ALWAYS ISN'T FOREVER.....A BOY MOVES HEAVEN AND EARTH TO RETURN TO HIS SOULMATE....(*****)

Always Isn't Forever by J.C. Cervantes (2023)

The amount of tears readers will shed while experiencing this book will no doubt equal a tsunami of epic proportions. By all means grab this, but not without a family-size package of tissues handy.

           Two primal emotions rule here -  the unconditional, intense love of a couple who've been soulmates since childhood and the overpowering, wounding grief befalling them due to the cruelest of fates. 

            Teens Ruby and Hart were practically born to be together, until Hart loses his life through a selfless act of bravery. But while his physical body has succumbed, an intervening angel offers a chance for his spirit and soul to live inside someone else who's positioned on the border of life and death. 

             Seizing the opportunity to come back to Ruby, Hart inhabits the body of Jameson, the high school's star athlete/and all-around obnoxious jerk. about to come out of a motorcycle accident coma.  

             Here's where the book's particular heaven-and-earth mythology becomes quite complicated and involved, presenting Hart, in his new incarnation, with a daunting challenge to win back the grief stricken Ruby. His, sensitive artistic soul now exists side by side within Jameson, along with Jameson's own abilities and memories. But Hart's memories, including those of Ruby are only taking up temporary residence.....they're fading fast and the clock's ticking.

             Even worse.....how can Ruby comprehend why on earth Jameson, once a smug, self centered delinquent, has transformed into such a caring, kind soul?  And what kind of unbelievable news, something he's incapable of saying out loud, is he desperately trying to communicate to her?

            Once J.C. Cervantes hooked me with this incredible combination of suspense and gut-wrenching emotion, I literally could not stop reading until the end.....and yes, it's just about impossible to navigate through this story with dry eyes.  It's everything you'd expect from a romance that keeps you on the edge of your seat, hoping and praying for the ripped-asunder soulmates to somehow find each other again. a truly passionate 5 star read for sure.  An absolute TBR must-have.

MAEVE FLY.....A PSYCHO DISNEY PRINCESS LETS IT GO....*****

 Maeve Fly by CJ Leede (2023) 

            You'll have to pardon me while I hose down the gallons of blood, severed limbs, assorted organs and at least one random eyeball that came flooding out this book.......

            A bit much? Not at all, cause I think it's essential that only readers who can stomach (and really love) hardcore horror go anywhere near 'Maeve Fly'  Everyone else?  Stick with 'The Addams Family'.....

..
             Imagine, if you will 'American Psycho's Patrick Bateman reconceived as a Disneyland park Princess Elsa, that beloved "Let It Go' belter from "Frozen". Just the perverse audacity of that idea made me laugh and shake my head in admiration. 

             To the delight of park visitors, the live action Elsa's well  played by none other than our title gal Maeve Fly, while sister Anna's played by Maeve's BFF, Kate. 

             Maeve loves her work with a passion, even tolerating Liz, her officious, micro-managing supervisor. Kate, however an aspiring actress, struggles to snag a film or TV role. And this is a perfect moment to mention how author CJ Leede evokes and beautifully portrays Los Angeles in all its sun-drenched madness - especially the underbelly of showbiz where's everybody's grasping for their dream while only a precious few achieve it.  Perceptive, sharp and darkly funny, at times the book reads like a modern day "Day Of The Locust"... only with way more blood. 

            Speaking of dark.....that's Maeve through and through. At the house she shares with Tallulah, her once-upon-a-time movie star and infirm grandmother, she celebrates Halloween like it's Christmas at Hallmark.  All she really needs to tip her over into complete insanity is something  (or someone) to light her fuse. 

           Sure enough, Maeve finds the fuse lighter in the person of Kate's hunka-hunka Hockey star brother Gideon, newly arrived to play for the L.A. Kings. Gideon, with rippling abs and libido to match, sees directly into the bottomless abyss of Maeve's empty, violent, psychotic heart.  He seems at least a possible kindred spirit, and for Maeve, who's already rapidly giving in to utter madness, that's all she needs to...uh... let it go.....and go medieval on any number of...uh....poor unfortunate souls. (but that's another movie, right?)

            As I previously forewarned, the carnage here is way, way, way over the top, but author Leede turns the whole thing into such a funhouse ride, you're never sure whether to giggle or gag. And I could only smile and nod at the finale's big twist, dripping with irony....(among other things).  For those who can take it, it's a 5 star ride into a human void. Dive in if you dare.

