AJ Dunn Reads

  Persuasion By Jane Austen Anne Elliott is a woman past the prime marrying age. She lives with her vain father and her older sister who doesn't think much of her. When her father, who lives beyond his means, has to let his property and move them to a smaller place in Bath, Anne takes it in stride, willing to go where providence leads her. Her younger sister, who is married and lives near the family home place, persuades Anne to stay with her and her husband and children. Anne accepts and is is swept up in their lives of the usual Austen fare of upper class visits, parties, and getaways. Anne has a friend in an older woman named Lady Russell who, along with Anne's family, is responsible for Anne denying a marriage proposal in her past to a naval captain named Frederick Wentworth. But Captain Wentworth resurfaces in a much more acceptable position of wealth for the landed gentry and enetrs Anne's circle of acquaintances. However, there are many young ladies who find him appe...

  There There By Tommy Orange Several urban Natives come together for a powwow in Oakland, California where a robbery occurs.  Throughout the narrative we follow many different Native characters who live in urban areas and we see how some of their lives intertwine as each gets their turn. Each one gives us an inside look into their experiences as urban Native Americans, each dealing with complex and difficult inner and outer struggles, as well as the history of pain and suffering ingrained in their DNA, a pain passed down. But also, the spirituality and beauty that history has embedded within it. Some feel their Native-ness in their everyday lives, while others have a hard time recognizing anything Native about themselves or the world they inhabit. Some yearn to have a deeper connection to that shared community, while others intend to exploit it. But all of them grapple with it and what it means to them in their own unique, powerful ways. They all come to learn that there is a...

  Desolation Mountain By William Kent Krueger When a senator's plane falls out of the sky near Desolation Mountain, Cork O'Connor and his family become entrenched in a mystery involving missing native people who helped in the initial crash search and recovery, as well as the missing black box that several organizations seem interested in finding. So interested, they are willing to assault and kill anyone they think might have it or is standing in the way of finding it. Cork enlists the help of a past acquaintance, Bo Thorson, a former Secret Service man for the former first lady, who is now for hire by her and also working for a mysterious military-looking man named Gerard. Bo is playing both sides and all angles. Cork's son Stephen has been having visions of this crash and the scenario that serves as the backbone of this mystery. As the three of them (along with their friends and family) investigate the clues, Stephen's vision unfolds and we learn what caused the crash...

  Luster By Raven Leilani Edie is having an affair with a married man named Eric who is in an open relationship. When she loses her job and her apartment she lets herself into her boyfriend's house where his wife finds her and offers her a place to stay while she gets back on her feet.  While living there Edie compares herself to Eric's wife and becomes close to his daughter, an adopted black girl who seems to be without friends and afraid that Edie will break up her family. Edie mentors the girl, Akila, by connecting her to her blackness, something Eric and his wife are ill-prepared to do. All the while Edie is trying to create some semblance of sense to her life. During this period of her life, she grapples with her anger, her desires, and her apathy for her own existence. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this book. It was sexually-charged, but more violent in that regard than I would have liked. Edie's sexual acts with Eric often involved violence or belit...

  Piranesi By Susanna Clarke Piranesi spends his days as a scientist exploring the labyrinth of rooms in the house he inhabits near the sea. A house full of statues and the bones of others Piranesi makes up names for. And with him lives the Other, a man Piranesi meets periodically and assists in his academic interests. Piranesi is at one with his home, believing it will provide what he needs and it is a place he finds solace in. Until someone else shows up and Piranesi's world and beliefs are challenged. The Other claims someone has come to kill him and to turn Piranesi mad, that the two of them must do everything they can to keep that from happening. But Piranesi has been keeping journals all his life, and when this new person starts leaving messages for Piranise, the journals become a font of knowledge about a past he cannot remember. As he puts the pieces together he realizes that what he believes is a lie and that the trust he had in the Other was unfounded. A whole other life ...

  The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands By Stephen King In this third installment of The Dark Tower series Roland, Eddie, and Susannah are trekking in search of the Dark Tower after coming together as a group. On the way they encounter a hostile robot bear and discover the Beam, which is a path leading to the city of Lud. The three are becoming mentally connected, able to hear each other's thoughts sometimes and sensing things about the world they are in and the mysteries it holds. One of these mysteries is the boy Jake,whom Roland let fall to his death in The Gunslinger . Roland's mind is coming undone since his forays into the world of Eddie and Susannah, where he saw Jake and saved him from the death Jake suffered there originally, which brought him into Roland's world to begin with. This altered reality has confused Roland's mind with conflicting voices about whether or not Jake ever existed in his world if he didn't die to begin with. The same is happening to Ja...

