Mundo Cruel by Luis Negron

Summary
Nine short stories open a door into working class Santurce, Puerto Rico, where shoddy medical offices, Catholic churches, Mormon temples, and Santeria storefronts line the sunbaked streets. Here, a bumbling prostitute-turned-fugitive bewilderingly avoids capture. Back-biting mothers hand down judgment on their neighbors and the world at large from their front lawns. A desperate dog-owner will do anything to have his precious animal sent to a taxidermist. A young Chosen One with a curious gift helps his fellow parishioners find God.

Mundo Cruel, Luis Negron's debut book, elegantly presents to its readers a world both tragic and outrageous. Masterfully satirical with a discrete solemnity at its core, Mundo Cruel's most remarkable element is its language. Several of its stories feature unnamed protagonists brought to life by their speech—colloquial, self-incriminating, and idiosyncratic—revealing Negron's mesmerizing talent for conjuring the spoken word in all its subtlety.

Review
This was definitely one of those books that's translation captured the depths of its essence. Mundo Cruel was a shocking, provocative compilation of nine stories that's narrative was bold, engaging yet raised eyebrows. The characters were distinctive and easy to read. As a reader, you will experience writing at it most intimate and purest form without filter. There is something about the way these characters were written that truly come alive and just leap off the page. As a disclaimer, for those who may not feel comfortable with stories that involve gay life, there are mentions throughout the stories. I encourage you as a reader to be open minded and read to appreciate the quality of its artistic prose and progressive narrative.

Reviewed by Michelle Bowles

Book Information
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Release Date: 3/12/2013
Pages: 96

Review: Women Behaving Badly by Alana Munro

Summary
Have you ever been hurt by a woman? Are you fed up with the constant bitching, gossiping and manipulation between the females in your life? Do you want happier and healthier relationships with females? Do you wish to weed out the toxic women and seek out only positive women?

If you have ever wondered why some women are complicated creatures this book will offer you straight talking answers. This book will highlight all the strange, controlling and spiteful behaviors that some females specialize in. This book attempts to understand what actually drives women to be cruel or bitchy to each other. It attempts to make sense of the huge expectations women place on each other. How can we avoid toxic women? What bad behaviors should we be looking out for? This book explores every cruel behavior possible and attempts to understand what is really going on between the females in our life. 

Review
How many times have you sought out answers about your relationships with women from one of those newsstand magazines or columns that you read in your local paper? After you read the answer, you sort of are left with an answer that makes you feel good for the moment but leaves you with a questions mark. Well, after reading this book, it will leave you with a lot more than that. Some people might get mad reading this book because of the brutal honesty but I think the majority will nod with affirmation because they have been there and can relate too many of the experiences. This is not a self-help book or a book that bashes women. It is a bold unapologetic truth that shatters the unspoken status quo of women behaviors involving their relationships with each other. 

This book was definitely easy to read. The content was so engaging that you find yourself coasting through. I really admire the author for putting it all there. Her vulnerability and her introspective analysis throughout the book gave the reader much to think about. There is definitely something to be said from learning from your experiences. Drawn from her personal experiences and personal stories from others, it really gives you a firsthand account of truly how many women treat each other behind the cordial facade. 

This book highlights the good, the bad and the definitely ugly aspects of what we are not, what we are and what we can be towards each other to acknowledge the truth and sustain meaningful relationships that complement our lives. Trust me, nothing was sugar coated, fluffed or words minced. If there were seven deadly sins about women, than this book would define them. This book is definitely for all women from all walks of life. Once you read it, you will definite look at your relationships differently.  

Reviewed by Michelle Bowles

Book Information
Publisher: eBookPartnership.com
Release Date: 5/28/2013
Pages 117

Review: Annabelle by Nancy Christie

Summary
We all have our fantasies—our hopes and dreams of what we want our future to be. But what happens when our fantasies are based on an erroneous interpretation of past events, when our hopes and dreams are so far from reality that they prevent us from having any kind of a normal life? A lonely young woman, all Annabelle wants is to love and be loved. But the twin emotions of fear and guilt, from a passion born on a summer day so many years ago, hold her fast.

Review
Annabelle is a literary gem that captures your imagination to a haunting surrender. While grabbing you from the first page, your mind in drawn towards this addictive narrative that silences everything around you grabbing your full attention. This was a short but fulfilling read.  The intricacy of the character Annabelle with her parents and the relationship between her parents had a delicate cohesiveness that seemed so seamless that you just couldn't stop reading.  

As a reader, to feel such intensity from such vivid, descriptive words is a testament to Christie’s ability as a storyteller. As you read Annabelle, it’s one of those stories that you completely escape into the characters. The storyline between her parents are so passionately engaging filled with love, loss, and tragedy. Her journey of desperation, guilt, seeking love, and that yearning to be that object of desire just completely satisfies your literary appetite. 

With all that said, if you love great writing and stories that you can completely escape into, I would recommend reading this. You will not be disappointed. This is one of those stories that you will remember for a long time.

