Book Review: "Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute" by Talia Hibbert

If they’re going to succeed, they’re going to have to make peace with their childhood best-friend-turned-nemesis, and maybe even themselves.

Celine has a plan for success which includes studying law at Cambridge, acing her exams, and getting an offer from a leading law firm. But first, she needs an “A” in philosophy, which should be easy—but she has to share a class with Brad.

Brad and Celine were best friends growing up—their mothers were also best friends. But as Brad became interested in sports and started to become popular, he wanted to have other friends too, although those friends might not appreciate Celine’s quirkiness or disdain for most people. So they parted ways, but not until both said hurtful things.

Of course, fate keeps throwing them together. As much as they resent each other, they also are drawn to one another. And when Celine decides to compete in a grueling outdoor expedition in order to set her on the right path to her future, her aggravation that Brad is there too dissipates when they start teaming up. Can they rekindle their friendship—or perhaps turn it into something more?

I’m a huge fan of Hibbert’s. Her Brown Sisters series was sexy, emotional, and funny, and I love the way she creates neurodiverse characters and characters dealing with other physical and emotional challenges. She did a great job portraying Brad’s OCD and his bisexuality, and captured the craziness of high school well.

Book Review: "In the Wild Light" by Jeff Zentner

Jeff Zentner's latest YA novel is a powerful, poignant story about family, friendship, heritage, love, and finding yourself.

This was just excellent! Zentner is one of my absolute favorite YA authors, and this book was another reminder why.

“I’ve seen that life is filled with unimaginable horror. But it’s also threaded through with unimaginable wonder. Live through enough of the one, maybe you’re due some of the other.”

Cash lives in the tiny rural town of Sawyer, Tennessee, raised by his beloved grandparents since his mother died from opioid addiction. He’s content for his life to consist simply of going canoeing on the river, mowing people’s lawns, and spending time with his best friend, Delaney.

When she makes a remarkable scientific discovery locally with Cash’s help, it gets Delaney a full ride to a prestigious Connecticut boarding school, where she’ll finally be challenged academically. She convinces them to award the same opportunity to Cash, since she can’t imagine undertaking this adventure without him.

Cash doesn’t want to ride Delaney’s coattails, and with his grandfather’s emphysema worsening, he fears leaving Tennessee for a life he never imagined. But the thought of Delaney struggling all alone is also too much to bear.

How do you make the choice between those you love? How do you know if going after something you never thought you’d have is worth the risk of losing what you know? How do you find the courage to let people in?

I loved everything about this book. I went to bed with puffy eyes from crying but it was just so good. (And if you love this, definitely read The Serpent King, if not all of Zentner's other books.)

Book Review: "The Gifted School" by Bruce Holsinger

It's always nice when fiction illuminates the worst in people, isn't it?

Rose, Samantha, Azra, and Lauren have been best friends for years, in many cases since their kids were infants. The four women and their families have weathered many crises—death, divorce, troubles with their children and their marriages, etc. While there are certainly interesting dynamics among the four of them, there doesn't seem to be anything that can keep them apart.

When word gets out that their affluent town of Crystal, Colorado is building a school for gifted children, all four women react to the news differently, especially when they learn there will be a limited number of slots available at every grade level, and decisions will be made based both on test scores and other factors.

Samantha has always believed her daughter, Emma, is practically perfect in every way, so for her it's a given that Emma will be accepted. Rose's daughter Emma, who is best friends with Samantha's daughter, may be smarter, but she isn't as driven or as competitive as the other Emma. But what would happen if one Emma got in and the other didn't? They've been inseparable since infancy.

While Azra's twin sons, Charlie and Aidan, have focused more on soccer than academics, there's no reason they shouldn't be considered for the school as well, despite the misgivings of Azra's trust-fund yet hippie-esque ex-husband. Since her husband's death, Lauren has focused most of her energy on her son, Xander, who actually is gifted, but at the expense of her older daughter, Tessa, who has dealt with challenge after challenge without the support of her mother.

"Parents always want to manage the narrative instead of letting kids write their own."

Following the perspectives of multiple characters, including several of the group's children, The Gifted School is a melodramatic yet insightful look at how competition and envy can bring out the worst in adults, laying bare secrets long kept hidden, in some cases pitting spouse against spouse and friend against friend. The book also examines the pros and cons of schools for gifted children, the biases of testing and other admission-related decisions, and the thin line between striving for equity and creating quotas for traditionally under-represented populations.

I expected the book to be a little more campy and entertaining than it was. While some twists are telegraphed early on, Bruce Holsinger did throw in one twist that upended the characters, and it really didn't feel genuine to me. I thought that Holsinger makes some interesting arguments, but the majority of his characters were so unlikable it was difficult to have any sympathy for them.

