The Great Carpezio
Pearl Clutcher
Something profound goes here.
Posts: 2,930 
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Post by The Great Carpezio on Jun 24, 2018 17:58:59 GMT
Still in Iceland. Reading The Hate You Give.
What did you read this week?
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Post by mnmloveli on Jun 24, 2018 18:16:05 GMT
Last night I finished Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman.
I gave 4/5 Stars. Just squeaked in with 4 Stars for me.
I think a couple of TwoPeas we’re reading this also. It’s the first book by this author and has already been picked up for a movie. Good read even with a few unbelievable side plots.
A shocking discovery on a honeymoon in paradise changes their lives. Could the life of your dreams be the stuff of nightmares?
Suddenly the newlyweds must make a dangerous choice: to speak out or to protect their secret. After all, if no one else knows, who would be hurt? Their decision will trigger a devastating chain of events.
Just started B.A. Paris’ new book, Bring Me Back.
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Post by SockMonkey on Jun 24, 2018 18:25:02 GMT
On vacation I finished Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro. If you liked THUG, check this book out, especially if you are into reading YA or examining police brutality/race issues. There is a part of the book involving a protest that I found fascinating, having never been involved in a protest that included police action.
I also read The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner. Shit was DARK, but if you are an Orange is the New Black fan, you might find this interesting. It's not a light read, but it's good.
I read Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwon, which was fun and light. I wanted to read it before the movie comes out in August. I liked it so much I am now reading the sequel China Rich Girlfriend. I was in the mood for something a little quicker and lighter, and these 2 books are getting it done!
On my upcoming list:
The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Joukhadar
The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
Becoming Nicole by Amy Ellis Nutt
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Post by SockMonkey on Jun 24, 2018 18:42:05 GMT
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Post by cadoodlebug on Jun 24, 2018 19:36:05 GMT
Last week I finished The Other Girl by Erica Spindler. It was an easy read and had me guessing for most of the book.
I am just getting into Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. I'm already hooked and looking forward to seeing how it all unfolds. I know many Peas on this thread have read this book so thanks for the recommendation.
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janeliz
Drama Llama
I'm the Wiz and nobody beats me.
Posts: 5,633
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Post by janeliz on Jun 24, 2018 20:29:51 GMT
After Anna by Lisa Scottoline. This one was a disappointment for me. It seemed so sophomoric for such an accomplished writer with so many great books. I stuck with it until the end because I wanted to see how she wrapped it up, but it was a slog.
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Post by trixiecat on Jun 24, 2018 20:35:55 GMT
I just started The Perfect Mother. I am liking it so far.
I finished yesterday The Book of Essie. It was good but not great.
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edie3
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,473
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Post by edie3 on Jun 24, 2018 21:41:09 GMT
I finished 2 this week, The Home for Unwanted Girls which I really liked, and read The Perfect Motherv which I really did not care for.
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gottapeanow
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,752
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Post by gottapeanow on Jun 24, 2018 22:30:15 GMT
I read a few this week.
1. Something in the Water. Here's my GR review: This gripping book opens with Mark dead and Erin burying him in the middle of the forest.
Mark and Erin are newlyweds, off for the honeymoon of a lifetime in Bora Bora. While scuba diving, they find Something in the Water.
And that's when everything goes crazy.
They now need to navigate a whole new set of unknowns. In the meantime, Mark has lost his job, and Erin, a film producer, is in the middle of filming a documentary of three people who have recently been released from prison.
So how did we get from a wonderful marriage to a dead husband? Well, you'll just have to read it to find out.
Steadman pulled me under the water with this roller coaster ride and the great cast of characters. Can't wait to read more from her! 5/5 stars. (less)
2. How to Set Yourself on Fire by Evans Here is my GR review:
I gave How to Set Yourself on Fire more than 100 pages, but I just couldn't do it.
I liked everything about this but the main character. She was just downright bizarre, and I could not work up one bit of interest in what happened to her. DNF at about 35 percent.
3. The Break by Vermette Here is my GR review:
The Break is literary and beautiful, but I have mixed feelings about this one. That's mostly because the ending fell pretty flat to me. The plot and character development and even the setting were all well done, though. 3/5 stars.
4. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane Here is my GR review
"Open your heart," she said gently. "Someone will come. Someone will come for you. But first you must open your heart."
This book.
Simply precious. I cried at the end. Beautiful.
Off to Amazon to order a pristine copy for my grandson. 5/5 miraculous stars.
