June started out good and kind of settled into average. But that's OK, average is still a good month. I read 12 books and had one that went into Mount DNF. My favorite by far was "Boy Swallows Universe" followed by "She Rides Shotgun". The rest of my reads, while are rating highly by many, just didn't draw me in as much.
I am trying to make my reviews more of my impressions of the book and not so much about the book. If you want more detail about plot, just click the link.
Happy reading and as always, please feel free to share any books that made it to the top of your list this month.
I enjoyed this story of a boy in Australia in a highly
dysfunctional family. The mom and her
boyfriend are caught up in the heroin trade, his babysitter and best friend is
a convicted murderer and an escapee from prison, his dad drinks too much and
his brother has chosen to not speak. Eli
Bell and his brother August though are special, at least that’s what their mom
has always told them and as the story develops, you will discover that is the
truth. The story is told through the
eyes of Eli, a boy who just wants to be a good man.
The first chapter had me a little unsure, but I was quickly
drawn in. Mr. Dalton has a way of
describing situations in such a way that I could really see and feel what was
going on. I felt at times as if I was reading a memoir
instead of fiction. After finishing, I
did a little Google searching and discovered that Mr. Dalton estimates 60% of
the book is true. Wow – what a life!
There are a few things I took from this book. One, as the escapee, Slim Halliday, says “Do
your time before your time does you.”
It’s a pretty deep statement when you think about it, but also pretty
simple. Next, an observation by Eli,
“Maybe we’d all be much more effective communicators if we all shut up
more.” And last, love is truly the one
thing that can get us through even the worse of situations.
Polly is an 11 year old girl whose dad, Nate, has been in
prison for at least half of her life.
Polly doesn’t know he has been released until he shows up at her school
one afternoon and picks her up. Of
course Polly’s mind has many questions – why? Where’s her mom? Where are they
going? Where did Nate get the car? These
questions and many others are answered as Polly goes on the adventure of her
life.
There are many flawed people in this story – Nate, who
learned from his older brother how to fight and survive, the Aryan Steel gang
who put a death warrant out on Nate, his ex and Polly, a sheriff who is
corrupt, and many more. But Nate stands
out as a person that is also kind and loving and truly wants to protect his
daughter.
I liked Mr. Harper’s writing style. It has a calm about it even in the tense
moments. And there are tense
moments. What makes them even more tense
is that the situations are so believable within the story. The characters are well developed, including
a wonderful teddy bear that Polly uses to express a lot of her feelings. It’s as if the reader is riding shotgun
through life with Nate and Polly – facing the situations and decisions that
they are, watching each of them change, and hoping for it all to turn out
happily ever after. Well written, good
story.
A traveling salesman story that is just as much about the
town where he is staying and peddling his wares as it is about him. In this case, the wares are potions that
will help you dream. Robert Owens
arrives in town the same day that it is discovered Benjamin Dawson has disappeared. While the town is shocked by his
disappearance, it quickly becomes captivated by the magic that Owens is
selling. Who wouldn’t like to go to bed
at night and have the dream you want.
And Mr. Owens guarantees satisfaction, so why not take the chance. Of course getting what you want, isn’t always
what you need as some in the town discover.
It was easy to picture the town and the people in it. It was back in a day when things were
simpler in a lot of ways, yet there were still the same individual struggles
from young to old. The dreams that the
different people wanted reflected this.
And the result of those dreams aren’t always what is best. The underlying question through it all is of
course, how does Mr. Owens produce these dreams. Is it magic?
Chemistry? Suggestion? I thought
different things at different times.
Another debut novel that I enjoyed.
Not really related to the story – but a line that I could
relate to – “How easy it was to grow old, she thought, easy as a raft along a
river.”
I returned to Three Pines with the second Gamache
mystery. In this one, an unlikable
woman, CC de Poitiers is murdered in plain sight by electrocution. So the ”what” is answered but the who and why
is yet to be solved. Enter Detective Gamache
to the rescue.
I enjoyed the second book more than the first in the
series. I feel as if there were a little
more to the story as there wasn’t the need to introduce the town in as much
detail. There were new characters, but
also plenty of the old to feel at home.
What I am not a big fan of is how the case is solved. Not the who done it – I had figured that out
earlier, but how Gamache figured it out.
It was like he didn’t even have the person on his radar and then boom –
he had the answer. I also have a hard
time with the method of death – very hard to believe that it could have
happened the way described. Now that I
know what to expect with this series, I will read the next one.
