🟣 :::READING THREAD::: Week of July 9th

I love Greek Myth retellings, but I feel like I read three retellings of Clytemnestra/Electrka/women of troy, so I have not reserved this one yet. I think I will tho.

One very good and one not so good……..



SHE STARTED IT (‘23 DEBUT NOVEL - 4 STARS) BY SIAN GILBERT
DESCRIPTION : It is a hot, twisty summer debut thriller about a group of young women whose Caribbean bachelorette party takes a sinister turn. It’s Lord of the Flies meets And Then There Were None...but with Instagram and too much prosecco. Annabel, Esther, Tanya, and Chloe are best friends—or were, as children. Despite drifting apart in adulthood, shared secrets have kept them bonded for better or worse. Then one day they receive a wholly unexpected invitation from another old friend. Poppy Greer has invited them all to her extravagant bachelorette party: a first-class plane ticket to three days of white sand, cocktails, and relaxation on a luxe private island in the Bahamas.  None of them has spoken to Poppy in years. Curiosity gets the better of them. Besides, who can turn down a posh all-expenses-paid vacation on a Caribbean island?

REVIEW:
Author’s debut novel. The description caught my attention. Enjoyed the first 15% having the main characters introduced and wondering what happened 10 years ago when they were last together. With five main characters speaking, slight difficulty with long chapters remembering who was speaking in that chapter - maybe just me. At half way when past secrets start being revealed and paybacks are being doled out, the tension builds. Only one character out of 5 could anyone feel for. By 70% I think this book might have too many secrets; never thought I’d say that about a book. I do love the author’s writing which got this book 4 stars as the whole last 30% really brought the whole story together. I might even have shed a few tears toward the end. Could have been 5 stars if I didn’t have difficulty keeping track of soooo many secrets. Looking forward to this author’s next book!



THE SEASIDE LIBRARY (‘23 - 2 STARS) BY BRENDA NOVAK
DESCRIPTION : Mariners Island is barely ten miles long, but when Ivy, Ariana and Cam were teenagers, it was their whole world. Beyond the pristine beaches and iconic lighthouse lies the beautiful old library that belongs to Ivy’s family. While that bound Ivy to the island as an adult, Ariana could not leave Mariners behind fast enough. The town holds too many…memories. Not only her unrequited feelings for Cam, but the tragedy that left a scar on the community. When a young girl went missing, a teenage Cam was unthinkably the prime suspect. Ariana and Ivy knew he couldn’t have hurt anyone, and they promised to protect him—even if it meant lying on his behalf. Now, twenty years later, Ariana returns to Mariners just as new evidence emerges on the case, calling into question everything the three friends thought they knew.

REVIEW :
First books by Brenda Novak were the 5 books in the Evelyn Talbot Series and all received 4 Stars. Good writing but not much of storyline; a little boring for me. Found myself skimming a lot in the second half. If you like cozy mysteries, maybe this one’s for you. Not me.



Happy Reading !  Stay Cool !

I dont know if I included the last 4 books I read, so this is what I read the last couple of weeks:

2.5 Stars for Twelve Months & a Day by Louisa Young. Rasmus and Jay, Róisín and Nico are two couples in love when one partner in each pair dies, but come back as ghosts and work to get them together. I wish I enjoyed this one more -the premise was interesting, I liked some of the back & forth banter, but it just fell flat.

4 Stars for If Only YOu by Chloe Liese. I feel like this series is getting a little repetitive, but I am also pleased to see it move along. I did think the author was going to tie in more of Ziggy's bisexual identity, but the character basically mentioned it a couple of times and nothing much more came of it. So there was nothing really new or earth shattering; an easy rom-com book.

3 Stars for I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai. Bodie Kane returns to her New Hampshire boarding school, where she spent four miserable years at, plus dealt with the murder of her former roommate, Thalia Keith. An arrest was made - the school's athletic trainer, Omar Evans, although his conviction was debated online.