There's a lot going on in The Gifted School. There were a lot of storylines to follow, and while I understood the points Holsinger was trying to make, I could have absolutely done without the whole storyline featuring the group's cleaning lady and her family, because it kept dragging the story away from its core.

Holsinger is a talented writer, and his storytelling definitely kept me reading. Those of you who enjoy stories of people acting horribly to each other to advance their children's best interests (or perhaps their own) might enjoy The Gifted School a bit more than I did.

Book Review: "Fire Sermon" by Jamie Quatro

When Garth Greenwell, whose book What Belongs To You (see my review), absolutely blew me away last year (it even ranked in the top five of the best books I read in 2016), took a pause from his social media hiatus to encourage people to read Jamie Quatro's Fire Sermon because of its absolute beauty, you can believe I listened.

I've got to say, Greenwell didn't steer me wrong. This book contains some of the most gorgeous prose I've read in some time, although the book as a whole didn't quite hit a home run for me. Still, there's so much raw emotion here—love, loss, hope, regret, fear, grief, wonder, and need—so it's really something.

"Was it something we carried in ourselves—something I sent out to you, and you sent out to me? Or did it exist independently, a potential fire hovering in the middle space between us, appearing only when we looked at one another? In which case, the second we stopped looking, the fire disappeared."

Maggie and Thomas met in college and married shortly after graduation. Maggie is a scholar, but is willing to put her educational pursuits on hold while she raises the couple's two children. She is happy (for the most part) doing her part to be the dutiful wife, devoted to her husband, her children, and God. While their relationship isn't perfect, she knows Thomas loves her passionately, and she feels secure in their life together.

When she resumes her teaching career, she begins a correspondence with James, a poet. At first, she is dazzled by his talent and marvels at their shared interest in theological writing, and their correspondence is professional and intellectual. But little by little, their communication transforms into something deeper, something that offers temptation, fantasy, perhaps even hope. When they finally meet, they are overcome by their feelings, and Maggie realizes all she has been missing her entire life.

Yet all too quickly, as strong as their feelings for each other run, they are consumed by guilt. Maggie must reconcile her devotion to God with her infidelity, her desire to throw everything away for James with the vows she took to love her husband until death do they part. They try to avoid seeing each other, even talking to one another, sticking solely to correspondence, but even that is tremendously difficult.

Will God forgive her? Should she confess to Thomas, even if that might jeopardize the family she holds so dear? Does she even deserve all that God gives her? Should she follow her heart, and stop caring about the consequences?

"(But would you leave a husband who, when you wake in the middle of the night, your body slick with sweat—dreaming you had to say goodbye to a man you slept with, once upon a time, but the man doesn't care, he has better things to do, he doesn't mind that he'll never see you again and the pain in your chest is so acute it forces you awake, gasping for air—this husband gets up to bring you a glass of water, then holds your hand across the mattress until you fall asleep? A man who, when your son brings home a girl who dropped out of high school and wants only to get married and have a kid, sits with her for an hour and talks about the benefits of higher education, offers to pay for her to take the GED and apply to colleges? Would you leave such a man? Or would you think: confess, repent, he is the one who should leave?)"

Fire Sermon examines one woman's struggles between the life she promised to live when she was 21 years old and the life she believes she so desperately wants, essentially a battle between duty and passion. At times powerful, at times quietly poignant, this is a book full of passion, conflict, need, and faith.

The book jumps between past and present, between Maggie's relationship with Thomas and her time with James, and also includes a great deal of theological conversation between Maggie and James, and Maggie's own conversations with God and an unidentified person. As someone who doesn't have much awareness of theology, while I understood the point that Quatro was making, I felt like those portions of the story slowed everything down and didn't quite work for me.

Maggie is a fascinating, fiery, flawed character, and Quatro draws her with such complexity. I was so taken by the storytelling and the language she used here, and I absolutely need to read her story collection now. Even though this book didn't quite knock me out, it's a story that really made me think, and I can't stop marveling at what a fantastic writer Quatro is.

Book Review: "How to Behave in a Crowd" by Camille Bordas

Have you ever gone to see a movie or a comedian that everyone says is really funny, but you sit there and wonder when it will get funny?

I think I have a good sense of humor; those who know me know that I'm really very sarcastic (I often say that sarcasm is my superpower) and I love a good joke, yet for some weird reason movies and books that are supposed to be hysterically or even darkly funny often miss their target with me. In fact, when I see books lauded as funny, I often steer clear of them, because I rarely find them as funny as they're purported to be.

This was the case with Camille Bordas' How to Behave in a Crowd. While it wasn't supposed to be a knee-slapper, the book's characters were full of quirks which almost instantaneously wore on me, almost as if the author was trying to be ultra-clever , and many of the situations which I'd expect were supposed to be funny fell flat for me.

