Check out these reviews written by the staff of the Marathon County Public Library, featuring books DVDs for adults! (For reviews of books for all ages, visit our main Staff Reviews webpage.) Staff book reviews are also published at Goodreads.com; follow us for the latest updates. The book reviews on this website represent the personal opinions of the individuals who created them and do not represent any official views of the Marathon County Public Library.
Team sports can be important to a small town. In the case of Beartown, a tiny, rural town in Sweden, that sport is hockey. Boys begin skating almost as soon as they can walk, and the townspeople look at the sport as a source of pride, validation and opportunity. Beartown follows around fifteen different characters, who all have ties to the town’s beloved...
Audience: adults | Genre: fiction, contemporary fiction
In this modern-day telling of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, a young woman moves into a lovely estate in the Hamptons with her new fiancé. Max Winter is a wealthy politician and widower: his wife Rebekah is recently deceased. After a whirlwind romance on a boat, Max welcomes his new fianceé to his lavish estate, Asherley, and introduces her to...
How would you react if your first-grader was trying to kill you? Would you try to appeal to her with unconditional love, or would you protect yourself and wish for her to disappear from your life? That’s the dilemma stay-at-home mom Suzette finds herself in in Baby Teeth. To put it mildly, Suzette has a rocky relationship with her seven year-old daughter...
If you love to travel the world, you will love this book! This travel atlas covers the entire globe, providing highlights for each country or region, along with sample itineraries to help jump start a trip. As an atlas, there are maps and pictures provided for a reference point as you go through the book. I found the book to be half...
Audience: adults | Genre: nonfiction
"Elevation" was my very first Stephen King novel due to the fact that I had heard a lot of buzz surrounding this book. In this story we meet Scott Carey, who seems to be in a predicament. He keeps losing pounds on the scale; however, his body composition never changes. It seems that no matter how much he eats or wears, Scott simply cannot stop losing...
Arthur Less no longer wants to be in love. On the verge of turning 50, Less is a mildly successful author who has spent a large chunk of his adult life in relationships, only to get burned in the end. His book publisher also has passed on his most recent manuscript, putting him at a unique crossroads in his life. To avoid attending the wedding of Freddy...
Audience: adults | Genre: fiction, contemporary fiction
Total honesty? I judged his book by it's delicious looking cover and boy am I glad that I did! I had never heard of the online sensation that is Delish, but will now start to follow them on social media. Their recipes don't cater to a special diet, nor do they require special skills in the kitchen. All of the ingredients are easy to...
Audience: adults | Genre: nonfiction
Marco Borges, CEO and founder of 22 Days Nutrition, created Greenprint, a set of guidelines helping people to make the transition to plant-based eating. This book is not only packed with those helpful guidelines, but it's also packed with tantalizing recipes, shopping lists, and meal plans to get you started. I especially appreciated the introduction that...
Not *just* another zombie-vampire-apocalypse genre novel (but yes, it is also that), "The Passage" tells an epic, century-long tale of the downfall of modern civilization due to a contagion that transforms humans into bloodthirsty, fanged, nigh-indestructible creatures of the night that the author graciously (though conspicuously) tries very hard not...
Audience: adults | Genre: fiction, science fiction, horror, supernatural, dystopian
Would you like to learn how a little girl from the South Side of Chicago rose above her circumstances to attend Princeton, become a successful lawyer, and eventually the First Lady of the United States? Michelle Obama did a great job writing her first book about her upbringing, who made her who she is today, and how she stays true to herself through...
Audience: adults | Genre: nonfiction, memoir, politics
Do you need inspiration to be a better version of yourself? What if you could find it in a book? In Jane Seymour’s book, The Road Ahead, real-life stories are shared, with inspirational messages at the beginning of each section. The stories give you hope and encouragement during difficult situations that we all have in our everyday lives....
Audience: adults | Genre: nonfiction, inspiration, self-help
Looking for quick and easy recipes that are not only delicious but healthy? This book is a must read! Brandi Doming, creator of the Vegan 8 blog, brings a cookbook to readers that is packed with fully-photographed recipes and all of them require only 8 ingredients or less (spices included!). I can personally say that the Hungarian Red Lentil Soup is...
