September 6

The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling- An interesting story with many stories within the story.  This novel shares the story of a small town and it's political elections due to a vacancy seat on the parish council due to the untimely death of one of the council members.  There are many characters involved and many unique individual story lines going on at the same time with the main story being about the election.  We as readers know more then the towns people know about one another and can see things more objectively because we see the background stories of the characters.  The one thing I didn't like was how graphic the novel was.  I don't mind sex scenes but I feel like the author was trying to prove something with her first adult novel.  Some of it just was not necessary and was too much detail.  Other then that I really liked the book

The Other Family by Joanna Trollope- I didn't care for this story.  It was about two families.  One with 3 young women and the mom and dad and one with a single mother with an adult son.  The dad dies unexpectedly which brings the two families together in some ways since the single parent and adult son were his first family.  The story had potential but it was very slow moving and I still don't quite get what the point of it was.  The characters weren't likable and the story didn't really move anywhere. 

The One I Left Behind by Jennifer McMahon- I like this author because her books are unpredictable and take twists and turns.  This one's main character is named Reggie and when she was a young girl a serial killer was in her town.  The killer would cut off the victims hand leave it to be found and then 3 days later the rest of the body.  Reggie's mom was a victim but her body never turned up.  25 years later her mother shows up in a hospital/homeless shelter and she has to confront her past and how it affected her future.  A good mystery that kept me guessing until the end, I definitely could not have predicted how this one would end.  

The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick- The main character, Bartholomew, has lived with his mother for 38 years, after she dies Bartholomew has to figure out life on his own.  The book is a series of letters to actor Richard Gere who the character's mother seemed obsessed with and now the character is.  It's never said but the character seems to have something wrong with him mentally.  It was interesting to read about Bartholomew's adventures trying to navigate the world and make friends after so many years of isolation.  I was pretty confused on the ending though and what the book's message was overall.  

The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax-  It's a book about an author who needs to come up with a story to turn in to her publisher but hasn't written anything and who's husband ends up leaving her so she doesn't seem able to get the novel done.  Her 3 writer friends try to rescue her by creating characters but the characters are based on themselves.  The women have an agreement not to tell that they helped write the book so the book ends up being about 4 women friends each struggling with something and keeping secrets.  I got a little lost to be honest.  It was a book within a book but it just didn't work overall.  I liked the realistic pieces where the story didn't just have a great happy ending but I didn't really understand the overall point either.  

A Widow for One Year by John Irving- Really liked this book and now this author.  The main character of this book is Ruth and we follow her through her childhood and adulthood.  The book starts with Ruth being 4 years old, the summer her mother leaves her family.  Ruth's father, a writer, takes on an assistant for the summer and he narrates parts of the book as well.  Ruth grows up in the shadow of her dead brothers who died when they were teenagers before she was born.  Ruth's mother leaves her and her father that summer and we follow Ruth and her family and the young assistant through the next decades of their lives.  I just loved the author's writing style and how many stories within the story there were.  Each worked in it's own unique way and I never felt lost trying to connect the characters.  As a reader I identified with each character when they were narrating and wanted to know more about what would happen for their lives.  

August 12

Love and Treasure by Ayelet Waldman- What a story this was.  This story alternates from the 1940s during the war and present day.  During the present day Jack gives his grand daughter Natalie a necklace and asks her to find the owner.  The story then weaves back and forth on how the necklace came to be in Jack's hands after he was a soldier in the war and Natalie's search to help her grandfather's guilt.  The story was just wonderful and I was turning the pages as fast as I could to see what would happen next.  The author had a way of keeping us as readers interested in both stories too which is what I think is hard sometimes about going back and forth like this.  I liked that the ending wasn't quite what you wanted it to be or how you thought it might go.  I liked that she took a more realistic approach and went for something different.  A great read.  

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown- I didn't really care for this book.  It had an interesting concept, three sisters raised by a father who was somewhat of an expert in Shakespeare as a professor at a local college.  The girls are all grown up but each take turns narrating pieces of their current lives and childhood.  The girls mother is sick with breast cancer and each young adult ends up back at home to help as they themselves are each at their own cross roads in life.  Rose, the oldest, is choosing between the quiet home life she has always desired or making the brave decision to move to London to be with her fiance.  Bean, the middle child, has had to move back from New York with a secret about why she had to leave her supposed successful career and life.  Cordy, the youngest, is returning home pregnant after wandering around the country and not really ever having to grow up on her own.  I think the author relied too heavily on the Shakespeare references and on the birth order of the girls.  