The Mazals are a family living in a small French town. Four of the six children are tremendously accomplished—Berenice, Aurore and Leonard are academic prodigies of sorts, each on track to have their doctorates before age 24; Jeremie is a musician who performs with a symphony; and Simone, although only 13, is already distinguishing herself academically. Only 11-year-old Isidore, more often called Dory, doesn't seem to stand out intellectually, and in fact, is at a loss when it comes to deciding his future ambitions.

What Dory has that his siblings lack, however, is humility and empathy, for people he knows and those he doesn't. Quite often his mother remarks on his kindness and sensitivity, especially when comparing him to her other children. Yet sometimes standing out for not standing out isn't appealing, especially in adolescence, and he often tries to escape his family by running away.

But when a tragedy strikes the Mazal family, each of them handles it in their own way. But as the cracks begin to show, Dory sees how everyone is dealing with their grief and tries to help where he can, often in bizarre yet kindhearted ways. However, Dory has his own issues, and must balance his own grief with the anger he has felt about being the odd man out.

I thought that this book had a lot of potential, but it just never clicked for me. I don't know if the characters were so odd that it was difficult to empathize and connect with them, or if I just found the story to be more of a series of anecdotes than a cohesive narrative. Dory was also seemed much more mature than his age; I often had to remind myself that he was 11 or 12 years old. One other quirk that really irritated me for some reason was that the children's mother constantly referred to their father as "the father," never "your father."

I've seen some tremendously positive reviews of this book, so it's inordinately possible I'll be the one in the minority. If you often are on the same wavelength with books hailed as funny, or the quirks of a quirky family don't drive you crazy, pick this book up. I'd love to hear you tell me how wrong I am!

NetGalley and Crown Publishing provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Movie Review: "Captain Fantastic"

At least some of you know that once the Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations are announced, we spend a lot of time at the movies, seeing all of the movies and performances nominated for the major awards, so we're reasonably prepared come Oscar nomination time. (Then, of course, comes the crush to see anything we haven't seen before the Oscars—we usually come really close, if not hit 100 percent.)

I'm actually grateful for this obsession, because sometimes the Golden Globes and SAGs nominate performances or movies that got very little, if any, time in theaters around here, so learning about them introduces me to some great films and performances I might not have otherwise seen. Captain Fantastic is definitely one of those.

Ben Cash (Viggo Mortensen) and his wife Leslie have raised their six children in a remote cabin in the mountains of Washington state, almost completely off the grid. They've educated their children in history, science, politics, culture, survivalism, even socialism. (A favorite holiday is Noam Chomsky Day.) These children know how to hunt, forage for, and grow their own food; they know how to rappel, climb rocks, defend themselves, and treat injuries; and they are stronger, faster, and more agile than most adults, let alone children their own age. Ben and Leslie have also taught their children to be critical thinkers, although they mostly believe the same things their parents (or more so, their father) do.

Over the last several years, Leslie has been suffering from mental illness, and is starting to tire of life off the grid. She wants her children to live more typical lives and interact with their peers. Yet this is a source of significant friction between her and Ben, and she has been hospitalized while he remains with the kids.

While some of the children are devoted to their father and the life they know, some are beginning to think like their mother. The oldest child, Bo (George MacKay), wants to go to college, and realizes that he has no understanding of how people interact in the "real world." When a tragedy forces Ben and the children back into society, their interactions with Ben's sister and her family, as well as Leslie's parents (Frank Langella and Ann Dowd), devout Christians who blame Ben for what has befallen their daughter, show just how wide the divide is between Ben's way of thinking and others', and it sets up a situation in which the children must choose what path they want to follow.

Mortensen is a tremendously versatile actor, equally comfortable in both fantastical and realistic roles. His performance is Captain Fantastic is both intense and sensitive—he's a man who so fully believes that the way he has raised his children is right, and can't believe anyone (including his children) would disagree with that, but he's absolutely horrified when he realizes that he may have done his children a disservice. He is proud of the ways his children excel over others, yet turns a blind eye to where they may be lacking. And he is a man devoted to his wife, but he cannot understand why she would suddenly change her mind about the life they have chosen for them and their children. (Oh, and he goes full Viggo again in this movie, if you know what I mean.)

The actors playing the children are all quite good, particularly MacKay and Nicholas Hamilton, who plays the son whose questions and wants start to cause cracks in the foundation Ben has built. Langella has a fairly one-dimensional role as the film's heavy, and Kathryn Hahn and Steve Zahn, playing Ben's sister and brother-in-law, don't have a lot to do other than be shocked at how outlandish Ben's behavior and obsession has become.

This is a sweet, predictable movie, but its quality is ratcheted up a few notches because of some of the performances, particularly Mortensen's. He has been nominated for Golden Globe and SAG Awards, and I hope to see his name among the Best Actor Oscar nominees later this month. It's definitely a movie worth seeing—it's thought-provoking, a little emotional, and quite enjoyable.

