Summer Hours at the Robbers Library - Sue Halpern

Newtown: An American tragedy - Matthew Lysiak

The invaders - Karolina Waclawiak

The invaders - Waclawiak, Karolina

Summary: Over the course of a summer in a wealthy Connecticut community, a forty-something woman and her college-age stepson's lives fall apart in a series of violent shocks. Cheryl has never been the right kind of country-club wife. She's always felt like an outsider, and now, in her mid-forties--facing the harsh realities of aging while her marriage disintegrates and her troubled stepson, Teddy, is kicked out of college--she feels cast adrift by the sparkling seaside community of Little Neck Cove, Connecticut. So when Teddy shows up at home just as a storm brewing off the coast threatens to destroy the precarious safe haven of the cove, she joins him in an epic downward spiral.

Booklist Reviews
Those tony beach communities that dot the flaunted real estate along the Connecticut and Long Island coasts have long been the source of wonder and desire. Inside their gates, however, things are hardly the stuff of such lust-filled dreams. Petty rivalries escalate between neighbors, paranoia over outsiders' access to "their" beachfront vistas fuel violent turf wars, and those old stand-bys drugs, alcohol, and sex destroy marriages and livelihoods. Told from the alternating points-of-view of Cheryl, a down-market trophy wife, and Teddy, her dissolute stepson, Waclawiak's novel exposes the underpinnings of Little Neck Cove for what they are: paltry, superficial facades that poorly mask any semblance of charity, tolerance, or humanity. As Cheryl's marriage dissolves and Teddy's addiction causes a life-changing accident, an impending hurricane destined to hit the community pales in comparison to the inner storms already brewing. With its spot-on characterizations, droll dialogue, and staccato pacing, Waclawiak's dark satire is a trenchant indictment of the country club set tempered by compassionately rendered portraits of two of its not entirely unwitting victims. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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Orange is the new black - Piper Kerman

Orange is the new black - Kerman, Piper

Summary: A compelling, often hilarious, and unfailingly compassionate portrait of life inside a woman's prison. Follows the author's incarceration for drug trafficking, during which she gained a unique perspective on the criminal justice system and met a varied community of women living under exceptional circumstances.


Booklist Reviews
Just graduated from Smith College, Kerman made the mistake of getting involved with the wrong woman and agreeing to deliver a large cash payment for an international drug ring. Years later, the consequences catch up with her in the form of an indictment on conspiracy drug-smuggling and money-laundering charges. Kerman pleads guilty and is sentenced to 15 months in a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. Entering prison in 2004—more than 10 years after her crime—Kerman finds herself submerged in the unique and sometimes overwhelming culture of prison, where kindness can come in the form of sharing toiletries, and an insult in the cafeteria can lead to an enduring enmity. Kerman quickly learns the rules—asking about the length of one's prison stay is expected, but never ask about the crime that led to it—and carves a niche for herself even as she witnesses the way the prison system fails those who are condemned to it, many of them nonviolent drug offenders. An absorbing, meditative look at life behind bars.

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