The Great Carpezio
Pearl Clutcher
Something profound goes here.
Posts: 2,930 
|
Post by The Great Carpezio on Jul 18, 2022 6:12:08 GMT
I arrived home from vacation early Sunday. Just starting the thread now before I go to bed.
I’ll be posting my reviews tomorrow.
What did you read this week?
Added my review below.
|
|
gottapeanow
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,752
|
Post by gottapeanow on Jul 18, 2022 7:03:05 GMT
I took the night off Netflix and read. LOL.
I'm almost done with More than You'll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez. The blurb tells the story. It's a great read with different three story lines: one past and two present. I'll definitely finish this in the next 24 hours.
Also. I went to see Where the Crawdads Sing. Oh my. Honestly, I liked the movie better than I did the book. I thought the acting was amazing. Exceptional casting.
Best of all, the movie actually made me like the book more!
ETA: I finished Corrections in Ink about criminal justice and the women's prison system. This is a memoir. Honestly, I thought the author was a bit whiny. 3/5 stars.
Lisa
|
|
peaname
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,389
|
Post by peaname on Jul 18, 2022 10:47:20 GMT
Finished
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
4 stars, get ready to cry if you’ve lost a parent
Started
Below Stairs by Margaret Powell
Interesting so far, inspired Downton Abbey, very easy read
I’m 4 behind my GoodReads goal I best get cracking!
|
|
|
|
Post by jeremysgirl on Jul 18, 2022 10:55:00 GMT
I've had a pretty good week for reading. But I had the week off work so that freed up some time.
I read Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig. I thought he did a very good job of discussing depression and the effects it has on a person. He has depression and anxiety that just completely paralyzed his life for a while. Now he doesn't take medicine and I'm not sure that's a position for everyone to take. As someone with bipolar I definitely know I can't survive and thrive without medicine (full disclosure: I take no antidepressants, just mood stabilizers) so that point seemed a little short sighted and he didn't touch on anything that got even close to curing him. So if you are looking for preventative measures this is not the book for you. But if you just want to know what it feels like to have depression then this book is very good at describing it.
I am almost done with How to be Perfect: The Correct Moral Answers to Every Question by Michael Schur and it is great. I have an undergraduate degree in philosophy so most of the philosophical concepts he touches on I am familiar with, but if you haven't read much philosophy this book will both educate you a bit and keep you laughing. It is so funny the way he talks about moral dilemmas. He took a very serious, nerdy, bookish topic and made it easy to digest for the general populace and did it with humor.
|
|
|
|
Post by guzismom on Jul 18, 2022 12:22:33 GMT
I am finishing up Memphis by Tara Stringfellow; I am enjoying. There is a lot of rich descriptive text to enjoy. I do, however, have a criticism that I will keep to myself due to its lack of political correctness.
|
|
Mystie
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,299
|
Post by Mystie on Jul 18, 2022 15:40:13 GMT
I read The Star Machine by Jeanine Basinger. She's written several books about classic film; this one was about the studio system in the classic movie era and the methods they used to create movie stars. She talks about people for whom it worked, people for whom it didn't, people for whom it shouldn't have but did, and people for whom it should have but didn't. LOL. I love classic movies and so I found it a pretty interesting topic. She's an engaging writer.
|
|
The Great Carpezio
Pearl Clutcher
Something profound goes here.
Posts: 2,930
|
Post by The Great Carpezio on Jul 18, 2022 16:18:41 GMT
Ok, Here are my reviews. I finished two books this week as well as listened to about half of The Book Thief on our way home on our road trip.
🟢 Blood Sugar ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Entertaining narration by an unreliable (or is she?) narrator. She has murdered three people in her lifetime, but now she is being accused of murdering a fourth, and she didn’t do it.
Throughout the course of the story, the narrator reveals the episodes in her life and the characters that helped her get to this point.
🟢 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
I was looking forward to this one for a while, and it did not disappoint. It’s an ode to Genx, gaming, literature and complex relationships that don’t fit into neat little boxes.