I just started Us Against You and am already enjoying every word.
Lisa
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Post by nancydrew on Jun 24, 2018 23:34:26 GMT
I've been on vacation the past 10 days so I've had more reading time than usual. I finished Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen, which I really liked. I also reread Beartown by Fredrik Backman, which is one of favorite books ever! I wanted to reread it before I started Us Against You, which I am now reading and enjoying.
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TXMary
Pearl Clutcher
And so many nights I just dream of the ocean. God, I wish I was sailin' again.
Posts: 2,810
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Post by TXMary on Jun 24, 2018 23:34:33 GMT
This week I read Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. It was hard for me to read at times because of what is going on right here right now with the children but I thought it was excellent. I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads.
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Post by vi on Jun 24, 2018 23:49:39 GMT
I finished reading the book Where There's Hope by Elizabeth Smart. I LOVED this book. Elizabeth interviews people who had all kinds of hardships in their lives. They tell how they were able to heal and move on. Elizabeth interweaves her own experiences in the book also. I was impressed how she interviewed people from all walks of life and was sensitive to their stories.
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Post by stingfan on Jun 25, 2018 1:07:45 GMT
The Flight Attendant by Chis Bohjalian - Eh. Didn't really care for it. It was pretty anti-climatic when the mystery was solved.
Only Child by Rhiannon Navin - The book is told from the perspective of a 6yo boy. I listened to it on audio and the reader was a kid. I didn't really like it. I wonder if I would have liked it better in print than on audio.
Started I'll Be Your Blue Sky by Marisa de los Santos - I read the first two books in this series years ago and enjoyed them. Hopefully this one will be good, too.
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Post by birukitty on Jun 25, 2018 2:18:15 GMT
Two for me this past week. First up:
The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman. This book is a novel about 3 sisters, Elv, short of Elizabeth, Claire and Meg. They are very close sharing the same bedroom in their parents home. Elv suffers a childhood trauma and to deal with it invents a fantasy world and a language to go with it sharing it with her sisters. This comes in handy when the sisters parents divorce as way to deal with the emotions and upheaval. The girls have a wonderful grandmother who plays a huge part of their lives who lives in Paris. They go to visit her once a year. As they get older Elv starts to go wild experimenting with drugs and wild boys. I liked this novel and feel Alice Hoffman is a good writer. She is great at developing her characters and is a natural storyteller. I gave this book a 3.5 at Goodreads.
Next I read The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood. I don't know why I haven't read any novels by Margaret Atwood. I've always heard she's an amazing writer. I guess part of the reason is most of my reading focus's on historical fiction. In the past 2 1/2 weeks I've signed up to Hulu and started watching "A Handmaid's Tale" which I've found is engrossing, well made and just an incredible story. I've meant to read the book for ages but just never got around to it. There's a long wait list right now at the library so in the meantime I thought I'd read a few of Margaret Atwood's other novels. This one is one of her more recent one's and according to the reviews on Goodread's people either hate it or love it. I liked it very much. It's about the future and society has collapsed in an economic and social collapse. There are no jobs and when the novel starts Stan and Charmaine who are a young married couple have lost their apartment, their jobs and are now reduced to living in their car leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They need to change their situation, but how? Hope comes in a project they can enter and if they are accepted they will have jobs and a house. The only catch is every other month they will have to spend in a prison. It's a better prison than what used to be in the "before" life. They decide to take a chance and enter the project. I gave this book 4 stars at Goodreads. I'm looking forward to reading more Margaret Atwood novels.
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janeliz
Drama Llama
I'm the Wiz and nobody beats me.
Posts: 5,633
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Post by janeliz on Jun 25, 2018 2:20:50 GMT
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gottapeanow
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,752
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Post by gottapeanow on Jun 25, 2018 2:34:32 GMT
Started I'll Be Your Blue Sky by Marisa de los Santos - I read the first two books in this series years ago and enjoyed them. Hopefully this one will be good, too. I just read this last month and loved it so much! Lisa |
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Post by ~summer~ on Jun 25, 2018 2:43:43 GMT
I finished Tangerine (about a couple of college friends in Morocco) and I am about to finish a light Summer read called The Weekenders. I wanted something while we were vacationing on the lake.
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finaledition
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,896
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Post by finaledition on Jun 25, 2018 4:02:25 GMT
Wow-that really does look great! |
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Post by fotos4u2 on Jun 25, 2018 7:18:25 GMT
Four books for me this week. Finally feel like I'm back to wanting to read.