Reviewed by Michelle Bowles

Book Information
Publisher: Pixell Hall Press
Release Date: 9/2013
Pages: 28

Review: The Gardens of Happy Endings by Barbara O'Neal

Summary 
“After tragedy shatters her small community in Seattle, the Reverend Elsa Montgomery has a crisis of faith. Returning to her hometown of Pueblo, Colorado, she seeks work in a local soup kitchen. Preparing nourishing meals for folks in need, she keeps her hands busy while her heart searches for understanding. 

Meanwhile, her sister Tamsin, as pretty and colorful as Elsa is unadorned and steadfast, finds her perfect life shattered when she learns that her financier husband is a criminal. Enduring shock and humiliation as her beautiful house and possessions are seized; the woman who had everything now has nothing but the clothes on her back. 

But when the going gets rough, the tough get growing. A community garden in the poorest, roughest part of town becomes a lifeline. Creating a place of hope and sustenance opens Elsa and Tamsin to the renewing power of rich earth, sunshine, and the warm cleansing rain of tears. While Elsa finds her heart blooming in the care of a rugged landscaper, Tamsin discovers the joy of  losing herself in the act of giving—and both women discover that with time and care, happy endings flourish.”

Review 
No matter what we believe in, God, a higher power, ourselves, the human spirit; sometimes we lose that faith and fall into despair. Why even the most devout and steadfast tend to lose their way. The Garden of Happy Endings is all about despair and how sometimes we fall prey to our inner most insecurities and fears and how we must overcome them and deal with the terrible things that happen in our lives. 

It was a little challenging for me to get through this book. Not because it was not interesting but because this novel hit close to home. Lately, I have been feeling a little lost and this book really helped me out. I would recommend this book to anyone who is feeling a little lost or in despair as a way to cope with whatever they are going through. 

Elsa has turned her back on God before: the first time because she was not allowed to be a priest due to her gender; the second because her husband-to-be decided to became a priest (something she could not do); and lastly, because a young life was taken violently from her congregation. Though essentially faithless, Elsa presses on, trying to lead her lost sheep as best she can. Yet the lost cannot lead the lost, and thus Elsa is asked to take a sabbatical.  

Sensing her distress, Tamsin, Elsa’s older sister comes to her aid and suggest she comes back to Pueblo, Colorado, her home town. Being that she is asked to take Sabbatical, Elsa agrees and returns home with her sister. 

Upon her arrival, she seeks counsel from her old friend and former lover, Joaquin, who is now known as the catholic priest Father Jack. He thinks she should get involved with the community garden project as well as volunteer for the soup kitchen. This way she can stay busy as well as help people, something that she truly loves to do. At the same time, he wants her to really meditate, pray and think on her relationship with God or lack thereof. Figure out a way to come back, find her faith again and deal with the clouds of darkness in her heart. 

Thus he pairs her with Deacon, a local landscaper who also runs the AA meetings for the church. An attractive man with an outdoorsy kind of look and sweet Southern charm, Elsa cannot help but find herself drawn to this man and his good hearted nature. 

As things progress with the community garden project, Elsa finds herself enjoying life again; however Tamsin’s life is taking a turn for the worse. Federal agents have seized her house, frozen her accounts, and worst of all, will not let her back in her to get her things. To add to her dismay, she finds out that her husband has embezzled millions of dollars and he is being indicted. With nowhere else to go, she must now live with her sister in their childhood home, going from a lavished, privileged life to a more modest, albeit poor lifestyle (Tamsin’s thinking) and depend on Elsa to take care of her. 

Now Elsa must be a shepherd to her lost sister and suggests she volunteer in the soup kitchen to keep herself busy as well. Surprisingly enough, Tamsin finds herself enjoying serving food to those less fortunate and actually realizing how small her problems are, almost completely forgetting her husband is a criminal who abandoned her. 

Both sisters seem to be healing yet there are still some old wounds to be licked. Elsa must deal with the cause of this recent withdrawal from her faith as well as the blooming crush she has on Deacon and the jealously coming from her old friend Joaquin. Tamsin must learn to let go of having things and her comfortable lifestyle to enjoy what she still does have as well as deal with her emotions toward her criminal of a husband. 

The Garden of Happy Endings is truly an inspirational and teaching literary piece of work. It is like a guide for readers who are going through some things in their lives and showing them that you are not alone, that others have gone through this too. Most importantly, this novel shows that we are all seeds in the garden of life, just trying to grow and with time, compassion and a little love, we can get through the worst of things.

Reviewed by Camia Rhodes  

Book Information
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication date: 4/17/2012
Pages: 416

Review: Mirror Deep by Joss Landry

Summary
Danger and romance roll like thunder through horse whisperer Kat Bonner's world, when a known felon comes to the ranch to drop a bomb about her past. Kat turns to Pierce for help; the same Pierce who bucks her every chance he gets, and whose feverish investigation lands them in trouble with the law and directly in the path of a serial killer.Mystery deepens, fraught with wrong turns, bumbling detectives, old murders, and Kat's doppelganger no one sees but her, just as she never sees the change in Pierce's feelings toward her, brewing, mounting, until she can no longer deny them.


