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Anne McLeod

I'm the librarian at Moon Lake Community Library in Mentone, Alabama. I read a wide variety of books and write about them here. Reviews are also posted to https://www.goodreads.com/cannemcleod.

Follow BRB - I'm Reading to find out about the library's latest books, as well as some that are not yet published but will eventually land on our shelves.

The cover photo above was taken by Kelly Smith Leavitt when we visited the amazing Richland Library in Columbia, SC, as part of a Creative Placemaking Summit in 2019. It was an honor to meet the Wild Things. 
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Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

2/27/2023

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I knew that Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow had gotten good reviews, and because I’d read and enjoyed a couple of other books by Zevin, I didn’t read the reviews too closely. Nor did I read the book’s blurb. I knew only that it was a book about two young friends who design video and computer games. I’ve never been a gamer, so I wondered if I might be the wrong demographic for this one. Too old and too print-based to grok (a word I recognized because I have read a little Heinlein) the topic, perhaps? A reference on the first page of it being “...the waning twentieth century” did not assuage my concerns. 

These fears were completely misplaced. Yes, there is a lot about gaming, and readers with experience in that realm will experience this book in a different way. What I loved were the characters, Sam Masur and Sadie Green, who meet as young adolescents in a hospital where Sam is recovering from surgery to repair his badly broken foot and Sadie is hanging out during her sister’s cancer treatments. The two bond over video games, beginning a two decade long relationship in which they grow, learn, bicker, create, separate, reunite, and then do it all over again. And again. 

Theirs is not a romantic relationship, though there are moments when it might have taken that turn. Instead, they become colleagues, co-creators of a game Ichigo, which becomes an international success before they graduate from college. With their friend, Marx Watanabe, they form a company, Unfair Games, eventually move from Boston, where they had been in school at MIT and Harvard and return to Los Angeles, where their families live. 

Sam’s grandparents, who raised him after the car accident that killed his mother and crushed his foot, are Korean-born owners of a pizza parlor in LA’s Koreatown. Sadie’s grandmother Freda, a Holocaust survivor, is the family member she is closest to. All are delightfully drawn characters, and it was wonderful to read a novel in which grandparents play important roles in the lives of their young adult grandchildren. 

Although Sam and Sadie are on the outs more often than not, they both recognize that when they can work together, the synergy is something special. Their early success only increases the pressure to develop the next hot new game, but Sam is still dealing with serious medical issues while Sadie tries to put her affair with her mentor Dov in the past. In the meantime, Marx and his girlfriend have split up, freeing him to fall in love with Sadie at last. Then a tragedy shatters their world. Can they pick up the pieces and begin to live - and create - again? Can a game bring them back together at last?

I read “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” in less than 48 hours, emerging into the real world, rubbing my eyes and wondering at how alive Sam and Sadie’s world had been in the time I spent with them. This may well be what it feels like to come off a weekend spent gaming around the clock. 

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Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

10/29/2022

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In "Demon Copperhead," Barbara Kingsolver brings the plot and characters of Charles Dickens’s classic "David Copperfield" into the twenty-first century in a rural county in Virginia. This coming of age story deals with loss, abandonment, poverty, grief, and addiction in the present day, suggesting that the problems Dickens depicted in Victorian England remain far from solved. 

Throughout the book, Kingsolver plays off the names of the characters from David Copperfield for her own characters to great effect. The son of a teenage mother and a young man who died in an accident before his birth, Damon Fields inherits his dead father’s red hair (“Copperhead”), and his first name soon shifts into “Demon.” The loving Peggoty family from David Copperfield become the Peggots and their grandson Matthew, known as “Maggot.” 


When Demon’s sweet, hapless mother hooks up with Stoner, (“Mr. Murdstone” in David Copperfield), it’s clear the man views Demon as an unwanted burden to be shed at an opportune moment. Before that can happen, Demon’s mother and her unborn baby die of a drug overdose, pitching Demon into the foster care system. 

During a series of unfortunate placements, he meets people who will become recurring characters in his life’s story: the McCobbs; star football player “Fast Forward”; Tommy Waddell, and others.  He and his friends are forced to work, school being a low priority for most of the adults they encounter. Eventually he ends up in a happier home, living with a respected football coach and his daughter Angus. He is evaluated for the school’s Gifted and Talented program, and to his own shock, he scores high enough for admission. A sympathetic art teacher becomes his mentor. Coach is delighted with his athletic ability and soon he’s playing varsity football. But Demon’s promising football career is cut short by a serious injury and an ensuing addiction to pain pills. At seventeen he moves in with his girlfriend, Dori, who’s also suffering from addiction and grief. 