Book Review: "Learning to Swear in America" by Katie Kennedy

Poor Yuri Strelnikov. The 17-year-old physicist prodigy has traveled from his Moscow home to California to help NASA stop a giant asteroid that is hurtling toward Earth. It won't wipe out the entire planet, but it may destroy the entire state of California, and cause tsunamis which might wipe out the Pacific Rim.

The thing is, Yuri knows how to stop the asteroid. He even has unpublished research that demonstrates this, research he's sure will earn him a Nobel Prize someday, which is something he has dreamed about since he was very young. But because he is so young, he can't convince his NASA colleagues to listen to him. They don't want to take chances on a kid's unpublished research, they want to use the methods they know—even if it means they won't be successful.

Yuri is alone, shuttled between his hotel room and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where the work is being done. He can't reach anyone from home, and when he does, he understands that one of his chief academic rivals is looking to take credit for his research. And then he meets Dovie Collum, a free-spirited, creative teenager who tries to live life in a carefree way, although she struggles with those who want to squelch her creative spirit. Little by little, she shows Yuri what it's like to be a real American teenager, and gives him the opportunity to experience some of the simple joys of life.

But in the end, Yuri has a mission, and he is determined to save the world from the asteroid the way he knows how, so he can go home again. How can he convince his colleagues to listen to him, even if his research hasn't been proven, and even if there are inherent risks? Should he just let them do what they think is best, even if it means putting people in danger?

I really enjoyed Learning to Swear in America. I thought it was sweet and funny, and I enjoyed getting to spend time with the characters. It's a reasonably predictable book but I didn't think that took anything away from its charm. This is a book that didn't take itself too seriously even as it dealt with the potential of a disaster, but the characters didn't seem overly precocious or wise beyond their years, save Yuri, but he was only wise in terms of science and math.

Katie Kennedy definitely knows how to write an enjoyable story. Even her author's note was funny. Consider this: "I did a lot of research to write this book, but if you're trying to stop an asteroid, you probably shouldn't use it as a guide. Finally, if you do notice an incoming asteroid, please give the nearest astrophysicist a heads-up because there really are only about a hundred people in the world looking for them. And it really is a big sky."

If you're looking for something that's light and enjoyable, with a little bit of soul-searching thrown in for good measure, pick up Learning to Swear in America. You may know what's coming, but you'll still enjoy the journey.

Book Review: "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" by Iain Reid

Seriously, what the hell was this?

"I think what I want is for someone to know me. Really know me. Know me better than anyone else and maybe even me. Isn't that why we commit to another?"

In Iain Reid's I'm Thinking of Ending Things (I'll admit I thought of ending my reading of this book more than a few times), an unnamed woman is on a road trip with her boyfriend, Jake. They've been dating six weeks, and she enjoys his intelligence, his sense of humor, his intensity, and the way he surprises her with simple gestures that show how much he cares, yet she's thinking of ending things with him. But since they're traveling to see his parents, she figures she'll wait and see how the trip goes before making any decisions.

As the drive progresses, the pair have a number of conversations, about the imperfection of memory, the importance of relationships, the value of faith, science, free will, and fear. Periodically the peace of the trip is interrupted by a persistent caller on the narrator's cell phone, but she refuses to answer those calls or discuss them with Jake, although he can clearly see she is agitated by them.

When they arrive at the farm where Jake was raised, the tenor of the visit starts to disturb her. She is left feeling ill-at-ease by Jake's parents, although they're doing their best to be pleasant; she is troubled by Jake's swift mood change as he interacts with his parents; and she sees and experiences a number of things that unsettle, even frighten her. She doesn't know what is going on or what she's supposed to do, but she does know she absolutely must end things with Jake when they return home. Then things utterly disintegrate on the trip home, beginning with an ill-advised stop at a Dairy Queen (in the midst of a snowstorm), and ending with an unexpected detour.

The story of the road trip is interspersed with flashbacks of the past six weeks since she met Jake, as well as snippets of a conversation between two people about a tragic incident.

I had no idea what to expect when reading this. Much of the hype I've seen talked about how terrifying and unsettling the book was, and I guess I agree with the latter part of that statement. To be honest, I am not sure I understand some of what happened in this book, and I guess I don't think any book should purposely be this obtuse. The story just kept getting weirder and weirder, and I couldn't discern what was actually happening and what was the work of an unreliable narrator.

There's no denying that Reid is a talented writer. He kept me wanting to find out what was going to happen even as I kept shaking my head and getting squeamish from time to time, and his use of language was extraordinary. The issues raised in the conversations during the trip were also fascinating and thought-provoking. But in the end, I found this unsettling and ultimately unsatisfying, partially because I think the book took a very strange turn, and partially because I just wasn't sure what I just read.

