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.

May 10

The Dark Road by Ma Jian  What a book.  This tells the story of a Chinese family continually on the move escaping population laws.  The story begins with the mother pregnant with a forbidden second child.  The story is mostly narrated by the spirit of her unborn second child but is told over a period of time of several years.  I am really torn on this book.  I found it fascinating and a real page turner but it lost me about 2/3rds of the way through.  It was all just a bit too much.  I think many of the events could have happened to a family but it seemed more to me that they were events that happened to many families and were highlighted by the author to just this one family.  It just became too much though and then I was ready to finish the book to see how it ended.  I'm still a little confused on the ending too.  I loved the culture and found the various tragedies heart wrenching.  I also really found this author's writing style to be intriguing so I am excited to read more by her.

The First Affair by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus- I like these two authors and early in the summer I started picking up all their books that I hadn't read to read.  This one wasn't really my favorite.  Here we have a novel about a strong female lead character, and instead of giving her strength and individuality she gets into an affair with the president and we follow her through the difficulties of this.  The book wasn't really that interesting and just didn't hold my attention the way I would have liked.  Though I have to say this one was pretty easy to see from the cover and description that it would turn out this way and I should have known better.

The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony- Well this was definitely my favorite book of the month.  I read this book very slowly because I didn't want it to end.  It's been on my list for a long time and it was a holiday present many months ago.  I love love love elephants.  This book is a non fiction work about the authors experiences raising a wild elephant herd in Africa.  The book was the perfect combination of cool facts that I never knew before and really amazing stories.  Stories that were heartbreaking and stories that were just wonderful.  By the end of it I wanted to empty my bank account and move to Africa and have my own elephants.  If you love elephants, or are in general an animal lover, great great great read.

Goodbye Columbus and Other Short Stories by Philip Roth- This read was recommended by someone else possibly for the city name but then it turned out the city wasn't the one I had anticipated.  Overall a good collection of short stories that were slightly difficult to get into but then once I did get into them it was easy to flip the pages wanting to know what happened next for each character.  Most of the stories were about young people and included some sort of struggling Jewish element.

Eighteen Acres by Nicole Wallace- I read about this book and liked the review and thought it had great potential.  It's the story of the 3 women, 3 powerful Washington DC women.  One is the first female president of the United States, one is the chief of staff, and one is a white house correspondent.  I had such high hopes for this book being strong on feminism and showing women in positions of power.   But what it wound up being was 3 stories of women and their love lives and balancing that with their careers.  Big disappointment.

The Lost Art of Mixing by Erica Bauermeister- While I keep going back to this author for some reason, I really feel like all of her books are essentially the same with different character names.  This one was a continuation of one of her earlier books.  Her style is to have a commonality of the characters, in this case a restaurant with cooking classes, that allows them to meet and then each chapter is devoted to a particular character and shares their story.  Sometimes the stories are then finished or given a conclusion in someone else's story line.  I guess I just feel that the characters are only just developed and then it's time to move to the next.  Even in this case where the story lines were continued from another book, there just didn't feel like there was enough time to get to know the character and get invested in what happened.

Insurgent and Allegiant by Veronica Roth- I don't know, I just wasn't impressed by the Divergent series.  It's possible my hopes were too high for this as so many people had talked about it.  I waited though through all three stories to find out the purpose for everything and to get hooked to the story and I never did.  The last two books of the series are typical at war books in these recent trilogies.  I'm writing this blog way late and several months after reading them and I can't even remember the very ending of the story.  The only thing I can say is that I do think these books were written very visually and I am curious on how the movies are able to portray things and I don't often say this but I do think in this case the movies will be better then the books.

The Witness Wore Red by Rebecca Musser- This is the true story of a woman who escaped the FLDS polygamist cult and her experience within.  I was truly impressed by her first hand account and found it wonderful to watch her become such a strong adult.  Her struggles as a child and her journey to finding her own way was sad to read about but also so moving to see the courage she had.  The title refers to her numerous testimonies against FLDS members which led to their punishment for child abuse and to the fact that red was a "bad" color to wear in their church.  Each time she got on the stand she wore red to face these men who had done awful things but would never be held accountable had she not had the strength to stand up for her convictions.  A truly inspiring true story.