THE MAKING OF ANOTHER MOTION PICTURE MASTERPIECE......HANKS FOR THE MEMORIES.....

 The Making Of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks (2023)

             I admit I never got around to reading actor Tom Hanks's first book "Uncommon Type", a collection of short stories....

             Therefore, the discovery that Hanks is as talented and creatively ambitious a novelist as he is an actor.....what can I say....breaking news. 

              He's poured a lifetime of his movie-making experiences into this book - film students can practically read it as a fresh-from-the trenches tutorial on the nuts and bolts as well as blood, sweat, tears, misery and joy that go into the making of a movie.  I seriously doubt if there's even a single solitary detail of the process (both artistic and technical) that he left out. 

               And also on view is the Hanks public persona as well.......Our Most Beloved Movie Star and  America's Everyguy, He gazes upon the miracles and madness of Hollywood with a sense of awe for the art that comes out of such chaos......but he possesses the smarts of a wise, witty satirist casting  a deadpan eye on the filmmaking community, once aptly described long ago as "the inmates running the asylum"......

               And talk about world-building.......Hanks creates, from the ground up, a deeply rendered array of movie stars, studios, streaming giants, agents, managers, bodyguards, and every major and minor cast member and crew member you can imagine.  For many of these characters, Hanks takes the time to go into detailed background histories.  (More on that later.)

             Even more boldly, the author daringly creates his very own block-busting comic book movie franchise "Agents Of Change".....which allows him to launch his epic account of the the production of the lastest in the series. "Knightshade: The Lathe Of Firefall"  (A tormented super woman who can never sleep meets and battles a legendary supernatural World War 2 Marine who wields a flamethrower.) 

               I'll chalk it up to Tom Hanks enduring optimism and sunny disposition that Bill Johnson, his book's A-List, award winning movie director, takes on the most daunting challenge any filmmaker could attempt.....turning a CGI heavy superhero bash 'em up into a genuine, emotional, audience-grabbing journey.  In short, transforming a comic book silliness into a piercing, penetrating look at the human condition, and thereby making it an artistic achievement 

               Now here comes the bad news......

               Just like the messy, up-and-down production of 'Knightshade' that Hanks brings to life with such laborious detail, the book itself suffers from a host of flaws.   Primarily, from those previously mentioned,  meticulous accounts of every minor characters' backstories. While I appreciate Hanks' dedication to bringing these people fully to life, these overwritten, often unnecessary  passages bring the forward momentum of the the story grinding to a dead halt.

                 By far the most satisfying and brutally humorous chapters involve the actual day-to-day melodrama of the film's production. Bill Johnson must try to realize his vision of these conflicted tortured superhero souls colliding with each other. But his superstar lead actor, a temperamental dope with a bloated ego confounds and aggravates the director at every turn, throwing the entire production into peril. Readers can only imagine which real life actor (or actors) furnished the inspiration for this bloviating douchebag.......

                 And here's something Hanks may not have imagined while writing this novel...... that the perpetual onslaught of Marvel and DC superhero franchises would start to turn sour...... that some, boring, confusing entries in the genre, top heavy with CGI but little else, would leave audiences  yawning, jaded, and just a little tired of watching the spandex crowd hurl each other around like basketballs. 

               "The Making Of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece" serves up unique guided tour through the 'business of show', with a tour guide whose inside information is virtually encyclopedic. Not quite a masterpiece but filled to the brim with the humor and drama that could only come from a born entertainer and a seasoned movie star who's sure as hell been here, done that. 4 stars (****) 

                 

                 

ONE WITH THE WAVES.....SURF'S UP FOR THE NEW YORK GIRL ON THE BEACH....(****)

 One With The Waves by Vezna Andrews (2023)

Talk about a beach read.....

            If this book were any beach-ier, there'd be salt spray in your face and piles of sand pouring into your lap every time you opened it.

            Overall, the stuff I loved about "One With The Waves"  while diving into it (literally) outnumbered some few intrusive, annoying aspects of it. 

            Best of all.....its near rapturous evocation of the lore and romance you ever imagined about surfers and surfing.  Everything  you'd expect is all included here. The excitement, the natural beauty, the sheer exhilaration, hair-raising risks and danger of the sport.  And most especially, the daredevil courage, athletic skill and physical stamina demanded of those brave hardy souls who dare the Pacific ocean's turbulent surf and towering waves.

             The storyline, however, combining a teen girl's rocky coming-of-age with the adventurous challenges of surfing, suffers a couple of problematic bumps along the way. 

