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.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Sunday, March 16, 2014
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.
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.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
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.
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.
Friday, January 10, 2014
December- 7
Beyond Belief by Jenna Miscavige Hill What a story. This book is the true story of the niece of the current head of scientology. She has left the group as an adult but grew up in the church and shares her personal story of a childhood stolen from her and of her transition to the outside world. I haven't been a fan of scientology and have felt it was borderline cult for some time. After reading this book I am more then ever convinced of what a terrible group this is. It is worrisome to think that people get sucked in to this belief system and made me sad to think about what the believers had to gain from joining this group. I truly am impressed at the courage this woman had to speak out and share her story and her family's story. She has survived quite an ordeal and I hope she can now lead a more peaceful adult life.
The Pretty One by Lucinda Rosenfeld It's possible my expectations for this book were too high. I felt disappointed as it has been on my list for some time and I really thought based on what I had heard about it and read in the reviews that it would be great. The story is about 3 sisters and their roles in their family system. We follow them as adults struggling to help their aging parents and manage their own lives. I liked the writers style but I just felt the story was a little flat. It seemed to have potential but never really went anywhere for me. I got invested in the characters because the author gave so much to them, but took much time explaining them and suddenly the book had ended. Overall not a bad read but I think I just missed the point and for me the book wasn't that memorable.
Wish You Were Here by Stewart O'Nan I like this author and hadn't read a book of his in awhile. This one has also been on my list for some time. It's the story of a family returning to their summer cottage for one last time. The family matriarch, Emily, has decided to sell now that her children are grown up, her grandkids are getting older, and she has been widowed. With her two grown children and four grandchildren and sister in law she heads to the cottage one last time to say goodbye. The book is narrated by each member of the family at different points and is broken into sections by days of the week that they are at the cottage. I liked the different narrators especially given that their were 3 generations of the family at the house. The sister in law also had her own memories of her childhood coming to the cottage with her brother and parents as it was their family cottage which gave the environment more dimension as well. The cottage was located on a lake in a small town that was going through it's own changes with developments and closings of pastime favorites such as the local mini golf course. The family is going through it's own growing pains with each member of the family reliving their memories in the cottage at different stages in their lives. We also see each member of the family evaluating their futures and what their family will look like without the patriarch and what that means for each family member.
Something else interesting to me is that we first meet Emily, the matriarch, as narrator and the author aligns the reader with the character but from that point forward you get a negative representation of this character from each other member of the family. It's clear they love her as their sister in law, mother, grandmother but it's also clear they all have issues with her personality. I found myself wondering throughout the book about this deliberate choice by the author. Overall I really liked the story and the growth of each character. I think the decision to only follow the family for one week was a good one but also left me as the reader wanting to know more but on the last hand just made so much sense in terms of what the author was trying to convey to us as readers.
Jeneration X by Jen Lancaster This author has been on my list for some time, not sure how she got on it. I liked the book enough, it's her own take on becoming an adult after already being one in age for some years. I liked her personal stories and I loved the sarcasm and the humor. I guess my problem is that it's about a month later that I'm writing this and I can't quite remember the book that well. It was basically a rant on things in life that bother the author and it was cute but it just had no real substance to it. I'm willing to give her another shot though and try another of her books because while I may not remember exactly what I read, I do remember smiling and laughing throughout the book which is telling in a different way.
The Week Before the Wedding by Beth Kendrick Again not my best pick. I must stop getting sucked in just because the word "wedding" is on a book. This was the story of a woman about to marry for the second time but running into her first husband during her wedding week. It was way too romance novel and unbelievable and over the top for me. The twist and turns didn't really make sense and I didn't really like the direction the author was steering us in as readers. The book was very predictable and just really didn't hold my attention throughout. It takes a lot for me to stop reading a book once I've started and while I didn't do that here, I was glad when I was done reading the book.
Left Neglected by Lisa Genova Really liking this author lately and her writing style. This book was about a high powered career woman balancing family and work until a tragic accident leaves her no choice but to focus on herself. She is in a bad car accident and while she survives she has a traumatic brain injury that literally leaves her neglected the left, hence the title. I had no idea this condition existed, while this book was fiction this condition is very real and was so interesting to read about. When the narrator wakes from the accident she can't see or feel or understand the existence of left. It was such a hard concept to grasp at first and I found myself throughout the book really trying to think about what this would mean for an individual and how it would feel to have this condition. While I liked the way the story was told and the forced reevaluation of life and having to go with the changes this accident made happen for the narrator, I disliked the eventual end of the book. It got a little too predictable and I wish it had gone in a different direction. The other thing I liked was the underlying story of the narrators own family history and the way the accident helped her to repair her relationship with her own mother.