The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian-  I love this author.  His books range from good to great to fantastic so even when they are just good I know a fantastic one is coming.  This one was fantastic.  I couldn't put it down.  It weaves two stories together through time and many characters who somehow all end up intertwining.  Part of the story takes place in 1943 while the war is going on in Italy and part takes place in 1955 post war recovery in Italy.  For the most part the chapters alternated years and as the reader you get some of the pieces of the puzzle and then get to go back in time to see how those pieces got there.  There is a lot of grief and sadness in the story but the novel ends with hope as a message.

April 10

Flowers in the Attic, Petals in the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows by V.C. Andrews  This series is one that I was actually re reading.  I read it many years ago when I was probably a pre teen.  I can see the appeal to a teen with the sex the scandal the trauma, but as an adult I don't know it wasn't quite as good as I remembered it being.  The series follows the Dollanger family.  4 children, two teens and two younger children who are twins.  The father of the family dies and with no where to go the mother takes the four children back to her childhood home.  The children had never been there before and the grandmother and mother send them to the attic in the middle of the night when they arrive.  The children learn their grandfather knows nothing about them and the mother tells them she has to win back his love before they can leave.  This is supposed to be for days or weeks but turns into years.  During those years the children suffer all sorts of abuse and become their own sort of family with an incestuous relationship forming between the oldest two.  The second book follows the children's lives when they escape from the attic/ grandmothers home although much has changed for them.  At this point only 3 of the 4 remain and we now follow them through trying to make their life goals and dreams happen.  This is the part that bothered me was that after all they had gone through it was so simple for them to then simply get what they needed and wanted next.  The third book follows the two young sons of the main character, Cathy and how all the family secrets and history affects them.  The fourth book is about the whole family when Cathy's children are grown up and they have inherited the home the Dollanger's once lived in the attic of.  The last book is a prequel and tells the young adult story of the grandmother who was an evil character for all four of the first books but is now the main character whom the reader finds sympathy for.

The Silver Star by Jeanette Walls  I really like this author and though this book was not on my to read list, when I saw it at the library I grabbed it immediately.  The story if of two sisters, one 15 and one 12, whose mother essentially abandons them and how they get themselves to their uncles home and then their coming of age story during this hard time.  I liked the overall story and plot line but I couldn't really get into the story and I don't think I liked the ending as it just seemed abrupt and like there should have been more.

Becoming Sister Wives  by The Brown Family  This is the true story of the Brown Family.  A husband with 4 wives.  They have a show on TLC.  I like the show a lot and didn't know they had a book so when I saw it at the library I checked it out.  I liked the book, divided into different sections with a chapter by each of the wives and also by Kody, the husband.  I think like everyone else I find the concept of polygamy fascinating and while the FLDS religion and practices makes me sick, I see the Browns as a very loving family with just a different belief system then my own, and I should clarify they are not part of the FLDS.  I didn't learn a whole lot from the book that I didn't already know from the TV show, but there were some stories I didn't know and they went into much greater detail of their stories of how they all met one another.  I also didn't know that one of the wives had actually somewhat left the family at some point and was considering making that permanent.  I'm glad that didn't happen and that they were able to work things out.  Overall not the best book I've ever written but a nice break and interesting to learn a little more about this TV family.

Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon  This is the story of a 6 year old child who is abducted by someone wearing a rabbit suit.  The only witness, the main character Rhonda, watches as this happens. The story weaves in past details of Rhonda's childhood and suspicion of who could have been in the rabbit suit is moved from character to character.  Overall I like the suspense this author creates, but I don't think I liked the ultimate ending of the story.  And while there were several stories really going on at the same time, they never really felt like they wound their way back to connecting to each other.

