Weekly Reading Thread: May 23-29

I read FALLING by T.J. Newman.
This is a thriller about a pilot named Bill who is told by his hijackers he has a choice if he doesn't crash his plane they will kill his family.
This was a page turner. I gave it 4 stars.
This is her debut novel and it has already been picked up for a movie.
I won my advanced copy through Goodreads.

I read two this week that I gave 5 stars-completely different from one another. I wouldn't put them up there with all time favorites, but I flew through both and highly recommend.
Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny -"A wise, bighearted, boundlessly joyful novel of love, disaster, and unconventional family", a very good summation of this book. The characters are all over the top, but so well done. If you like Kevin Wilson, you'll love the humor in this. I chuckled all the way through this one. I will definitely being reading her other books.

When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McClain -This was a literary suspense novel and was excellent. I liked it as much as Long Bright River and if you are currently watching Mare of Easttown, I'd also draw a comparison to that as well. It probably got a couple bonus points because it takes place in Northern California and weaves the story of Polly Klass into it, both made it more relevant to me.

Going to be hard to top two 5 star books this week.

Me too!  Did you read it or listen?  The audio version was soooo good!

I’m just about finished with The K Team by David Rosenfelt. It is a new mystery series with some of the same characters from the Andy Carpenter novels. And of course, it includes a dog, a German Shepherd named Simon Garfunkel. Like the Andy Carpenter series, there is humor mixed in with the mystery. There are a lot of moving parts but they are finally all coming together. 4/5 stars

Next up I’ll either read the next in the series, Animal Instinct, or The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell.

I read The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles. One star. I got carried away with the thought of a library and Paris. It was a giant mistake.

I love the idea of what it was and it could have been SO much more, but it wasn't. Odile, a 20-year-old Parisian at the start of the France's entry into WWII, gets a job at the American Library in Paris. While  the book is supposed to be a tribute to the American Library in Paris, it is more about Odile. We read small paragraphs about some of the library patrons, but the story is about Odile and the beginning of WWII.

Odile is not a great person. I don't want to give away the worst part, but we can say with friends like Odile, you do not need enemies. If the author had painted her that way from the beginning, it might be okay, but she's supposed to be sympathetic. She is not. Then the book has a parallel (??) with a young girl named Lily in 1983 America who befriends Odile. Odile does not treat her much differently than she treated her so-called friends in Paris, i.e., not well at all.

Would you please list the authors of each book?  The titles sound intriguing and there are several books with each of the titles you've listed.  Thanks!

When my kids were little, I always read the title of the book and the author to them. Even when they couldn't understand anything. So The Escape of Marvin the Ape by Caralyn Buehner and Mark Buehner was what they asked for all the time. Not just Marvin. 
And SUCH a great book!!! Dang. I feel like reading it all over again to look for Miss Ostrich on the pages! (Mark Buehner hid her on the pages!)

That sounds so good - added to my TBR list.

I finished The Starless Sea by Erin Morganstern.  Wow - 5/5 for sure.  It's like a love letter to storytelling, filled with wonder and magical world-building.  The plot is not a straight line and there is a 'main' story woven with a number of other stories (plots? myths? histories?) throughout the book.  One of my top 3 reads of the year.

I also read The Guest List by Lucy Foley.  Terrific murder mystery - 4/5.  I don't read a lot of the genre so I can't compare to others.  Great story and great character study.  I had it partially guessed but there were a lot of surprises and twists nonetheless.  There was one thing that seemed like too much of a coincidence and it exceeded my suspension of disbelief allowance, but otherwise great.  If you like to see a murder mystery (or for that matter story) through they eyes of a single protagonist, or don't like switching characters and timelines, you will probably not enjoy the book.

This week I'm rereading Intuitive Eating (I don't remember the authors).  I've been really mindlessly eating since the pandemic and need to a restart.  I just got The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman thanks to someone's recommendation on the weekly reading thread, and I'm looking forward to reading that this week.

Happy reading everyone!

I love Suzanne Redfearn. I have Hush Little Baby next up on my TBR pile. The first two books I read by her are In An Instant (‘20) and Hadley and Grace (‘21) and were both 4-Star reads.

Enjoy!

I have In An Instant on my kindle, and my library has a copy of Hadley and Grace.  I started Hadley and Grace, but didn't have time to finish so had to return it.  I'm glad you liked it, I will have to check it out again.

Overcoming Dyslexia it's for a class

I finished listening to Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead, four stars. I think this is a great summer read as well.

I listened to The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller. A young couple moves into a town home next to an elderly woman (the senator's wife) who's in an unconventional marriage. It was probably a three star read most of the way through. A light fluff read until the end and...