Three ordinary men who became heroes when they stopped the terrorist on the 15-17 train bound to Paris. The story was all over the news – though some of it was fake news. As the news organizations were all wanting to be the first to break a story, they misidentified the men as marines. Two of the men, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone were in the armed forces, but none of them with Marines. Bottom line though is that they were men who just reacted to the situation and knew they should do everything within their power to stop it.
The book is written in 3 parts – one part about each
man. Most of the book is background
about each man, how they became friends, the path their lives had taken and how
they all three ended up on the train.
It is interesting to read the back story and the way that they each
responded to becoming famous overnight.
They all three reflect on how God had a hand in it. How so easy things could have been different,
even back to the three becoming friends.
The book begins with the quote “Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God
when He does not want to sign.”
Theophile Gautier. That is a huge clue to their reflections.
I recommend this book with a few caveats. First, by the end of the last chapter I felt
as if the story went just a little too long, that things could have been
covered in less words. Second, the
method of presenting the train attack and the background about the terrorist
was not the way I would have preferred.
The attack is told in each part via Anthony, Alek and Spencer’s viewpoint. While that is interesting, I would have
preferred to read that all at once I think.
Or at least one big summary to begin with told from a third party view. Also, the background on the terrorist was
spread out too. Maybe it’s my feeble
mind, but it was hard for me to put that part of the story together. Otherwise, it is an inspiring book and a
reminder as Spencer said to “Live for each other and die for each other.”
This is a popular book – especially for Book Clubs it
seems. EBRP has 36 copies of the E-Book
and as I write this, there is an approximate wait time of 9 weeks. The book has been out since February of last
year, so it has been popular for a while. When I hear so much hype about a
book, I expect it to be fantastic. This
is an interesting, inspiring, cautionary story, but I didn’t find it to be
fantastic.
This is the incredible memoir of a woman raised by
survivalist, Mormon parents in Idaho.
The family is not necessarily what I think of when I hear survivalist –
they are not off the grid. They do have
provisions for when things blow up and there is a paranoia that surrounds the
family through the parents. While the
story is about how Ms Westover was able to improve her life by not only going
to college, but more than that, earning a PhD from Cambridge, it is also a family
story full of all kinds of abuse.
The book is well written and Ms Westover concedes that these
events are her recollection and others have different memories of what
occurred. That doesn’t bother me as
that is how memories are, especially among family members. There are a few things that I find
unbelievable, for lack of a better word, , such as how did she end up with a PhD when her
homeschool education basically was learning to read and only reading the Book
of Mormon and other related books? She
had not even heard of the Holocaust until her freshman year of college. She was an introvert yet received a Gates
Cambridge scholarship which as part of the requirements is leadership ability
and outstanding academics even though the picture she paints of herself
includes neither one. I’m know she got
the award, I just don’t see how it matches up with how she portrays herself. It
makes me think there were things about herself that she views different from
how they really are.
The other thing that seems unbelievable is the amount of serious
injuries different family members survived without having medical
attention. We aren’t talking a bruise or
cut here or there, but some serious incidents.
They weren’t hermits so even though her dad owned a junk yard and
several of the injuries happened there, it seems someone in the community would
have raised questions with authorities.
Of course, I don’t live in the community and honestly I don’t know how
people there react to “interfering”. But
numerous brushes with death, cuts and bruises should raise the flag for someone
to see and take action one would think.
What I don’t doubt is Ms Westover suffered some serious
abuse growing up and is still suffering a type of emotional abuse now. I also believe that she has told her story
as she knows it to be true.
A light, quick read about a wayward Jewish son that does not
want to commit to saying kaddish for his father. His solution, hire someone to do it through
kaddish.com. Fast forward a few years
and the wayward Jewish son has become a devout Jew and is now struggling with
what he did those many years ago. His
solution is to find the person who said kaddish and redeem his birthright.
A simple story told well, even though it would have been
more enjoyable if I knew the Jewish terms used. Larry/Shuli draws you into his moral dilemma
and the methods he uses to resolve it.
I always consider a book successful when at the end, I wonder what
happens next. This is one of those
books. It is a satire, so not a heavy
read, but it does have some good moral truths.
