Grade: 68/100

A friend of mine, who shares my passion for literature, recommended I give Mark Haskell Smith a read. So, I figured I’d start from the beginning, with his debut novel, Salty.

Salty, is a gluttonous, hedonistic tale of suspense, told in the world capital for gluttony and hedonism─Thailand.

The basic premise is this─Turk Henry is an aging rock star from an old heavy metal band. While his band mates have all gone on to successful solo projects, Turk, the bassist, has no offers. He and his washed up, supermodel, liberal wife, head to Thailand for a little R&R. Shelia, the wife, heads out for a little day safari while Turk, a recovering sex addict, soaks up the sun and some beers while watching the local talent sunbathe naked. When his wife doesn’t show up for dinner, he starts to get worried. The next day, he is contacted by her kidnapper, the handsome Captain Somporn. Turk begins to rustle up the money, to save his wife, whom he isn’t even sure he loves anymore, while Ben, an I.C.E. agent, is intent on stopping the rescue, and keeping the ransom money for himself. Of course, to do so and get away with it, he’ll have to kill both the rock star and the supermodel. However, what nobody was betting on was a little Stockholm syndrome between the supermodel and the kidnapping Captain.

The storyline is a bit ridiculous, but that’s part of what makes it so fun… besides the sex and drugs, of course. The novel gives us a little insight into the decadent lifestyle of the Hollywood rich and famous, while showing that despite all the money and fame, that these people are just as sad and alone as the rest of us. Smith does a nice job of showing the despicable side of human nature, without boring us to tears, or depressing us, by balancing these harsh truths with some well timed comedy and lots of sex appeal.

I’ve been to Thailand, so I can attest, first hand, that his descriptions of Soi Cowboy girls, the bars, the brothels, all that, was pretty well done. However, the singular thing that bothered me in the novel was the light air with which he treated the sex industry there. I don’t want to be a downer on what was a fun novel, but the sex industry in Thailand, though it seems exciting and consensual when viewed from the outside, is anything but in reality. Most of the girls who work these bars are not doing so out of their own volition. Many of the girls are under the age of sixteen and almost all of them are literal slaves to the industry. It’s a sad, sad reality.

That being said, I enjoyed the read, was able to identify with and like the characters, even though, on the surface, there is not much to like about them. That, in itself, requires a talented hand. Smith hits on some sensitive and issues like the world’s perception and idea of love and the Universal understanding, to which we all succumb, that being a whore is a bad thing. Smith peels back the curtain on sexual addiction, and reveals that it is nothing more than man fulfilling his biological drives. I appreciate and admire him for having the guts to take on that subject, though I believe he could have been even more pressing with it.

Salty, though not the most eloquent, exciting, or thought provoking book of all-time, was extremely funny and a lot of fun. It’s a definite summery, beach read, and I recommend it to anyone who’s going to be spending some time, lying on the beach, in the near future.

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Grade: 70/100

The premise is this: Elizabeth Nye who has led a fairly conservative life, becomes engaged in a torrid affair while separated from her fiancé. This affair leads her into a tangle of lies and interesting situations. Without giving much away I will just tell you that the book is about relationships and infidelity, sibling rivalries, familial tensions, and the concept of generational dysfunction.

Dvorkin, a teacher in Colorado, takes on these topics in this fictional novel and writes with the confidence and clarity of someone who has lived these stories. Her characters, especially Elizabeth, felt real, her personality jumping off the page. Her dialogue comes across naturally, which not all writers, even the most famous of them, do with such ease. Even more impressive is the way is the poetic descriptive narrative that she dresses this story in. She uses the perfect amount of descriptive narrative to help the reader paint a picture in their head, but refrains from going overboard and lulling the reader to sleep with poetic prose like so many artists do; getting caught up in their own egos, unwilling to stop typing and let the story just tell itself. Dvorkin does not suffer this problem.

Pg.246 He sat back down on the couch with his feet up and tucked the afghan around them. The tea was very hot. He sipped it slowly, taking little bites of the toast in between. He wanted to draw this out, to give himself time to think.

Here, as with most of the novel, Dvorkin tells us just enough to picture this in our head. And given where we are at this point in the story, we understand perfectly why he (Brian) wanted to draw out the process, why he was lost in thought.

The only negative of this novel is that the plot was disjointed in places and it ran a little long in spots. However, the bright spots far outweigh the negatives. I’d definitely recommend this as a read for anyone who enjoys love stories and coming of age stories. I wouldn’t put this novel into any specific genre, because it did a good job of avoiding clichés, but people like comparatives when making decisions on a purchase. Thus, I’ve put it in those categories for you.