The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian This book was scary. I don't usually do scary. You will not find me at a scary movie. You will not even find me at home watching a scary movie. I really like this author so even though this book was a ghost story I still added it to my list. It also seemed to me from reading what it was about that it would be more suspenseful and borderline witch crafty then as ghost story as it was. It's the story of an airplane captain who's plan crashes into a lake when birds fly into the engines and he attempts to land the plan like Sully Sullenberger did on the Hudson river. His attempt however is not successful and 39 of the 40 something passengers die. The captain and his family move from their suburban home to a small town in the mountains to give him a peaceful place to recover from the trauma. He has a wife and twin young daughters who move with him. The house they find is an old house that needs work and that used to be the home of a set of twin boys, one of whom is thought to have killed himself in his teens. The basement has a locked door with 39 carriage bolt locks. The town also has "herbalists" who the reader soon finds out are thought to be witches.
It was a complex story and it took awhile to merge the two stories together. The story of the airplane captain dealing with his trauma and the story of the family moving to a new town and the potential influence of witchcraft. I really liked each story separately but felt that even once they merged together it turned in a direction I was not expecting, nor wanting the story to go. I also hated the ending. I had predicted a different ending and perhaps got caught in that and then when the story took a different route I was significantly disappointed. I do think though the author did a great job telling a ghost story and keeping the reader guessing and in suspense the entire way through the book.
The Pretty One by Lucinda Rosenfeld It's possible my expectations for this book were too high. I felt disappointed as it has been on my list for some time and I really thought based on what I had heard about it and read in the reviews that it would be great. The story is about 3 sisters and their roles in their family system. We follow them as adults struggling to help their aging parents and manage their own lives. I liked the writers style but I just felt the story was a little flat. It seemed to have potential but never really went anywhere for me. I got invested in the characters because the author gave so much to them, but took much time explaining them and suddenly the book had ended. Overall not a bad read but I think I just missed the point and for me the book wasn't that memorable.
Wish You Were Here by Stewart O'Nan I like this author and hadn't read a book of his in awhile. This one has also been on my list for some time. It's the story of a family returning to their summer cottage for one last time. The family matriarch, Emily, has decided to sell now that her children are grown up, her grandkids are getting older, and she has been widowed. With her two grown children and four grandchildren and sister in law she heads to the cottage one last time to say goodbye. The book is narrated by each member of the family at different points and is broken into sections by days of the week that they are at the cottage. I liked the different narrators especially given that their were 3 generations of the family at the house. The sister in law also had her own memories of her childhood coming to the cottage with her brother and parents as it was their family cottage which gave the environment more dimension as well. The cottage was located on a lake in a small town that was going through it's own changes with developments and closings of pastime favorites such as the local mini golf course. The family is going through it's own growing pains with each member of the family reliving their memories in the cottage at different stages in their lives. We also see each member of the family evaluating their futures and what their family will look like without the patriarch and what that means for each family member.
Something else interesting to me is that we first meet Emily, the matriarch, as narrator and the author aligns the reader with the character but from that point forward you get a negative representation of this character from each other member of the family. It's clear they love her as their sister in law, mother, grandmother but it's also clear they all have issues with her personality. I found myself wondering throughout the book about this deliberate choice by the author. Overall I really liked the story and the growth of each character. I think the decision to only follow the family for one week was a good one but also left me as the reader wanting to know more but on the last hand just made so much sense in terms of what the author was trying to convey to us as readers.
Jeneration X by Jen Lancaster This author has been on my list for some time, not sure how she got on it. I liked the book enough, it's her own take on becoming an adult after already being one in age for some years. I liked her personal stories and I loved the sarcasm and the humor. I guess my problem is that it's about a month later that I'm writing this and I can't quite remember the book that well. It was basically a rant on things in life that bother the author and it was cute but it just had no real substance to it. I'm willing to give her another shot though and try another of her books because while I may not remember exactly what I read, I do remember smiling and laughing throughout the book which is telling in a different way.
The Week Before the Wedding by Beth Kendrick Again not my best pick. I must stop getting sucked in just because the word "wedding" is on a book. This was the story of a woman about to marry for the second time but running into her first husband during her wedding week. It was way too romance novel and unbelievable and over the top for me. The twist and turns didn't really make sense and I didn't really like the direction the author was steering us in as readers. The book was very predictable and just really didn't hold my attention throughout. It takes a lot for me to stop reading a book once I've started and while I didn't do that here, I was glad when I was done reading the book.
Left Neglected by Lisa Genova Really liking this author lately and her writing style. This book was about a high powered career woman balancing family and work until a tragic accident leaves her no choice but to focus on herself. She is in a bad car accident and while she survives she has a traumatic brain injury that literally leaves her neglected the left, hence the title. I had no idea this condition existed, while this book was fiction this condition is very real and was so interesting to read about. When the narrator wakes from the accident she can't see or feel or understand the existence of left. It was such a hard concept to grasp at first and I found myself throughout the book really trying to think about what this would mean for an individual and how it would feel to have this condition. While I liked the way the story was told and the forced reevaluation of life and having to go with the changes this accident made happen for the narrator, I disliked the eventual end of the book. It got a little too predictable and I wish it had gone in a different direction. The other thing I liked was the underlying story of the narrators own family history and the way the accident helped her to repair her relationship with her own mother.
