Definitely kept me reading. Has obvious parallels to WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN; but Lionel Shriver this writer is not. We spend half the chapters in the head of mother Suzette, and the other half inside the mind of the evil child, Hanna. Hanna is sadistic, or psychopathic or something, and hates her mother (but loves her father). Hanna is 7, and acts young, except when she’s plotting her revenge on Suzette. Then she seems to have the mentality of an adult. Suzette alternates between melting down at Hanna’s poor behavior, and giving hate back for hate. Dad is oblivious. When Hanna finally succeeds at inflicting real injury on Suzette, I don’t understand why the family didn’t have her institutionalized right then and there. We can all see where things are going.

Before picking this up, I was starting to read a book about a Vermont shepherd, which was extremely mother-y with a 3-year-old falling asleep peacefully on a hay bale while mom is assisting a ewe with a difficult birth. I tossed that book aside and picked up this one, said, Oh yeah, bring on the mother-hate!

The mother in this novel suffers from Crohn’s disease, which I am super grateful not to have. But I do have abdominal pain and felt a special affinity whenever she talked about her symptoms (which was almost all the time… not sure why this was part of the plot, but it did awake empathy in me at least).

by Alvaro Enrigue

I read this on someone’s recommendation and against my initial reluctance after a brief sample. It’s a retelling of Cortez and Montezuma mostly from the perspective of several powerful Aztecs and various Spanish soldiers and translators. I was gripped through most of it, waiting for the big finish. Things went a little off the rails at the end. I feel like certain plot points were unsatisfied. I could be wrong – this book was very hard to follow. Normally I ignore “cast of characters” lists in a book, and challenge the author to engage me enough to keep track of who’s who. But everyone here had several different names, and some of the Aztec names were a mouthful and too similar to each other. So I had to bookmark the cast of characters. I’d say I was thoroughly hooked on the story through 90% of it, so overall “enjoyed” the book. But the ending really wasn’t satisfying.

by Judith & Neil Morgan

Ted Geisel seemed a fun guy. I kept picturing him as Groucho Marx. This was a good bio that stayed interesting.