3 Books to Tug at Your Emotions

If you haven’t been to the Strongsville Branch Library to visit in awhile, you will need to come see us soon. We have so many new books available for checkout. Happy reading!

American Dervish By Ayad Akhtar, January 2012, 357 pages.  

This debut novel is about a young Pakistani-American growing up in Milwaukee during the 1980’s. Hayat Shat is an impressionable only child of parents who fight who becomes infatuated with Mina, his religion instructor and mother’s best friend. This book is a brilliantly written and emotionally forceful look inside the interplay of religion and modern life. The author was raised in the Midwest himself, and through Hayat Shah he shows readers vividly the powerful forces at work on young men and women growing up Muslim in America. This is an intimate, personal first novel that will stay with readers long after they turn the last page. If you love reading about other cultures or the role of religion in one’s life, this is the book for you.

Home Front By Kristen Hannah, January 2012, 400 pages.

This emotional story about the impact of war on an American family introduces Jolene, a Blackhawk pilot in the National Guard, who has two daughters and a workaholic husband. When she is deployed to Iraq, her distant husband has to learn to be a single parent. This profoundly honest novel looks at modern marriage and is a dramatic exploration of the toll war takes on an ordinary American family. Home Front is a story of love, loss, heroism, honor, and ultimately, hope. Kristen’s many fans will be pleased as will fans of authors like Barbara Delinsky and Eileen Goudge. 

More Than Words Can Say By Robert Barclay, January 2012, 490 pages.

From the author of If Wishes Were Horses comes a novel of long-buried secrets and self-discovery, showing us that sometimes what goes unsaid is more powerful than words. Surprised to learn that she has been left her grandmother's cottage in the Adirondacks, Chelsea Enright spends the summer in the mountains, becomes friendly with the caretakers and neighbors and discovers that the house holds secrets that go back decades. Chelsea cannot put this cottage and her family's past behind her easily—and the more she learns about the woman her grandmother truly was, the more Chelsea's own life begins to change . . . and nothing will ever be the same again. This is a moving multi-generational family story.

Reviews are brought to you each week by librarians Jennifer Niederhausen, Dona Stein and Heather Timko, Adult Services Division, Strongsville Branch Library.