Weekly ReadingThread: July 2--July 8

Still reading Peter Walsh's Let It Go. Simply haven't spent much time reading this week.

Hey Readers!

Last week, I read Bryn Chancellor's Sycamore. It's about a young woman who disappears from a small Arizona town, and about the people around her who seem stuck by her disappearance.  It reminds me of John Hart's Last Child and Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You.

This Week, I'm reading Taylor Jenkins Reid's newest title The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.  Evelyn Hugo is a rich and famous actress from the sixties, and as she nears the end of her life, she wants to tell her story. Monique is the writer Evelyn chooses to tell her story, and she has to beat down her own demons in order to write about Evelyn's life.  I'm enjoying in, but I'm only up to husband no. 4.

Happy Reading!

I just finished this one, I enjoyed it, and gave it four stars.  Next up is The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

Started reading Girls in Trouble and it's really good so far! Got a lot of books from the library to take on vacation with us. I love to read at the beach!

I'm in the middle of "Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman by Anne Helen Petersen", but snuck in a quick cheap Kindle read, "Miracles and Mayhem in the ER" by Brent Rock Russell. It was not that great, but I love books about medicine and Book Riot did a whole post about a bunch of titles.

I think if I finish "Too Fat" I'll read "Exit West" by Mohsin Hamid next. Unless I am distracted by one of the 9 million other titles I want to read this summer!!

While on vacation this past week, I read Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian. I predicted the ending early on, but still enjoyed the character development and progression of the story along the way.

Not sure what's up next. I have Shanghai Girls by Lisa See, but I'm not too excited about starting it. I may just listen to some podcasts for awhile .

Oh, I did like both of those. OMG, my reading list. Damn. It's a situation. 

I am currently reading Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. So far it reminds me a lot of my own upbringing in West Texas.

I just finished Bertrand Court by Michelle Brafman. I would give it 2/5 stars. I had picked it up cheap, and was looking for something light and fluffy. It is more like a series of vignettes than a novel. I had a really hard time keeping up with the many, many characters and how they were all related. The author's writing style is pretty good--she just couldn't pull it all together. This one would have been well served by heavy editing.

I also started and set aside The Lincoln Prophecy by Carter Hopkins. I picked this one up after seeing the author on a local news show because I have connections to many of the locales in the book. Unfortunately, it is like a bad Dan Brown novel (and I don't give Dan Brown rave reviews). I'm about halfway through--don't know if I'll go back to it or not. I think it is self-published, so that should have been a clue.

I am listening to Spaceman, an autobiography by astronaut Mike Massimino (the one who occasionally appears on The Big Bang Theory). I am really enjoying this one and recommend it to anyone who is at all interested in what it takes to become an astronaut.

I most recently finished listening to Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller. This one is definitely outside my typical genre. It is LGBT fiction that I would classify as a historical romance--based of life of a real painter (I don't remember who--it was mentioned in the notes after the book.) It was well written and interesting. I don't care for romance novels regardless of the gender, so I could have lived without some of the mushy stuff. The narration was excellent, with Jean Smart (remember Designing Women?) and Janis Ian.

Preach it girl! I currently have 26 books on my iPad waiting to be read!

Just finished Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill which I read in 2 days on vacation.

Just started The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.

Just finished I See You by Clare Mackintosh. Soooo good & a little creepy. You never know who's following you or tracking your everyday movements. Someone starts posting your daily schedule on a "private club" website.

I think a few Peas have read this author's first book, I Let You Go and loved it. I'm reading that one next.

Also read Murder Games by James Patterson & Howard Roughan. Storyline was a little rushed. I think he's spending too much time on his bookshots.

I finished two books this week. 

First I read Love and Treasure by Ayelet Waldman This was a historical fiction book about the Hungarian Gold Train during the second world war. At the very end of the war in 1945 the American soldiers capture a train filled with the family treasures of some of the Hungarian Jewish people who the Germans have captured and sent Auschwitz. Jack Wiseman is the lieutenant charged with guiding this treasure.  70 years later Jack gives a necklace to his granddaughter and charges her with searching for an unknown woman to right the wrong he has committed. The novel flows back and forth between the past and present. I really enjoyed it. The writing is well done and the characters are well developed. I gave this book 4 stars. 

The second book I read was called The Accidental Empress by Allison Pataki  I really wanted to like this book. It's also historical fiction. It's about Sisi, the Astro-Hungarian Empress and captivating wife of Emperor Franz Joseph. The reason I wanted to read it was because during my travels through Germany I went to see two of the castles of "King Ludwig" and also with postcards of his image there were also postcards of "Sisi". I didn't know anything about her but learned that they were cousins. So I thought this historical fiction book might be a good intro. It was but well, the first part of the book was good but the last third really dragged on. There was a good question and answer section in the back of the book with the author though that I really liked especially about what part was fiction and what part was history, and many more questions. I gave this book 3.5 stars on goodreads.com. There is a follow up book to this one that I will try to read because it has more of King Ludwig in it. But first up I will take a break because two better books came in from the library. 

I read:

Chemistry by Weike Wang. 4.5/5 stars. Loved the voice of the narrator and really enjoyed this quick read.

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann. 4/5 stars. An especially dark spot in our history with American Indians and it was difficult to read at times, but it was very well researched and informative and I'm glad I read it.

Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch. 2/5 stars. Weird blend of dystopia, sci-fi, and philosophy. Wasn't my thing.

I'm currently reading This Dark Road to Mercy and on deck I have Kintu and The Animators.

 I read All the Ugly and Wonderful Things a few months ago and thought it was great, even if the subject matter was disturbing.  This is what I wrote on Goodreads:


All the Ugly and Wonderful Things is a perfect title for this book; referring both to Wavy's story and also the reading experience itself. Hearing simply that this book is about a relationship between a 24 year old man and 13 year old girl (whom he met when she was 8), your first reaction would likely be revulsion. And reading about these characters certainly makes you feel everything from uncomfortable to disgust (and Wavy's home situation is even more disturbing), yet you find yourself rooting for them because they are two damaged souls who have found some solace and comfort in one another (and it kind of feels icky to even write that). Despite any misgivings I had, I found the book compelling and difficult to put down. I think it does what good books do - tells an interesting story with nuance, elicits strong feelings, and challenges your emotions.