The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian This book was scary. I don't usually do scary. You will not find me at a scary movie. You will not even find me at home watching a scary movie. I really like this author so even though this book was a ghost story I still added it to my list. It also seemed to me from reading what it was about that it would be more suspenseful and borderline witch crafty then as ghost story as it was. It's the story of an airplane captain who's plan crashes into a lake when birds fly into the engines and he attempts to land the plan like Sully Sullenberger did on the Hudson river. His attempt however is not successful and 39 of the 40 something passengers die. The captain and his family move from their suburban home to a small town in the mountains to give him a peaceful place to recover from the trauma. He has a wife and twin young daughters who move with him. The house they find is an old house that needs work and that used to be the home of a set of twin boys, one of whom is thought to have killed himself in his teens. The basement has a locked door with 39 carriage bolt locks. The town also has "herbalists" who the reader soon finds out are thought to be witches.
It was a complex story and it took awhile to merge the two stories together. The story of the airplane captain dealing with his trauma and the story of the family moving to a new town and the potential influence of witchcraft. I really liked each story separately but felt that even once they merged together it turned in a direction I was not expecting, nor wanting the story to go. I also hated the ending. I had predicted a different ending and perhaps got caught in that and then when the story took a different route I was significantly disappointed. I do think though the author did a great job telling a ghost story and keeping the reader guessing and in suspense the entire way through the book.
November- 9
The Concubine's Children by Denise Chong I like this author and reading about the Asian culture. I did not realize however when picking up this book that this was a non fiction work of her's telling her family's story. Her mother was the child of a her grandfather and his concubine, her grandmother. She shares the story of their marriage and her mother's childhood and then her own eventual birth and relationship with her parents and grandparents. I liked how the story wove it's way through several generations and countries with both a wife in China and a wife in Vancouver Canada. It was interesting to see the effects of multiple wives on a family and to face the reality of how it led to consequences across several generations. Though this book wasn't quite what I expected to be getting, I like this author and appreciated her willingness to share her family's deeply personal story.
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn Love this author. Love the ability she has to keep you guessing as a reader. Just as you think, here's what will happen next, it goes in a totally different direction. This author's ability to keep me turning the pages almost literally from start to finish is just amazing. The plot of this story was about a young woman who's family was murdered when she was a young child. She and her brother are the only survivors, her mother and sisters were found dead. Her father was in and out of the picture but was somehow cleared and her brother is charged with the murders and has been in jail since he was a teen and she was a small child. She testified against him as a small child. Now years later the money she collected as a child from generous people who felt bad for what happened to her is running out and she isn't sure what she will do as she has never been able to be a productive member of society.
She get's an offer from a club that investigates high profile cases and is able to make money by helping them to reinvestigate the murder case of her family since the public opinion seems to be that her brother was innocent. As she continues to stir up her past and unbury memories she had kept away for years she has to confront her past and what it will mean for her future. I loved the book but really did not like the ending. Although I was kept guessing the whole time and liked that it was unpredictable it just didn't seem realistic for me.
Her: A Memoir by Christa Parravani I'm not sure if I realized when I put this book on my list that it was non fiction. I don't know how I could have missed that part of it but I either did or I forgot. It's the story of Identical twins, both creative and one who struggles with addiction. The author's sister, Cara, is raped and sinks back into her drug addiction until she unfortunately loses the battle to death. This is the story of both the sisters and also of the author trying to continue living her life when her twin's life has stopped. I found the family relationships, addiction, and trauma pieces extremely fascinating. I found myself asking questions I never would have thought of as I was reading through the book about the relationships we form with others. Losses are not measurable, but I cannot imagine the pain and suffering the author has gone through with living without her twin, and I so appreciated the author's brutal honesty in sharing her unique story.
A Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama I'm still torn on this book. I liked the various stories within the story but also found it hard to follow and feel like if the author had focused in more on a central plot it would have been easier to follow. The book changes narrators frequently which added to the several stories happening at once and confusion of following. The story takes place in the late 1950s in China during the Mao years. The country is asked to provide new ideas and thought but then punished for doing so. One man who is punished is the father in the story who is imprisoned far from the family. His young son, a year into his imprisonment, climbs a tree in the front of the house and falls out badly injuring himself. The story then shares what each family member and a close family friend is experiencing and remembering during this changing time in their country. We hear the story of the grandfather of the story and his guilt for what is the climax of the story. We hear the story of the family friend and how she came to be involved with the family and her past story which has allowed her to later in life understand the meaning of family. We hear from the mother who has the burden of worrying about her son's injury and also about the whereabouts of her husband and what his imprisonment means for their family as a whole. We also hear hear from the son himself and see the confusion of a young child missing his father and having his whole world turned upside down. Overall I always like this author's way of writing, I'm just not sure this is or will be my most favorite of her books.
Smart Girls Like Me by Diane Vadino I can see why I added this book to my list but I think it must have been added years ago when I was in a very different place in my life. The plot is about a woman fearing disaster at the end of 1999 as we cross into 2000. The woman's best friend is getting married and she is not even in a relationship at the time. They are living in New York in their mid 20s and working on figuring out who they are and what they want out of life. I felt for the character's anxiety of losing friendships to marriages and being left out. I liked the literal "world is ending" timing. And I found the book and it's characters funny and easy to sympathize with. For me though, this is a book I should have read years ago when it was easier to relate. Now, having been through several friends weddings and in the middle of planning my own, I just couldn't relate on the same level anymore.