If you've read this and enjoyed it, we should talk!! I'd love to get someone else's take on this book, especially if you're among those who enjoyed it.

Book Review: "Loner" by Teddy Wayne

"All I could think about, running in a loop, was Veronica Morgan Wells, Veronica Morgan Wells, Veronica Morgan Wells. The quadrisyllable that halves its beats at the middle name, dividing again at its pluralized terminus of subterranean depths. The percussively alert 'c' drowsily succumbing to the dozing 's.' Perfectly symmetrical initials, the 'V' found twice upside-down in the 'M,' inverted once more in the 'W,' and, if spoken, easily confused with a German luxury automaker."

David Federman is an academically gifted student, but he's never been able to make much of an impression socially. While he had a group of friends in high school, they all tended to be those on the social fringe. As an incoming freshman at Harvard, he hopes things will be different. He's ready to trade witty barbs with fellow classmates, become noted for his academic prowess, forge friendships that will last for a lifetime, and, of course, finally have some luc in the romance department as well.

But his chance to reinvent himself socially doesn't seem to be working, and he finds himself part of a very similar group of social misfits as he had in high school, although this time there are a few female members, and he seems to have a reasonably easy rapport (and a great deal in common) with Sara, one of the group's members. And then David sees Veronica Morgan Wells. Veronica is beautiful, intelligent, worldly, and seems to carry herself with immense poise and social grace, the antithesis of David's life to date.

David is convinced that Veronica is the one for him, and all he has to do is prove it. He does everything he can to set up situations where she'll get to know the "real" David, to see him for the smart, witty, generous, romantic guy he knows he is. But as David's obsession with Veronica grows, he starts to make questionable decisions that have ramifications for him academically, socially, and morally. Even as he realizes that Veronica isn't the person she seems to be, he still feels the need to finally be noticed by her as an equal.

Loner is an interesting look at how someone who has always been on the fringes of life—partially by choice and partially because of the social pecking order common to high school and college—finally wants to be noticed by the "in-crowd." It's a book about struggling to find yourself when you appear to be surrounded by a sea of people who already have found themselves, and how feeling you have never really made an impact on anyone starts to take its toll. It's also a book about how we fail to notice what we actually have as we strive for what we think will be better.

Above all, however, Loner is about obsession. David isn't quite the stalker that we've traditionally seen in books and movies, yet you can feel just how palpable his longing is. As you watch this mild-mannered, significantly intelligent young man transform into someone completely different, you wonder whether these characteristics have been latent in him all along, or whether he simply began cracking under the strain of desire and the need for acceptance.

I thought this was a good book, but my main problem was that I found David not particularly likable, which, I guess, is understandable given his actions. I understood his desire to be noticed, to transcend the social doldrums in which he always seemed to find himself, and his inability to recognize what he actually had right in front of him. But as his desire for Veronica intensified, I didn't find him sympathetic in the least, so while I was interested in seeing how the story unfolded, I didn't really care about his plight.

I've never read anything by Teddy Wayne before, and while I didn't find David to be a particularly compelling character the entire book, I thought Wayne did a great job with the "Harvard voice"—the types of things Harvard freshmen talk about when having social conversation. Even David's own thoughts, as evidenced in the quote that began this review, were well-voiced. This was an intriguing look at the downside of college pressure, and Wayne definitely kept me reading to see what happened.

NetGalley and Simon & Schuster provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Book Review: "A Doubter's Almanac" by Ethan Canin

Can we escape the legacy of our parents or are we doomed to repeat their mistakes? Is genius more of a blessing or a curse, and what needs to be done to ensure it's more of the former than the latter? Are approval and recognition more powerful forces than love and security? These are just some of the questions Ethan Canin strives to answer in his latest book, A Doubter's Almanac.

Growing up in the 1950s in northern Michigan, Milo Andret lived a somewhat solitary existence. His parents kept to themselves and expected him to mostly do the same, and it didn't seem to faze him all that much that he didn't have much success making friends.

"He felt affection for his parents, and he understood that they felt affection for him. But the three of them hardly questioned one another, and they almost never revealed to one another anything of importance."

Milo knows he has talent, however, first demonstrated by his prowess in woodworking, and then when he attends graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1970s, he realizes his genius in mathematics stands him head and shoulders above his peers. But for someone who has always tried to blend into the background and not be noticed, his intelligence is finally something for which he strives to be recognized, and he doesn't care if people are jealous or offended by his treatment of them.