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BUY NOW: Chasing Windmills

Grade: 81/100

This is a love story in the unlikeliest of circumstances.  Sebastian, a 17 year old home schooled New York shut-in, has his growth as a person constantly stifled by his overbearing father whom has allowed him zero social activity since his mother died ten years ago.  Nightly, after his father takes his sleeping pill, Sebastian leaves the house to ride the subway cars, his only escape from his father’s iron fist.

Maria, a young 22 year old mother of two, is in an abusive relationship with the father of her children.  She has just lost her job and knows that if she tells her boyfriend that it will result in a very bad beating.  So, for weeks, when her boyfriend (Carl) would expect her to be working the night shift, she is riding the subways to safely pass the time.

Maria and Sebastian find each other on the subway, their eyes meet, paralyzed by mutual fear, they don’t speak, but each night they return to that subway hoping to see each other.  What happens next is the most romantic of love stories; however, each of them has a secret they are hiding, and each of them is fearful of what will happen once you know who finds out.

This novel doesn’t offer any new insight into love or relationships, but it is an extremely warm story that is likely to inspire one to get out there and find love, or re-affirm the love you’ve already found.

“How do I get over this loss?” Sebastian asks his older and only friend, Delilah, after thinking that he’d lost his first love, Maria.

“I didn’t say you would get over it.  It’s not exactly something that you get over.  It’s like those steel spikes they drive into trees.  If the tree doesn’t die, it just sort of grows around it.  You sort of make the pain and loss a part of you.  You learn how to live around it after a while.”

That says it all about first loves and loss.

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BUY NOW: Shining City

Grade:  74/100

By J. Matthew Nespoli

Marcus Ripps, middle class husband and model father, has hit a rut.  He’s lost his job, his wife won’t sleep with him, and he can’t afford his son’s approaching bar mitzvah.  Then, an unexpected stroke of fortune; his estranged brother Julian passes, and leaves his dry cleaning business to Marcus… but of course, there is a catch… it isn’t a dry cleaning business, it’s a shell corporation to protect an escort service.

Marcus, a model citizen whose recent job loss has put him in a desperate position, first decides that he has to close the business- it’s the right thing to do, but then, on that first day, two of his “employees” show up and hand him a wad of cash, and now Marcus has a moral dilemma.  Events unfold and Marcus ends up keeping the business, and then, on one of his first days, when one of his girls “exercises” a client to death, Marcus must dispose of the body, and to do so he evokes his wife.  Soon, the entire family is in on the business and things begin to spiral out of control.

Though Seth (author) presents the situations in a light that is both too flowery and unrealistic, it is a great story, and thoroughly and exhaustively entertaining.  It also presents the reader with a good example of how quickly life can spiral out of control and what a slippery slope life can be.  A man puts himself in one situation and as new life situations unfold, he amazes even himself of how far he is willing to go, and how many of his ethics he is willing to compromise, to stay above water.

The characters are all painted very richly, and have very distinct voices.  From conservative Marcus, to the pot smoking pole dancing mother in law, to his wife’s best friend and business partner, turned dominatrix, we are given a plethora of normal middle class Americans that we can relate too, and watching their situations move from ordinary to extraordinary makes us feel that this could easily happen to us.  Another lesson the reader may take from this novel is that most corporate wealth comes from a place of greed, and that greed may be a much underrated violation of human ethics in this world when stacked up next to simple things we frown upon, like the sale of sex.

I enjoyed this novel and recommend it for anyone for a nice light, yet educational summer read.

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BUY NOW: Raising Jake

Grade: 72 out of 100%

Raising Jake is a must read for all single dads. Sammy Sullivan works a job he hates, for a boss whose diapers he used to change; he lives alone, has a girlfriend whom he doesn’t like, and barely knows his son.