3 Stars for Take What You Need by Idra Novey.
“Every day, you have to abandon your past or accept it, and then, if you cannot accept it, you become a sculptor.” — Louise Bourgeois

Jean is an artist living in WVa, compelled to make ginormous metal sculptures (Manglements). She struggles to put together large sheets and pieces of metal to make her art, but manages with the help of Elliot, a neighbor who she takes pity on who has no water, and becomes fascinated with. Their relationship is odd, btwn a 60 yr old and a late teenager. Leah is her estranged step-daughter, who adored Jean as a child, but when her father kept them apart, she still manages to keep in touch with Jean via email - not FB or social media, but rather sending Jean emails to donate for various things. I'm not a fan of Leah, she seemed snobby and reluctant to come back to the poor, rural area she grew up for a part of her childhood, but I cannot figure her out. Her character is not as developed as Jean's. I wish there was a 3rd POV from Elliott. This story gave me Glass Castle vibes, but I honestly didn't really understand or connect with any of the characters, and I really wish I could have seen actual pictures of these sculptures. The descriptions just weren't enough.

4.5 Stars for All That Is Mine I Carry With Me by William Landay. In 1975, Miranda Larkin returns home from school to an empty house - her mother Jane has vanished. Told from several points of view, her disappearance encompasses her children, a childhood friend, and her husband, who is the #1 suspect. When her bones are discovered years later, the case is reopened. Not quite as gripping as his previous book Defending Jacob, but I am still thinking about this one.

I'm another one who absolutely adored this book. I gave it 5 stars. That ending, though. I liked it as much as Defending Jacob. 

This week, I am reading The Covenant of Water. I started it and then had to stop as it was due back at the library. It's so long that I just gave up and bought it. My sister (whose opinion I trust on books 97% of the time) said it's one of her all-time faves. 

Thankfully, I only have one library book out currently, and I have a few weeks to return that. I do have three on hold, but I do not have to pick them up until Friday. I have a few days to concentrate on this and hopefully finish it. 

I originally thought that I would just start reading TCOW where I left off on p. 207. Nope. I started completely over as I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything. That's okay. I'm almost to page 300 now. 

Lisa 

The White Lady, by Jacqueline Winspear. If you've read her Maisie Dobbs series, this is actually a stand-alone (unless it turns into a series too). Elinor White is a resident in an English country town post-WWII, and she entangles herself with a young family trying to escape the husband's mobbed-up family in London. The book bounces around time periods, including Elinor's teen years doing resistance spy work in Belgium during WWI, and her return to government intelligence during WWII. I like the author a lot, and, while historical fiction isn't always my favorite, enjoyed this. It's maybe less of a mystery than the Maisie Dobbs books, but pretty similar in feel.

The Pledge, by Cale Dietrich. This is YA gay horror, if that is niche enough for you. Teen is a victim who survives a serial killer during a high school lake trip; in college, he pledges a fraternity, and the brothers start getting picked off by what seems to be the same killer, even though the killer is supposed to be deceased. Light, quick horror read with a little romance threaded through as the main character tries to figure out if he can trust and have a relationship with the brother he's interested in dating.

I am reading that right now!

I have Yellowface on my reserves list too!

I read a nonfiction book The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune by Alexander Stille. It proved that life is stranger than fiction.

The Sullivanians were a cult living under the radar in New York in the 40s-70s. The cult members consisted of famous artists, actors, doctors, engineers and ordinary people. They lived communally, but the women and men lived in seperate living quarters and basically only came together to have sex. They were all undergoing psychotherapy by cult leaders who believed that being raised in a traditional family is the worst thing psychologically that can happen to a child.

The cult leaders encouraged their members to have kids, but to send them away to boarding school at an age as young as six. The kids usually spent Christmas vacation with strangers and then were sent to summer camp so that they wouldn’t spend any time with their parents and be harmed psychologically as a result.

Last week I finished Cross Down: An Alex Cross John and Sampson Thriller by James Patterson. Compelling storyline, heart-pounding moments and short chapters! 4/5 stars

Now I’m reading Her Perfect Family by Theresa Driscoll. I wonder if it was a First Reads book because it was on my Kindle and I didn’t borrow it from the library. It’s good so far.