This is one of the more painful parts of the novel to read, as Demon tries to help Dori, when he’s so poorly equipped to even help himself. He knows he lacks the resources and life skills to pull them both out of their downward spiral, but he’s determined to be there in his imperfect way for her. What follows the inevitable crash is his one shot at real redemption and sobriety, but at a high cost. 

Kingsolver’s writing shines in "Demon Copperhead." She has passionate opinions about social issues, in this case, social class and income inequality. In Demon, she develops a character who, for all his problems, possesses strength and true kindness. He is in awe of and a little in love with Maggot’s Aunt June, a nurse practitioner who leaves her job in Knoxville to return to her hometown to help the community she grew up in as the opioid crisis takes a heavy toll. Like her, he has trouble imagining life anywhere except Lee County, even when it becomes clear that he needs to leave, at least for a while, in order to save himself. 

Demon Copperhead is a sprawling novel with plenty of characters to keep up with. One thing that made it easier was the single narrator and chronological plot. In a time when many novels offer multiple points of view and move back and forth through past and present, it was strangely relaxing to read a straightforward narrative from the perspective of just one character.It’s a book that will stay with you, full of unforgettable characters and moments both large and small. 

I received a free galley of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. 


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Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

10/2/2022

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Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan is one of those books that readers will appreciate most if they go into it in the dark. Don’t read reviews like this one. Avoid spoilers. The less you know, the better.

I knew that Jodi Picoult was one of the authors, and that was enough for me. I would read anything she writes because she has the ability to develop complex characters and then throw them into a world of hurt, while tossing in some unexpected twists along the way. I knew too that it was about a high school student accused of killing his girlfriend. I wasn’t aware of any other books in which she’d collaborated with another writer, so I wondered what this latest novel would be like on account of that second voice. 

As it turns out, Mad Honey works beautifully, and my ignorance was bliss indeed. Two story lines unfold throughout the novel, narrated by Asher’s mother Olivia and Lily, his girlfriend. A single parent who has moved back to the family farm and has expanded their beekeeping operation into a thriving business, Olivia feels like their life is on the right track. People around their small town know her for the honey and beeswax products she sells at the local farmers’ market. Asher is in love, and Olivia is genuinely fond of Lily, his girlfriend. The two of them seem well suited and appear to make each other genuinely happy. Which is why Olivia is stunned to learn that Lily has been found dead at her home and Asher is charged with her murder. 

Olivia’s chapters move forward through time from Lily’s death and Asher’s arrest, through his incarceration, and his trial. Lily’s chapters turn back time, beginning with the day of her death and moving back through the months before. We learn her backstory, how she and her mother Ava came to live in the small New Hampshire town, and why Lily is capable of both giving and guarding her heart.

The one small point I’d quibble about is that in his trial, Asher is defended by his uncle, Olivia’s brother Jordan who is a high-powered attorney. Lawyers don’t normally represent relatives, particularly in high profile cases like this one. At minimum I’d expect a conversation to take place in which Olivia and Jordan hash this out. Instead Jordan just rolls in, prepared to represent Asher himself instead of referring him to another attorney. It doesn’t hurt the book too badly, but readers familiar with the legal profession will be a bit surprised. 

The lyricism of Picoult’s writing about Olivia’s bees created a beautiful counterpoint to the painful story. I enjoyed learning about beekeeping culture, including traditions like informing the bees of a death in the family. I’d never heard of “mad honey” before, a substance that has been known to cause symptoms like dizziness, vomiting, convulsions, and more. And the book includes recipes for the honey-related treats Olivia makes, something I was grateful for after reading about these delicious foods. 

I highly recommend Mad Honey and look forward to purchasing it for my library. I received a free copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. 

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Book Lovers by Emily Henry

7/6/2022

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In Book Lovers, author Emily Henry takes a particular rom-com plot, the small-town love story, and goes in some different directions. We all know the narrative: big city guy/gal is forced out to the country, leaving behind his/her uptight, all-business love interest, and ultimately falling for a rural sweetheart. Along the way, he/she learns to appreciate country living, becomes less of a jerk, and settles down to run a bed-and-breakfast, raise bees, or become a pastry chef at the small town bakery. 

