The Nix by Nathan Hill

This LONG book really kept my attention. The story line drifted in time periods but was held together quite well by the characters, for the most part. There were times when I lost track of who was who and had to look back to reacquaint with the story and characters, but that didn't bother me.
Here is a synopsis from Westchester Libraries:

The Nix is a mother-son psychodrama with ghosts and politics, but it's also a tragicomedy about anger and sanctimony in America. . . . Nathan Hill is a maestro." —John Irving From the suburban Midwest to New York City to the 1968 riots that rocked Chicago and beyond, The Nix explores—with sharp humor and a fierce tenderness—the resilience of love and home, even in times of radical change.It's 2011, and Samuel Andresen-Anderson—college professor, stalled writer—has a Nix of his own: his mother, Faye. He hasn't seen her in decades, not since she abandoned the family when he was a boy. Now she's re-appeared, having committed an absurd crime that electrifies the nightly news, beguiles the internet, and inflames a politically divided country. The media paints Faye as a radical hippie with a sordid past, but as far as Samuel knows, his mother was an ordinary girl who married her high-school sweetheart. Which version of his mother is true? Two facts are certain: she's facing some serious charges, and she needs Samuel's help. To save her, Samuel will have to embark on his own journey, uncovering long-buried secrets about the woman he thought he knew, secrets that stretch across generations and have their origin all the way back in Norway, home of the mysterious Nix. As he does so, Samuel will confront not only Faye's losses but also his own lost love, and will relearn everything he thought he knew about his mother, and himself.

I think this book could have been shortened by about 100 pages. I would have left out the parts involving the video games.... but maybe that dates me and says something about my generation. It may be crucial to the story of a person 20 years younger.

Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple

From the LA Times:

“Today Will Be Different” has a simple premise: Eleanor Flood, a wealthy, middle-aged Seattle resident with a penchant for negativity, decides to be better. She sets seemingly reasonable, attainable goals that actually hint at her need for a total life overhaul and personality change: to be a better wife and mother and friend and human being. Told in the span of one day, with a few well-placed flashbacks, “Today Will Be Different” reminds us that self-improvement is gradual and way more difficult than we’d like for it to be, even under the best of circumstances."

I liked this book but not NEARLY as much as the other by Maria Semple that really hooked me:  Where'd You Go, Bernadette?"

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

I liked this book a lot.  Read about it here:

From Westchester Libraries

This heartfelt and intimate portrayal of African immigrants trying to make it in New York City around 2007 focuses on the family of Jende Jonga from Cameroon. He lands a job as a chauffeur for a wealthy finance industry boss and is then able to bring his wife, Neni, and their young son over from Africa. Neni enrolls in college and is hired as a cleaner and nanny for the family for whom Jende works, and they become more involved with these super-rich people who have problems of their own. As the Wall Street financial crisis deepens, Jende loses his job, and their application for asylum is rejected. The incredible pressures of poverty, limited opportunities, and the grind of New York City and an uncertain future stress the family to the breaking point as a new baby is born and they struggle not to lose sight of their dream. -Mbue's debut portrays these individuals realistically and sympathetically as the stresses of surviving in New York City lead to marital difficulties and physical confrontations. VERDICT A fast-paced, engaging read with an interesting cross-cultural background.

Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson

This is a short and beautiful book. I finished it in a couple of sittings and wanted to start all over again.

Why the title? I think the Washington Post reviewer got it right!

Woodson reminds us that this was, indeed, another Brooklyn, far from the tony borough of multi-million-dollar brownstones and speciality grocery stores. Heroin addicts wobble along these streets. A prostitute who lives beneath August’s family loses her children to Social Services. “White people we didn’t know filled the trucks with their belongings,” August remembers, “and in the evenings, we watched them take long looks at the buildings they were leaving, then climb into station wagons and drive away.”

Every Kind of Wanting by Gina Frangello

I heard about this book on one of my podcasts and thought it sounded really interesting....and it was, but I really didn't like any of the characters very much, so I had a hard time engaging with the story.
Having just gone through the experience of having a surrogate carry my son and daughter-in-law's first child, I was attracted to the story, but this story is SO DIFFERENT from that in my family. Thank God!
Here is what the Westchester Library says about the book:

Every Kind of Wanting explores the complex intersection of three unique families and their bustling efforts to have a "Community Baby." Miguel could not be more different from his partner Chad, a happy-go-lucky real estate mogul from Chicago's wealthy North Shore. When Chad's sister, Gretchen offers the couple an egg, their search for a surrogate leads them to Miguel's old friend Emily, happily married to an eccentric Irish playwright, Nick, with whom she is raising two boys. Into this web falls Miguel's sister Lina, a former addict and stripper, who begins a passionate affair with Nick while deciphering the mysteries of her past. But every action these couples make has unforeseen consequences. As Lina faces her long-hidden demons, and the fragile friendships between Miguel and Chad and Nick and Emily begin to fray as the baby's birth draws near, a shocking turn of events-and the secret Lina's been hiding-threaten to break them apart forever. By turns funny, dark and sexy, Every Kind of Wanting strips bare the layers of the American family today. Tackling issues such as assimilation, the legacy of secrets, the morality of desire, and ultimately who "owns" love, the characters-across all ethnicities, nationalities, and sexualities - are blisteringly alive"--

But, here is my favorite quote in the book:
"Our children are never ours. We belong to them, but they belong to themselves.  They belong to people not yet born."

Mischling by Affinity Konar

I wanted to love this book, after hearing it reviewed on All the Books Podcast, but I can't say that I did. The poetic nature of the writing distanced me from the characters and seemed to "pretty" in light of the subject matter. The book deals with two twin girls' experiences at Auschwitz under Mengele's "care." His interest in twins is notorious and this book took the reader right into his "Zoo" (laboratory)
The ending also seemed a little too "pat" for me.
I guess the book didn't stand much of a chance, either, for me, because I had just finished A Gentleman in Moscow, which is certainly my favorite bookfor the last year or so.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

I just finished the Neapolitan Novels and loved them, but I must say......A Gentleman in Moscow is the BEST book I have read in a really long time.  Now, it doesn't hurt that it's about Russia and that Russia plays a HUGE part in the story - at least for me, but beyond that the story, the writing, the ambiance, the wit, the suspense...it's got it all. I couldn't stop reading and I didn't' want it to end.

The story starts with Count Rostov's trial, where he is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol Hotel (where he happens to reside anyway!), but his quarters are now much more sparse and hidden up in the belfry. That doesn't stop this man from assimilating to the new life and making the most of it.  

His friendships with various hotel staff and his relationship with Nina, a young girl he meets at the beginning, are told with wit and intelligence.  He maintains a friendship with a writer he met in his university days, who has since become a dissident writer.  Count Rostov dines each evening with good wine and excellent food, despite the shortages and lace of good ingredients.  The novel presents such a great image of what life was like in the early days of the Soviet rule and how over time there is an easing of the ways of Marxism and Socialism.  

On the New York Times Book Podcast I heard this referred to as a Russian spy novel. That could not be further from the truth in my eyes.  Yes, at the end there is some intrigue and covert goings-on, but they have little to do with politics and more to do with the Count getting his way!

READ THIS BOOK!