              Following her father's tragic illness and death, Ellie and her mom transplant themselves from New York to the Pacific coast home of her Uncle Charlie and Aunt Jen, both dedicated surfers.

             Both grieving and suffering from their loss, Ellie and her mother seek solace in different directions.....Ellie escapes into the whole world of surfing, while her mother's rapidly succumbing to drugs and alcohol.   As Ellie finds strength, comfort and confidence in honing her surfing skills she begins to acquire new friends and a first love. But on the down side, she's relentlessly bullied by a pack of high school mean girls straight up from the depths of hell.  

             Couldn't help but thrill to the many surfing sequences, most of which include Ellie's spectacular, endearing encounters with dolphins and seals. And surfing enthusiast Vezna Andrews takes readers on a deep, deep dive through just about everything in surfing culture, making the descriptions both fascinating and instructive.

             Oh and the problematic moments? Well there's a little too much over-exaggerating in some of the characterizations. Uncle Charlie most of all, whose constant, overbearing goofball behavior would send any teen girl fleeing in embarrassment.  And  the villainous mean girls carry on like cardboard Cinderella step-sisters via the Brothers Grimm. 

              But fortunately, none of that will stop you from rooting for Ellie to overcome every obstacle in her path, sigh with her first kisses and dream of paddling out your surfboard right along side her to say "hi" to the dolphins....and become......ah, no wonder the book has a perfect title.  4 stars (****)

SING HER DOWN....3 WOMEN HEADED FOR AN EPIC SHOWDOWN (*****)

 Sing Her Down by Ivy Pochada (2023)

This book gripped and haunted me from beginning to end.

            And I think it's doing it a disservice to conveniently categorize it as some kind of thriller, crime story or even, in a real stretch, a "western".  

            "Sing Her Down" is most assuredly literary fiction, but written in the immediate, propulsive prose you'd expect in such an action-packed, violent story.......told with brilliant, incisive writing and imaginative, unforgettable imagery.

            Yes, in way, it resembles and duplicates the epic, larger-than-life mythic-figure showdowns of Sergio Leone's Italian westerns like "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly" and "Once Upon A Time In The West".

              The book forces a monumental life evaluation on its three main characters, two women convicts who've violated their parole and the policewoman hunting them -  do their darkest impulses come from some pivotal moment in their lives or was the darkness deep within them ingrained, always inside them from birth?  

              At the height of the 2020 Covid pandemic, Arizona prison cellmates 'Florida' Baum and 'Dios' Sandoval enjoy an early parole, due to the prison's overcrowding.  Florida, daughter of a wealthy L.A. family, accumulated a criminal record as a somehow peripheral  figure in the crimes she fell into. So Florida's come to think she can find some light at the end of the tunnel, a path to redemption.

              But Dios, a hardcore, murderous, unredeemable  sociopath, views Florida as a kindred spirit, a sister in darkness who's yet to recognize and embrace the truth of herself.  When Florida, hoping to establish a sense of normality, breaks parole and hops a bus back home to L.A.,  the obsessed, lethal Dios follows her every step of the way.  An ultimate showdown between these women becomes inevitable.

               And what a perfectly surreal, dystopian backdrop author Ivy Pochada imagines for these women and their final encounter......a mostly abandoned, Pandemic-ridden city whose populace remains fearfully self-quarantined in their homes and whose streets now belong almost exclusively to the homeless. 

                With murder victims left in their wake, Florida and Dios are being tracked down by Detective Lobos, while she herself must deal with the stalking of her abusive ex-husband. When the paths of these three women finally intersect, it's a climactic confrontation worthy of an Ennio Morricone " Western showdown" symphony.....a hellish dreamscape committed to a wall mural that seems to come alive if given a sideways glance. 

              "Sing Her Down" struck me as the kind of darkly dreamt  book to fully surrender yourself to and lose yourself in........ and even if we're not quite at halfway through 2023, I'd already rate this as one of the best 5 star (*****) books I've come across of this year....a TBR list must.

FOR YOU AND ONLY YOU......JOE GOLDBERG JOINS THE LITERATI... BUT THIS TIME, IT'S WE READERS WHO BARELY SURVIVE....(*)

 For You And Only You by Caroline Kepnes (2023)

           I never imagined I'd end up writing a review like this about this author's 4rth novel featuring her sociopathic psycho stalker Joe Goldberg. 

           A one star review.