I almost gave it five stars, but although I understood and appreciated the last part of the novel, I didn’t love the ending
|
|
|
|
Post by fotos4u2 on Jul 18, 2022 16:26:05 GMT
I was on a reading frenzy this week, probably because the boss was out of town and I can't seem to find anything worthwhile to watch on tv.
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid. 4 stars. About a family from Malibu and their life from the late 1950s when the parents meet and marry to the mid-1980s when the oldest daughter is holding her annual big bash. The story is told from many perspectives and jumps back and forth between time periods which made it hard to follow sometimes, but I still enjoyed it enough to recommend it to my daughter who I share books (interestly she almost abandoned it because she felt the beginning was too slow and not being alive during the 1980s she had a hard time connecting with that time period).
You've Been Volunteered by Laurie Gelman. 4 stars. Second book in the Class Mom series. I'm sure not everyone will like this, but as someone who was a stay-at-home mom for a good portion of my kids lives and a class mom a time of her I find it entertaining.
Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez. 4 stars. Pretty sure this is young adult and while it was on my list, it was actually a library request by my daughter. About a guy and a girl who meet when the girl's car breaks down in the tiny town when the guy lives/is the mayor. It's sort of your typical rom-com with some issues of whether class or status is important in relationships and also a side plot about mental abuse.
French Braid by Anne Tyler. 3 stars. I thought someone on here said this was their #1 read this year so I was so hopeful, but ended up really disappointed. I kept expecting to find a plot that seemed to be missing. The story is really watching a family grow and then grow apart. I guess I also found it a bit depressing as my own extended family (on both my parents sides) has gone a similar way.
I'm currently reading "Metropolis" by B.A. Shapiro and I've been enjoying it enough that I'll probably finish it today.
|
|
purplebee
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,732
|
Post by purplebee on Jul 18, 2022 17:39:52 GMT
Finished “Last Summer at the Golden Hotel” by Elyssa Friedland, as recommended by Mystie last week. It was good!
|
|
|
|
Post by cadoodlebug on Jul 18, 2022 18:00:05 GMT
Last week I finished Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner. *Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will--searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking.* This is the first book in a series with the main character, Frankie Elkin. It held my interest but I don’t know if I will continue on to the next one. 3.5/5 stars
Now I’m reading another *first in a series* book The Last Lie Told by Debra Webb. I think it was a First Read book that I bought for $1.99.
“Struggling to come back from the edge after the brutal and unsolved murder of her husband, legal investigator Finley O’Sullivan pours herself into a twisted case of murder where power and money are woven together with lies and secrets.” Like Before She Disappeared, it's holding my interest but I'm not loving it. KWIM?
I have 2 books waiting for me on my Kindle: The Long Weekend by Gilly McMillian and the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
|
|
|
|
Post by mnmloveli on Jul 18, 2022 18:15:06 GMT
A good reading week for me.
WOMAN ON THE EDGE (‘19 - Read ‘22) BY SAMANTHA M. BAILEY : 4 STARS
DESCRIPTION: A total stranger on the subway platform whispers, “Take my baby.” She places her child in your arms. She says your name. Then she jumps…In a split second, Morgan Kincaid’s life changes forever. She’s on her way home from work when a mother begs her to take her baby, then places the infant in her arms. Before Morgan can stop her, the distraught mother jumps in front of an oncoming train. She also can’t understand how this woman knew her name. The police take Morgan in for questioning. She soon learns that the woman who jumped was Nicole Markham, prominent CEO of the athletic brand Breathe. She also learns that no witness can corroborate her version of events, which means she’s just become a murder suspect.
REVIEW: I read this author’s second book, Watch Our For Her (‘22 - 5 Stars) first, and then jumped right into this one. Like her first book, for me, love how she ends the chapters with some cliffhangers when bouncing from before and now. A different plot for me. Liked how some unknown facts were revealed along the way.