  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest By Ken Kesey   Randall McMurphy gets himself committed to the mental hospital where he makes a big impression. He has a large personality, with a sarcastic wit and a fighting demeanor. He intends his stay as a break from a work farm he was assigned to, but finds himself up against a lot of rules set forth by the head nurse, Miss Ratched, who has the entire staff and all of the patients afraid of her as she walks the ward with her cold smile. Randall sees her as a challenge to over come, an opponent to beat, and sets to the task of driving her to her breaking point. But Nurse Ratched is not so easily flustered. And she has a lot of power to wield, which Randall underestimates. As he causes a ruckus in the ward and begins to pull the terrified patients out of their shells, using his charm and intelligence to wrangle some privileges Nurse Ratched is loathe to give into, he comes to find out what the full extent of her power is. When he pushes too...

  The Sense of an Ending By Julian Barnes   This novel follows Tony Webster, as he deals with his past and two specific people who shaped him. The first part shows us Tony's friendship with three other boys, one of them named Adrian who the others admire deeply, Tony not least of all. But Adrian gets into a relationship with an ex-girlfriend of Tony's, the insufferable Veronica, which Tony views as a betrayal by Adrian and an act of vengeance by Veronica. The second part follows Tony as a middle-aged man who has to deal with the two of them again after Adrian dies, leaving his diary to Tony who has to convince Veronica to give it to him. Tony thought he left them all behind, but finds he has to revise his own life and who he always thought he was. The man he thought he was is erased by Veronica's return to his life and how he handled that situation from his past. This was a great book. The prose was elegant and fun to read. Tony's narration was playful and his reactions...

  Transit By Rachel Cusk Transit is the second novel in the Outline trilogy. We are following Faye as she buys and begins to renovate a flat in London where her neighbors hate her and her sons have to be sent to their father's while the work is being done. Faye works to crate a new life, a new existence, for herself and her children. Along the way she goes through a series of transitions in all aspects of her life and psyche. As in Outline , Transit shows us these transitions through the stories Faye encounters from others in her life. Through those stories we see how she is working out the kind of person she is or wants to be, and the kind of life she wants to make for herself. Faye grapples with things she has been avoiding and, in doing so, starts to reconstruct her belief in life. This was just as good as Outline. The writing continues to be brilliant. It is very internal for all of the characters who are extremely vulnerable in their storytelling. It is more honest, raw pro...

  The Song of Achilles By Madeline Miller This is a retelling of Greek and Trojan stories of Helen of Troy, her kidnapping, and the war that ensued to get her back, though it appears she didn't want to go back. The book is told from the point of view of Patroclus, a prince who was the aide de camp/companion of Achilles who was the son of the sea goddess Thetis and King Peleus. Patroclus meets Achilles when he is sent/exiled to Peleus to be brought up. The two young boys become best friends and soon become lovers as Achilles, who is prophesied to be the greatest fighter the world has ever seen, is sent to Chiron to learn the arts of fighting and healing, and to be educated. When Achilles is called to the war for Helen's rescue (which he first refuses to attend) Patroclus goes with him and the two endure the tragedies of war together. This was both a romantic love story for the ages and a gruesome war drama full of Greek and Trojan characters we've all heard of, including Men...

  The Reckoning at Gossamer Pond By Jaime Jo Wright Annalise Forsythe inherits a trailer full of photographs, obituaries, and revival paraphernalia. Somehow she is connected to the people in these pictures and stories, but she doesn't know how. She wonders if someone has found out her secrets, the things she did when she was younger. Someone is now out to cause her harm, maybe even kill her. She needs to find out how it is all connected. A century earlier, Libby Sheffield is working at her father's newspaper when a set of twin revivalists arrives in Gossamer Grove and sets up a disturbance in the community as they try to convert the sinners. Obituaries start coming to the paper in advance of the deaths of the people those obituaries are for. Libby and her former flame are caught up in a search for the person responsible for the deaths that ensue. As the story unfolds we see how the lives of these two women are connected and what secrets they are hiding or uncovering. I enjoyed ...