Weekly Reading Thread: Week of February 15th

I started Wolf Hall, so I can get it read before the series (or is it a movie?) starts.

I love this time period, love Tudor-related stories, in general. But I am not setting any speed records with this book.
It's not that I don't enjoy it. I do. I can't figure out what the problem is.
I don't know if it's reading a regular book after reading many e-books in a row, or maybe I'm unusually tired when I head to bed (reading time first). It feels like my eyes are swimming within a half hour or less. It's not light reading, but it's not heavy either. I almost always have to backtrack a smidge, to remind myself what was going on when I left off, because the page where my bookmark sits doesn't seem immediately familiar.

I'm not sure if I'm interested, but it hasn't hooked me yet - or what. I'm about 100 pages in.

Finished Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult. Interesting twist at the end. Loved all of the elephant details.

Just started All The Light We Cannot See. This should take me a while at over 500 pages and not much time to read. After this I need a light read.

I read Khaled Hosseini's And the mountains echoed. I love his writing and this was no exception,

I've just started the Rosie Project...no reviews yet!

Tow books, both rated with 3 stars.

Yes, Please by Amy Poehler - I smiled a few times and a couple mild chuckles here and there. Overall, TIna Fay's book was much better and cohesive.

The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane - For a debut novel, it was solid enough. A little too much "magical realism" for me. It is the story of an older woman who lives alone in a seaside home. One day, a government caregiver arrives on her doorstep. As the story progresses, questions arise as to the motives of the caregiver, the woman's trip of reality ad her relationship with family members. A thoughtful study of aging. I just found it a little slow and too focused on "the Tiger" at times.

I read The Secret Place by Tana French. Loved it. I love her writing style -- so descriptive, yet it doesn't get in the way of a tension-filled plot. Even though the murder in the story happened a year before the story starts, I was on the edge of my seat. And I'll never ever send my children away to boarding school.

The second book was Red Rising by Pierce Brown. Thank you so much to the peas for recommending this book. I really enjoyed it. It's dystopian fiction at its best. I can't wait to read the next book in the series. The book was well written by an author with a vivid imagination of a world that doesn't exist. Very cool.

Next up is my library "Date with a Book." They gave me a mystery book (as in a book that's wrapped up so I don't know the author or title.) There was just a short valentine poem on the front that gives some hints. I'll let you all know how it goes.

This week I read two books-it's amazing to me how fast I  can read when I'm not reading 800 page novels as I was for months as I read my way through all of the Outlander novels

Anyway, the first book I read was "The Lifeboat" by Charlotte Rogan. I give this book 5 stars. I loved it, it had me glued from the first sentence and I read it in two days. It takes place in the summer of 1914 and is the story of a woman who's just been married and is crossing the Atlantic with her new husband from Europe to America on an elegant ocean liner (I know what you're thinking but this is 2 years after the Titanic sinking) and suddenly there is an explosion on the ship. She ends up on a lifeboat and the body of the novel is about what happens in the lifeboat. It is very well written, with wonderful details, excellent suspense and drama. I highly recommend it, not only for ship and Titanic fans-this is also a great novel about human life.

The second book I read which I also mentioned starting last week was a non-fiction book about sailing called "The Water in Between" by Kevin Patterson. This book was written and is about a Canadian doctor who after a stint in the Army and a broken heart decides to buy a sailboat and sail from Canada to Tahiti (even though he's never sailed before). He buys the first boat he looks at-a 37 foot long ferro-cement ketch, finds another young man who is going through a divorce and finds the idea of taking off appealing but luckily is an experienced sailor and off they go. I've read a lot of sailing books. Books about ocean passages, circumnavigations and survival at sea books. I adore them, and I learn a lot from them. I have to give this book 2 stars sadly.

While I did learn a few things from it (like it's difficult to go see the Cook Islands unless you sail there because there is no airport or hotels and if you go you have to tell them where you are staying when you get there-they are trying to keep it from becoming touristy which I applaud them for), the rest of the book left a lot to be desired. The author spends so much time going off on multiple tangents including constantly quoting and describing what an author named Chatwin had to say about travelling or rather the nomad lifestyle, pages and pages about this author to the point that I wanted to scream into the air, "Who gives a flying F about Chatwin, get back to the sailing details". Chatwin, needless to say, was an unbelievable bore. If he hadn't been and if he'd added some meat to the book I wouldn't have minded.