           By now everyone's realized that Joe's murderous misadventures in Caroline Kepnes's books bear little or no resemblance to the ongoing Netflix series starring Penn Badgley.....the books and the series have parted company, going their own separate ways......

           While I haven't yet caught up with the new season of "You", I eagerly dived into what I suppose you'd call the Literary Joe.....,and holy homicide,  what a severe, crushing disappointment. 

           So sorry to report, "For You And Only You", was a mind-numbingly boring, tedious slog to get through.  As I rolled my eyes trying to plow through hundreds upon hundreds of pages of Joe's endless, repetitive narration, I couldn't recall the previous three books ever coming across as so dull.  

           As usual Joe's trajectory follows the same path......a new girl becomes his designated Object Of Obsession and and woe to any individuals unlucky enough to stand as roadblocks to his wooing of her for his very own.   And also as usual, you can safely bet Joe's pursuit of his new designated dreamgirl will go awry for him in multiple ways, forcing him to dig his way out of pitfalls that could finally render him jailed for life.

           Somehow, Joe's invited into a Harvard Fellowship group comprised of of both aspiring and established writers. In weekly sessions, they present samples of their novels-in-progress for critical analysis..... with pages they sweat blood over critiqued by their fellow Fellows and most importantly, by their group leader Glenn Shoddy, a best selling literary lion. 

           And Joe finds himself now pursuing not one but two burning ambitions....publishing his novel, a fictionalized (of course) account of his previous lethal exploits ,and winning the heart and mind of Wonder, a Fellow-mate and Dunkin Donuts manager with her own novel-in-progress. 

            Caroline Kepnes takes some sharp witty fun in steeping the book deeply into the world of writers, struggling would-be writers, and avid readers.  Witty asides referring to books and authors abound and even the Goodreads universe takes more than a few satirical hits. 

            But sadly, those humorous, knowing nuggets are stuck in the swampy quicksand of Joe Goldberg's interminable, pace-deadening internal monologues.  And if you've read all his blathering in the three previous books, there's nothing new to read or learn here.....just more and more and more of it. To the point where you'd be tempted to skim through Joe's perpetual blah-blah-blah in the hopes of eventually reaching a plot development.

              Along with Joe's expected reversals-of-fortune, Kepnes does throw in a few twists new to the series, but nothing that frees up the glacial movement the book maintains from start to finish.  And what's also grown beyond tiresome......Kepnes over and over repeating her favorite jokey trope......the instant contrast between Joe's real thoughts and the exact opposite lies he speaks out loud to everyone he encounters 

              Bluntly, I couldn't help breathing a sigh of relief upon reaching the last paragraph. To borrow that popular phrase used so often by creative writing instructors.....maybe it's time for Caroline Kepnes to 'kill her darling'.........1 star (*).

           

HOT DUTCH DAYDREAM.....SUMMER LOVIN' IN SUNNY AMSTERDAM (****)

 Hot Dutch Daydream by Kristy Boyce (2023)

For anybody looking to spend an entertaining afternoon curled up with a quick-to-read, altogether delightful little YA romance, this book fits that description to perfection.

             A clash of opposite personalities?  You've got it. Beautiful travel brochure backgrounds? All in place here.  Kissing, hugging, impromptu smooching between the adorable supposed opposites?  Most definitely.

             First half of our dynamic duo - Sage, a Type A high achiever on the verge of college with a pre-med trajectory for her future. And she's lined up, for her, the perfect summer job before school - off to Amsterdam, serving as a research intern for oncologist Dr. Reese, who also employs Sage to babysit Diedrik her rambunctious 3 year old toddler. 

              What Sage didn't count on coping with was Ryland, the Doctor's young, but grown son, a charming-to-the-max, devil-may-care freelance artist with a large coterie of adoring friends, mostly girls.

               Need I even explain the inevitable, amusing clashes between overachiever Sage and the freewheeling, lover of life Ryland?  Especially when Ryland asks the ever organized efficient Sage to help him curb his social life so he can focus and concentrate on submitting his artwork to a major competition.

 
                 Uh oh.....but what about Dr. Reese's strict "no romance allowed" commandment? Much fun and head-over-heels swooning ensues anyway, as we all knew it would.

                A fast easy breezy 4 star (****) read, guaranteed to leave you smiling and maybe check out airplane fares to Amsterdam. so can tour all the colorful locales the cute couple visited.  But if you can't go, this book's the next best thing.......and a great kick-off to the summer reading season.