Four Friends by Robyn Carr- This book was about 4 women who form somewhat unlikely friendships and all going through rough spots in their lives.  I found myself waiting for the novel to get good for as long as I was reading it but it just fell short in a lot of ways.  It never really connected the women realistically and sort of threw them and their problems together and then boom happy endings for each of them.  I didn't really care for the book.  

After You by Julie Buxbaum- This is a story about a woman named Ellie living in the United States but temporary living in London since her best friend was murdered.  Her best friend, Lucy, was murdered in front of her young daughter Sophie.  Ellie movies in with Sophie and Lucy's husband to help get Sophie through the trauma.  The story has several stories within it.  The marriages of Lucy and Ellie, motherhood for Lucy while Ellie remains childless until she steps in as a mother figure and contemplates if motherhood is for her after all, the friendship of Lucy and Ellie and the secrets they kept from one another.  Overall I liked the book and found myself turning the pages to see what would happen next for Ellie.  

Love Water Memory by Jennie Shortridge- This book starts with the main character Lucie waking up in San Francisco bay not sure of who she is and why she is there.  From there Lucie's fiance, Grady, sees her on the news and gets her back home.  The book is narrated by both characters and we travel with Lucie on her journey her to try to find out who is now and also where she came from.  Secrets from her childhood and past unravel and she gets a chance to decide who she will be going forward.  Overall I liked the book but wish it had been longer and more developed.  Everything seemed to move very fast with little time to really process what was going on.  

Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman-  This was a story about a young couple who die in a tragic car accident on their wedding day.  The book is about their families and what happens in the years after their deaths.  The family had been waiting at the reception while the young couple went to take pictures and the police show up at the reception.  The book opens with this scene which was written well.  The rest of the book fell a little flat for me.  It felt like the main characters were the people that had died and maybe that was part of the point of the book but it just didn't work for me.  I really like this writer and her books and I'll keep reading more from her, this one just wasn't a favorite.  

The Office of Desire by Martha Moody- I picked this book up since I really liked the first book I read by this author last month, Best Friends, but I didn't like this book nearly as much.  This is the story about a doctor's office with two doctors and 3 medical workers who do various tasks for them.  The office is changed when one of the medical workers has an affair with one of the doctors.  The problem for me was that none of the characters, all who narrate at some point in the book, were really that likable.  I didn't really care what happened next for them in the book which spans over their lives over the course of years.  

The Gift by Cecelia Ahern- This is a very short novel about a police officer telling a story to a young man brought in on Christmas.  The story is about anger and time.  The police officer tells about a man he met that was essentially cloning himself to be in two places at once and the disastrous results.  I liked the main story line but the story within the story was a bit unrealistic.  It worked for some time but then some key details just didn't work out.  It's possible if the story within the story had been the only story it may have worked, but because someone else was narrating there was just something about it that didn't work for me.  

The Girls of August by Anne Rivers Siddons- Overall this was an easy light read.  The story if about 4 women who began renting a beach house in August when they were in their 20s and their husbands were in medical school.  One of the women has since died and the new wife of the man who was married to her sets up another summer vacation after years of the tradition not having happened.  The characters were likable and I wanted a strong female friendship novel.  Instead what I got was a novel about women keeping big secrets from each other and then revealing them in a big dramatic fashion towards the end of the book and then everything wrapping up somewhat unrealistically at the very end.  It wasn't bad but not at all what I thought I was getting. 

Where She Went by Gayle Forman- This is the continued story of Mia and Adam after the same author's first book If I Stay which I read last month.  This book was told from Adam's prospective which I really liked since both stories were his stories too.  It's again a teen novel and I wasn't expecting a whole lot, more just wanted to see what happened next for the characters.  The story takes us to a few years after the accident and after Mia has awaken from her coma.  Getting the story from Adam's point of view rather then Mia's allows the reader to stay more neutral and see things from his perspective.  Adam and Mia meet again for one day in NYC where she is playing a concert and living, and where he is visiting as a professional musician and about to leave on another tour, which he doesn't want to go on.  We find out about their struggle to maintain their love after the accident and see how the accident changed both of their lives.  Overall a short easy read that I enjoyed since it means seeing what happened next for the characters.  