While at Berkeley he meets an alluring young woman who bewitches him, and he meets the man who will be his rival, both intellectually and romantically. Under the tutelage of his faculty adviser, Milo is challenged, bullied, and cajoled into defining the course of his dissertation, one that will once and for all demonstrate his superiority. But even when he makes this career-shaping discovery, it's not enough for him, and it sets his life on a constant struggle for fulfillment, satisfaction, and the need to prove and re-prove his intellectual prowess. It's debilitating, physically dangerous, and has harmful effects on those around him.

A Doubter's Almanac follows Milo's life into old age, his cantankerous and self-destructive nature never waning, even as it hurts those closest to him. It also follows the struggles of Milo's wife and children, particularly his son Hans, who seems destined to follow in his father's footsteps even if it's his sister who is the smarter one, and Hans' own appetite for self-destruction. The book examines whether we have any power to set our own course in life, or whether it is predetermined for us.

I've been a big fan of Ethan Canin's for a really long time, and I just love the way he tells a story. That being said, I didn't warm to A Doubter's Almanac as much as I hoped I would. The book got really technical and in-depth with regard to mathematical principles and equations, and given that I barely skated through the minimum number of math classes I had to take in high school and college, I couldn't get into those sections. And after a while, I realized that the emotional distance that Canin created for his characters kept me at arm's length, making it difficult to become fully invested.

Parts of this book are moving, and nearly all of it is spectacularly written, but I felt a little detached from the plot and the characters. Still, it is always a treat to read something written by Ethan Canin, and if you're not physically allergic to math, you might really enjoy this.

NetGalley and Random House provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Movie Review: "The Imitation Game"

Alan Turing was one of the most brilliant minds of the last century. Yet because of the work he did, and the circumstances of his death, very few people know of him and what he accomplished. Hopefully, thanks to The Imitation Game, people may better understand the history-making contributions he made to our world.

At the start of World War II, Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), an instructor at Kings College Cambridge and a published mathematician, goes to a job interview conducted by the top-secret Government Code and Cypher School. A military operation is searching for a way to break the German army's Enigma code so messages can be intercepted and the Nazis can be defeated. But this isn't a simple code—it changes every day at midnight, and there are millions and millions of possible permutations to consider.

Turing's confidence in his own intelligence, combined his with utter social awkwardness and obliviousness, quickly irritates the military commander (Charles Dance) who still reluctantly hires him, and then completely alienates him from the team of men with whom he is to work. And when the team leader (Matthew Goode) refuses to let Turing build the "super machine" he thinks could break the code, Turing takes matters into his own creative hands, and quickly gets control of the group, although he further raises the ire of the commander.

An effort to recruit additional people for the operation introduces Turing to Joan Clarke (a plucky Keira Knightley), a highly intelligent woman who wants a career far beyond those women were allowed in the 1940s. Joan is the perfect intellectual complement to Turing, a sounding board for his ideas and someone who tries to help him negotiate the more human side of his work. But while Turing truly enjoys Joan's companionship, he harbors a major secret of his own—he is gay—and the disclosure of this secret could land him in prison.

The Imitation Game follows Turing and his team as they race against time—and the powerful Nazis wreaking destruction across the world—to try and break the code. Turing must overcome those who doubt his abilities and the power of the machine he has built, he must battle the commander bent on firing him and labeling him a spy, and he must figure out a way to make sense of his life as it is unfolding. It is a heavy load for anyone to bear, especially someone who has always felt on the outside looking in.

I have always been a huge fan of Benedict Cumberbatch. His eyes are tremendously expressive, and his performances always combine steely strength with emotional vulnerability. (See his marvelous work in both Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Star Trek Into Darkness and you'll see what I mean.) But Cumberbatch is an absolute revelation as Alan Turing. Confident in his intellect yet insecure in what he is trying to accomplish, conflicted about the aftereffects of his work, and emotionally fragile, his Turing is so complex, admirable yet awkward, irascible yet sympathetic. While Cumberbatch's performance isn't as showy as Eddie Redmayne's in The Theory of Everything and isn't a comeback like Michael Keaton's in Birdman, it is his performance that affected me most profoundly. He already has received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and I expect to see him nominated for an Oscar next month, deservedly so.

Knightley brings some of her trademark toughness to her role yet she imbues Joan with tremendous sensitivity and even a little vulnerability. She more than holds her own in her scenes with Cumberbatch, in particular the scene when he admits to her that he is gay. She, too, has been nominated for both Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards, and also is deserving of an Oscar nomination for her performance. The members of Turing's team—Goode, Allen Leech, and Matthew Beard, in particular—each have strong moments, as does Mark Strong as Turing's MI6 defender.

If I have any criticism about this movie it's the way it's structured. The movie shifts between 1951, when a robbery at Turing's home leads a police detective to suspect that the man is hiding something, to Turing's work during the war. It also periodically moves to the late 1920s, when he was a young man at boarding school and first let his emotional guard down. While I understand the need to tell all three parts of this story, the shifts back and forth were a little jarring, and at the end, what I really wanted to see was how they broke the Enigma code.

