Nursery Crimes

Rating:
Summary: Promising!
Review: This a great concept for a mystery/detective series. The characters are set with the Juliet, a stay at home Mom, who gave up her career to be with a headstrong two and one-half year old named Ruby, an unflappable husband, and a child soon to be born. Nursery Crimes was witty and breezy at the start and a terrific page-turner at the end. Waldman did a great job with twists and turns that made sense and did not seem contrived. I did figure out who did it a couple of chapters ahead of Juliet, but it's nice to feel smart. My reason for only four stars is that Nursery Crimes did slump in the middle and I feared that a promising beginning would be for naught. However the ending more than made up for that. Besides, how many mysteries have a great start and middle only to fizzle at the end? Nursery Crimes was a nice change from the empty feeling that comes from that path. Having gone through the early stage parenthood myself I find myself identifying Juliet's parenthood trials even though I am a mere man. My child is now a teenager and I hope this series gets that far so I can see how Juliet handles a fourteen year old Ruby. Meanwhile I find myself wondering what future evils will lurk in places such as Chuckey Cheese, the PTA, and Brownies.

Rating:
Summary: Funny, Fast and Intriguing!
Review: This book couldn't have come at a better time in the life of American women. We have been trained to work hard, use our brains, and be players in the work force. But what happens when we have kids and we fall head over heels in love with them? How do we balance our work and family? Ayelet Waldman has put this social conundrum into the relief of mystery comedy and it IS a relief! The way we solve this problem is that we do two things at once at all times and as long as we have a good sense of humor everything will turn out O.K. Witness Juliet Applebaum, Wadlman's heroine on the phone with the Detective. She is helping to solve a very high profile murder. She is delivering critical information to the detective .. but just then her 3 year old starts to eat the Play-Doh she has been happily playing with. "and so Detective.. the man who committed the murder is .. RUBY! Put Down that Play Doh! Ruby let's watch Lion King... oh... Detective, where was I?.... oh yes... the murder ... right..." This book is comedic brilliance at its best. Shedding light on the truths of our human condition and helping us laugh at ourselves. Three thumbs up!

Rating:
Summary: Kicken'!
Review: This book was totally fabitty fab fab and marvy! Funny and lovely! Who could ask for more? Plus the cow on the cover is spiffier than a bottle of spiffy!

Rating:
Summary: Terrific first mystery!
Review: This is a smart, funny, well-written book. The main character is Juliet Applebaum, a former federal public defender, now a stay-at-home mom, who's married to a screenwriter. She's pregnant with their second child and bored out of her skull, so when the headmistress of a prestigious Hollywood preschool is killed in a hit-and-run on the very day she turns down Juliet's two-year-old daughter for admission, Juliet decides to investigate. Waldman's characters are well-drawn and believable, and her swipes at Hollywood are funny without being mean-spirited. I did figure out whodunnit a chapter or so before Juliet did (which may have been because I recently read another mystery in which a similar character was the culprit), but this was such a good book, I didn't mind. I've already ordered the second book in the series, THE BIG NAP, and can't wait for it to get here.

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: This is one of the worst-written mysteries I have ever read. It reads like Waldman spent a few hours in a "how-to-write-a-mystery-novel" class and figured she'd get away with it since she's Michael Chabon's wife. It's filled with dreadful, cliche-ridden plotting and characters and has an ending you can see coming a mile away. She also panders to her readers. I usually don't read books like this one (I gave her a chance because I like her husband's work) and, God willing, never will again. Presumably, she was a good lawyer; maybe someday she'll do us a favor and go back to it.

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: This is one of the worst-written mysteries I have ever read. It reads like Waldman spent a few hours in a "how-to-write-a-mystery-novel" class and figured she'd get away with it since she's Michael Chabon's wife. It's filled with dreadful, cliche-ridden plotting and characters and has an ending you can see coming a mile away. She also panders to her readers. I usually don't read books like this one (I gave her a chance because I like her husband's work) and, God willing, never will again. Presumably, she was a good lawyer; maybe someday she'll do us a favor and go back to it.

Rating:
Summary: A fun start to a new series!
Review: This was a fun, quicky, easy read that can be done in practically one sitting. Even though Juliet Applebaum has quit her job as a public defender in order the stay home with her daughter, Ruby, (and is expecting her second child), she still can't seem to keep out of the work sector. She is dissatisfied with being a stay-at-home mom, and wonders if that makes her a bad mother. However, when the founder of the preschool in which they applied for Ruby is found dead, Juliet suspects murder and feels that familiar tug which sets her on a course to find out what really happened. This book will definitely not provide you with any heart-stopping chills or thrills, but is wonderfully quirky and makes a nice, light read.

Rating:
Summary: Poor writing
Review: Waldman's cliches in this novel ("My ears pricked up"; "I decided to try to find out if LeCrone's violent tendencies had reared their ugly head"; "I'd obviously touched a raw nerve") were more than I could stand. And the paragraph in which Juliet explains how parenthood ruins one's life, relationship, looks, productivity, and intelligence was, to use a Waldman-like cliche, the last straw. Perhaps some readers will find the narrator's honesty charming; others, like me, will view it as whining. And bratty children are not amusing to me, either.