The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Good psychological thriller where author tries to show the inner motivations of each of the main characters

The book has been on the best seller's list for a long time!  I generally don't like books that use the "amnesia" construct where the main character doesn't remember certain key things that happened during an event.  I think it is a sneaky way to create suspense, and is something that is relatively unlikely to happen.  However Hawkins did do a good job with it, and made it believable.  I also don't generally like books where there are lots of flashbacks to previous time periods.  That always seems to be a cheap way to keep the reader in suspense.   When the writer jumps back to explain part of a story, but not all of it, then comes back later to fill in missing information, it seems like a dirty trick on the reader.  However, also in this case, I think Hawkins did a good job.  There were many time period jumps, but they seemed essential to the story.

The one thing that I caution everyone who might read the book is to pay attention to the chapter headings.  I had a problem following the book, warned my wife, and she had exactly the same problem.  Each chapter heading is the name of the character about whom the chapter is about.  The book starts out with Rachael, and the first chapter is focused completely on her.  The next chapter is about Megan, a year earlier.  When you first start the book, you think the chapter heading might just be a chapter name -- so I made the mistake of thinking that the chapter was talking about Rachel, and maybe she would meet Megan.  It took me several more chapters before I realized I had mixed the two characters up.  My wife did the same thing!  Look at the chapter heading! 

America's Bitter Pill By Steven Brill

Excellent non-fiction book that describes in intimate detail how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) got developed, passed, and implemented.  Brill does a very good job of making a non-fiction, recent historical story, become an interesting drama. He provides just enough personal information about each of the participants or "characters" in the story to allow readers to understand the point of view of the character. The booke is written chronologically and goes from the start of the writing of the law, all the way through to the starting the "final" version of the Healthcare.gov website.    It has so much detailed description about all of the people and organizations involved, that it is hard to believe that Brill was able to gather it all.  I think it is a valuable historical document, from the standpoint of documenting what happened.  It appears that Brill attempted to write it as objectively as possible by describing each event.  However, as I read, it seemed that the Democrats were the "good guys" often making compromises in order to get the bill passes.  While the Republicans were generally obstructionists.  Yes, there was incompetence in some cases.  Yes, there were some minor acts subterfuge and broken promises.  Certainly there was a lot of give & take by all involved.
I think anyone who objects to "Obamacare" should read the book to understand all sides of the problem.  It also might help anyone who is proposing changes to the ACA to understand the history of how it got where it is.  That information could be helpful in understanding where all of the vested interests lie.