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian  Loved this book.  Love this author.  This story goes back and forth from 2012 New York, with main character Laura who is Armenian, to 1915 Syria where a war is going on.  The story moves back and forth giving just bits and pieces at a time with the reader frantically turning the pages to get the next piece to the puzzle.  As a reader reading from what is present day, we sometimes get pieces to the puzzle before switching back to the past events story.  I really loved the way Bohjalian told the women's story and realities of war and love.  Great read.  

Divergent by Veronica Roth  This is the first in yet another teen series about the future where the world looks very different.  This is about Beatrice who lives in the area that used to be Chicago in the future where her community is divided into factions.  There are 5 factions and at age 16 every young adult takes an aptitude test of sorts to see which faction they are best suited for.  They still then have the choice, at a choosing ceremony, to decide which faction they will ultimately choose.  It's rare for the teens to choose a faction outside of their own though since it means they will have very limited contact with their original families as the factions don't tend to be involved with one another.  This was the first of a trilogy so I'll have more to say next month when I finish the other two.

March 10

We Are Water by Wally Lamb  I love this author and was so excited to see he had a new book out.  It did not disappoint.  I really loved the book from start to finish.  This author has a way of telling a story within a story within a story... While I think there was a lot of detail to this book and possibly not all of it necessary to each character's growth, when I try to think of what to have edited out I'm just not sure.

The story is about a woman who after almost 30 years of marriage leaves her husband and is now getting married to another woman.  We get to read the effects of this from her and his narration and also of their 3 adult children.  While the novel begins with the weekend of their wedding, the book goes pretty far back in history to narrate the story at points and we also get a glimpse at the future by the end.

I loved reading about the ways the traumas of our childhoods and the mysteries of adulthood can come together in life.  I had a couple issues with the ending few chapters of the book but I also can see why the author made the choices he made.  Overall a great book with so many stories within the story and I can't wait for his next novel.

Lucky in the Corner by Carol Anshaw  Not the best writing.  Also some parts of this book were really unrealistic.  This was a story about a young woman trying to navigate life in her early 20s.  Lucky is her dog that has been her dog since childhood but is now nearing the end of his doggy years.  The main character is living at home with her mother and her mother's partner after her parents divorced when she was in middle school.  She is attending a local community college at which her mother teaches.  She also finds solace in her uncle who is also a drag queen.  Her father has remarried and has new children and she seems lost in the midst of all these grown ups who have changed so much in front of her.  I really related to the basic plot of the story of the dog being with her for all these changes and what it meant to grieve the loss of the dog and find her way in the world.  I wish the book had been stronger in some of the twists and turns it took and that the writing had been a bit better, but the concept sold me enough that I don't regret reading it at all.

Family Pictures by Jane Green  Not so sure about this author anymore.  Her books are good easy light reads but the descriptions portray more interesting plot lines then what actually happens.  The story line ideas seem unique but never seem to come together quite the way they could to make the books stronger.  The stories also then seem to turn in unexpected, but entirely unrealistic ways.  This story was about two women each raising their children as almost single parents and the twist that brings them together.  The man is leading a double life and very quickly the reader learns that the two woman share a husband/ father to their children.  On it's own the plot line seems strong but the way the writer tells the story just didn't match what I was looking for.

The Most Wanted by Jacquelyn Mitchard  I'm still torn on this book.  I like the author and I think she is a strong writer but each of her books is just so different it's hard to get a read of who she is as an author.  This was the story of a young girl in Texas who becomes pen pals with a prisoner which leads to an odd love affair.  The story is told from the girl's perspective and with glimpses to the future thrown in as she looks back and shares her past story.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding  Bridget Jones will always hold such a dear place in my heart.  The first two books were so great.  I was sad to learn (no spoiler here this is on the jacket) that Mark Darcy had died and now Bridget is a widow raising their two children in this book.  I think it was a bold choice by the author to kill off the love of Bridget's life. The book was as funny as it was sad at first but in true Bridget Jones fashion she shows her bravery and her survival skills even in the most embarrassing or tragic situations.