Carry The One by Carol Anshaw What an amazing concept for a story. This story follows the lives of a group of family and friends united in one tragic event. One of the sisters in the family gets married and as her sister and brother and 3 friends leave the wedding in their car to return to the city they collide with a child who unfortunately dies. The story then follows all of their lives, the sister who was not in the car and the siblings that were over the next several decades and shows how this one moment in their young lives changes the course of the future. The story moved fast, packing 30ish years into some 250ish pages. With very minor confusion the story flowed pretty well in spite of how much time was going by. Through births, deaths, love, life they are all carrying this incident with them no matter what happens. I really liked the concept and the story lines could have gone in so many directions but for the most part I found the ways they did go to be successful and realistic for the characters. Definitely adding more books from this author to my list.
Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella So I'm in the midst of planning my own wedding and while I'm trying not to get so caught up in that that I lose sight of, well, everything else, I seem to recently have an eye drawn to anything wedding related, books of course included. I also have read this author in the past and while I haven't thought her works to be great pieces of fiction they do serve a simple purpose. The story is about two sisters, the younger one who thought she was being proposed to but was asked on a trip abroad. She then runs into an old boyfriend with whom she had a pact to marry at age 30 if neither had married by then. They decide to marry, quickly, and her older sister spends the book trying to prevent this from happening. The story was just too cutesy for me and over the top. It needed to be reined it but just kept more and more silly.
Empress Orchid by Anchee Min What a story. The author did a fantastic job of really painting such a picture for the reader using her words. The story is about a young girl who goes from being any young girl to the last empress of China. We are taken on the ride as she goes through the process of becoming one of hundreds of concubines to empress. The forbidden city details from her entering the city to it's total destruction are incredible. I also enjoyed reading about the good and bad of the relationships the concubines had with one another. The one part of the book that got a little confusing was that it took place over so much time. This made it a little difficult to follow at different points but it was easy enough to catch up as the author guided the reader through. I'm fairly certain this is a two book series and am looking forward to reading the next book.
Ninety Days by Bill Clegg I really liked this book. It's the true story of the author after getting clean and sober and struggling to stay that way. It shares his efforts to stay clean and sober for 90 days. We follow the author as he struggles to find a place to live, meet new social supports, and fight the hardest battle, to stay away from alcohol and drugs. What I liked was the honesty the author was willing to share with the reader. We don't get a rosy version of his first 90 days and the happy life he leads after he is clean. We get the gritty details of the struggle and the slip ups that occur that lead to having to restart the count to 90 days. We also get to know other "characters" that the author meets at his NA meetings who are going through similar struggles and see from the author's perspective their storeis as well.
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn Love this author. Love the ability she has to keep you guessing as a reader. Just as you think, here's what will happen next, it goes in a totally different direction. This author's ability to keep me turning the pages almost literally from start to finish is just amazing. The plot of this story was about a young woman who's family was murdered when she was a young child. She and her brother are the only survivors, her mother and sisters were found dead. Her father was in and out of the picture but was somehow cleared and her brother is charged with the murders and has been in jail since he was a teen and she was a small child. She testified against him as a small child. Now years later the money she collected as a child from generous people who felt bad for what happened to her is running out and she isn't sure what she will do as she has never been able to be a productive member of society.
She get's an offer from a club that investigates high profile cases and is able to make money by helping them to reinvestigate the murder case of her family since the public opinion seems to be that her brother was innocent. As she continues to stir up her past and unbury memories she had kept away for years she has to confront her past and what it will mean for her future. I loved the book but really did not like the ending. Although I was kept guessing the whole time and liked that it was unpredictable it just didn't seem realistic for me.
Her: A Memoir by Christa Parravani I'm not sure if I realized when I put this book on my list that it was non fiction. I don't know how I could have missed that part of it but I either did or I forgot. It's the story of Identical twins, both creative and one who struggles with addiction. The author's sister, Cara, is raped and sinks back into her drug addiction until she unfortunately loses the battle to death. This is the story of both the sisters and also of the author trying to continue living her life when her twin's life has stopped. I found the family relationships, addiction, and trauma pieces extremely fascinating. I found myself asking questions I never would have thought of as I was reading through the book about the relationships we form with others. Losses are not measurable, but I cannot imagine the pain and suffering the author has gone through with living without her twin, and I so appreciated the author's brutal honesty in sharing her unique story.
A Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama I'm still torn on this book. I liked the various stories within the story but also found it hard to follow and feel like if the author had focused in more on a central plot it would have been easier to follow. The book changes narrators frequently which added to the several stories happening at once and confusion of following. The story takes place in the late 1950s in China during the Mao years. The country is asked to provide new ideas and thought but then punished for doing so. One man who is punished is the father in the story who is imprisoned far from the family. His young son, a year into his imprisonment, climbs a tree in the front of the house and falls out badly injuring himself. The story then shares what each family member and a close family friend is experiencing and remembering during this changing time in their country. We hear the story of the grandfather of the story and his guilt for what is the climax of the story. We hear the story of the family friend and how she came to be involved with the family and her past story which has allowed her to later in life understand the meaning of family. We hear from the mother who has the burden of worrying about her son's injury and also about the whereabouts of her husband and what his imprisonment means for their family as a whole. We also hear hear from the son himself and see the confusion of a young child missing his father and having his whole world turned upside down. Overall I always like this author's way of writing, I'm just not sure this is or will be my most favorite of her books.
Smart Girls Like Me by Diane Vadino I can see why I added this book to my list but I think it must have been added years ago when I was in a very different place in my life. The plot is about a woman fearing disaster at the end of 1999 as we cross into 2000. The woman's best friend is getting married and she is not even in a relationship at the time. They are living in New York in their mid 20s and working on figuring out who they are and what they want out of life. I felt for the character's anxiety of losing friendships to marriages and being left out. I liked the literal "world is ending" timing. And I found the book and it's characters funny and easy to sympathize with. For me though, this is a book I should have read years ago when it was easier to relate. Now, having been through several friends weddings and in the middle of planning my own, I just couldn't relate on the same level anymore.
Carry The One by Carol Anshaw What an amazing concept for a story. This story follows the lives of a group of family and friends united in one tragic event. One of the sisters in the family gets married and as her sister and brother and 3 friends leave the wedding in their car to return to the city they collide with a child who unfortunately dies. The story then follows all of their lives, the sister who was not in the car and the siblings that were over the next several decades and shows how this one moment in their young lives changes the course of the future. The story moved fast, packing 30ish years into some 250ish pages. With very minor confusion the story flowed pretty well in spite of how much time was going by. Through births, deaths, love, life they are all carrying this incident with them no matter what happens. I really liked the concept and the story lines could have gone in so many directions but for the most part I found the ways they did go to be successful and realistic for the characters. Definitely adding more books from this author to my list.
Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella So I'm in the midst of planning my own wedding and while I'm trying not to get so caught up in that that I lose sight of, well, everything else, I seem to recently have an eye drawn to anything wedding related, books of course included. I also have read this author in the past and while I haven't thought her works to be great pieces of fiction they do serve a simple purpose. The story is about two sisters, the younger one who thought she was being proposed to but was asked on a trip abroad. She then runs into an old boyfriend with whom she had a pact to marry at age 30 if neither had married by then. They decide to marry, quickly, and her older sister spends the book trying to prevent this from happening. The story was just too cutesy for me and over the top. It needed to be reined it but just kept more and more silly.
Empress Orchid by Anchee Min What a story. The author did a fantastic job of really painting such a picture for the reader using her words. The story is about a young girl who goes from being any young girl to the last empress of China. We are taken on the ride as she goes through the process of becoming one of hundreds of concubines to empress. The forbidden city details from her entering the city to it's total destruction are incredible. I also enjoyed reading about the good and bad of the relationships the concubines had with one another. The one part of the book that got a little confusing was that it took place over so much time. This made it a little difficult to follow at different points but it was easy enough to catch up as the author guided the reader through. I'm fairly certain this is a two book series and am looking forward to reading the next book.
Ninety Days by Bill Clegg I really liked this book. It's the true story of the author after getting clean and sober and struggling to stay that way. It shares his efforts to stay clean and sober for 90 days. We follow the author as he struggles to find a place to live, meet new social supports, and fight the hardest battle, to stay away from alcohol and drugs. What I liked was the honesty the author was willing to share with the reader. We don't get a rosy version of his first 90 days and the happy life he leads after he is clean. We get the gritty details of the struggle and the slip ups that occur that lead to having to restart the count to 90 days. We also get to know other "characters" that the author meets at his NA meetings who are going through similar struggles and see from the author's perspective their storeis as well.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
October- 7
And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini Great book. Love this author and was thrilled to get another book from him. The worst part of his books is reading them so quickly and trying to slow down but not being able to and then being sad when they are over and done. This story takes us through several generations and literally across the globe. Each section is narrated by a different character and each story weaves into the overall story. We never hear from the same narrator twice but the story continues with each new story teller. The novel centers around an Afghan family and the twists and turns of their lives. As always the author does a great job with taking the reader through the historical aspects of the times the characters are going through. Even though each character narrates only for a piece of the book, the reader easily falls for each character and is invested in the story right from the start. I was nervous about how the book would end, and though it saddened me, it was definitely fitting.
The White by Deborah Larsen A coworker left this book for me to read and I did like it but I'm not sure on the writing style. The story is about a white woman captured by Indians in 1758 and her story of capture and assimilation into their culture while always being different. I liked the way the author portrayed the difficulty in being caught between different worlds and the victim aligning with her kidnappers. I did not like the graphic violence, which may have been why I disliked the writing style. Overall an interesting quick read.
