Weekly Reading Thread: August 14-20

I finished The Island by Adrian McKinty which was also recommended here. It is BRUTAL with a capital B and will make your heart pound. 4.5/5 stars

I also finished That Weekend by Kara Thomas. When I first picked it up, I didn’t realize it was a Young Adult book. It quickly dawned on me. I enjoyed most of the book, trying to figure out what happened. I despised the last 30 or so pages. The final twist was so freaking unnecessary and ruined the book for me. There should have been an epilog ~ it just seemed unfinished. 2.5/5

Now I'm about 1/3 of the way through The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark and I'm really enjoying it!

This covers several weeks; I was up in Ohio visiting my mom over two Sundays and forgot to visit the board!

Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris. This latest books of essays deals partly with his father's decline and death and partly with his usual topics: his partner, his sisters, travel and buying houses. (He does go on a bit about his great wealth, my only complaint.) Some reviewers felt that Sedaris went too dark and angry in this book, but he's always mixed darkness and humor tightly together and this book felt the same. I lost my dad in December 2020, and while he was a MUCH better father than Lou Sedaris seems to have been, I could relate to some of the mixed emotions David expresses and to his grief. I thought this book has some of his best writing in it.

Lady Sunshine by Amy Mason Doan. A good summer read about a teenage girl who spends the summer of 1979 at the rural community of her uncle, a famous but faded 60s folk singer. The story is mixed with another plot line from 1999 when this girl, grown up, has to go back to the property which has been left to her in her aunt's will and prepare the estate to sell, and deal with the tragic events that ended her teenage summer there. Sounds convoluted but it's really not. It wasn't perfect but I enjoyed it and really felt pulled into the world of the story.

Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy by Nathaniel Philbrick. Philbrick has written many books on early American history (I've read a couple) and this one is a bit more personal and light-hearted as he and his wife take a few road trips in 2017-2019 to follow the path of trips Washington took while he was President. These trips were meant to show himself to people in all the colonies, to promote the Constitution and some of his policies, and to encourage unity. Philbrick draws some parallels between the America of that time and of our time. And he grapples with the mixed legacy of Washington regarding slavery and other things. A very enjoyable read.

The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family by Ron and Clint Howard. This was a really delightful book by the Howard brothers about their lives as child stars in the 60s and 70s, and the life their parents provided for them. If you grew up watching The Andy Griffith Show, Happy Days, or Gentle Ben, you'll probably love this look back.

Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and the Romance of the Century by Stephen Galloway. I like reading about old Hollywood, and I read a bio of Vivien Leigh many years ago, so this was of interest to me. Leigh and Olivier met in the mid-1930s, fell passionately in love, and left their respective spouses and children to be together. But Leigh's bipolar disorder led to deeper and deeper disruptions in their life together until they divorced in the late 1950s. The story was interesting, especially the parts about Leigh's mental health and the lack of good medications available at that time and the utter misunderstanding those around her had of what she was dealing with. But Leigh and Olivier don't come off as very likeable and so it's hard to have much sympathy, especially for Olivier. And there were multiple factual errors, which always makes me cast a suspicious eye at all other assertions by the author.

Three more books for me this week:

You Deserve Eachother by Sarah Hogle. 1 star. This was pretty miserable and I pretty much skimmed the end because I just wanted to be finished with it. About a couple who are engaged and yet seem to seriously dislike each other. The book jacket suggested that neither was willing to break the engagement because then they'd have to pay the vendors, but it never really consciously went there (more like the "bride-to-be" assumed that was the case, all while letting her "future MIL" continue to spend more money).

Does My Body Offend You by Mayra Cuevas. 5 stars. This was young adult, but really enjoyable. About a high school Puerto Rican girl who is dress-coded and given detention for not wearing a bra to school. It tackled the idea of how dress codes are very misogynist and also target minorities. There was also a side part about "white saviorism" which as a white woman is something I think about in the current climate.

Forever Young by Hayley Mills. 3 stars. I wanted to like this as I was a fan of hers growing up. It certainly wasn't the worst memoir I've read, but far from the best either. A good portion of the book is her name dropping all the famous people she's worked with/knew through her family. This took me out of the book sometimes because being considerably younger than her (she's older than my mother) sometimes I had no clue who the people were and sometimes seemed irrelevant to the overall story. Also she seemed to revere her parents even though they sometimes seemed to use her to get themselves things. Such as she only signed with Disney because her dad got the lead role in Swiss Family Robinson in exchange. Then later after her star power was big her mother got scripts she wrote produced by including Hayley in the films.


Currently reading "Meant to Be" by Emily Giffin which is pretty good so far.

Two very good books this week………..


WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME (‘22) BY GILLIAN MCALLISTER : 4 STARS
DESCRIPTION:  Late October. After midnight. You’re waiting up for your seventeen-year-old son. He’s past curfew. As you watch from the window, he emerges, and you realize he isn’t alone: he’s walking toward a man, and he’s armed. You can’t believe it when you see him do it: your funny, happy teenage son, he kills a stranger, right there on the street outside your house. You don’t know who. You don’t know why. You only know your son is now in custody, his future shattered. That night you fall asleep in despair. All is lost. Until you wake . . .and it is yesterday. And then you wake again . . . and it is the day before yesterday. Every morning you wake up a day earlier, another day before the murder. With another chance to stop it. Somewhere in the past lies an answer. The trigger for this crime—and you don’t have a choice but to find it . . .

REVIEW:  First book by this author for me was The Good Sister (‘19) which I gave 4 stars. I must have lost track of this author and missed That Night (‘21) and How to Disappear (‘20); both look good and I’ve put on my TBR List.  
Very original plot and easy to follow. I loved the backtracking plot and trying to put the puzzle together. I can’t imagine the plotting the author had to develop to write this book. It was so interesting since you didn’t know where they were going back to. Lots of surprises. Great job! Pay attention to the little things in life so you don’t miss out.


STAY AWAKE (‘22) BY MEGAN GOLDIN : 4 STARS
DESCRIPTION:  Liv Reese wakes up in the back of a taxi with no idea where she is or how she got there. When she’s dropped off at the door of her brownstone, a stranger answers—a stranger who now lives in her apartment and forces her out in the cold. She reaches for her phone to call for help, only to discover it’s missing, and in its place is a bloodstained knife. That’s when she sees that her hands are covered in black pen, scribbled messages like graffiti on her skin: STAY AWAKE. Two years ago, Liv was living with her best friend, dating a new man, and thriving as a successful writer for a trendy magazine. Now, she’s lost and disoriented in a New York City that looks nothing like what she remembers.

REVIEW:  Authors first 2 books were The Night Swim (‘21 - 4 Stars) and The Escape Room (‘20 - 5 Stars). I liked the alternate views from the main character, Liv, and the two detectives who are searching for her. Some repetitive parts, but thats to be expected since every time Liv falls asleep, she forgets the past 2 years. Solid mystery with a complete good ending.

I also loved Local Woman Missing and The Island !  

The Lifeguards looks great.  On the top of my TBR pile !

Dean Koonz went to the university where my fil was a professor!  My husband has read several of his books.

I LOVE her. I will pretty much listen to anything she narrates, and I loved "My Oxford Year!" I preordered Thank You for Listening on audio, and have it ready for when I finish my current listen. 😊

Great review !  Bumping this to the top of my TBR pile !  

I think I said this earlier today about maryland comments on The Lifeguards.  

Tough choice coming up this week !

Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak. A recovering drug addict becomes a nanny to a wealthy family's 5yo son. The son starts to draw very advanced pictures for his age and has an invisible friend called Anya. The nanny starts to suspect that Anya is a ghost and using the boy to draw pictures for her to tell a story.
This is one of those books where the reader has no idea what's going on and what is true and what isn't. Is there a ghost? or is someone else drawing the pictures? What is the story the pictures are trying to tell?
Personally I don't enjoy many books where the reader doesn't know what is happening right until the end...I get a bit bored, and that happened here too.
It did have one major twist that I didn't see coming and from then on the story picked up considerably.
This was probably a 3.5 for me, but I rounded it up on GR to 4 stars even though there were a few things I didn't like in the book.

I kept seeing the book The Family Remains in various places...and it's a sequel to The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell, so I thought I'd read them both.
Set in the UK this one starts with the police getting a call about a baby crying and when they get to the house they find 3 dead adults and a note asking them to look after their baby daughter. The story is told initially from the POV of 'the baby' who is now 25yo and has just inherited the house and it goes back and forth in time to tell the story of what happened to the adults but also 4 teenagers who were living there.
Some GR reviews said there were too many characters, but I didn't find that to be a problem. I really liked the plot and enjoyed it more than I was expecting 
4 stars.

Then on to The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell This picks up one year after the last nook ended, the main characters are all getting to know each other and work out what to do next. A new character is introduced - the current wife of Lucy's ex-husband, and that backstory is a major part of the book. Also someone finds a bag of human bones in the Thames and the police start to re-investigate what happened in the house all those years ago.
It's a fitting sequel and kept me engaged but not as much as the first one - 3 stars.



I've been doing the GR Reading Challenge & recording all my books for the past 9 years and I've been watching this number tick over and was excited to see that I reached it with my last book:

Yes, that spoiler slightly jumped the shark for me too. But I still liked it. 

I have heard that there is another one that's very, very similar. 


Maybe I should read that one too.

Did you like it better, pjaye? 

Thanks, pjaye. I think I'll pass on that one.

I finished Serena by Ron Rash. I enjoyed it, but not as much as I wanted to - it took me a couple of weeks to get through it so it wasn't exactly a page turner for me. I picked it after a couple of ladies in my book club mentioned Ron Rash as a favorite author. 4 stars.

Last night I started The Measure after seeing so many good mentions here. I'm only a very few chapters in but so far it's a winner for me!

I am reading The Husband's Secret but there are so many characters, I am having trouble telling who is who.