Truly, Madly

 

Gosh, this one was so sad. I had no idea Vivien Leigh was so ill. 

In an age when mental illness was not as well understood, Leigh was most likely bipolar or schizophrenic. Medication was spotty at best. She had violent outbursts, breaks with reality, hallucinations, the whole nine yards. 

Vivien and Larry were both married to other people when they met and fell in love. They left their respective partners and married, and were married for 25 years before breaking up. They reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton--so in love and yet unable to live together. She was abusive to Larry and they both cheated with other people. She eventually got to the point where she couldn't work anymore. She died very young, just 53, of tuberculosis. Larry lived another 20 years, remarried, and had three more kids. He had a lot of health problems, too. It was just a tragic story all the way around. 

Just Like Mother

 

I was disappointed by "Just Like Mother". I borrowed it because the reviews seemed pretty decent: a horror story about a cult. Sounds pretty good. 

It was not. 

Maeve's thirty-three and her life is falling apart. She lost her job, she's having to sublet her apartment and move in with her friend, Ryan. Ryan wants a real relationship but Maeve is just in it for the sex. 

Then Andrea comes back into her life. Andrea and Maeve grew up in a cult called the Mother Collective. As the name suggests, it was a group of women who used men to get pregnant and then discarded them (i.e. killing them and burying their bodies in the yard). They also "discarded" any boys they gave birth to in a similar fashion (except for one, and it was never really explained why they kept him around, which bugged me). The cult is broken up and Maeve is adopted and loses track of Andrea until they reconnect after uploading their DNA to a genealogy site.

While Maeve's life is in shambles, Andrea is seemingly on top of the world. She has a great husband, a wonderful best friend, and a thriving business called NewLife. NewLife makes highly realistic robotic dolls to help people prepare for motherhood, or helps women who have lost a child deal with the grief of that (I'm not sure having a robot doll that looked like my dead baby would help, but hey, what do I know?). Andrea seems like a savior to Maeve, inviting her to live in her home and help with her company. 

I can't say too much more without giving away the plot (such as it was), but it was boring and predictable and the ending was just terrible. No one was likeable, Maeve was dumb as a post, and the pacing was off. The first 2/3 of the book were slow and then the last bit felt rushed. I honestly shouldn't have forced myself to finish it, it was a waste of time. 

California Tiki

 

This was a quick, fun book about the rise of Tiki culture in the U.S. after WW2. It was especially prevalent here in California. Having a bamboo bar at home with tiki mugs and tiki torches made you the coolest cat around. Mai Tais, Trader Vic's, Don the Beachcomber--all these things that came from this movement, which was about escaping to a mythical island paradise. Tiki culture spawned music and movies (Beach Blanket Bingo, anyone?). 

Tiki started to fall out of favor as the baby boomers started growing up and eschewing the things their parents' generation loved. The rise of the free love and hippie movement clashed with the laid back surf/island style of Tiki, but now everything old is new again and Tiki has returned as a fun, retro lifestyle. I have friends who collect tiki merchandise. I went to Trader Vic's and Don the Beachcomber before they closed, they were fun and kitschy. And hey, who doesn't love a great Mai Tai? 😀

The House Across the Lake; Razzmatazz

 

"The House Across the Lake" by Riley Sager was pretty good. 

Casey Fletcher's life has been spiraling out of control ever since her husband, Len, drowned at their summer home at Lake Greene. When she gets fired from her acting job for showing up drunk, her mother packs her off to the lake to sober up. It doesn't work--one of Casey's neighbors brings her alcohol, so Casey spends her days drinking into oblivion. One day she notices a body floating out in the middle of the lake and takes her boat out and rescues Katherine, a former model who is now married to a tech wizard. They just bought a house on the lake. Casey also meets another new neighbor: Boone, who's doing some handyman work on one of the houses while the occupants are at their winter home. 

Casey meets Katherine's husband Tom, and right away she senses all is not right in their marriage. Katherine seems afraid of Tom, and the fact that she's a strong swimmer and almost drowned seems suspicious, especially when Katherine tells her that her whole body just seemed to stop working in the middle of the lake. When she passes out again while they're enjoying a glass of wine, Casey decides to keep an eye on Katherine and Tom's house. She has Len's birding binoculars, and she spends her days drinking and spying on her neighbors. Totally healthy behavior.

As usual, there were a lot of twists and red herrings. I smugly thought I had it figured out about 2/3 of the way through, but I was very wrong. 

I like the first book, "Noir", quite a bit, so I was looking forward to this follow up. It was okay but not great. Sammy and Stilton (the Cheese, but don't call her that to her face) are still seeing each other. There's a new head of Vice in town named Dunne and he's cracking down on the drag queen and lesbian bars in town. A couple of folks get murdered and the police don't seem interested in solving the case so Sammy steps in. 

There was an involved backstory with Moo Shoes uncle Ho and how he came over from China. Some of the side characters got more developed. 

I don't know, it just seemed a bit forced whereas "Noir" didn't. 

The Rodchenkov Affair; If You See Her; Everyone Thought We Were Crazy

Well, July is off to a promising start! Thank you, three day weekend.

First up, "The Rodchenkov Affair", about the major Russian doping scandal. Rodchenkov ran the anti-doping drug lab in Moscow that certified athletes were drug free for major sporting events. He also put together and ran the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics anti-doping lab. He was very proud of how Russia's athletes were able to win so many victories all while being clean.

Of course, the major reason they were clean was that he was faking their results. Swapping out dirty specimens for clean ones. "Losing" dirty samples before they could be retested. He was on the verge of getting caught when he bailed and fled to the U.S. and gave up his story for asylum. 

So...is he a good guy? I'm not 100% sure I would paint him as such. He certainly does, but he has a different perspective. Leaving Russia and his family behind was brave, but did he bring down the doping empire? Or did someone else in Russia just pick up his mantle?  

I have to admit, I was disappointed with Ania Ahlborn's "If You See Her". I read "The Devil Crept In" and "Brother", and loved both of them. This one was just meh. 

In 1999, Jesse and Casey witnessed their friend Reed commit suicide by hanging himself in a creepy abandoned farm house. Now Jesse is grown up, married with a baby boy, teaching at the local high school when Casey asks him to go with him back to the house. Casey has a successful podcast where he visits haunted places. Jesse reluctantly goes and is horrified when Casey commits suicide the same way Reed did.

Now Jesse feels like he's losing his mind. He's trying to write a book and suffering from insomnia. He loses control at school and almost beats up a student. He's drinking again. His wife flees, taking their son. All Jesse can think about is the house and the possessed girl he dreamed up...or did he? Was she real? At any rate, there were a lot of spelling and grammar errors and the ending was lame. It's too bad. Hopefully she just had a one off, I'm still looking forward to reading her other books. 

"Everyone Thought We Were Crazy" was not exactly what I was expecting when I checked it out from work, but it was interesting. In the late 1950s, Dennis Hopper, an up and coming star in Hollywood, met and fell in love with old Hollywood royalty, Brooke Hayward. Brooke was barely in her twenties and already had two sons with her ex-husband. They married (much to her wealthy father's chagrin) and had a daughter, Marin. 

During the 1960's Los Angeles, Dennis and Brooke were the "It" couple. Everything they did was arty and fun and ground breaking. Their house had a revolving door, everyone was welcome. They were invited to all the fun parties, not just with celebrities their own age but old Hollywood, like David O. Selznick, too. 

All good things must come to an end, though, and their marriage burned out with Dennis's increasing drug use that fed his paranoia and anger.