THE IT GIRL (‘22) BY RUTH WARE : 3 STARS
DESCRIPTION: April Clarke-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford.
Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily—during their first term. By the end of the year, April was dead. Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent.
REVIEW: First book by this author for me was The Turn of the Key (‘19 - Read ‘20 - 3 Stars). It was heading towards a 4 or 5 star rating, but hated the ending soooo much dropped my rating from a 4 to a 3. Thought it was time to give this author another chance.
Good writing always makes for a smooth read. Enjoying the pace especially since my last two reads were fast-paced thrillers. This was not a thriller but a good mystery - love, friendship & betrayal. I did like the reveal of how the killing happened. I went with 3 stars because of the slowness of the story.
|
|
|
|
Post by mnmloveli on Jul 18, 2022 18:19:47 GMT
|
|
edie3
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,476
|
Post by edie3 on Jul 18, 2022 18:29:29 GMT
I read The Maid which I enjoyed.
|
|
my3freaks
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,206
Location: NH girl living in Colorado
|
Post by my3freaks on Jul 19, 2022 1:32:05 GMT
I'm about 3/4's of the way through Romancing Mr. Bridgerton (the 4th Bridgerton book). I started watching the Netflix series last week. I'm about halfway through the 2nd season and it's driving me crazy. It's not bad, it's just SO different from the books. I hope book 5 is ready from the library today or tomorrow. I have 2 flights Wednesday, so I will have a lot of time to read.
|
|
|
|
Post by worrywart on Jul 19, 2022 3:08:10 GMT
I read The Southern Book Clubs Guide to Slaying Vampires. Not sure what to think - I give it 3.5 rounded down to 3 on Goodreads.
|
|
SabrinaP
Pearl Clutcher
Busy Teacher Pea
Posts: 4,350
Location: Dallas Texas
|
Post by SabrinaP on Jul 19, 2022 4:10:41 GMT
I read 4 books this past week. The first book was Last Tang Standing by Lauren Ho. I read 2 thrillers last week, so I was looking for some rom-coms this week. I found this book more on the annoying side than the funny side. 3/5 stars
The next book I read was Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn. This is the author of The Rose Code which was one of my favorite reads from last year. This book is about a female Russian Sniper during WWII. I liked parts of this story, but some of it was very slow. I gave it 4/5 stars
The next book was a romance called Every Summer After by Carly Fortune. This is a book I picked up from recomendations on TikTok. It's a coming of age, best friends to lovers type romance. I enjoyed the setting of the book and the characters. I gave it 4/5 stars
The last book was a thriller called The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth. I liked this book but had it mostly figured out pretty quickly. I figured there would everntually be a twist, but it just never came. 3/5 stars
|
|
Mystie
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,299
|
Post by Mystie on Jul 19, 2022 5:35:17 GMT
I read The Southern Book Clubs Guide to Slaying Vampires. Not sure what to think - I give it 3.5 rounded down to 3 on Goodreads. I don't know why, but I just loved that book. It's not quite my typical thing, but there was just something about it. I read it in 2020, during covid restrictions and after surgery, and I think maybe I just enjoyed having the story completely take me away from that. I didn't care for the author's next boom at all, so 🤷🤷🤷 |
|
|
|
Post by AussieMeg on Jul 19, 2022 6:48:08 GMT
I haven't read a book for so many months, I can't even remember when I last read a book. Maybe even last year!! All my life I have read every single night, and I have never gone this long without reading a book. I was trying to broaden my horizons and read authors other than my usual Michael Connelly, David Baldacci, Faith Martin, Jeffrey Deaver etc etc. But I'd start a book and barely get more than three pages in before losing interest.
Last night I finally charged up my Kindle and started reading the latest David Baldacci book, The 6:20 Man.
It's good to be back! I'm just going to stick with my old faves for a while I think.
|
|
paigepea
Drama Llama
Enter your message here...