The Imitation Game is well done but I found it a bit difficult and painful to watch. But in the end, I hope that people realize what an incredible genius Alan Turing was, and realize that some of the greatest minds our world has seen aren't always the ones we expect, and are far from perfect.

Book Review: "The Signature of All Things" by Elizabeth Gilbert

Alma Whittaker is a force to be reckoned with.

Born in 1800 to Henry Whittaker, the English son of a poor gardener who, through every trick in the book, transformed himself into the richest man in Philadelphia, and his blunt, intelligent wife, Beatrix, Alma learned at a very young age that she had the world at her disposal. Encouraged to never stop learning, and questioning everything around her, she was more than able to hold her own in conversations with scientific experts before reaching adulthood. Inspired by her father's successes in botany, Alma throws herself into studying the flora around her voraciously.

But as she grows into adulthood, Alma realizes she wants more out of life than knowledge. While she enjoys the passion that comes from intellectual pursuits and spirited conversation, she also dreams of the passion of romance and sexual fulfillment. But hearing far too many times from childhood that she is "the homely one," she comes to the conclusion that those dreams may never be a reality for her, so she focuses solely on her studies, her science, and helping to manage her father's estate, while dealing with romantic disappointments.

And then in her early 50s, she meets Ambrose Pike, a talented biological lithographer whose paintings of orchids are unlike anything Alma has ever seen. She immediately feels a connection with Ambrose—they are connected by a thirst for knowledge and a passion for nature. Yet while Alma has always focused on the scientific, Ambrose's beliefs lie in more spiritual, magical, and divine areas, which challenges everything she has ever believed and known. But she finds herself falling passionately in love with him.

"There is only so long that a person can keep her enthusiasms locked away within her heart before she longs to share it with a fellow soul, and Alma had many decades of thoughts much overdue for sharing."

Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things is meticulously researched and tremendously detailed. It spans from Henry Whittaker's voyages as a young boy all over the world to Alma's travels as a much older woman. The book takes you to Tahiti, the Netherlands, Chile, Argentina, England, and many other places, and introduces characters as wide and varied as scientific experts, Tahitian natives, missionaries, sailors, and abolitionists. Alma is a fantastically intriguing character. Her presence is tremendously felt throughout the book—this is a woman whose mind is always working, always seeking, and yet it is her heart that gives her trouble.

While this book has a great deal of charm, and Elizabeth Gilbert is an exceptional storyteller, I just didn't love it. The story at its core was fascinating and intriguing, yet the more detail Gilbert packed in about science and religion, the less it appealed to me. It felt a bit like gilding the lily—Gilbert used five, ten, fifteen pages to make a point when I got her point in only one. It took me longer to read this book than I expected because it is very cerebral, although it does have a lot of heart along with its head.

"She knew that the world was plainly divided into those who fought an unrelenting battle to live, and those who surrendered and died. This was a simple fact. This fact was not merely true about the lives of human beings; it was also true of every living entity on the planet, from the largest creation down to the humblest."

Book Review: "Rules of Civility" by Amor Towles

This was a tremendously enjoyable book, not quite a skewering of 1930s New York social elite, but not quite a full embrace of the idea that the rich are different either.

On New Year's Eve in 1937, Katey Kontent, a secretary at a law firm struggling to make ends meet, and her boardinghouse roommate, the more flamboyant and daring Eve Ross, head to a jazz club in Greenwich Village to try and make their few dollars last past midnight. By chance, they meet up with dashing Tinker Grey, a banker with a wild side. The three form an amusing, competitive, and unusual friendship, as both women compete—both consciously and unconsciously—for Tinker's affections.

When an event occurs that inextricably links the three of them in ways they hadn't planned, Katey finds herself being drawn into New York society. Smart and ambitious, yet romantic and just as desiring of a life that others have, she knows she doesn't quite fit in but she enjoys the ride. And over the course of a year, Katey makes some interesting allies and enemies, deals with unresolved romantic feelings, is simultaneously attracted and repulsed by the society life around her, and realizes she must rely on her brains and her sense of humor as much as her looks.

"But for me, dinner at a fine restaurant was the ultimate luxury. It was the very height of civilization. For what was civilization but the intellect's ascendancy out of the doldrums of necessity (shelter, sustenance and survival) into the ether of the finely superfluous (poetry, handbags and haute cuisine)?"

Rules of Civility is part social satire and part comedy of manners, as well as a profile of a unique woman who finds herself in circumstances she hadn't really wished for but didn't necessarily want to part with once she had found them. What I liked about this book was Amor Towles' way of examining these individuals, foibles and all, but not making them look like buffoons, but rather the sensitive, flawed people they were. His characters are complex and tremendously interesting—you may not have wondered what life was like in the late 1930s in New York society, but these characters and Towles' plot make it worth the exploration.