The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure and The Kill Order by James Dashner  Well this was an interesting series.  The first book starts with the main character waking in a box and being lifted into a new environment.  We follow him through his first few days in a complex community of young adults only and strange events that occur.  As he learns about his new world even stranger things begin to happen and some of his companions begin to think he is the reason behind things though he has no memory of anything that happened before coming into the new environment.  Through the series of all 4 books we learn that the earth had been through solar flares which has divided people into two categories.  Those with what is called the Flare and those without.  The characters are being put through challenges to determine the best outcome for those without the immunity to the flare disease.  Basically another teen series about the future and how the need for the human race to continue on after some disaster or another.  I liked the series enough and think it was really good at creating a visual picture of what was going on.  The only part I disliked was the fourth book which was the prequel to the series.  For whatever reason after racing through the first 3 books to see what would happen next, I just was not interested in the last one.  It never really grabbed me the way the rest of the series did.

This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman  Interesting concept for a book but ultimately somewhat forgettable.  The story if of a family recently moved to a more wealthy part of New York City.  The teenage son winds up in a social media sex scandal while the family is already going through the process of change from their big move.  I think the concept of the story is going to become more and more relevant abut something about it fell a little flat for me.

February- 4

The Paternity Test by Michael Lowenthal  This book was not on my to read list but I saw it in the new books section at the library and to be honest the cover got my attention.  This was the story about two men who are pursuing parenting through surrogacy.  The men move from their city living style to more isolated suburban living but the book tells of their trial to change their lifestyle and decide ultimately what they want from their relationship and their lives.  I liked the honest start to this book and the way the fathers fears of parenthood and giving up bachelorhood to be parents and to be monogamous with one another was portrayed.  The book lost me a little somewhere in the middle where it started to get a little soap opera like and took a whole new direction.  That being said the ending was as truthful as the beginning and though I don't feel like I got the story I was expecting, I think it's possible the characters went where they were supposed to go.

Big Brother by Lionel Shriver  Hmm this is a hard one for me.  I really like this author and the way she challenges me as a reader.  I was very upset when I finished this book.  Very upset with the ending (that I do not want to ruin in anyway as it was a shocker) but after thinking on it for even just a few hours that day I actually think the author is a genius.  This is the story of a woman and her family.  Her older brother comes to visit and has gained a lot of weight, morbidly obese kind of weight.  The story then shares how this woman's life is affected by balancing work, attempting to help her brother, her marriage, and being a step parent.  The overall message in the story is about the choices we make as we balance all our roles in life.  We never know when we make the choices we make what the outcome will be.  The lesson I took is that sometimes you have to make a choice and you can't always know what that outcome will be so you make the best choice you can and then later in life sometimes you can see maybe the other option would have been better but then again you can't rewrite the story at that point and things could still turn out exactly the same with just a different path getting you there.

News From Heaven by Jennifer Haigh  I really liked this collection of short stories.  They all took place in a coal mining fictional town in Pennsylvania over the course of many decades.  There were some overlaps in characters from one story to the next but mostly with background characters which just made it a nice transition from one story to the next.  There were certainly some stories that were better then others but overall this was a relatable book and I got invested quickly with the characters.  The stories were often nothing spectacular, just short stories about everyday people but the authors way of getting the reader to see these characters as more was what made me like this book.

I am No One You Know by Joyce Carol Oates  Not my favorite JCO book but a nice collection of short stories.  It also wasn't very memorable.  I think the common theme in all the stories was relationships within a family.  The thing for me always with a book of short stories is that the author both gets me quickly invested in the characters but also wraps them up at the end of the story so I'm not wanting more.  I think with the good stories that I liked in this book I just kept wanting more and with the ones I didn't like I just never got invested in the plot.