Review
You know the kind of book that when you start reading you get this instant calmness that your mind completely escapes into the book? Well, this is one of those books where you get so swept away in the story that you forget everything around you. From the first chapter, as a reader you are not sure where you are going but your curiosity is peaked to find out. Along the way, all you can do is hold on because there are so many twists and turns that make this one enjoyable experience.

I really enjoyed reading this book. The story was so engaging and had so many elements as the book unraveled that all you wanted to do was keep flipping the pages. The author was such a wonderful storyteller who painted such vivid narratives with wonderful characters who were addictive and just made you fall completely in love with them. As the story progressed, it was as if each layer that you took away revealed another part of the story that kept you intrigued.  Disappointingly, I couldn’t flip the pages quick enough because there was definitely that who done it mystery that will keep you guessing to a surprising conclusion. Far from predictable, when you think you know what’s going to happen you have no idea. The story is so seamlessly weaved together that the plot keeps you guessing with its’ continual twists and turns. 

What I think as a reader you will mostly enjoy are the characters. I really think the heart of the book were them. The way she wrote them had such an inviting magnetism to them that you felt like you knew them. My favorite part of the book was the relationship or shall I say journey between Pierce and Kat. All I am going to say is with a major twist to this storyline, you will completely root for them and just fall in love with their story. 

So, if you are looking for a great read I recommend reading this book. This book had all the goodies you can hope for to keep you wanting more that included family, friendship, romance, suspense and mystery that will get you hook until the end. 

Reviewed by Michelle Bowles

Book Information
Publisher: Joss Landry
Release Date: 10/17/2012
Pages: 456

Review: Along For The Ride by Sarah Dessen

Summary 
“Riding a bike is one of the many things Auden’s missed out on. Even before her parents’ divorce, she was cast into the role of little adult, never making waves, focusing on academics to please her demanding mother. 

Now she’s spending the summer before college in the tiny beach town of Colby with her father and his new wife and baby. A job in a trendy boutique introduces her to the world of girls, their friendships, conversations, romances. And then there’s Eli, an intriguing loner. A fellow insomniac, Eli introduces Auden to the nocturnal world of Colby. Together they embark on a quest: for Auden, to experience the carefree teenage life she’s been denied; for Eli, to put a tragic episode behind him. Combine two lonely people with a charming beach town and an endless supply of long summer nights, and just about anything can happen.”

Review 
Humans are afraid of change. As creatures of habit, we easily become complacent in the hand the universe has dealt us. Almost convincing ourselves that we are happy with what we have because we've had it for so long. Thus any time we see change come our way, for better or for worse, we hide, run, and resist at every turn; determined to endure this consistency just to avoid it. 

Along for the Ride is a book about learning to go with the flow of things instead of pushing against it, choosing to stay where we are. It also can be said that this book is about embracing our true selves and the true selves of others. Learning to accept the many facets of people and not just accepting the surface of a person. And most completely, this book is about change and the breaking of our own habits. 

A habitual creature, Auden West is a product of a divorced home, who has developed insomnia. Having spent many a night staying awake to hear her parents fight, now awake, Auden spends most of her nights alone, sipping coffee at her local dinner, studying to appease her academic driven mother while slowly being robbed of her childhood, forced to grow up too soon. However, this summer before college, her father and stepmother, Heidi, have invited her to stay with them and meet her new baby sister Thisbe, in the beach town of Colby. Getting a little inspiration from her brother Hollis, a nomad of life, she decides to take a chance and make a change, accepting her father’s invitation. 

Upon arriving at the beach, things are not at all as she would have hoped. Thisbe won’t stop crying, Heidi is exhausted yet forcibly happy and her father is unhelpful and non-existent, repeating the same offenses he did when married to Auden’s mother. Once again, Auden is thrown back into a world of problems between her parents that result in her inability to sleep at night, forcing her to preoccupy her time until sun up. 

While on her nightly adventures, she runs into a kid named Eli, who doesn’t have much to say, and uses his nights to avoid the daylight of a traumatizing event in his past. With Eli, she discovers a whole other world, a whole other life of fun, youth and carefree bliss that she did not have growing up. Auden gets a second chance at her childhood as well as a first shot at love and the dramas of being a teenager. Slowly but surely, Auden lets go of  her strict, parent pleasing ways and learns to take things as they come, living her life.

Also while revisiting her childhood; Auden confronts her true feeling about the divorce, instead of running away with them into the night. She learns to stop being a “mini-adult” with her parents and finally gets to be the child, having them take responsibility for her upbringing and allowing her the freedom to be herself. Thus, in a way, she is given a second chance at being their daughter instead of being a young adult companion. 

Along for the Ride will make you nostalgic for the time of your youth or aware of how short youth is, making you embrace every single moment and person in your life. This novel will also help you see that there is more to a person than meets the eye. Most importantly, this novel will help you see the habits you’ve kept for years and break free, running for change. 

Reviewed by Camia Rhodes

Book Information
Publisher: Penguin Group
Release Date: 6/16/2009
Pages: 432