While nothing immensely earth-shattering happens in this book, it's quite interesting and quite engrossing. You may have seen similar stories, but in the hands of Amor Towles, it feels a bit unique and very enjoyable.

Book Review: "The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P." by Arielle Waldman

Nathaniel Piven could be considered by some to be quite a catch. A well-read Harvard graduate, Nate is a good-looking writer who recently sold his first book, and thinks of himself as a bit of an intellectual. Raised by immigrant parents to respect intelligence and hard work, he wants to be seen as irresistible, but he struggles with his self esteem. Nate has had several long-term relationships with women, but ultimately he's grown bored, or wearies of his girlfriends' idiosyncrasies.

"Although it wasn't something he'd admit aloud, he often thought women were either deep or reasonable, but rarely both."

When Nate meets Hannah, a fellow writer, at his ex-girlfriend's dinner party, he is charmed by her intellect and her knack for conversation, as well as her looks, but he is unsure whether he should pursue a relationship with her. Hannah isn't looking for a serious relationship either, but as Nate begins to pursue her, and she realizes how much she enjoys being with him, she finds herself falling for him. And Nate loves the way Hannah can hold her own in arguments and match wits with his pretentious friends.

As the relationship deepens, however, Nate finds himself falling into the same behavior patterns. Will he realize what he really wants before it's too late, or will he wind up ending another relationship for superficial reasons?

Honestly, I know there are many men like Nate out there, and I'd like to apologize to all women everywhere. Not only wouldn't I ever want someone I knew to date him, I didn't enjoy spending time reading about him. I found this book utterly frustrating and even a bit annoying—the marketing of this book leads you to believe Nate is going to have some major epiphany, but in the end, he remains the same callow, unrepentant man-child he has always been. There is so much pretension among the characters in this book, except Hannah, that I couldn't understand why she was even friends with these people, let alone interested in pursuing a relationship with Nate.

There are times you read a book and find yourself wondering, "Who cares?" That was the way I felt while reading The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. While Arielle Waldman is a very talented writer—she certainly has created a group of utterly unappealing characters—I wish this book had a little more depth to it, a little more heart, and a little more growth. While I'm curious to know what happened to Nate after the book ended, I hope someday someone was able to smack some sense into him.

Book Review: "The Unknowns" by Gabriel Roth

When you've spent so much of your life trying to make logical sense of things, bringing order to total chaos, can you apply those same principles to situations where logic doesn't always occur, like romantic relationships?

Computer programmer Eric Muller figured out his knack for computers and writing code fairly early. "I still haven't found anything that keeps anxiety at bay as reliably as coding: the possibilities and ramifications branch outward to colonize all of your available brainspace, and the syntax of the language gives direction to your twitches and impulses and keeps them from firing off into panic."

While he reveled in his skills, his desire to be accepted and find a girlfriend often outweighed his intellect. And when he tried using his intellect to conquer the "girlfriend issue," disastrous consequences ensued. So Eric realized that the well-placed sensitive comment, remembering certain things his dates said and using them in future questions and comments (to show he was listening), and demonstrating his sense of humor were all keys to some success, even if his insecurity often got the best of him. And despite the fact that he and a friend sold their internet startup company for millions of dollars, his confidence often wavered.

When he meets Maya Marcom, an intelligent, driven, and beautiful reporter, all bets are off. Eric keeps waiting for Maya to see through him, to realize his flaws or that he's still the same insecure, geeky computer nerd he was growing up as their relationship intensifies. Yet when he finds out a secret about Maya's past, he isn't sure how to handle that within the confines of their relationship, and approaching this problem like coding doesn't help matters any. Couple that uncertainty with issues regarding his estranged father, who is again searching for the ultimate business deal, and trouble is definitely on the horizon.

"What part of anyone is knowable?," Eric asks. How does a person who can only see the black and white of code when it works or doesn't work accept the uncertain greys of a relationship? Can you truly take a leap of faith and believe what the person you love tells you, or do you have to somehow prove it to yourself?

The Unknowns tries to answer those questions through the awkwardly lovable persona of Eric Muller. He is certainly a flawed character, yet you can mostly understand his insecurity and uncertainty, as it is rather deep-seated. And you find yourself rooting for his relationship with Maya to work. But while I totally understood what motivated him, I was really unsettled with one action he took, and it nearly made me stop caring about him and what happened to him. And that was a little disappointing, although Gabriel Roth's storytelling ability, and his depiction of Eric's life, was tremendously skilled and appealing.

This is a book about learning to trust your instincts when you're completely conditioned to act differently. It's also a love story about two people desperately trying to trust one another and overcome insecurity. And like love itself, it's not perfect, but it's enjoyable to experience.