The Time of My Life by Cecilia Ahern Did not like this book. Maybe my expectations for it were too high given how much I liked "P.S. I love you," another of the author's novels. This novel was about a young woman who gets a letter from "life" and has to start meeting with it regularly to work on all the areas in her life that are going wrong or are stuck. The problem for me is that I interpreted this as "life" but it really was life. I kept waiting for the metaphor to turn into something but instead it was too literal and not really explained as to how this can be. Was it a future world or different world where this sort of thing exists? Was it a metaphor? I really have no clue. I got the overall concept of putting all the pieces back together again and sorting through messes that you make in your 20s, but I was disappointed overall. And I disliked the fairly tale aspect of the story which led, in my opinion, to an unrealistic ending of the story. Still like this author in general so I'll try not to hold this book against her.
Still Alice by Lisa Genova This is the story about a Harvard professor and researcher diagnosed with early on set Alzheimer's at a very early age. The book is narrated throughout by the woman so as her illness progresses it is told in a first person account. I loved the style and I loved the concept. I was furious with the main characters husband who seemed to abandon her in her time of need, but I also took a step back and tried to see things from his point of view as well and see how he was working through his loss. I learned quite a bit too about a disease I know some about but not a whole lot. I also liked the first hand account of the difficulty in making medical decisions. I think the importance of the characters role as a Harvard professor who did research was a key element as well.
Shutterbabe by Deborah Copaken Kogan I really love this author and I'm not sure if I knew when I put this book on the list that this was her biography but I definitely forgot by the time I finally got it from the library but was pleasantly surprised to learn so much more about her. I knew she was both a photographer and a writer, two things I admire greatly. Even knowing she had been a photo journalist before writing her novels, I guess I never really understand what that meant. I like too how she shared her personal accounts across the world and related them to her journey of adulthood from relationship to relationship. I really liked how her identity as a feminist shined throughout the story too. I related near the end of the book when she discussed woman's choices. As feminists we feel we have to make certain choices to align with that identity but what she shares is the idea of us making choices based on what is right for us and/or our families. I found her writing on this extremely helpful right now and appreciated her sharing her deeply personal decisions along the way.
The Last Letter from your Lover by Jojo Moyes This was a story split in two time frames with two different narrators. A married woman wakes with amnesia to start the novel and tries to piece together what her life was like before the accident. She starts finding love letters hidden in her home from someone she guesses she was having an affair with. She starts to piece together what happened before the accident and what her life and marriage was like. She struggles with self identity in an interesting way in being able to discover who she used to be and then decide if that's who she still wants to be. The character ends her part of the narration with a cliff hanger. We then flash forward many years to a young woman working at a newspaper who finds one of the letters from the past and starts to trace it's story as she tells her own. Overall I liked the concept of the novel and I liked the writer's style of creating a story. For me it fell flat though because it was too predictable and too unrealistic with the love stories.
Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld I have to start by saying this book ended up thrown on the floor when I finished it. The ending was just so frustrating to me. I love this author and was so excited to see a new book by her. I love her writing style and this book was no exception to that. I also liked the idea of the plot line of the book. Two twin sisters with "senses" or psychic powers. One who embraces them and her eccentricity and the other, the narrator, who does not and settles down into a seemingly quiet family life as a mother of two small children who stays at home while her professor husband teaches at a local university. The story takes place in St Louis where an earthquake occurs early on in the story. The twin who embraces her psychic abilities then predicts another even bigger earthquake will occur and begins to get national media attention. The story explores the way this affects the narrator and the active choice she has made to re determine her life. The story alternates chapters from the twins childhood to adulthood and then the present day with a potential earthquake coming and the media circus that is happening to them because of the prediction. I had no problem with the book, as in I was liking it enough, even if I wasn't loving it, but then the last 60 pages or so became an absolute soap opera that I was not prepared for. I had spent so much time trying to figure out if the author was going to have the earth quake happen or not but the ending was much more complicated then that and not in a good way. Still have respect for this author but really disappointed in this book.
The White by Deborah Larsen A coworker left this book for me to read and I did like it but I'm not sure on the writing style. The story is about a white woman captured by Indians in 1758 and her story of capture and assimilation into their culture while always being different. I liked the way the author portrayed the difficulty in being caught between different worlds and the victim aligning with her kidnappers. I did not like the graphic violence, which may have been why I disliked the writing style. Overall an interesting quick read.
The Time of My Life by Cecilia Ahern Did not like this book. Maybe my expectations for it were too high given how much I liked "P.S. I love you," another of the author's novels. This novel was about a young woman who gets a letter from "life" and has to start meeting with it regularly to work on all the areas in her life that are going wrong or are stuck. The problem for me is that I interpreted this as "life" but it really was life. I kept waiting for the metaphor to turn into something but instead it was too literal and not really explained as to how this can be. Was it a future world or different world where this sort of thing exists? Was it a metaphor? I really have no clue. I got the overall concept of putting all the pieces back together again and sorting through messes that you make in your 20s, but I was disappointed overall. And I disliked the fairly tale aspect of the story which led, in my opinion, to an unrealistic ending of the story. Still like this author in general so I'll try not to hold this book against her.