Posts: 5,609
Location: BC, Canada
Jun 26, 2014 4:28:55 GMT
|
Post by paigepea on Jul 19, 2022 6:54:13 GMT
Finished “Last Summer at the Golden Hotel” by Elyssa Friedland, as recommended by Mystie last week. It was good! I listened to that for book club. Was cute! |
|
janeliz
Drama Llama
I'm the Wiz and nobody beats me.
Posts: 5,633
|
Post by janeliz on Jul 19, 2022 14:55:37 GMT
Out of the Corner by Jennifer Grey. Very enjoyable and well-written. I usually like a little more celebrity gossip in my memoirs/autobiographies, but she has a really interesting life story and perspective. Her experiences with Matthew Broderick, including the devastating car crash in Ireland, were particularly interesting.
Book Lovers by Emily Henry. Loved it! Laugh out loud funny, smart, and heartwarming.
The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth. This one surprised me. I worried it might be a bit formulaic, but I enjoyed it very much. Great characters.
|
|
|
|
Post by cadoodlebug on Jul 19, 2022 15:22:52 GMT
I finished the *first in a series* book The Last Lie Told by Debra Webb. I think it was a First Read book that I bought for $1.99. Ugh. The story was really confusing, too many characters floating around and the only subplot that I was really interested in didn't get resolved. Guess she's saving that for book 2. Fool me once... 2/5 stars ETA: Mystie I just read your review and see that it almost mirrored mine! |
|
|
|
Post by stingfan on Jul 19, 2022 15:52:15 GMT
I've read a lot of not-so-great books lately, but there were a couple decent ones...
The Night Swim by Megan Goldin - I think I liked this because it follows a podcaster who is reporting on a trial and some of the chapters are written like podcast episodes. So, because I listened it, it had elements of a novel + a podcast, two of my favorite things  . Saving Meghan by D.J. Palmer - A question of whether a girl continues to get sick because of Munchausen syndrome by proxy or not. Some plot points were a bit obvious, but it was still an engaging read.
(I think these were both recommended here, so thank you!)
In the okay-but-not-great category, I finished reading Anatomy of a Scandal today so that I can watch the show on Netflix. |
|
|
|
Post by fotos4u2 on Jul 19, 2022 15:55:50 GMT
I'm about 3/4's of the way through Romancing Mr. Bridgerton (the 4th Bridgerton book). I started watching the Netflix series last week. I'm about halfway through the 2nd season and it's driving me crazy. It's not bad, it's just SO different from the books. I hope book 5 is ready from the library today or tomorrow. I have 2 flights Wednesday, so I will have a lot of time to read. I read the first 4 books as well and have decided to not even try to compare them to the series anymore. First season stuck to the storyline so well, but then when the 2nd season made so many changes it was frustrating and now I've been hearing that season 3 isn't even going to follow the same storyline at all (but will instead be something more similar to book 4?). |
|
|
|
Post by tamiq on Jul 19, 2022 16:11:13 GMT
The past couple weeks I have read:
Local Gone Missing
by Fiona Barton 3.5 stars
The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear
by Kate Moore The fact that a husband could just have his wife committed to an asylum has always intrigued me and not in a good way. This was an excellent book imo. 4.5 stars
Insomnia
by Sarah Pinborough very slow moving for me. It was an ok read. 3 stars
The Measure
by Nikki Erlick
Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice.
It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out.
But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live.
4.5 stars
The Elizas
by Sara Shepard
New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Little Liars Sara Shepard makes her mark on adult fiction with this Hitchcockian double narrative composed of lies, false memories, and a protagonist who must uncover the truth for survival.
3 stars
Upgrade
by Blake Crouch
“You are the next step in human evolution.”
At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep.