Heck, there was a whole movie filmed right here in Mentone with this plot: New York strip-mining executive sent south to buy land out from under a family running a camp for kids with disabilities. In it, his stiletto-heels-wearing love interest accompanied him to Alabama and was thus able to watch him fall for the sweet, smart camp supervisor. (If you haven’t seen Southern Heart, the library has a copy of the DVD for check-out.)

The twist in Book Lovers is that the main character and romantic heroine is the cold-hearted, stiletto-heel-wearing literary agent from New York, Nora Stephens, compelled by her beloved younger sister Libby to take an extended trip to a small town in North Carolina. And while she does meet and have one brief date with a handsome architect/engineer building his own home on a ridge outside Asheville, she loses her heart to a fellow New Yorker, Charlie Lastra, an editor and fellow New Yorker, forced home to Sunshine Fall, NC, by family obligations. 

Nora and Charlie are not opposites.In fact, they have so much in common that their previous encounters back in the City had been marked by sneers and scowls. But as they collaborate on an editing job, a different type of spark flies between the two and - you can guess the rest. 

What struck me in Book Lovers was that as fun as the romance is, there are other, even more compelling relationships. First is the bond between Nora and Libby. The two had always been close but their mother’s death when Libby was sixteen meant Nora, her senior by just four years, became more parent than sister to Libby. Even after Libby married and had two daughters of her own, Nora still hovers. 

It’s probably no coincidence that the manuscript Nora and Charlie bond over is called Frigid and features a Nora-esque character. I took this as an homage to Frozen, Disney’s princess film that focused on two sisters. Nora and Libby learn and grow, and in Nora’s case, learn to let go. 

Another aspect I appreciated was Nora’s love affair with New York. It’s her own hometown, a tough place that can be both overwhelming and magical. Restaurants, plays, her Peloton, and the publishing business - what’s not to love? It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate Sunshine Falls, but it’s not her beloved city. 

Reading Book Lovers reminded me of the first time I saw Southern Heart at the Mentone Inn pavilion. It was a beautiful summer evening, with a sweet small-town vibe, popcorn, and stars above us. Then three-quarters of the way through the movie, someone tripped over the extension cord for the DVD player, and the screen went dark. There was a quick debate among the organizers and the audience. With no remote control for the DVD player to skip to the point where we’d lost power, the choices were to start over at the beginning or to just call it done. Then someone said, “Is there anybody who doesn’t know how this is gonna end?” so we all picked up our folding chairs and went home.

Romance novels do have a predictable story arc, but there’s so much here to appreciate that Book Lovers may be Emily Henry’s best novel yet. Book Lovers is available for check out at Moon Lake Library. 


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Horse by Geraldine Brooks

6/9/2022

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With Horse, Pulitzer-prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks takes the reader on a journey from the stables to the race tracks, with much of the book set in the years leading up to the Civil War. The book is based on historical events. The racehorse Lexington was real, his skeleton part of the Smithsonian collection in commemoration of his outstanding career, though over time his story was forgotten and his bones labeled simply “Horse.” 

Jarrett, too, was a real person, depicted in a painting by artist Thomas Scott, another character in the book. Sadly, details of Jarrett’s life are lost to history, so Brooks based his story on those of other enslaved African-American horsemen, trainer Ansel Williamson and the jockey and trainer Edward D. Brown.


Intertwined with this story line are more contemporary ones. Theo, a Georgetown University graduate student in art history meets Jess, an Australian-born osteologist who studies bones collected at the Smithsonian. The two start to piece together the history of the racehorse, the bones, and the paintings of Lexington and the Black man at his side. With their relationship, Brooks explores issues related to race in the present day. There’s also a minor thread centered around art gallery owner Martha Jackson, who was friends with Jackson Pollock and other Modernists but whose collection unaccountably contained an older painting of a horse and his trainer. 

While the multiple storylines and shifts in time are, for the most part, well done, the heart of the book is the relationship between Jarrett and Lexington. Theirs is the plot thread I found myself wanting to return to. His work with Lexington, one of the greatest racehorses of all time, affords Jarrett some privileges despite his enslavement, but small favors can never take the place of actual freedom. 

Geraldine Brooks combines solid historical research with gifted storytelling. In her more than capable hands, Horse is a book the reader will never forget.  Moon Lake Community Library will have a copy of Horse available for checkout in later this month.