His son, Jake, is enrolled in a stuffy upper-class boarding school that, despite his great grades, he knows he doesn’t belong in. He has all the potential in the world, but he’s unhappy; he doesn’t know his father and knows virtually nothing about his ancestry. Then, in just a few hours, everything changes for the Sullivan men. Sammy receives a call to report immediately to the headmaster of Jake’s school. Jake’s mother is out of town, so whatever the emergency is; it falls on the shoulder of Sammy. When Sammy tries to leave, his boss threatens to fire him from the job he’s been working since his boss was in diapers. Sammy leaves. His boss fires him. When he gets to the school he discovers that the big emergency was a paper that Jake had written that exposes the school and the entire education system for what it is: a fraud. In his paper, Jake states that life is all about belonging to the right clubs; getting into the right nursery school, so that you can get to the right grammar school, on to the right boarding school, to the right college, grad school, to land the right job with the right fortune 500 company. It’s all a giant scam. The headmaster demands an apology from Jake, Jake won’t give it, and Jake gets expelled. Sammy and Jake begin a long weekend together diving into Sammy’s childhood and Jake’s ancestry. This journey includes trips to break up with their respective girlfriends, and discussions on how they each lost their virginity to older women- this leads to a visit with the now broken down old lady who took Sammy’s virginity. As their weekend continues, they romp around the neighborhoods of Sammy’s childhood with all events leading up to the main event- the discussion of Sammy’s mother and her death. The characters are rich and vivid. Sammy is a sad and broken down middle aged man whom doesn’t like people and doesn’t know how to love. Jake is a maturing young boy whom is too smart for society and craving for some family history and roots. As the story carries on, though our characters are growing together, learning from one another, and healing, you get the feeling that it is Sammy who needs Jake more than Jake needs Sammy. The prose is clever but not arrogant. It’s humorous and beautiful, intelligent and moving. I wouldn’t say that I couldn’t put it down, but I definitely enjoyed it thoroughly and part of me wished that I’d come up with the story. Anyone who is a father will certainly shed a few tears. It was simple and read that way, but this isn’t a bad thing; it was effective. I’d liken it to a really great romantic comedy. It is what it is. A romantic comedy is never going to blow you away with brilliance, but if it’s done correctly there’s nothing negative you can say about it, and you will walk away from it having been entertained and feeling all warm and fuzzy on the inside. That’s what this book did to me.

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BUY NOW:  Raising Jake

Grade: 72 out of 100%

Raising Jake is a must read for all single dads. Sammy Sullivan works a job he hates, for a boss whose diapers he used to change; he lives alone, has a girlfriend whom he doesn’t like, and barely knows his son. His son, Jake, is enrolled in a stuffy upper-class boarding school that, despite his great grades, he knows he doesn’t belong in. He has all the potential in the world, but he’s unhappy; he doesn’t know his father and knows virtually nothing about his ancestry. Then, in just a few hours, everything changes for the Sullivan men. Sammy receives a call to report immediately to the headmaster of Jake’s school. Jake’s mother is out of town, so whatever the emergency is; it falls on the shoulder of Sammy. When Sammy tries to leave, his boss threatens to fire him from the job he’s been working since his boss was in diapers. Sammy leaves. His boss fires him. When he gets to the school he discovers that the big emergency was a paper that Jake had written that exposes the school and the entire education system for what it is: a fraud. In his paper, Jake states that life is all about belonging to the right clubs; getting into the right nursery school, so that you can get to the right grammar school, on to the right boarding school, to the right college, grad school, to land the right job with the right fortune 500 company. It’s all a giant scam. The headmaster demands an apology from Jake, Jake won’t give it, and Jake gets expelled. Sammy and Jake begin a long weekend together diving into Sammy’s childhood and Jake’s ancestry. This journey includes trips to break up with their respective girlfriends, and discussions on how they each lost their virginity to older women- this leads to a visit with the now broken down old lady who took Sammy’s virginity. As their weekend continues, they romp around the neighborhoods of Sammy’s childhood with all events leading up to the main event- the discussion of Sammy’s mother and her death. The characters are rich and vivid. Sammy is a sad and broken down middle aged man whom doesn’t like people and doesn’t know how to love. Jake is a maturing young boy whom is too smart for society and craving for some family history and roots. As the story carries on, though our characters are growing together, learning from one another, and healing, you get the feeling that it is Sammy who needs Jake more than Jake needs Sammy. The prose is clever but not arrogant. It’s humorous and beautiful, intelligent and moving. I wouldn’t say that I couldn’t put it down, but I definitely enjoyed it thoroughly and part of me wished that I’d come up with the story. Anyone who is a father will certainly shed a few tears. It was simple and read that way, but this isn’t a bad thing; it was effective. I’d liken it to a really great romantic comedy. It is what it is. A romantic comedy is never going to blow you away with brilliance, but if it’s done correctly there’s nothing negative you can say about it, and you will walk away from it having been entertained and feeling all warm and fuzzy on the inside. That’s what this book did to me.

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