5 stars
The Inmate
by Freida McFadden 5 stars
I read her book The Housemate a few weeks ago and loved that one also.
|
|
|
|
Post by mnmloveli on Jul 19, 2022 16:48:51 GMT
The Inmate
by Freida McFadden 5 stars I read her book The Housemate a few weeks ago and loved that one also. THANKS for the reviews. Both these are going to the top of my TBR pile! |
|
styxgirl
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,875
Jun 27, 2014 4:51:44 GMT
|
Post by styxgirl on Jul 19, 2022 16:54:13 GMT
Just finished listening to Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
The narrator was really good! (I was distracted a smidge each time she said the word "been" LOL! We say it "ben" and she pronounced it "bean" which is probably right given its spelling of "been").
The book started a little slow, but I stuck with it and really LOVED it! It really did evoke a lot of emotions for me. Surprise in several places, laughter in quite a few spots. I was angry and disgusted in others. And overall happy and even sort of inspired.
I would recommend this one, for sure! ;-)
I'm off to find my next read (or "listen" since I do audible).
|
|
|
|
Post by mnmloveli on Jul 20, 2022 1:51:22 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by quietgirl on Jul 20, 2022 2:50:21 GMT
Last week I finished Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner. *Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will--searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking.* This is the first book in a series with the main character, Frankie Elkin. It held my interest but I don’t know if I will continue on to the next one. 3.5/5 stars Now I’m reading another *first in a series* book The Last Lie Told by Debra Webb. I think it was a First Read book that I bought for $1.99. “Struggling to come back from the edge after the brutal and unsolved murder of her husband, legal investigator Finley O’Sullivan pours herself into a twisted case of murder where power and money are woven together with lies and secrets.” Like Before She Disappeared, it's holding my interest but I'm not loving it. KWIM? I have 2 books waiting for me on my Kindle: The Long Weekend by Gilly McMillian and the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was SO good! Enjoy! |
|
|
|
Post by quietgirl on Jul 20, 2022 2:53:52 GMT
I've had a pretty good week for reading. But I had the week off work so that freed up some time. I read Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig. I thought he did a very good job of discussing depression and the effects it has on a person. He has depression and anxiety that just completely paralyzed his life for a while. Now he doesn't take medicine and I'm not sure that's a position for everyone to take. As someone with bipolar I definitely know I can't survive and thrive without medicine (full disclosure: I take no antidepressants, just mood stabilizers) so that point seemed a little short sighted and he didn't touch on anything that got even close to curing him. So if you are looking for preventative measures this is not the book for you. But if you just want to know what it feels like to have depression then this book is very good at describing it. I am almost done with How to be Perfect: The Correct Moral Answers to Every Question by Michael Schur and it is great. I have an undergraduate degree in philosophy so most of the philosophical concepts he touches on I am familiar with, but if you haven't read much philosophy this book will both educate you a bit and keep you laughing. It is so funny the way he talks about moral dilemmas. He took a very serious, nerdy, bookish topic and made it easy to digest for the general populace and did it with humor. Matt Hair wrote The Midnight Library. That was one of the best books I read last year. The beginning is tough, especially if you suffer from depression like I do, but I'm really glad I didn't give up on it. It ended up giving me a kind of hope, though I'm not explaining that well. Thanks for the recommendation for How To Be Perfect, I will look for that. |
|
|
|
Post by tamiq on Jul 20, 2022 3:20:41 GMT
Last week I finished Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner. *Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will--searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking.* This is the first book in a series with the main character, Frankie Elkin. It held my interest but I don’t know if I will continue on to the next one. 3.5/5 stars Now I’m reading another *first in a series* book The Last Lie Told by Debra Webb. I think it was a First Read book that I bought for $1.99. “Struggling to come back from the edge after the brutal and unsolved murder of her husband, legal investigator Finley O’Sullivan pours herself into a twisted case of murder where power and money are woven together with lies and secrets.” Like Before She Disappeared, it's holding my interest but I'm not loving it. KWIM? I have 2 books waiting for me on my Kindle: The Long Weekend by Gilly McMillian and the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was SO good! Enjoy! I agree! I loved that book! |
|
.
