Weekly Reading Thread: November 28-December 4

One for me last week.

LAST GIRL GHOSTED by Lisa Unger : 3 Stars.

Secrets, obsession and vengeance converge in this utterly original thriller about an online dating match turned deadly cat-and-mouse game once the woman is ghosted. The woman finds she’s not the only one. tamiq gave 4 stars.

Previous books by this author for me were pretty consistent except for 2018/19 which I didn’t like at all and only gave 2 stars. Confessions on the 7:45 (4 Stars), The Stranger Inside (2), Under My Skin (2), Beautiful Lies (4), Ink and Bone (4), The Red Hunter (4), Fragile (4), Crazy Love You (5) and In The Blood (5). Right away this plot has so much unknown I’m dying to understand. Definitely not your typical girl “ghosted” plot. Solid mystery.

After having a hard time choosing my next book, I settled on Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica. I wish I hadn't waited so long to read this one - I really enjoyed it and it kept me guessing until almost the end! 5 stars!

The Island of Missing Trees. DNF'd after about 100 pages as the plot dragged and there is a anthropomorphism of a tree. (This was a Reece's book club pick.)

Doctors and Friends. This was written pre-pandemic but could easily have been written about COVID. Graphic descriptions of how people died. It was too much too soon. DNF'd after about 100 pages.

Finally, I picked up Mercy by David Baldacci. The writing is not great, but the plot zooms along. 5/5 stars.

I'm reading Once There Were Wolves now although this is slow going as well. I'll give it a few more pages to see if it picks up.

Lisa

I was going to read this next!

I finished the henna artist. It was good. I’ve read better but it was enjoyable and easy to read.

I read The Usual Santas, a Christmas mystery anthology I picked up last December and never got around to. I was disappointed overall. There were a few genuinely good stories, but the majority were "meh" or worse. The title story was clever, though.

I have a goal to read two more books by the end of the year. I've been keeping track of all the books I've read for 15 years, as of the end of 2021. Two more books will put me at a grand total of 1,555 books in 15 years. Seems like a nice tidy total. 😁 I'll keep you all posted!

I started listening to Diana Gabaldon's newest Go Tell The Bees.
More Claire and Jamie- my heart is happy- lol!

I read Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead.

It's a story about early days of flight and a woman who attempted to circumnavigate the global long-wise (pole to pole) juxtaposed against a modern story of the actress that is playing her in a movie. The best stuff is at the end, in my opinion. Not a great read for me, and I almost DNF'd it near the beginning, but the topic of early flight for women was interesting.

Just one for me this week. I read The Girl Behind the Wall by Mandy Robotham. This was a historical fiction novel about 2 young women (who are twins) who live in Berlin with their mother, aunt, uncle and cousin in 1961. One day one of the twins (Karin) is on the east side of the city because she has an appointment to show her sketches of dress designs. She suddenly becomes ill and ends up in the hospital there. I don't want to give too much away but basically this is the story of two twins separated, as many families were when overnight the Berlin Wall appeared out of nowhere. I really liked this book. I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads. 

I have a bit of family history with this (not the Wall itself) but East vs. West Germany. My mother was a 12 year old child when she and my grandmother escaped from East Germany into West Germany in the 1950's before the Wall was built. My grandmother's boss told her the Stasi were after her and she had to leave right then leaving everything behind. She was a bit too outspoken which doesn't surprise me at all. They settled in Berlin. My father was in the U.S. Army and learned German from the Army. We were visiting my American grandmother when the Wall went up and my father was called back to Germany immediately. He was in intelligence and used to listen in on the East Germans.

Almost finished Not A Happy Family and it's good. Next will be The Collective or The Damage. The book Cul de Sac - Joy Fielding and The Perfect Family - Harding is on hold at the library.

I finished The Keeper of Happy Endings as well as The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Loved them both.

I get so happy when I see a book or Kindle book is ready for me!

Yes! At one point I'm flipping back on my kindle like--what just happened!!!! 😳