I received a pre-publication copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

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Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley

4/19/2022

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Rules are made for breaking, but when you break them, there's no telling what the results might be. 

Iona Iverson is an experienced advice columnist whose editor would love to trade her in for a younger, cheaper, hipper model. But Iona loves her work, knows her value, and plans to cling to her job for dear life. As the stressful battle for her job begins, Iona breaks the rules of her London commute, speaking to another commuter on her train. To be fair, he was choking to death on a grape. And Iona doesn't speak to him but noticing his predicament, actually bellows, "Is there a doctor on the train?"

There isn't. But there's a conscientious male nurse called Sanjay who Heimlichs the choker, Piers,  back to life. That's just the beginning of the chain of actions and reactions that changes the lives of a group of commuters on train. By the time "Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting" winds down, readers will have enjoyed a bit of romance, break-ups, humiliation, trauma, career changes, and redemption. The cast of characters includes Sanjay the nurse, his crush Emmie, teenaged outcast Martha, and Piers, along with Iona and Bea, the love of Iona's life. 

The book is a reminder of the sweetness of human connection, something that is easy to lose in a world of virtual relationships. Iona is her own woman, a character with a strong voice, and a streak of independence. But when she needs her new friends, they rally around her, just as she ministered to them in their time of need. "Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting" will be published June 7, 2022, by Pamela Dorman Books, and I look forward to purchasing a copy for the library. Fans of Frederik Backman's "A Man Called Ove" will enjoy Iona and her train mates.  

I received a pre-publication copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. ​
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Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

4/6/2022

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​Fangirl is a sweet, funny, quirky young adult romance with some bittersweet tones. It's a reminder too of how few YA books take place at college. Catherine's freshman year in Lincoln, Nebraska is off to a rough start. She'd assumed her twin sister would be her roommate, but to her shock, twin Wren had other plans. Now off at school, her social phobia is fierce, and she's living off granola bars because she doesn't want to ask anyone where the dining hall is. 

Online, Cath is a star, a respected author of fanfiction based on a Harry Potteresque series. The problem is in real life, the actual author of the books is about to finish the series, so Cath's online fans expect her to write her own conclusion, a deadline on top of all her college coursework. What's a fangirl to do? 


For starters, fall in love. Then watch helplessly as her sister develops a serious partying problem. And then somehow help her dad
back home when his bipolar disorder starts a dangerous cycle. Next, throw in the girls' mother who's not been a part of the family for years but now seems to - maybe- want some kind of relationship. It's a lot to deal with. 

And there's a lot to appreciate here: love interest Levi's unwavering support of Cath, Rowell's homage to writing and fanfiction, the nods to Nebraska writer Willa Cather, The Outsiders, Good Night Moon, and even Twilight. One of my favorite characters is Catherine's  dad, who's able to channel the manic part of his brain into his work at an ad agency, at least most of the time. 

If you enjoy romance books, Fangirl is a good introduction to Rainbow Rowell's work. She has written for both adult and YA audiences. This one could be considered a crossover, though it's shelved in the Young Adult section at Moon Lake. 

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell was published September 10, 2013, and is available for checkout from the library.

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The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

4/1/2022

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The Boys in the Boat was hands-down my favorite book I read last year. The story of the University of Washington's crew team is one of sheer determination and grit. Most of the boys in the boat were working class kids. The University of Washington's eight-oar program was a work in progress. The schools that dominated the sport California and the Ivy League universities back east. But under coach  Al Ulbrickson and with a shell built by George Pocock, Washington was finally in contention for the national title. 

I'll just say here that I knew nothing about crew and in all honesty cared even less. The power of Brown's writing lies in his ability to educate and inspire his readers by focusing on the individual stories behind the boys in the boat, primarily Joe Rantz. 

Joe's childhood was filled with grief, abandonment, and poverty. His resilience in the face of all the trauma, combined with a work ethic that would not allow him to quit, got him into the University of Washington and onto the crew team. Although he was finally in the right place at the right time and had remarkable abilities, Joe's coach saw an inconsistency in his performance. For a team to win in a sport like this one required a level of trust in the others in the boat that Joe struggled with, given his past experiences. 

The Boys in the Boat has it all: riveting history, a setting primarily in the Pacific Northwest during the Great Depression and later Berlin under Hitler, compelling biography, a love story, and detailed explanation of what crew is and the process of building shells. The book is available for checkout at Moon Lake Library. 

