"Passion on Park Avenue" by Lauren Layne

There are quite a few books reviewed on this blog which I do not remember reading at all - and I consider myself to have a pretty good memory. I am afraid Passion on Park Avenue will end up joining the ranks of my least memorable reads. I knew going in that this was a chick lit novel (based on the cover and description). However, I did not expect it to completely lack any sort of believable plot.

In the beginning of the novel we meet Naomi Powell, one of the most successful female entrepreneurs under 30. She is about to attend a funeral of her lover, who she discovered from the obituary, was married. The first question that comes to mind is why would she even go to the funeral? She only dated him for three months and she now knows he is married.... Well, she goes into the church, gets some accusing stares from the audience (the questions is why? Is the fact that she was his mistress stamped all over her face??), then decides to go for a stroll in the Central Park. Guess what happens next? Not only does she run into her late lover's wife, she also meets his other mistress and the three of them decide to become friends! If you do not think this is ridiculous enough, it gets even better from there. 

Needless to say, I felt mostly irritated while reading this book. 2 out of 5 stars.

An e-ARC was provided to me for review by NetGalley.com.

"Small Great Things" by Jodi Picoult

Small Great Things is the story of an African-American nurse named Ruth Jefferson who gets blamed for a death of an infant and gets arrested and tried for murder. The child's parents are white supremacists who had insisted that Ruth be removed from caring for their son. However, when another patient is rushed to an emergency C-section, Ruth finds herself alone with the baby boy, when he unexpectedly goes into distress.

This book is phenomenal. The characters are very well-defined, the plot is well-thought out and nuanced, and the themes are poignant and very close to my heart. I listened to this book on audio and I highly recommend the audiobook. The novel is written from three different points of view: Ruth's; Turk Bower's, the white supremacist whose son died; and Kennedy's, Ruth's public defendant. All three readers did a great job. They all sounded very authentic and truly brought the characters to life.

The thing that I appreciated the most about this book is Picoult's deep dive into the meaning of white privilege. Her assertion that ignorance (and the root here to think about is "ignore") is just another facet of privilege. People of color do not get to be ignorant about issues of race. They live it daily. This is a powerful and much needed book. I devoured it and could not get enough of it. I highly recommend it. 5 out of 5 stars.

"Underground: A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet" by Will Hunt

I began the month of May with a non-fiction read. Will Hunt is originally from Providence, RI, and his fascination with the underground began with a childhood discovery of an abandoned railroad tunnel near his parents' house. In this book, we follow him through the walks in the subway system of Manhattan, catacombs of Paris and Cappadocia, and explore mines and caves of Australia, Europe and Central America. Throughout the book, Will Hunt not only relates amazing facts about underground places, but also recounts stories about humanity's age-old fascination with caves and darkness.

Personally, my favorite parts of the book were about religious beliefs associated with caves and the underground. I loved the chapters on worshiping cave spirits in Australia and Mesoamerica. Because this book is fairly short (under 300 pages), you only get bite-size portions of information in each chapter and just a glimpse into the rich mythology and history surrounding subterranean places. I do hope this book is successful enough for him to write another one, perhaps a bit more in-depth and focused on just a couple of topics covered in this overview. Overall, a very interesting book. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars simply because it did not go into enough detail for my taste.