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. I gave this 4 stars on Goodreads. Trevor Noah is really funny and I laughed a lot reading this. It definitely is an easy read.
The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger. Another 4 stars. I probably would have given it 5 stars, but I skipped the papers that included law cases. The book is basically about a woman getting a divorce and her lawyer. It's literally every email, letter, and other correspondence that pertained to the case and to both of the women's personal lives.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. Only 2 stars for this one. It was basically a sort of autobiography of Paul Kalanithi who was a neurosurgeon who got lung cancer. It chronicled his life before he was diagnosed through treatment and to his eventual death. It was a quick read, but the medical stuff was kind of boring.
Somewhere Out There by Amy Hatvany. I just finished this one yesterday and was surprised how enjoyable of a read it ended up being. I gave it 4 stars only because I felt the ending was a little abrupt. It's about two sisters who are given up by their birth mother during the late 70s. One sister is adopted and the other sister spends her childhood in foster care until she ages out. The book rotates between the three narrators: both sisters and the birth mother.
Next up for me is Outside the Lines also by Amy Hatvany about a woman who's father is mentally ill and homeless. I'm hopeful I like it was much as the previous book.
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Post by lesserknownpea on Jun 25, 2018 7:59:28 GMT
Two for me this past week. First up: The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman. This book is a novel about 3 sisters, Elv, short of Elizabeth, Claire and Meg. They are very close sharing the same bedroom in their parents home. Elv suffers a childhood trauma and to deal with it invents a fantasy world and a language to go with it sharing it with her sisters. This comes in handy when the sisters parents divorce as way to deal with the emotions and upheaval. The girls have a wonderful grandmother who plays a huge part of their lives who lives in Paris. They go to visit her once a year. As they get older Elv starts to go wild experimenting with drugs and wild boys. I liked this novel and feel Alice Hoffman is a good writer. She is great at developing her characters and is a natural storyteller. I gave this book a 3.5 at Goodreads. Next I read The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood. I don't know why I haven't read any novels by Margaret Atwood. I've always heard she's an amazing writer. I guess part of the reason is most of my reading focus's on historical fiction. In the past 2 1/2 weeks I've signed up to Hulu and started watching "A Handmaid's Tale" which I've found is engrossing, well made and just an incredible story. I've meant to read the book for ages but just never got around to it. There's a long wait list right now at the library so in the meantime I thought I'd read a few of Margaret Atwood's other novels. This one is one of her more recent one's and according to the reviews on Goodread's people either hate it or love it. I liked it very much. It's about the future and society has collapsed in an economic and social collapse. There are no jobs and when the novel starts Stan and Charmaine who are a young married couple have lost their apartment, their jobs and are now reduced to living in their car leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They need to change their situation, but how? Hope comes in a project they can enter and if they are accepted they will have jobs and a house. The only catch is every other month they will have to spend in a prison. It's a better prison than what used to be in the "before" life. They decide to take a chance and enter the project. I gave this book 4 stars at Goodreads. I'm looking forward to reading more Margaret Atwood novels. Try “The Blind Assassin” |
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Post by brina on Jun 25, 2018 11:40:42 GMT
I read Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan for my book club and really enjoyed it. Partly for me it was the comfort of the familiar. My grandfather and his brothers ran a dock in Brooklyn during that same time frame, so there was a lot that felt like a family story for me.
Next I went light and frothy with When Life Gives You Lululemons by Laurent Weisberger. Fun and funny but lacking something compared to the original Devil Wears Prada. I kept thinking "She needed the money." in Andrew Dice Clays voice
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Mystie
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,299
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Post by Mystie on Jun 25, 2018 14:46:17 GMT
I didn't finish anything this week...we had company the last half of the week and the first half, I was cleaning.  I'm still working on Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist and not enjoying it. Something needs to happen. I picked up Stephen King's new book The Outsider at Barnes and Noble last night, and I'm feeling the pull to get into that and leave The Intuitionist alone for a few days. I read the first few pages at the store and it looks exciting. |
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Rhondito
Pearl Clutcher
MississipPea
Posts: 4,662
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Post by Rhondito on Jun 25, 2018 14:50:31 GMT
I finished Something in the Water last week, and I absolutely loved it! (5/5) Which made picking my next book a difficult task. I finally decided on The Hate U Give. The author lives in my town and I should have read this before now. So far it's good. I can see shades of Jackson throughout it.