Still Alice by Lisa Genova This is the story about a Harvard professor and researcher diagnosed with early on set Alzheimer's at a very early age. The book is narrated throughout by the woman so as her illness progresses it is told in a first person account. I loved the style and I loved the concept. I was furious with the main characters husband who seemed to abandon her in her time of need, but I also took a step back and tried to see things from his point of view as well and see how he was working through his loss. I learned quite a bit too about a disease I know some about but not a whole lot. I also liked the first hand account of the difficulty in making medical decisions. I think the importance of the characters role as a Harvard professor who did research was a key element as well.
Shutterbabe by Deborah Copaken Kogan I really love this author and I'm not sure if I knew when I put this book on the list that this was her biography but I definitely forgot by the time I finally got it from the library but was pleasantly surprised to learn so much more about her. I knew she was both a photographer and a writer, two things I admire greatly. Even knowing she had been a photo journalist before writing her novels, I guess I never really understand what that meant. I like too how she shared her personal accounts across the world and related them to her journey of adulthood from relationship to relationship. I really liked how her identity as a feminist shined throughout the story too. I related near the end of the book when she discussed woman's choices. As feminists we feel we have to make certain choices to align with that identity but what she shares is the idea of us making choices based on what is right for us and/or our families. I found her writing on this extremely helpful right now and appreciated her sharing her deeply personal decisions along the way.
The Last Letter from your Lover by Jojo Moyes This was a story split in two time frames with two different narrators. A married woman wakes with amnesia to start the novel and tries to piece together what her life was like before the accident. She starts finding love letters hidden in her home from someone she guesses she was having an affair with. She starts to piece together what happened before the accident and what her life and marriage was like. She struggles with self identity in an interesting way in being able to discover who she used to be and then decide if that's who she still wants to be. The character ends her part of the narration with a cliff hanger. We then flash forward many years to a young woman working at a newspaper who finds one of the letters from the past and starts to trace it's story as she tells her own. Overall I liked the concept of the novel and I liked the writer's style of creating a story. For me it fell flat though because it was too predictable and too unrealistic with the love stories.
Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld I have to start by saying this book ended up thrown on the floor when I finished it. The ending was just so frustrating to me. I love this author and was so excited to see a new book by her. I love her writing style and this book was no exception to that. I also liked the idea of the plot line of the book. Two twin sisters with "senses" or psychic powers. One who embraces them and her eccentricity and the other, the narrator, who does not and settles down into a seemingly quiet family life as a mother of two small children who stays at home while her professor husband teaches at a local university. The story takes place in St Louis where an earthquake occurs early on in the story. The twin who embraces her psychic abilities then predicts another even bigger earthquake will occur and begins to get national media attention. The story explores the way this affects the narrator and the active choice she has made to re determine her life. The story alternates chapters from the twins childhood to adulthood and then the present day with a potential earthquake coming and the media circus that is happening to them because of the prediction. I had no problem with the book, as in I was liking it enough, even if I wasn't loving it, but then the last 60 pages or so became an absolute soap opera that I was not prepared for. I had spent so much time trying to figure out if the author was going to have the earth quake happen or not but the ending was much more complicated then that and not in a good way. Still have respect for this author but really disappointed in this book.
Friday, November 1, 2013
September 6
Suddenly A Knock at the Door by Etgar Keret This book was a collection of short stories or even essays as some were really short. I didn't dislike the authors style of writing but I really didn't understand many of the stories. Maybe they were over my head or I missed the point entirely, I'm not sure. But now only a month later I barely recall any of them which to me is not the sign of a great book. Also many of them were too fantastical and not in a believable way. I'm the type that can accept fantasy only when it's really sold to me. Given how short the stories were it's possible the writer just didn't have a chance to make them believable, at least to me.
The Law of Similars by Chris Bohjalian Love this author. Though I didn't like the ending of this book, I did like it over all. The story is of a man who is a lawyer and a single parent seeing a homeopathic healer who he falls in love with and then gets involved in a situation where one of her patients dies possibly due to her "medical" advice. I liked the unbiased way the author explored homeopathy and learned a thing or two (which I'm sure is accurate given this is a reputable author). Bohjalian always has a way of writing, that at least for me, really gets you involved in the characters lives. It really adds so much more to the story since you get so involved in hoping things will go certain ways for them. I liked the overall unique story line but found the ending to be a bit unrealistic for me. I also acknowledge though that as the book went on, I couldn't figure out how he was going to end it and I myself did not think up any ways that it could end in a way that would work out for all the characters.
Love in the Time of Algorithms by Dan Slater Loved this book. Quite timely non fiction story of the evolution of dating especially in it's move to technology. In this era of Match.com etc, the author takes us from the first computer dating computers created at Harvard (which matched his parents together) to future speculation about what will happen next in the online dating world. I found it fascinating and scary at the same time. Scary because of the instant access to anything anyone wants and the realization that online dating isn't just about finding someone to date or marry. It's not being used for a wide ranger of sexual deviance that can be worrisome too. While I see the benefit (I did meet my soon to be husband online) I also worry about how this changes peoples social skills and the ease for harm to be done. In any case the online dating world is not slowing down anytime soon and the author did a great job of writing about how it came to be and where it is now.
