Review: Everything We Ever Wanted By Sara Shepard

Goodreads Summary

Sara Shepard, the bestselling author of Pretty Little Liars, delivers a powerful novel of family dreams, lies, and delusions.  Everything We Ever Wanted begins with a phone call with allegations that rock an upper crust Philadelphia family to its very foundations, unlocking years of secrets and scandals that expose the serious flaws in outwardly perfect lives. A moving, intelligent, and unforgettable novel, Shepard’s Everything We Ever Wanted is exceptional contemporary women’s fiction that will be embraced by book clubs everywhere.

My Thoughts
Sylvie Bates-McAllister is your typical rich matriarch. She comes from old money and serves on the board of the prestigious private school her grandfather helped to restore. She has two sons, Charles the uptight, responsible, possibly unhappily married son and Scott, the adopted, distant and troubled younger son.



When Slyvie learns that Scott, now a wrestling coach, has been implicated in a hazing scandal at the school that possibly led to a child's suicide, her world falls apart. This is where everything sort of fell apart for me. Instead of straight up asking her son for his part of the story, she dances around it, afraid of him or maybe afraid of hearing the truth. She drove me crazy! He's your kid, sure he's an adult but he's your son and he lives in your house. Just ask him!


Charles is no better. He had a blowout with his brother several years before and the two barely speak. Caught in the middle is Charles's new wife Joanne who is whiny and upset at being left out of the family drama. 


I couldn't find a single likable character in the whole bunch. They were all just moody, whiny and/or passive aggressive. They drove me nuts and I just couldn't get engaged in the story. The supposed scandal gets blown way out of proportion with just one phone call and before anyone has any details or even knows what is really going on. 

This entire family is severely dysfunctional. I'm OK with dysfunctional. I have experience with dysfunction. However, it's rather difficult to read about such dysfunction when there isn't a whole lot of resolution. The end comes on rather abruptly with one a few blurbs about where everyone ended up. I felt like we made a big mess with these people and then someone came up and suddenly swept it all away with little explanation. 


The book was well written but I just couldn't connect with the characters, the plot or really, the story itself.

Review: A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown by Julia Scheeres

Goodreads Summary
“I love socialism, and I’m willing to die to bring it about, but if I did, I’d take a thousand with me.” —Jim Jones, September 6, 1975 In 1954, a pastor named Jim Jones opened a church in Indianapolis called Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. He was a charismatic preacher with idealistic beliefs, and he quickly filled his pews with an audience eager to hear his sermons on social justice. After Jones moved his church to Northern California in 1965, he became a major player in Northern California politics; he provided vital support in electing friendly political candidates to office, and they in turn offered him a protective shield that kept stories of abuse and fraud out of the papers. Even as Jones’s behavior became erratic and his message more ominous, his followers found it increasingly difficult to pull away from the church. By the time Jones relocated the Peoples Temple a final time to a remote jungle in Guyana and the U.S. Government decided to investigate allegations of abuse and false imprisonment in Jonestown, it was too late.

A Thousand Lives is the story of Jonestown as it has never been told before. New York Times bestselling author Julia Scheeres drew from thousands of recently declassified FBI documents and audiotapes, as well as rare videos and interviews, to piece together an unprecedented and compelling history of the doomed camp, focusing on the people who lived there. Her own experiences at an oppressive reform school in the Dominican Republic, detailed in her unforgettable debut memoir Jesus Land, gave her unusual insight into this story.

The people who built Jonestown wanted to forge a better life for themselves and their children. They sought to create a truly egalitarian society. In South America, however, they found themselves trapped in Jonestown and cut off from the outside world as their leader goaded them toward committing “revolutionary suicide” and deprived them of food, sleep, and hope. Yet even as Jones resorted to lies and psychological warfare, Jonestown residents fought for their community, struggling to maintain their gardens, their school, their families, and their grip on reality.

Vividly written and impossible to forget, A Thousand Lives is a story of blind loyalty and daring escapes, of corrupted ideals and senseless, haunting loss.
My Thoughts
Wow. I was born in the 80's so my knowledge of Jonestown was limited. I knew a bunch of people had committed mass suicide, and it was where the term 'drink the Kool-Aid' came from. A year or two ago, I caught the tail-end of a documentary about the group and it was horrifying. I couldn't understand why anyone, let alone over 1000 people would listen to anything this man had to say or uproot their lives to follow him into a jungle.

Reading this book gave me a lot of insight into how people succumb to groups such as this. Scheeres says right in the beginning that nobody joins a cult and it's true. These people didn't know exactly what they were getting into. In the beginnings of this church, Jones promised a color-blind, open-minded group that accepted and loved everyone equally. To be honest, some of their ideals would have definitely peaked my interest. Jones employed a whole host of smoke and mirrors to assert the fact that he was blessed with healing powers. That also drew people to the temple in droves.

Once part of the church, Jones and his goons made it almost impossible to leave. He had many convinced that he had super-natural powers and then promised harm would come to those who defected. He made members sign confessions stating that they'd molested their own children or other crimes which the church would hand over to police if they spoke out or left the church.

Then Jones got them all to follow him to Guyana in hopes of creating an ideal socialist community. What the found there was just short of hell. Under many different types of threats, the people became trapped in Jonestown as Jones himself spiraled into madness and began advocating mass 'revolutionary suicide' to his people.

This book explored all aspects of this case, not just the awful finale. It shows how certain people were drawn to the church and their reasons for staying. It was nice to get the whole story, though it does make the ending that much more heartbreaking.

I would definitely recommend it for anyone looking to delve deeper into the history of one of the biggest mass suicides in history.

*Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. 

Review: The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

Goodreads Summary
Over five years in the writing, Alice Hoffman’s most ambitious and mesmerizing novel ever, a triumph of imagination and research set in ancient Israel.

The author of such iconic bestsellers as Illumination Night, Practical Magic, Fortune’s Daughter, and Oprah’s Book Club selection Here on Earth, Alice Hoffman is one of the most popular and memorable writers of her generation. Now, in The Dovekeepers, Hoffman delivers her most masterful work yet—one that draws on her passion for mythology, magic, and archaeology and her inimitable understanding of women.

In 70 CE, nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on a mountain in the Judean desert, Masada. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic historical event, Hoffman weaves a spellbinding tale of four extraordinary, bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael’s mother died in childbirth, and her father never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker’s wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her twin grandsons, rendered mute by their own witness. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and expert marksman, who finds passion with another soldier. Shirah is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power. The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege, as the Romans draw near. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets—about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.

This novel is Alice Hoffman’s masterpiece.

My Thoughts
Wow! This book is a breathtaking story about four remarkable women in ancient Israel during the Roman siege on Masada where 900 Jews held off the Roman forces for months. The book begins with the story of Yael, a tough as nails young women whose mother died in childbirth and whose father resents her very existence because of it. I loved her for her strength, determination, and fierceness. I worried when the POV switched to another woman that I wouldn't connect as I had with Yael but I needn't have worried. 

Each of the four women have incredible stories of survival, love and loss which become interwoven as they come to work together taking care of the doves at Masada. This story is very heavily detailed though it's so beautifully written that it just flows like water. I took my time reading, savoring it like a delicious meal from the first word to the heartbreaking climax. 


Honestly, I can't say much more than to tell you to go pick this one up. It's a lengthy one but oh so worth every single page.