Weekly Reading Thread week of Nov 16

I finally finished Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Yay! If it wasn't for reading group I would not have finished. I know its supposed to be a great love story, but yikes.

Please Refupeas give me some good recommendations.

I finished listening to All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and loved it. I gave it 5 out of 5 stars. I was a bit concerned that it was over-hyped and wouldn’t live up to my expectations, but it was every bit as good as I hoped. Beautifully written, sad and inspiring.
I know lots of other people have already read and recommended it – I’ll just add my name to the list.

Next up was (still working through the Goodreads “it” book list) I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson. Another excellent book. YA, the story of twins Jude and Noah at the ages of 13 and then 16. Their complicated relationships with each other and their parents. Noah is gay and the book looks at this in a very realistic way (there’s some kissing, but no sex scenes)
I wish there were books like this around when I was a teen, I later found out that one of my closest friends at that time was gay…and I kept thinking how 30 years ago he never had a book with “him” in it and that made me a little emotional. I’m glad gay teens do have (positive) representations of themselves in some books now. But the book isn’t primarily about a gay teen, it’s about family and relationships and art and it made me laugh out loud several times too.
A great coming of age story and another 5 / 5 stars from me.

As usual both of the above were in audiobook format and both narrations were excellent.

Have just started We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. I don't know much about this one going in, but it's the story of a wealthy family who spend their summers on their own private island and (from what I do know) focuses on one of the 18yo girls who had some horrible accident during one of those summers.

I have started my annual holiday reread of the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. I love these books for the holidays! The descriptions of the holiday activities in the books are wonderful, plus they have a beautiful nostalgic homey feeling for me.

I read We Were Liars, in keeping with the Goodreads "It" book list. It was just okay. I didn't care for the twist near the end.

Have tried a couple of books but couldn't get into them. Just started Eleanor and Park. Pretty good so far.

I finished All the Light We Cannot See and loved it. Fantastically descriptive writing that paints a vivid picture of life during WW II from a couple of perspectives.

I liked Eleanor and park. It's an easy read.

Goodreads list of "it" books of 2014 (the most added and searched for books on the site)
The list is:
Landline by Rainbow Rowell
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

I already owned several books on the list and was able to get a couple more through the library and I bought the last two. I have so many books I want to read, sometimes it's hard to decide what to start next...so it seemed like a bit of fun to just use this for the rest of the year. 

Glad to hear more about I'll Give You The Sun. I started it but it just didn't grab me so I put it aside for another book that was soon due. Now, I will go back to it.

i enjoyed We Were Liars, although the writing style took me a bit to warm up to. It will be interesting to see if that translates to the audiobook. For me it has been a book that has stuck with me and I have thought about it quite a bit picking up different pieces in the aftermath. 

And finally I just started All The Light We Cannot See for book club. So glad to see the glowing reviews continue this week!

I forgot to add, I just finished Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang. This is her first book and she is just a freshman in college. Thus book is a combination of two short stories she wrote in high school. I enjoyed the book and feel like she will have more success in the future. This was a short, quick read that overall, I enjoyed - if you can say that. It was a fairly sad or disturbing or something story. It is the story of a high school junior who decides to commit suicide and the reasons behind it and how she plans to do it. I think one reasons I struggled with it was the format of the book. I usually don't mind stories that jump back and forth in time, but this one did that and the chapters were so short - like a page or a page and a half, I had a hard time keeping up with where we were in time. Also, the main character, and really all the characters except for the boy were not nice and very hard to connect with. There was also the issue of the mysterious narrator. I did figure it out toward the end of the book but in a way that was distracting to me - trying to understand who was talking. But the bottom line is that the story was a good one and with a young first time author, I think it is a good book. I think as she writes more she will get better.

Don't you love being on a great reading roll? Last week I finished Station Eleven. It's been mentioned in this book thread several times. I really enjoyed it! The writing is terrific and the story line very compelling. Please add it or keep it on your reading list!

Yesterday I randomly picked up a book at the library...I've read several chapters and I'm enjoying it so far. The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. It's about an American girl (with a very mysterious past) who runs a book shop in a small Welsh town. A person from her past suddenly appears and raises questions about her background.

Slight hijack...do you ever choose books randomly OR do you usually have a list when you shop/visit the library? I almost always work from my reading list or choose authors I've read before.

Last week I read:

Station Eleven- I flew through this one.  Very easy reading and I enjoyed it.

Belzhar- This also was a very quick read.  I am not sure how I feel about this one but I am glad
I read it.

The Auschwitz Escape- Very good book. 

I am now reading We Are Not Ourselves.  So far so good.

I have The Miniaturist on hold at the library.  pjaye mentioned this one a while back and
I've been on the waiting list ever since. 

I've been in a reading slump this week.  I finished two books that I didn't particularly like and started two others that I gave up on and didn't finish.

A Quilt for Christmas by Sandra Dallas.  I usually like Dallas' books, but I thought this one was a little flat - the characters weren't very developed and it was very predictable.  It was an easy read and if you're for a sweet, quick book, this might fit the bill.  (It is not a Christmas story).

Away by Amy Bloom.  The story of a young Russian girl who comes to America in the 1920s after her family is killed during the Russian pogrom.  She eventually returns to Russia to search for her daughter who she thinks may still be alive.  I didn't really like this book either, although I am not sure exactly why.

I read The House Girl by Tara Conklin. This isn't a book that I will rush out and tell everyone they "must read it" but it held my interest and was a decent read.

Description on Amazon:
The House Girl, the historical fiction debut by Tara Conklin, is an unforgettable story of love, history, and a search for justice, set in modern-day New York and 1852 Virginia.

Weaving together the story of an escaped slave in the pre–Civil War South and a determined junior lawyer, The House Girl follows Lina Sparrow as she looks for an appropriate lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking compensation for families of slaves. In her research, she learns about Lu Anne Bell, a renowned prewar artist whose famous works might have actually been painted by her slave, Josephine.