Love or Something Like it by Deidre Shaw This was by no means the best book I've ever read but I found something refreshingly honest in the characters in the book and the way it was written. It's a book about a young woman who is facing a huge bump in her young marriage. We look back into the past history of the main characters dysfunctional family and the messages she got as a child from her parents and her runaway brother who she has limited contact with. What I liked was that rather then waiting around for her husband to decide what he wants she finds a way to start hearing her own voice about what she wants. What I didn't like was some of the unrealistic too romancy pieces of the book. Overall though the author painted a realistic picture of the hard times in love and the choices that we make during those times.
Freeing Keiko by Kenneth Brower Loved this book. As someone who loved grew up loving "Free Willy" and the real life whale, Keiko, reading his story and hearing about his struggle to truly be free was bittersweet. I also realized about halfway through that the ending was not going to be joyous as I had remembered a news story some years ago. From that point it was difficult to keep reading knowing that I was reading more or less to find out how he died rather then a happy fairytale ending that you hope for especially since the main character is real. I learned so much from this author and the care he took to tell the story of killer whale Keiko was amazing. I'm quite glad I finally realized this book was out there and picked it up.
Hope a Tragedy by Shalom Auslander Did not like this book. I found this author while browsing at the book store and added him to the list. All his books on the shelf looked so interesting to me but I just didn't get what he was trying to convey and it had such a cool concept that I maybe set the bar too high in my mind. This was a story about a man who discovers a well known historical figure living in his attic. Right from the start with such a concept the author needed to sell me on this idea, and he just didn't. I think overall the book was about the main characters trying to find his place in his family as things changed as he aged. There was a lot of cultural references to Judaism and while I always find that interesting, overall the author failed to deliver a plot line that went anywhere.
The Law of Similars by Chris Bohjalian Love this author. Though I didn't like the ending of this book, I did like it over all. The story is of a man who is a lawyer and a single parent seeing a homeopathic healer who he falls in love with and then gets involved in a situation where one of her patients dies possibly due to her "medical" advice. I liked the unbiased way the author explored homeopathy and learned a thing or two (which I'm sure is accurate given this is a reputable author). Bohjalian always has a way of writing, that at least for me, really gets you involved in the characters lives. It really adds so much more to the story since you get so involved in hoping things will go certain ways for them. I liked the overall unique story line but found the ending to be a bit unrealistic for me. I also acknowledge though that as the book went on, I couldn't figure out how he was going to end it and I myself did not think up any ways that it could end in a way that would work out for all the characters.
Love in the Time of Algorithms by Dan Slater Loved this book. Quite timely non fiction story of the evolution of dating especially in it's move to technology. In this era of Match.com etc, the author takes us from the first computer dating computers created at Harvard (which matched his parents together) to future speculation about what will happen next in the online dating world. I found it fascinating and scary at the same time. Scary because of the instant access to anything anyone wants and the realization that online dating isn't just about finding someone to date or marry. It's not being used for a wide ranger of sexual deviance that can be worrisome too. While I see the benefit (I did meet my soon to be husband online) I also worry about how this changes peoples social skills and the ease for harm to be done. In any case the online dating world is not slowing down anytime soon and the author did a great job of writing about how it came to be and where it is now.
Love or Something Like it by Deidre Shaw This was by no means the best book I've ever read but I found something refreshingly honest in the characters in the book and the way it was written. It's a book about a young woman who is facing a huge bump in her young marriage. We look back into the past history of the main characters dysfunctional family and the messages she got as a child from her parents and her runaway brother who she has limited contact with. What I liked was that rather then waiting around for her husband to decide what he wants she finds a way to start hearing her own voice about what she wants. What I didn't like was some of the unrealistic too romancy pieces of the book. Overall though the author painted a realistic picture of the hard times in love and the choices that we make during those times.
Freeing Keiko by Kenneth Brower Loved this book. As someone who loved grew up loving "Free Willy" and the real life whale, Keiko, reading his story and hearing about his struggle to truly be free was bittersweet. I also realized about halfway through that the ending was not going to be joyous as I had remembered a news story some years ago. From that point it was difficult to keep reading knowing that I was reading more or less to find out how he died rather then a happy fairytale ending that you hope for especially since the main character is real. I learned so much from this author and the care he took to tell the story of killer whale Keiko was amazing. I'm quite glad I finally realized this book was out there and picked it up.
Hope a Tragedy by Shalom Auslander Did not like this book. I found this author while browsing at the book store and added him to the list. All his books on the shelf looked so interesting to me but I just didn't get what he was trying to convey and it had such a cool concept that I maybe set the bar too high in my mind. This was a story about a man who discovers a well known historical figure living in his attic. Right from the start with such a concept the author needed to sell me on this idea, and he just didn't. I think overall the book was about the main characters trying to find his place in his family as things changed as he aged. There was a lot of cultural references to Judaism and while I always find that interesting, overall the author failed to deliver a plot line that went anywhere.
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