All Things Willie

Imagine my surprise when I read one incredible book where one of the main characters is a lady named Willie, only to pick up my next great read and find out the main character is a man also by the name of Willie. I have a saying that I use when things just seem to fit together so perfectly, almost as if it was planned to fit so perfectly. That saying usually deals with the universe, most frequently: When the Stars Align. little bit of magic happened with these two books.

 

OUT OF THE EASY       By: Ruta Sepetys                     5 Stars

Josie’s mom is a prostitute in 1950s New Orleans. In fact, Josie is even named after a famous brothel madam who died on Valentine’s Day, the same day as Josie’s birthday. Fortunately, Josie has no desire to follow in her mom’s footsteps. She has excellent marks in school and it is her dream is to attend college anywhere by in New Orleans. To make this dream possible she works in a bookshop in addition to cleaning her mother’s brothel house, where Willie is the madam, in the French Quarter.

On New Year’s Eve a respectable man ends up dying in the French Quarter (shortly after having a drink with Josie’s mom), who has recently left town with Cincinnati, a John from the brothel house with mob ties. Even Willie doesn’t approve of Cincinnati and tries to convince Josie to cut ties with her mother. In a progression of events, Josie finds herself thrown into a situation where she must decide what family truly means and discover if family will trump her dreams of leaving the Big Easy forever.

Sepety’s first book was Between Shades of Gray (not to be confused with 50 Shades of Grey). That book put her on my top authors list. Maybe it has been long enough since I read it, but I think I liked this book even better as Out of the Easy was a world that made slightly more sense to me. Sepety’s writing is phenomenal, definitely securing her as one of my favorite authors.

 

SUTTON                       By: J. R. Moehringer               4 Stars

Ok, I have to be honest. I never did finish Sutton, but that is not because the book was not good. I was enjoying it, but I couldn’t get through it fast enough and then life happened and it was due back at the library before I could finish it. It wasn’t a book that I had to know about the ending, because I could do a little research and find out what Willie Sutton was all about. I even learned about the Sutton Law, which I am not totally sure the book was going to cover anyway. Since there are too many other books to move on to, I decided I had to let Sutton go and just live with the knowledge that, yes the book was informative and I was intrigued, but the time came to move on.