Goodbye, Evil Eye: Stories

Goodbye, Evil Eye: Stories by Gloria Devidas Kirchheimer

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars

I picked this book up because of the title. I'd just returned from Egypt, where the Evil Eye is still a strong concept. Turns out that this book isn't really about evil eye stories so much as it is a book of...short vignettes? I am not sure how to classify it, really. The book is thin, and the stories seem to have nothing to do with each other except that they all feature Sephardic Jews in America. (The Sephardim are Jewish people "whose multilingual roots lie in Spain, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, [and:] the Middle East," according to the book's cover.)

Frankly, reading this book was difficult. I never finished. I got all the way to page 108 (out of 150), but in all that time, I never really liked any of the characters in the stories. The tone often felt slightly disrespectful rather than amusing, as though the author was trying to be funny but harbored resentment toward the older generation(s), and that translated into a condescension which trickled through in the narrative. And I never figured out whether the stories were supposed to have any basis in fact--although the book is catalogued as a 974.71, which is in the Dewey range for history.


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Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man

Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment by Steve Harvey

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

I put this book on hold at the library because I saw Steve Harvey on Oprah a couple of times, and I thought he had some useful advice for women. Steve's voice jumps off the pages of the book, making it an entertaining read. It's maybe a bit more targeted for single moms--especially African-American ones--or fast-track career women than it is for me personally right now, though. I'd rate this book 4 stars for anyone who has NOT already attended or listened to a PAX workshop, and 3 stars for anyone who HAS, simply because it won't really be new information. I didn't always totally agree with Steve, but most of the time, he was right on the money.


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Running Hot

Running Hot by Jayne Ann Krentz

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another entertaining volume in the Arcane Society series. This one is set in modern day, so Krentz thankfully avoids the use of the word "psychical," which I greatly appreciate. Our hero & heroine are both off-the-charts in terms of psychic talent, of course, but they always are. The thing I appreciated most was that this book moved the story a little further along in terms of revealing details of the Nightshade Organization. On the other hand, if you hadn't already read the previous four volumes, you might be a bit confused by ongoing plot lines.


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