Ocean City Free Public Library Book Blog

This month's book was Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward . This month's choice was a little more in the middle when it came to liking it. Some members struggled to finished it but fought through to the end. Sing, Unburied, Sing was about the journey of a young boy named Jojo and his mother Leonie and their journey of finding their way to themselves and "home."  Some of our readers mentioned how the story got too painful sometimes. Jesmyn Ward's writing style really felt realistic, you could feel the pain, anxiety, and heaviness of the story across the pages. Truly a talent to capture and portray such emotions, even if the story is not a happy one. We were amazed by that talent. We did talked quite a bit about the relationship between Jojo and his grandfather Pops. How much he looked up to him and how he was an important person in his life.  We gave this book 3 books out of 5. While it was a difficult book to read story wise, it still was a book that was written w...

Melissa  Dark Matter   by Blake Crouch A wonderful fast pace and intense novel. This book is both for the science fiction and suspense fiction fans out there. Those who are interested in alternate world and reality changing stories should pick this novel up. It was unexpected and completely captivating until the end. I really enjoyed this book. Reality is  Not W hat it Seems  : the Journey to Quantum Gravity     by Carlo Rovelli This is one of those books that is great at captivating and tricking the reader in to reading about a subject that many are not interested in, PHYSICS. From not knowing much about physics, this book was a great introduction not only in to the field, but the history and development of the science. It led into what really is quantum physics and not just this grand idea of what it is. It was really engaging and when reading the book you can feel and start to understand Rovelli's excitement and enthusiasm for th...

      Career of Evil is the latest book published by J.K. Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, and continues to follow the story of private detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant, Robin Ellacott. This book is vastly different from the preceding two novels in the series, The Cuckoo's Calling  and The Silkworm , as the nature of the crimes and investigation is different.       In the first two books in this series, the crimes are highly sensationalised and highlighted by the media, pulling a heavy focus on the public side of crime investigation. In Career of Evil  the investigation is given much more of a personal element, as the killer is directly targeting Cormoran and Robin. In addition to this, we are given a much more in-depth backstory of Robin Ellacott and her relationship with her fiance, Matt.       For the most part, I enjoyed Career of Evil , because while both main characters are present and investigatin...

      The Girl in the Spider's Web  is the fourth book in the  Millennium  series originally created and written by Stieg Larsson. As Larsson himself passed away in 2004, the popular trilogy, chronicling the adventures of computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and investigative journalist  Mikael Blomkvist, was originally published posthumously. However, there is still a large time gap between the publication of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest  in 2007, and the decision to continue the series under a different author. The announcement that there would be a fourth (and eventual fifth and sixth) book was not even announced until early 2015.       This time delay is only logical, as the process of continuing a series of this caliber is a daunting one. Getting the consent and permission from the Larsson's estate alone would have taken much legal negotiating. Even tougher still would be finding an author who could capture a...

      I've heard many different descriptions of Paula Hawkins's The Girl on the Train  while debating whether to put myself on hold for it. "Kind of Like Gone Girl , only British" was the most prevalent one that came up. However, after reading it for myself, I would liken it more along the lines of Rear Window  meets Gaslight.       A large portion of this book is spent questioning the motives of the initial character, Rachel, i.e. "the girl on the train." While she is presented as the central protagonist, she definitely does not (initially) come across as a necessarily a good person. I found myself less drawn to the actual mystery story happening, and more to the intricate writing style and the in depth addressing of the prevalence of gaslighting used by domestic abusers to gain dominance in their relationships. The way Rachel slowly and painfully unlearns all of her coping mechanisms is heartbreaking. Paula Hawkins' very Faulkner-esque wr...

      Night Film by Marisha Pessl follows the story of disgraced journalist Scott McGrath as he attempts to unravel the mystery behind the death of the daughter of an enigmatic horror film director, Stanislas Cordova. To solve the mystery of Ashley Cordova's death, McGrath must also unravel the mystery of Stanislas Cordova himself--an endevour previously undertaken by McGrath, which resulted in the loss of both his marriage and his career. In his attempt to expose Cordova, McGrath enters " a hypnotic, disorientating world, where almost everyone seems afraid " ( Goodreads ). ***       If, during the course of this novel, you begin to experience a very faint case of déjà vu , you wouldn't be alone. The descriptions of Stanislas Cordova and the films for which he is famous in this novel, are a bizarre hybrid of Alfred Hitchcock meets Orson Wells; a deliberate choice on the part of Pessl, I believe, in order to allow the reader to be able to ...

      The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (pseudonym of J.K. Rowling) is the second in a mystery/suspense thriller series featuring Cormoran Strike, an young English military veteran turned private eye after a significant wartime injury resulted in the loss of one of his legs, and Robin Ellacott, Strike's secretary, assistant, and detective-in-training.  The plot of the book picks up not very long after the conclusion of the first novel in the series (The Cuckoo's Calling ), with Strike's private investigative services seeing a rise in business following his minor celebrity status due to his successful resolution of the Lula Landry case (the main plot of The Cuckoo's Calling) . Strike is hired by the wife of a formerly prominent author with the job of finding said formerly prominent author who has gone missing. The novel follows Strike's investigation into the disappearance of Owen Quine, and as a result gets drawn into the cutthroat (sometimes li...

As a rule, I'm not a big fan of suspense and/or mysteries. However, once in awhile, it's nice to break out of a comfort zone and try something different. I had read Flynn's Sharp Objects awhile ago and enjoyed it, so it made sense to try her new book. Dark Places centers on the grim murders of the Day family back in 1985. Libby, our heroine and a young child at the time, managed to escape and her testimony was enough to convict her older brother Ben of the crime. The book shifts back and forth between the events that led up to that fateful day and the present day Libby. Everything is going along, until Libby gets involved with an underground crime group that wants to get to the truth of the murders. Did Ben really kill his entire family? Or was it someone else?? All in all, it was a very quick paced read and the tension held throughout the entire novel. As one could expect, adult Libby has some major psychological issues as a result of the murders. Despite being so flawed...