Tempting Fate by Jane Green- I go back and forth with this author sometimes but really liked this newest book of hers.  This was the story of Gabby and her husband Elliot and their marriage.  Gabby winds up having an affair and the consequences of that to her husband and two children are long term.  I liked that the book was very real at times and didn't sugar coat anything.  I thought the author made the book relatable.  You felt for both characters and their situations as the story unfolded.  I'm still torn on the ending though as that was where it felt to me where things were a bit unrealistic.  

The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern- I like this author, but the thing with her books is they have really interesting concepts and sometimes she makes them believable and other times she doesn't.  This was the case where it just wasn't believable what was happening with the main character, Tamara.  Tamara is moved to her aunt and uncle's house after her father dies and her mother is overcome with grief.  They both make this move together but her mother is entirely not available to her.  Tamara as a teen is used to the big city life and having lots of money and friends.  Now she is living in a very small town with no friends and with the loss of her father, the loss of all her financial security too.  Tamara finds a diary which is her's and each night she reads and learns of what will happen the next day.  This leads to a dramatic ending with all secrets revealed but by the time I got there I just didn't believe any of what was happening.  For me this was a case of too many ingredients being added without thought to how to develop them.  

July 8

The First Phone Call From Heaven by Mitch Albom- This was a somewhat strange story but by an author I like very much and was reminded of after seeing him on a TV show.  I picked this book up the next time I was at the library and I think overall I liked the story.  The book follows a small town in Michigan where several people in town start receiving phone calls on specific phones from deceased loved ones.  The town becomes a media sensation, the specific cell phone all the calls are coming in on booms with sales, and the town becomes divided on those who believe and those who do not.  The main character, Sully, a police office is determined to get to the bottom of things especially with his own personal connection to the case.  I like that Albom adds so many details and gives pieces of the story that one would not expect but that seem to fit and help to move the story.  I was curious from the start on how it would end and found the ending unexpected and I’m still not certain if I liked the ending or not.  In either case I want to get back to reading more from this author.

The End of Sex by Donna Freitas- This is a non-fiction work about the “hookup” culture and the influence of social media/ match making websites added in.  I think the author’s overall point with presenting the research and information she presents is to show readers that technology has changed the way we view and find relationships and intimacy.  I found myself wondering while reading this novel what the new meaning of intimacy is and how relationships will find it as we continue in this digital age.  I learned a few things but overall I found the author didn’t really present any startling new information or ideas on how to compensate for the new found problems she presented. 

One Hundred Names by Cecelia Ahern- I struggle with this author, I either really like her work or I don’t and usually when I don’t I liked the idea of the plot but it just didn’t seem to end up working out in a meaningful way.  This was the case with this book.  The book’s main character Kitty is a writer on a magazine who has just been embarrassed by a scandal with her last article.  Kitty’s mentor, and boss, leaves her a list of 100 names on her death bed and asks her if she could writer about anything what would she write about.  The implication is this list is what she would have written about if she had one more chance but she is dying.  Kitty sets about trying to meet the people on the list and prepare a tribute article to her dead boss.  Along the way of meeting a select few from the list she heals from her own embarrassment and works on trying to figure out the connection between the 100.  The concept I liked, but the product just didn’t work for me.  I almost wish each chapter had been a different one of the 100 or something.  Instead the author’s attempt to connect the various story lines occurring just falls flat.  Kitty is likeable though and her ultimate return to her professional career is a happy ending. 

The Ruins of California by Martha Sherrill- A really great coming of age in 1970s California story about a young girl names Inez.  Inez is shuffled back and forth between her white father in San Francisco and her Hispanic mother’s family in LA.  Inez’s father is very laid back and provides adventure when she spends summers, weekends, and holidays with his newest girlfriend or wife.  Her mother provides a more stable family environment with her extended family but more structure and less of the fun she gets when in San Francisco.  Her older half brother who she had not yet met also enters the picture at some point.  We follow her through her adolescence and young adulthood watching her figure her parents out and the free love and drug culture of her young adult years.  I liked how it was written and kept turning the pages to find out what would happen next for young Inez. 

Prophets Prey by Sam Brower- This is a true account of a private investigator and his experience with the FLDS community.  I enjoy reading about the fascinating FLDS community and I liked the way the author shared his account.  I just didn't feel that I learned anything new or different from this book then from any of the other accounts I have read.  Maybe I've read too many stories now on this community.  In any case I admire Brower's commitment to the cause.  