The plot of this story sounds so promising and
interesting. A 13 year old boy is left
basically parentless when his mom is killed in a bombing of the MOMA in New
York. The boy, Theo, survives and ends up leaving
the museum in the midst of the pandemonium with a painting and a dying man’s
ring. The man told Theo to take both
and gave him instructions of where to go with them. From there we follow Theo in a coming of age
story that has very little cheerful parts to it. Theo grows up in different households,
exposed to all sorts of things and people all the while having the big secret
of the painting, The Goldfinch, hanging over him.
This is a long book – 772 pages. This is a depressing book. This is a book that has some gaps in it. This is a wordy book. Did I say this is a LONG book?! My issue isn’t with the first 2 - long and depressing. I have read long and depressing books and
found value in them. And it’s not so
much the gaps. The wordy part though drove me crazy. Ms Tartt would write a 10 line sentence to
say something that could be said in 2 lines.
There’s gaps in the story, yet some things were told in such detail that
I was left wondering the purpose. For
the most part, the characters are not likable, but at the same time I felt as
many of them were underdeveloped. The
writing style just did not work for me.
I stayed up to finish the book because I was tired of trudging through
it. What normally would have taken me 2
½ hours to read ended up taking about an hour longer because I kept falling to
sleep. Yet the plot kept me reading
wanting to know the ending, which was a disappointment.
This is being made into a movie and for once I am confident
that the movie will be the better version.
As I said, it is a good premise, so taking that and the editing that
will be done for a movie format, I think it will be a good one.
After The Goldfinch, I went for a shorter read by an author
I trusted. Miller’s Valley is a small
town that if the government has its way will be even smaller. The goal of the government is water
management – aka relocation of the people so the valley can be flooded and
become a lake. It begins in the 1960’s
and is told by Mimi, a lifelong resident and one of the Millers of Miller’s
Valley.
With the backdrop of the plans for the valley, this story is
really about family and community. I
enjoyed getting to know each person and stayed engaged with the story, even
though I knew where it was headed. I do
wish that at the end there had been a little more told of how the current day
story unfolded. In other words, it was
a little too short for me. There is
also a little surprise near the end that some may not like as it is not fully
addressed. I personally like some open
ended storylines. It lets me use my
imagination and leaves me thinking about the people and their story after the
book is put down.
This was my 3rd Anna Quindlen book having read
“Still Life with Bread Crumbs” and “Blessings”. I have enjoyed them all and recommend her as
an author to read.
I’m having a hard time with this review. On one hand, I liked the premise of the
story (a woman time travels in hopes of saving her baby who has a heart
condition that will not allow her to live) and it is written by an author I’ve
read many times before. On the other
hand, this is not the best time traveler book I’ve ever read. In fact, I would say it’s on the bottom of
the list. I found it predictable - I
pretty much knew where the story was headed all the way through. There was also one rule to the travel that
affected the plot and I don’t want to spoil anything, but it was applied
wrongly in one situation. The way it
was applied changed the whole story. This
was not the only hole in the story, but the one that bothered me the most.
From reading about the book, this is one that Ms Chamberlain
had wanted to write for a while and she is very pleased with it. It’s the 6th one of her books I’ve
read, and unfortunately it is my least favorite. But as I always say – that’s the great thing
about reading. My dud could be your
favorite. This one has great reviews so
I’m in the minority. If you are looking
for a lighter time travel read, this may be the book for you. It just wasn’t
the book for me.
This is a memoir about Ms Aitkenhead’s husband who drown trying to save their son. I am sure that it was a great way for her to deal with her grief, but honestly there isn’t much to this story. I don’t mean to sound cruel as it was a tragic accident and I have sympathy for the family. It did give a little view of how to react to those who are mourning. It may be a good read for someone dealing with tragedy to know that they are not alone in their thoughts and emotions.
After reading “Finding Dorothy”, I realized that I had never
read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I
decided to remedy that and it became my treadmill/ArcTrainer read. It was a good one for that. As usual, there is more to the book than the
movie, but they aren’t so far apart that it matters. A nice little fairy tale.
Ruth Rappaport grew up in Nazi Germany, was spared from concentration camps and ended up in America living with relatives. According to the synopsis, she settled on a career as a librarian after other vocations. That career resulted in her being a librarian in Vietnam and the Library of Congress. I have to depend on the synopsis to know this because 1/3rd of the way into the book, I still had not reached the point in her life where she became a librarian. Not only that, but the book is very dry and fact heavy. Reading the title byline – life, loves and legacy – and the synopsis, I was excited to read about Ruth Rappaport’s life. Now, I really am not interested at all. Such a disappointment.
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