January 2014- 6

Emily Alone by Stewart O'Nan  This was a follow up to a book I read, I believe last month, by the same author called Wish You Were Here.  This story follows the matriarch of the other novel, Emily, who is a widower nearing the end of her life and looking back on the life she has lived and forward to the time she has left.  Her main companion, her sister in law, has a significant health problem at the beginning of the story and Emily is forced into more time alone then she has had in years.  She is also forced into more independence as her sister in law is unavailable to drive her around and help her in the way she used to.  I liked the novel a lot since the character was still fresh in my mind and while in the first book there were many narrators which gave the reader a more negative view of this character, in this novel she was the sole narrator and this gave me a as a reader the opportunity to see her in a new way and find empathy for her character.  I can see why the author chose to revisit this character many years after the first novel was published, she did indeed seem to be an unfinished character.

Cage of Stars by Jacquelyn Mitchard  This book was about a young mormon woman who found her two youngest sisters dead after a mentally ill man winds up on her family's property and murders them. She narrates the story of her parents forgiving the man and moving on with their lives, having two sons after the deaths and moving their family forward.  The narrator though, Ronnie, cannot forgive and move forward and instead begins to try to figure out how to seek revenge on the man who killed her sisters and destroyed her family.  She follows this man out to San Diego where he and his family move after he is rehabilitated in a state mental institution and then released.  She goes to EMT school after graduating high school early but is leading a double life while she is in school and figuring out how to seek revenge on the man who killed her sisters.

I liked this author from another book of hers I read some time ago but I didn't really like this book.  It was flat and the character jumped all over the time and kept alluding to the big event that would happen and it just didn't flow right.  I actually felt like it read like a young adult novel, which there is nothing wrong with, and I now find it interesting that in going to the authors website to link the book, she does in fact write young adult novels.  It seemed to lack the character development and plot I remember from her other novel.  I'll probably still give another of her novels a try before giving up on her but I wish I had read something else of her's and not this one.

Ten Girls to Watch by Charity Shumway  I really liked this book, especially for at least 2/3rds of it and the concept of it.  This was about a young woman in New York trying to make it as a write.  She winds up getting a temporary job writing an anniversary edition article for a magazine that yearly put out a 10 girls to watch article.  Her task is to find previous winners and see where their lives are now.  I liked the concept a lot and that this woman was a strong character.  The uniqueness of each chapter discovering past winners of the contest and seeing where they were 10-50 years later was really interesting.  Seeing how lives unfold and not always in the way one thinks they will through fictional characters was unique.  For me the story lost it's positive storyline when it went too far in the romance direction and went from strong female role model message to, you need a man to be complete message.  Pretty disappointing.

Marriage Matters by Cynthia Ellingson  So here's the deal, I'm getting married in July and now when I go to the library and I see books with wedding related themes I grab them up.  I must stop doing this.  What a silly story this was.  I should really have stopped reading it.  While I appreciated the author's effort on getting us interested in the characters, the plot was so unrealistic it was impossible to imagine this happening.  Three generations of women, one widowed grandmother, one unhappily married mother and one single granddaughter.  All are suddenly planning wedding like ceremonies and decide to have one big happy ceremony all together.  It was just a bit much.  And I think honestly that each of the 3 stories on their own might have been okay but the combination all together just did not work for me.

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight  What a story.  From the beginning you know that Amelia a young high schooler is dead and her single mother is trying to piece together and solve the mystery of her death.  We have the mother narrating from the present time and we have Amelia narrating in the past through her diary entries and text messages.  I really liked the story and the ending was not as typical as I had predicted it to be.  The writer wrote this in such a way that even knowing the girl is dead from the beginning of the novel, I kept wishing for some surprise change that would bring her back to life or even some twisted ending where she wasn't dead after all.

The Silent Wife by Asa Harrison  Another really suspenseful good read this month.  I threw this book on the ground after I read it but after thinking about it for a few hours after I realized that I actually really liked the book and how it ended.  It's a his her's tale told both ways until the husband is dead.  In hearing back and forth from the characters as a reader the sympathy moves back and forth with them until things take an odd twist with the husband not just being a cheater but having knocked up a younger college girl who happens to be the daughter of his best friend.  The husband winds up dead and the rest of the novel follows the possibility of the wife having killed him.  Overall I had some mixed feelings on this story but I liked the writing and I do think it's a worthwhile read.