Someday Someday Maybe by Lauren Graham

         The main character of this novel is a young girl named Franny living in NYC trying to make it as an actress and catch her big break.  The author is why I wanted to read this book, actress Lauren Graham who I have always liked as an actress.  There are probably some parts of the story that were true or related to similar experiences the author had in trying to find her own way as an actress.  What I liked though was that you couldn't really tell that from the book.  The book just seemed genuine and Franny was a likable character you wanted to see succeed and find her way.  There was of course a love story but I liked that she didn't get caught up in it and it wasn't the plot of the book.  

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

         This is the story about Mia and her boyfriend Adam.  Mia is in a major and tragic car accident with her family and is in a coma but narrating from the coma while being able to see everything going on around her.  It's a teen book so I wasn't expecting much and it about met the expectation.  I wanted to read this book because I saw the previews for the movie coming out and I like to read the books before I see the movies.  For a teen novel I think this book had more substance then usual and I can see the appeal it has for the younger generation.  It is, in a big way, a love story but it has more to it then that and as a reader you want the happy ending for the girl but in this case looking at what "happy ending" means is suddenly very different.  

Best Friends by Martha Moody

         I randomly picked this book up off the shelf and I'm glad I did.  It was a great story of two women's friendship over many years.  Clare and Sally meet in the 70s at Oberlin college in Ohio.  Randomly thrown together as roommates the two could not be more different but end up forming a life long friendship.  Clare is from Ohio and Sally from California but they grow and change together and apart for the four years of college and long summer breaks and then through decades of their lives each with their own marriages and families now too.  Everything in the women's lives changes so much over the years but their friendship, while it makes some changes, is a constant and I loved that lesson about the book.  I loved that no matter what happened, no matter what they did to each other or to other's they had each other's back and knew they had someone they could count on.  I truly enjoyed the writing and was sad when this book ended not to know what happened next for Sally and Clare, though I can say that I really enjoyed the ending as well and thought it brought the book to a perfect close.  

June 10

Uganada Be Kidding Me by Chelsea Handler- Generally I enjoy Chelsea Handler and while some of her comedy goes beyond the line for me, I tend to laugh when listening to her and I’ve enjoyed most of her books.  This one however, I didn’t really think was that great.  Mostly I didn’t really get whatever she was trying to convey with her book.  I feel like her publishers wanted another book and she’s gotten so busy with everything else in her career that suddenly she doesn’t write the way she used to.  This book was about her travels to a few countries and various safari’s she and her friends went on.  While I applaud her generosity with her friends and family, I found this book really to be a big whine on her now privileged life.  She added stories in about various traveling she has done and while some stories made you laugh, for the most part I read this book thinking the writer was so spoiled, not usually how I feel when I read Handler’s books.  I want her work to make me laugh, I don’t want it to make me scold the author for not seeing how fortunate she is in her life.

Ape House by Sara Gruen- I really liked this book, and I didn’t expect to.  My expectations were very low because I couldn’t see how the plot could possibly be written out well but for some reason I still checked it out and I’m glad I did.  The story is about an ape lab that gets targeted and the apes go missing.  They then randomly show up on their own reality show.  The story is narrated by the woman who worked in the lab with the apes.  The concept could very easily have been taken too far and made into just a mess of a book.  Somehow the author here made it all work out and seem believable so that as a reader you really felt like what was happening could be real.  I liked the not so subtle commentary too on reality television and our own evolution and how humans seem to behave on these shows and the comparison to another species in a similar situation. 

Between You and Me by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus- This was the story about a young woman, Logan, with a famous cousin, Kelsey, with whom she used to be very close to but hadn’t been in a long time.  Randomly the cousin wants to reconnect and Logan is hired to be her assistant and comes on board while still battling all her old feelings on the family and childhood memories she hasn’t quite gotten over or sorted through.  Logan very quickly gets sucked back into the awkward family situations that arise with Kelsey and her parents and the demands of her fame on the family.  While I liked the characters and found myself rooting for both woman, the problem for me with this book was that it tried to tackle too much.  Any one of the random tangents the book went off into could have taken us down the road to the ending, but instead the book took many twists and turns of which just seemed to be too much.  I did like the way Logan was able to make peace with her past and move forward with acceptance. 

