Story Circle Book Reviews

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Mother Gene

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Review of the Month

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Two Faces of the Moon

Carolyn McGrath’s memoir is as reflective and inspiring as the full moon she describes sending luminous ripples across water highlighting a path through the trees near her summer retreat. Her descriptions of the natural world on and surrounding a tiny island that became “hers” in Ontario, Canada will […]

Reviewed by: Shawn LaTorre

Categories: Memoir and Autobiography
Tags: environment, Family relations, Good Books, nature, Review of the Month

Recent Reviews

Memoir and Autobiography

From Junkie to Judge

Early abandonment, physical and verbal abuse, neglect, and chaos take a toll on Mary Beth O’Connor beginning at a very early age. With a mother who disconnects emotionally from her children as she struggles with her own abusive relationships and marriages, we witness a tragic cycle that impacts […]

Reviewed by: Shawn LaTorre

Categories: Memoir and Autobiography
Tags: Addiction, Family relations, Good Books

Whispers from the Valley of the Yak: A Memoir of Coming Full Circle

A plane touches tarmac in Chengdu, China, in 1980 as the memoir Whispers from the Valley of the Yak opens. The author has returned to her birthplace with her parents, who as young missionaries fled war-torn China when she was a preschooler. They re-settled in West Virginia. Fascinated, […]

Reviewed by: Mary Jo Doig

Categories: Memoir and Autobiography
Tags: Cultures, Family relations, Good Books, War and its effects

Eggs In Purgatory

Eggs In Purgatory is a memoir that starts with a suicide attempt by Genanne Walsh’s 89-year-old father, who is living in her home. He did not have a terminal illness but wished to die. He obstinately dragged her along with little regard for the effects on her, or […]

Reviewed by: Linda Healy

Categories: Memoir and Autobiography
Tags: Alternate-form Memoir, Caregiving, Family relations, Good Books, grief, Growing older

Plums for Months

In “Wildflower Bouquet,” which is one of the prose poems in Plums for Months, author Zaji Cox says, “I love the way mismatched things will fit perfectly together to make something imperfect.” In so many ways that statement sums up the unique observations of the neurodivergent author. She […]

Reviewed by: B. Lynn Goodwin

Categories: Memoir and Autobiography
Tags: Alternate-form Memoir, Author of Color, Good Books, Neurodivergency

Short Stories

No God Like the Mother

No God Like the Mother is a delightful collection of nine short stories. The theme running through them all like a red thread is the fragility and uncertainty of the human condition and of women’s circumstances in particular. Each and every story is unique in that it portrays […]

Reviewed by: Francesca Aniballi

Categories: Short Stories
Tags: Author of Color, Cultures, Good Books, Strong girls, Women's issues

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