of its closure in December 2008. This book provides a narrative account of life in Janesville after the closure of the plant, including long term effects, and includes the stories of employees of the GM plant and the local suppliers that supported it, their families,...
Audience: Adults | Genre: Nonfiction
"Magpie Murders"
With this book you get two mysteries to solve—one is a classic whodunit (Magpie Murders) that brings to mind Agatha Christie, and the other is a modern day mystery surrounding its author and manuscript. Susan Ryeland is an editor at a small publishing house whose fortunes were built on the success of prickly author Alan Conway’s Atticus Pünd series, and she...
"Final Girls"
Quincy Carpenter lives in New York City and is the curator of her own popular baking blog. But 10 years ago, she was the lone survivor of a brutal serial slaying in the middle of the woods, known as the Pine Cottage Murders. Though the rest of her college friends were stabbed to death by a deranged mental patient, Quincy survived and was branded by the...
Audience: Adults | Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Contemporary Fiction
"Jane, Unlimited"
Eighteen-year-old Jane is adrift. After the recent death of her beloved Aunt Magnolia, who raised the orphaned Jane, she dropped out of college and is working at the campus bookshop when she gets an unexpected invitation. Her former tutor, Kiran Thrash, invites her to the spring gala at her family’s island estate, Tu Reviens. Jane might not have accepted...
"Mrs. Fletcher"
Eve Fletcher is a 40-something divorcee whose life is at a crossroads. Her only child, Brendan, has just left for his freshman year of college, leaving Eve to figure out what to do now that she's on her own. Late one night, she receives a sexually explicit text from an anonymous number, which initially startles Eve but later intrigues...
Audience: Adults | Genre: Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
"Dead Woman Walking"
In this gripping new novel, readers meet the lone survivor of a hot air balloon accident. Right before the balloon was ripped out of the sky, those inside witnessed a brutal crime. Knowing she exposed her face to the killer on the ground, the lone survivor stumbles from the scene of the accident, trying to stay alive. But is she really running to a safe...
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