The Cuckoo's Calling

Let me start this review by noting what I usually look for in a mystery/crime novel. I want said book to pull me in, give me bits and pieces of the story as I read, maybe even confuse me and throw me off with some crazy character or act that has nothing to do with the crime. But most of all I want suspense, I want to be chewing my nails muttering to the hero or heroine. I want the characters to be a part of me for days or weeks after the story is finished.

The Cuckoo’s Calling didn’t really have much of anything I like in a crime novel. To be honest I bought it on a Sunday night, only because Huffington Post had just tweeted who was really the author of this book, JK Rowling. I started it that night and finished it the following Thursday. Please don’t misunderstand, I did like the book but I am one of those people who only read it because this random author, Robert Galbraith turned out to be one of the most beloved author of all time.

All in all, I give this one 3 ½ stars. Any avid reader who picked up this book before last Sunday would pick up on the fact that there is no way this book was written by a new author. This was a well thought out, well organized novel. The characters are likeable (even rough and tuff Strike) and even surprisingly crazy! I did like the book but it’s not one of those stories that I would have picked up at the bookstore, the characters won’t stay with me for days, I probably won't think of them again, until the next book comes out.

The Silver Star: Jeannette Walls

From the beginning, I was rooting for sisters Liz and Bean to get away from their mother. The first two pages quickly had me questioning the situation they were in and why. It doesn’t take long to find out Charlotte is a flake with emotional and mental issues. She abandons her daughters several times throughout their lives; but the final shoe drops when she is gone for over a week and Bean (12) comes home from school to the police peering through their windows. It is 1970 and Liz (15) decides to use the remaining money Charlotte left them to buy bus tickets to Virginia, where their Uncle Tinsley lives.

Once in Byler Virginia, they stay in a decaying Antebellum mansion, the very house their mother grew up in. Throughout the summer, Bean discovers her dad’s family (the Wyatts) and the girls get jobs, against Uncle Tinsleys wishes. As the summer ends and school begins, Bean finds it easy to fit in and adjust but Liz becomes rebellious and withdrawn. Just when the girls start to feel “at home” with Uncle Tinsley and the Wyatt family, a truly heartbreaking event turns their entire world upside down.  

Charlotte comes back to town to lend support, but soon they find the whole town against them and they quickly lose hope. Who can you truly depend on when life throws you lemons? Family and perhaps a few overly large birds. Once things settle back down and people are put properly in there place, Charlotte decides she can not stand Byler after all, she is ready to move on, and in true Charlotte fashion, she leaves the girls behind.

I loved this story. Growing up in a small community I know all too well how small towns operate. I rooted for those girls all the way to the end. I was sad when they were sad and happy right along with them. Walls has a way of writing that puts the reader right into the book, and puts them in the characters shoes. I felt like I was there with LIz and Bean throughout the whole story. I actually gasped and laughed at the same time when I found out about Uncle Clarence and the bear. At the beginning of the book I just wanted Charlotte to get her crap together and take care of her girls, but by the end of the book, I wanted her no where near them. This is the second Jeannette Walls book I have read and I loved them both, maybe its time to add her 3rd to my collection!

Fly Away by: Kristin Hannah

I have read a few of Hannah’s books and I have to tell you, I can’t decide if I love her or hate her. The first book I read by her was The Things We Do For Love and I absolutely loved it! My next was Once in Every Life which I hated. So I decided to give Kristin Hannah one more try with Firefly Lane, which I still haven’t reviewed because I can’t decide if I loved it or hated it. For a majority of the book I was in love, I finished this 528 page book in two sittings, and cried my eyes out at the end; which is why, I think, I can’t decide to love it or hate it. In the end though,  I loved it without even realizing it. I thought about these characters for so long after I finished the book I knew I needed more. I only wish Hannah would have written Fly Away differently.

Fly Away starts out with Tully drunk and passed out in a Seattle bathroom stall. She is a train wreck, completely and utterly lost. She manages to get home and passes out on her sofa cursing her dead best friend for dying. She opens her eyes again long enough to realize a trashy magazine had run a story on her calling her an addict, the factual story however, is told by one Marah Ryan. Deeply hurt (and still loaded) she grabs her keys and leaves. Two hours later she is in a horrible car accident and rushed to the hospital. And so starts Fly Away.

For the first half of the book, I contemplated putting it down and making up my own stories for the characters, how I wanted them to live on. I was bored and annoyed with how Hannah jumped back in time, from the present (2010) to the past, the year Kate died and the years that followed. I felt like I was reading a new version of The Christmas Carol and the author was the Ghost of Christmas Past. Hannah tells the story of each character and how Kate's death affected them all, her husband, children, mother and father but most of all Tully. Of course they all have fallen apart in their own ways, who wouldn’t? The part that gets me is how Hannah tells the story of the four years since Kate’s death. It reminded me a lot of Once in Every Life, which, if you remember, I am not a fan of. 

The last half of the book was really where the story pulled me back in and left me (again) sitting on my sofa at 2 am crying. I really loved learning about Cloud (Dorothy) and her past. For the whole first book I hated her for being a crappy mother, we learn that she had good reasons for running, I would have ran too. Families really come together during a tragedy; they realize that the past is in fact the past, and the only way to move on is to forgive. This happens in Fly Away, but only with the help of TullyandKate.  

This is a story that needed to be told. Fans all over the world need this closure, I know I did.  I wish I could say that I absolutely loved this book, I really wanted to but it just wasn't there.  I liked it enough though and will definitely recommend it to any Firefly Lane fan. These characters will stick with me for a long time. Though I still haven’t decided where Kristin Hannah and I stand. Does she belong in my donate box or on my bookshelves?