★★★☆☆

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.

For those that don’t enjoy true crime type books, Dark Places by Jillian Flynn , could be considered violent and disturbing. Though this is not true crime, it is a character based mystery and more of a narrative of the things the protagonist did and what she learned as the story unfolds. It was an interesting plot but it was definitely not as exciting a read as Gone Girl.

Flynn does a great job with both the struggling Libby in the present and the family in 1985, when the crime took place. The stark reality of a poor farm family in the mid-’80s along with Libby’s pathetic life as an adult makes for a pretty depressing story, but Flynn really sucks the reader into the plight of everyone involved. I was somewhat let down by the ending, but I can’t say much about that without spoilers.

It is a good read for those who don’t mind a raw story about just how much life can sometimes suck, even if you don’t get chopped to bits with an axe. As I type this,  the Kindle version is on Amazon for $2.99, a fair price, in my opinion.

Still reading All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. For some reason I am struggling with this one. I’m about half way through and enjoying it, but not rushing back to read on it every chance I get. Surely this time, next week, I will be reporting how much I enjoyed it.

Next up… The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Red Tent and Day After Night, comes an unforgettable coming-of-age novel about family ties and values, friendship and feminism told through the eyes of young Jewish woman growing up in Boston in the early twentieth century.

Eighty-five-year-old Addie tells the story of her life to her twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, who has asked her “How did you get to be the woman you are today.” She begins in 1915, the year she found her voice and made friends who would help shape the course of her life. From the one-room tenement apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her first, disastrous love affair, Addie recalls her adventures with compassion for the naïve girl she was and a wicked sense of humor.

Written with the same attention to historical detail and emotional resonance that made Anita Diamant’s previous novels bestsellers, The Boston Girl is a moving portrait of one woman’s complicated life in twentieth century America, and a fascinating look at a generation of women finding their places in a changing world.

And with a review as detailed as that I hope there is more to the story!!

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