Boys in the Boat was published June 4, 2013 by Viking Adult.

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No Recipe? No Problem!: Pull Together Tasty Meals Every Time with Confidence by Phyllis Good

3/31/2022

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​I have reviewed a number of digital books, courtesy of NetGalley, a site that sends ebooks to librarians in the lead-up to their publication. The idea is to encourages book reviews and hopefully purchases for our libraries.  This is the first NetGalley book that I ordered a personal copy of before I even finished  reading the galley. No Recipe, No Problem by Phyllis Good does an excellent job of capturing the methods of improvisational cooks like me. (The joke in my house was always, "Any resemblance to the original recipe is purely coincidental.") My choice to buy the book was based on a need to see the photos in color! The Kindle version just wasn't doing it for me.

Phyllis Good was the creator of the "popular Fix-It and Forget-It" cookbook series. She also pulls in a circle of other accomplished improvisational cooks to share their expertise. The book contains a handful of recipes as jumping off points, with plenty of tips on how to use the dressing or sauce in a variety of combinations or how to take it off in a completely different direction by substituting different ingredients. For the most part, however, Good explains how to make soups, salads, egg dishes, sheet pan dinners, roasts, and other main dishes, using what is on hand.

There are enough pro tips thrown in that even an experienced cook will find gems about how to give soups and sauces a bright finish or how to use unexpected flavor combinations.  But another audience for this creative cookbook would young people who are just starting out cooking and who may have followed recipes slavishly with good results and who want to take a more off-the-cuff approach. It would be a good fit too for people focusing on local foods or who have their own garden. The author expects cooks to have a decently stocked pantry, but she also discusses how to use an abundance of specific veggies and how vegetables harvested at the same time of year tend to make for solid flavor combinations. 

The library has purchased a copy and it is available for checkout. Checking out cookbooks can be a way to try one out to see if you too need your own copy, or if it might make a good gift for a wedding shower or graduation. 

No Recipe, No Problem by Phyllis Good was published April 21, 2021 by Story Publishing, LLC. 


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The Kennedy Debutante by Kerri Maher

3/29/2022

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The Kennedy Debutante grew on me as I got deeper into this historical novel about Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy. When her father Joseph Kennedy, Sr., was ambassador to England in the run-up to WWII, Kathleen was a hit on the London social scene and was named Debutante of the Year in London.

Fresh, stylish, and witty, she wasn't afraid to spread her wings a little bit, but, like all her family, was ever mindful of her Irish Catholic roots. In those days and in the crowd Kathleen ran with, this meant always being a little self-conscious about being different from most of the British aristocrats she socialized with. She often dated friends of her brothers, Joe, Jr., and Jack.

When she met William Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington, the attraction was almost immediate. Kick and "Billy" downplayed their romance though, concerned about religious differences. Those differences and the impending war meant nothing would be simple or easy. Their off-again, on-again romance survived ultimately, although it ended tragically, with Billy's death close to the end of the war.

For me, the book picked up as the war began, forcing Kathleen back to the US and introducing more uncertainty into her relationship with Billy. She didn't just love him, she loved London as well, and her separation from her beloved city was agonizing. Never content to be just a socialite, she channeled her energy into work, always hoping to get back to England and to assist as best she could with the war effort.

Author Kerri Maher did a monumental amount of research into Kathleen Kennedy's life. Kathleen is one of the more obscure Kennedys, if there can even be such a thing, largely because her life was so short. She died in a plane crash before the age of thirty. Maher studied as much as she could about this younger sister of JFK, letting Kathleen's light shine as she aspires for a life of love, faith, and purpose.
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The author's dedication to her subject comes through and will inspire readers to Google more about these star-crossed lovers and also about Kathleen's older sister Rosemary, whose own story was even more tragic than Kick's. There is a biography of Rosemary in the Moon Lake collection. 

I started reading the book knowing little about Kathleen Kennedy beyond the fact that she'd died in a plane crash years before her brother's run for the presidency in 1960. While this was a novel, and a first novel at that, I came away from it with an appreciation for a young woman whose dedication to faith and family were often at odds, but who ultimately found her own way to be herself in an imperfect and impermanent world.

The Kennedy Debutante was published October 2, 2018 by Berkley Books and is available for checkout from Moon Lake Library. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. 

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