Another tangent he goes off on is the Inuit life in northern Canada (can't remember it was so boring) when he worked for a time as an Army doctor. This would have been fine in another book, but it was out of place in this book. At least that's my opinion. Maybe he's just a terrible writer. I suppose he could have included bits of it since it was his life and part of what made him who he was, but to go on and on and on for page after page, after page...it was much too much. I believe he needed a better editor. By the time I got to the end of his story about the Inuit I forgot where he was on his journey in the sailboat!

Probably a lot more than you wanted to know, sorry about that. Now I'm off to find another new book. I think I'll hit the library this week.

Debbie in MD.

I started a YA book "'ll Give You the Sun but am having trouble getting into it. Has anyone read this and really liked it?

I finished it a few weeks ago. I gave it just about 3 1/2 stars. Here's my review I posted directly after finishing:

I'll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson

3.5 / 5

This book was cute enough. It's the story between a twin brother & sister and it waffles back and forth between ages 13 and 16. As children they were very close and then a series of events happen and they drift very far apart. By telling us the story in two voices during two different time periods, we get to hear each side of the story and see how each sibling dealt with the hand given to them and why they were so very angry at the other.

It was good but it doesn't earn a spot on my favorites shelf. There were some parts I didn't care for, mainly the mother's storyline. Parts of this book were sad and parts were happy. Would I recommend it to a friend? Eh.

I finished three. And when I say finished, I literally only finished. These were books I started previously then got bored with.

So first was Point. Click. Love. by Molly Shapiro. Haha, please don't judge me one this one. It was cute. Four friends, each having relationship troubles and going about fixing it in different ways - match.com and craigslist, hooking up in a bar, forget the man just get inseminated, is he having an affair?. I hope this was a freebie or very low cost.

Second was Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin. This one was pretty good. Very predictable and that's probably why I stopped reading after 35%. Glad I finally finished it.

Last was The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel. Honestly this was the worst of the bunch for me. I really wanted to like it but I just couldn't get into it. This was my fifth or so attempt so I just ended up skimming.

I listened to Burial Rites this week. I had high hopes considering the number of great reviews. I gave it 4/5 but it felt closer to 3.5/5.

The imagery of Iceland was good. But I felt like it was an anticlimax, even if I knew she was going to die (as it states in the book's description - these are the last days of her life). It's a study on relationships and perception. But yeah, it didn't blow me away, even though I wanted it to. (perhaps that was the problem).

I started Bereft by Chris Womersley on the train this afternoon. So far, really enjoying the imagery (of central NSW in 1919) and am really looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Also, 12 hours into Little Women and glad I chose it. Obviously there are things I disagree with such the idea that the most rewarding way to spend your time is cooking dinner for your husband. And it's a little preachy. But I was not expecting the wit and humour I'm finding in it :-)

     Maryland, I must have missed that discussion when "Lifeboat" was a 2Peas recommendation. Back then I think I was deep into reading the Outlander novels with my nose buried into the books and my mind filled with Jamie and Claire's adventures. I'm glad you liked it too. I found the book on my father's bookshelf when I was visiting my parent's house (they live 15 minutes away from me) and asked to borrow it since I am a huge Titanic buff and it looked really interesting. My whole family is full of readers.

Debbie in MD.

I had the same reaction to The Storyteller. I thought it was such a wasted opportunity because the subject matter could have made for a fascinating book.

I've read three books, all good reads.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. 5/5 stars (rounded up from 4.5 stars):
This book has been compared to "The Fault in Our Stars" and "Eleanor & Park" and I can see why people have made the comparison: well written YA books about two quirky teenagers with issues who meet and navigate unconventional relationships. But I think the books stand alone on their own merits, including the compelling "All the Bright Places". The book was informed by the author's own experiences with suicide and we see various aspects of it through the main characters and how others around them react/interact with them. I would probably go 4.5 stars, but am rounding up because the story and characters really pulled me in and I thought the writing was great.

We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride. 4/5 stars:
A true event in Las Vegas was used as inspiration for Laura McBride's novel "We Are Called to Rise". She used the bare facts of the event and created her own cast of characters, including an Iraq vet, a young immigrant boy, and a woman in her fifties dealing with the dissolution of her marriage and her adult son's return from the army. Chapters utilize alternating narrators and this form worked for the novel. I liked the characters and the stories they had to tell, although they were often full of sadness and despair. I knocked a star because I wasn't completely on board with the ending, but overall I enjoyed the book.

Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan. 4/5 stars:
Quick and funny read. Nothing earth shattering here, but the parenting observations are spot on.