Weekly Reading Thread -Week of February 1

First I listened to Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay.

The story of the early life of Nina, a Russian ballerina in the Stalin era, who in the modern day decides to auction of her extensive jewellery collection. The story is also about Drew the woman who works at the auction house and Gigori an older Russian professor who has a of pendant that matches other pieces in Nina’s collection.This has all the things I usually love, ballet, historical fiction and past/present converging storylines. But this fell a little flat for me, I liked it, but didn’t love it. 3 stars.

Then I went into YA for the rest of the week! At the start of the year I compiled a bingo card of all the books I wanted to read and I start a ‘line’ and read all the books on it. This current line just happens to contain almost all YA books.

 
First was Made For You by Melissa Marr. A bit creepy but mostly a fluff read. Someone is obsessed with Eva and tries to run her down with his car, when she wakes in the hospital she discovers that now when people touch her, she sees a vision of their death. Just like in her visions the person starts killing off her school friends and she tries to find out who the killer is before he strikes again. Also 3 stars.

Next was Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang. This is about 15yo Liz who is the mean girl and school bully and she realises that she has negatively affected too many lives, so runs her car off the road to kill herself. The story looks back at the things that happened that got her to this point while the doctors try to save her life.
This was well written, not an obvious ending and also told by an unusual narrator. Should be required reading for all teen girls!

I gave it 4 stars and definitely recommended.

Then I moved on to more teenage angst with Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight. A mother is called to a school to be told that her teen daughter has killed herself by jumping off the roof. This time Amelia is the target of bullies at school, that her mother knows nothing about. The narrative alternated between Amelia’s POV about what happened to her and her mother’s POV trying to find out what would make her daughter end her life.

Still 4 stars, but I thought the previous book handled the same subject a little better.

Now I’m listening to A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute, written published in 1950 and one of those classic Australian stories that I somehow never read. From GR:

Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman living in Malaya, is captured by the invading Japanese and forced on a brutal seven-month death march with dozens of other women and children. A few years after the war, Jean is back in England, the nightmare behind her. However, an unexpected inheritance inspires her to return to Malaya to give something back to the villagers who saved her life.

Only about 10% in but liking it a lot so far.

Gina, I've added the Baker's Daughter to my Audible wish list - it sounds good!.

tuesdaysgone - Harry August if on my list for this year, happy to hear you enjoyed it.

annabella - my mother is Polish too and I recently discovered the books by author James Conroyd Martin. The setting takes place in Poland in the times leading up to and during the 1792 Partition of Poland. It's a trilogy and sound interesting although I haven't read any of them yet, I bought the first on and it's on my list for the year. While fiction, it is based on historical facts and I think it will be interesting to learn more about the country at that time.