Citizen Girl by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus- This is the story of just about anyone struggling to make it after graduating from college.  The main character is only called “girl” and I liked the way that added to the idea of anyone out on the streets struggling.  We follow girl through her moves around New York City with boyfriends and job struggles and the everyday decisions being made in the “real” world.  I liked reading the adventures and embarrassing things that happened and how the character kept picking herself up and getting back out there.  It became a little dull though after awhile and hard to follow what was happening since most of the story was really generic to keep it to the character really being anyone struggling.  I like these writers and the book wasn’t bad at all but it just wasn’t really my favorite of theirs. 

Blossom Street Brides by Debbie Macomber

         With my own wedding coming up in July, I seem to have wanted to grab any book that was about weddings or had “bride” in the title.  For the most part this has been a mistake, and this book proved the same.  This was about 3 different woman with a local knitting store as the common thread.  One is in a long term relationship but that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere so she makes a bold decision.  Another is struggling with her adoptive daughter and business while in a happy marriage.  The last one is in her second marriage happily but it is a long distance marriage and her ex husband who has decided he wants her back is nearby.  Overall I just didn’t feel like the characters were developed that well and though they were somewhat likeable I just didn’t like them enough to really care what happened with each of them.  The wrapped up sappy sweet ending was a little too “happily ever after” for me too.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

            Boy did this book deliver a shocking twist.  The story is about Louisa, a woman in her mid 20s who really has no direction in life.  The other main character is Will, who has lost so much in life after living to the fullest extent before an accident that led to him being a quadriplegic.  I actually disliked the book for probably the first 1/3 or so especially with it’s unrealistic portrayal of Louisa going from odd jobs to being a care taker for Will as her next job.  The unlikely, but predictably needed for the story line, friendship/romance that becomes between the two is interesting but a stretch especially at first.  When it becomes clear that the book is about the controversial subject of assisted suicide the book really drew me in.  I think it should have come sooner but once that part of the story came up the novel really developed into much more then what I had anticipated.  I liked the contrast between the characters and their lives and the lessons that were delivered to each character by the other and then also to us as readers.  I’ve now read a few books by this author and seem to like her more and more each time. 

The Illusion of Separateness by Simon Von Booy

         This was such a good book.  A random find I picked up off the shelf and am glad that I did.  The book is about all the ways we can be connected without even knowing it.  The short novel weaves the story of character, Martin, in present 2010 and of a character named Hugo in 1981.  The story also goes back to WWII and the after affects of the war and displacement of so many people.  It was a short read that kept you turning the pages to find out what would happen next for the characters and how they would wind up connected.

Dwarf by Tiffanie DiDonato

         This is the true story of the author’s struggle with dwarfism and her controversial decision to do invasive limb lengthening surgeries to add more height.  DiDonato shares her struggles as a child with dwarfism and her family and her decision to do painful limb lengthening surgeries several times.  I know these surgeries can be seen as controversial and other people think they have the right to weigh in on other’s life choices, but I applaud the author for her bravery.  Sometimes decisions are not easy and the choices you make are going to be called in to question by complete strangers.  The way she courageously defends her choice and shares why she and her family made these decisions is inspiring.  I really enjoyed reading about her struggles and her positive attitude that got her though making tough choices, which led to tremendous pain.  It was really great to get to know her and I appreciated her honesty.  Even knowing ahead of time what the ending more or less would be, there were unexpected twists in the story that kept me turning the pages. 

The Bride Wore Size 12 by Meg Cabot

         I read the Heather Wells series some time ago and couldn’t resist picking up a book about her as a bride.  Heather is an ex pop star now dorm hall director that had a few mysteries on various murders occurring in the dorm she oversaw.  Overall the novel just offered a light-hearted read about Heather’s upcoming wedding and of course another murder mystery in the dorm room.  Not the best book of all time of course but a fun read that took me back to Fischer hall and a likeable main character who you want to not just solve the mystery but also to win overall.   

The One and Only by Emily Giffin

         I like this author and accept that her books are light and easy to read and aren’t really meant to be anything more then that.  That being said, this book was bad.  I kept waiting for it to get good and it just never did.  The main character Shea is an avid college football fan for her alumni team which just happens to be the team her best friend’s father coaches.  Her best friend’s mother has recently died from cancer and the book takes us through the next season of football.  We follow Shea as she somehow is dating a pro football player who turns violent and then tries to date her friend’s dad, the guy who just lost his wife and is the coach of her favorite team.  It’s just too much and it never flows or works in any believable.  I guess ultimately the moral of the story is about change and the need for it and to not stay stuck in our ways and be able to move forward but it was a very disorganized journey to the message.