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milocat
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,436
Location: 55 degrees north in Alberta, Canada
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Post by milocat on Jun 25, 2018 16:33:54 GMT
I read The Bachelor Girl by Kim Van Alkemade when the owner of the New York Yankees died he left a third of his fortune to an former actress. Why? No one really knows and this book doesn't solve the mystery it is purely fiction. Some of the base facts are true about Jacob Ruppert and his business, home, the building of Yankee Stadium. But the rest is all made up, it was a good story. I actually preferred Albert's reason for why Jake left his fortune to Helen then how it unraveled in the end by what Helen's mother told them. Off to the post office now, my parcel is in from Indigo, more books!! cadoodlebug TXMary I have Before We Were Yours on my list, waiting for it to come into softcover (in Canada at least). I don't need to read it that bad that I need to spend that much on a hardcover. I have a stack of books a mile high waiting to be read anyway. gottapeanow we read The Break for book club. She did a good job painting the picture. I could see the town, the houses. fotos4u2 When Breath Becomes Air, eh it was alright I agree with your rating. |
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mimima
Drama Llama
Stay Gold, Ponyboy
Posts: 5,019
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Post by mimima on Jun 25, 2018 19:14:52 GMT
I read The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. It was my third reading, the first in this translation. Someday, in the original... It is a scarily timely novel about the moral bankruptcy of the Stalin era.
For Book Club, I finished A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I had read it probably 27 years ago (since I think my oldest was a baby) and had often thought about a lot of the themes. I had forgotten the writing style and that I didn't really like the main character. However, the themes are still amazing.
I also finished one of my "bit at a time" reads, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman . Typical self-help, it is flawed in the advice to an abused wife.
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Post by lynnek on Jun 25, 2018 19:15:29 GMT
I read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. This book was not what I expected but it was still a powerful book. So many stories of justice not served and places that our system has failed people.
I also I finished One of Us is Lying. It is a great YA suspense book. Five students and a teacher are in detention one day when one of the students dies. The other four kids all have secrets and reasons to be suspected of the murder. I really enjoyed the story and the mystery surrounding the murder. I thought I had it figured out but nope, I was wrong. I would recommend this one!
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Post by craftmepink on Jun 25, 2018 22:47:10 GMT
Finished The Storyteller by Jodi Picault. 4/5 stars. WWII historical fiction, an elderly man confesses to a baker that he used to be a Nazi. Oh my goodness, why didn't I read this sooner? This book was so good. I read it in about 2 days. My favorite story was the grandmother's. The Sage character annoyed me at times, if she wasn't the main focus, I would have given it a 5/5.
Reading The Baker's Secret by Stephen P. Kiernan. WWII historical fiction about a baker, set in France. I only have 100 pages to go but I don't even feel like finishing it. Maybe it's because I'm comparing it too much to The Storyteller. I just can't connect with any of the characters.
Reading Tangerine by Christine Mangan. About a woman named Alice who lives in Tangier with her husband. Her old friend Lucy shows up and it switches back and forth between the two main characters. Story is set in the 50's. I know some of you all recommended this, so far, so good!! I'm really intrigued and can't wait to find out what Alice and Lucy did.
I have Something in the Water on my bookshelf, will definitely start reading that after I finish Tangerine!
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peaname
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,389
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Post by peaname on Jun 25, 2018 23:59:12 GMT
I finished The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin Interesting book, had some good surprises. Four stars
Started So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Uluo I just started this but I'm learning already. I don't "want" to read it because who wants to read how insensitive they've been all their life?
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Post by mnmloveli on Jun 26, 2018 4:46:02 GMT
BRAVO B.A. Paris !!! You’ve done it again ! Another awesome book !
I just finished Bring Me Back by B.A. Paris. I couldn’t read any faster to try and figure out what was happening. Kept me intrigued the entire way.
5/5 Stars for me !
A young British couple are driving through France on vacation when they stop at a service station. He runs in to use the restroom, she stays in the car. When he returns, her car door has been left open, but she's not inside. No one ever sees her again.10 years later he’s engaged and comes home to find finance twirling something in her fingers that only he and she would know about as she is sister of his missing love. Has first love returned or is someone playing games.
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Post by candygurl on Jun 26, 2018 13:24:07 GMT
I’ve been reading Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren. Pretty good so far about two teenagers meeting when they were young and how their lives unfolded. It goes back and forth between the past and present. The characters are well written and while I like it so far, it seems a little slow. Like, get to the point already! I’m about 3/4 of the way done.
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