This new vegan cookbook has a plethora of scrumptious-sounding recipes for anyone looking for healthy, satisfying meals. I literally want to make about 90% of the recipes in this book, and don't know which one I want to make first! Some of the recipes have a longer ingredient list, but there's a lot of flavorful spices included, so don't be daunted by that...
Audience: adults | Genre: nonfiction, cookbook
To outsiders, the Cane girls are a lovely group of five sisters. Transferring from base to base, following their itinerant father, who is often gone, the girls stick together no matter what. So what if their home life is chaotic and dysfunctional. As long as everything looks ok, it will be. Juliet is the oldest, a pianist who gave up...
Audience: adults, teens | Genre: realistic, family drama, horror
Kris bought her first electric guitar with her savings, never imaging that she would eventually become the guitarist for a semi-famous heavy metal band. But on the eve of their big break, the lead singer, Terry, did something more horrible than selling out, and while he went on to achieve fame and glory, the rest of the band disappeared into...
Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman, stars of Will and Grace and Parks and Recreation respectively, open up about their successful Hollywood relationship. This is an opportunity to learn about Megan and Nick's upbringings, morals, what brought them together, as well as what keeps them together. They share advice on life and love...
Audience: adults | Genre: nonfiction
Erin, a filmmaker, and Mark, an investment banker, seem like the perfect couple with the perfect life. Newly married, they embark on a lavish honeymoon in Bora Bora. It's a perfect honeymoon until they find something ominous in the water while scuba diving. They have to decide whether to tell the truth about their discovery or keep it hidden. Their final...
Jane leads a relatively normal life, taking care of two children and teaching a creative writing class (while she not-so-patiently waits for the day she is an officially published author). Her husband, Leon, is already an accomplished novelist and the main breadwinner of the family. When he's brutally attacked in their own driveway while Jane is only steps...
"First there was nothing. Then there was everything." So begins National Book Award-winner Richard Powers' new novel about nine interlocking characters who, in their own ways - and in ways that overlap - find themselves face to face with the natural world. Or, face to leaf, face to crown, face to root... Each character is introduced in the first...
Fitness Junkie is the story of Janey Sweet and her search for a leaner body after a lifelong friend and boss told her that she could lose her job if she didn't shed 30 pounds. Janey throws herself into the ultimatum with gusto by trying all of the fad diets, strange cult-like workouts, and self-searching. Ever hear of eating clay as a...
Audience: adults | Genre: contemporary fiction
Robert Galbraith’s fourth Strike novel finds private detective Cormoran Strike and his partner, Robin Ellacott, hired by a high-ranking British official who is being blackmailed. The minister asks Strike to gather dirt that he could use against his blackmailers, which prompts Robin to go undercover in the House of Commons to do recon. When he dies of an...
Frank (Nick Offerman) is a middle-aged single father whose life is on the verge of change. He’s considering closing his small Brooklyn record store due to poor sales and his daughter, Sam (Kiersey Clemons), is just weeks away from going off to college in California to study medicine. Both lovers of music, Frank and Sam write and record a song one night in...
Set two years after the conclusion of Crazy Rich Asians¸ Rachel Chu and her fiancée, Nick Young, are still happily living in New York City. On the eve of their wedding, the couple receives a visit from Nick’s mother, Eleanor, whom he hasn’t spoken to in years (and who crashes the wedding rehearsal and amazingly dramatic fashion). Eleanor tells Rachel that...
Plum Kettle has struggled with her weight for as long as she can remember. Now in her late 20s, she weighs over 300 pounds and has isolated herself away from most of society. But she’s formulated a plan to change her life completely: get lap band surgery, shed the weight and adopt an entirely new, more confident personae. Plum lives in New York City and...
Audience: adults | Genre: fiction, contemporary fiction
Roy and Celestial have been married for just one year. As part of their first anniversary, the couple visits Roy’s parents and the small Louisiana town where he grew up. After a disagreement in their hotel room, Roy decides to give Celestial some space and go for a walk. Later that night, the police burst into their room and arrest Roy, accusing him of rape...
Audience: adults | Genre: fiction, contemporary fiction
