🟣 :::READING THREAD::: Week of April 21

I read Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. I enjoyed it so much. I'm having surgery on my hand today and I picked up the next book as I won't be able to do much with my lame hand except read. Can't wait to see where it goes.

Stranded: A completely unputdownable psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist Sarah Goodwin

Not sure if that is the actual title but that is what it says on the Amazon page. Three stars. Am I glad I read it? Not really!

I didn't finish a book this week either! I had a couple of duds that put me off picking anything else up.
First one was House Woman by Adorah Nworah  The first chapter of this is an introduction to the characters, by page 4 we know that the male main character has a penis that smells like rancid cheese. I baulked but pushed past it thinking it wouldn't be mentioned again, I was wrong it's mentioned all the bloody time.
I deleted the book from my Kindle in the end, highly do not recommend 

The second was Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica I couldn't get past the infantilising of the main female character. 

Yesterday I finished The Stranger in Her House by John Marrs. This book had more twists than a pretzel. This wasn't my favorite of Marrs but it kept me guessing. Even though some of it was implausible, it was a still a good read. 4/5 stars

Now I'm reading The Guests by Margot Hunt which I think was recommended on one of these threads. Having lived through a hurricane, the story isn't hard for me to imagine!

I read One Last Word by Suzanne Park.
I won this ARC from Goodreads.
I found the story to be very similar to other books I have read recently.
Sara Chae is the founder of the app One Last Word, which allows you to send a message to whomever you want after you pass. Safeguards are in place so the app will only send out when you're definitely, absolutely 100 percent dead, but when another Sara Chae dies and the obituary triggers the prototype to auto-send messages that Sara uploads on one drunken night to her emotionally charged mother, to a former best friend who ghosted her, and to her unrequited high school crush, Harry she has to deal with all the havoc that ensues and reopen old wounds from the past.
She applies for a venture capital mentorship and is accepted to the program, only to find out the mentor she's assigned is none other than her former crush and VC superstar Harry Shim, and her life goes from uncertain to chaotic overnight.

I have not 1, but 2 dnf's...and I'm embarrassed. Because both are loved here...
The first is Happiness Falls, by Angie Kim. I got maybe a little less then half way thru and gave up. I didn't like anyone in the family, even a little bit.

The second is even more surprising. The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah. I got about 150 pages in, then the older sister gave up her friend, and I was like, ok, I'm out! This I may return to. After my sister soundly told me off and said how great this is. So I may give it another chance. But neither sister to me, had anything to them that I wanted to root for or care about. But...like say...I may go back.

I didn't like Angie Kim's other book Miracle Creek for the same reason.  I didn't connect or care about any of the characters... Good to know I can skip this one.  

Not a good week for me either.  What was going on last week ?



A MAN DOWNSTAIRS (‘24 - 2 STARS) BY NICOLE LUNDRIGAN
DESCRIPTION : What if the childhood you remember isn’t really what happened at all? Molly Wynters has moved back to her small hometown to care for her father, recently felled by a stroke and no longer able to communicate. She is ready to make a fresh start with her son after her divorce, but is haunted by both old events and new realities in her childhood home. What Molly recalls of her young life with her father is full of love and care, even though a violent trauma defined her childhood: when she was a young girl, she witnessed her mother’s murder, and her testimony – “There was a man downstairs” – sent a teenager to prison. This tragic episode is still very much alive in the culture of the town, and the more Molly remembers, the more she fears that what she said on the stand all those years ago might not have been the whole truth.  After Molly, a trained therapist, volunteers for a local helpline, the threats begin. At first they seem random, but soon Molly realizes that she is a target, and even those closest to her seem suspicious, especially as unsuspected links between them emerge. A study of how fragile nature of memory can be.

REVIEW :

First book by this author for me was Hideway (‘19 - Read ‘24 - 4 Stars).
This book dragged for me. I kept reading but was soooo bored. A mystery that just seemed to never end. Disappointed.



THE WIFE’S BABY (‘24 - 264 PGS - 3 STARS) BY DANIEL HURST
DESCRIPTION : When Tuppence was born, I thought I was complete. Even when my marriage to Leon began to falter, at least I had my baby girl to look after. Adults have problems all the time, but children have a way of making them seem so insignificant. But then Tuppence goes missing and I realise how my life has been teetering on the brink for so long. Now it’s just me and my husband again, the two of us and all our problems, and we’re forced to work together as a team to get our beloved daughter back.

REVIEW :

First books by this author were The Colleagues (‘24 - 4 Stars), The Couple’s Revenge (‘24 - 258 Pgs - 4 Stars), Her Husband’s Mistake (‘23 - Only 217 Pgs - 4 Stars) and The Intruder (‘22 - 270 Pgs - 3 Stars).

Just enough character development before trouble starts. Liked the build-up; has to be quick since only 264 pages. Read a similar book recently so clued me in to where it might be going. Slow beginning and middle but with a satisfying ending for me. Just OK for me since I read a similar one very recently.



HOPEFULLY we ALL pick BETTER books this week !

Last week was a weird week, wasn't it?

I DNF'd two books, both with excellent ratings. All We Were Promised started so. very. slow, and I was just bored. The Stone Home was about the capture of men and women in well, the stone home, with lots of abuse of those captured. It tied into the present day, but I just didn't want to read about the abuse.

I did finish two books that were both quite strong.

The Woman on the Ledge: I liked the premise of this. (I can't say without spoiling it.) But the execution fell a bit flat for me. Even so, this was quite twisty. 4/5 stars.

Everyone Is Watching: This is a Survivor-type premise or "the last person standing." Entertaining but implausible. The ending was perfection, though. 4/5 stars

Reading A Killing on the Hill by Dugoni right now. Even this is dragging a bit.

Lisa

He told me to tell you he worships me to the point where he will turn my pages while he's feeding me grapes. 🤣 He laughed so hard saying this, he nearly choked. 🤣😂🤣😂

I read The Minders by John Marrs this week. I've just recently gotten into him partly due to this thread. I liked how he tied other books into this one to give a glimpse at a dystopian future. 4/5

This week, a couple of Slow but Steady Reads and then a fiction:



On the Prayer of Jesus by St. Ignatius Brianchianinov. My most-recent toothbrush book, this book is a gentle reminder to not bite off more than you can chew and to always, always, always be under the guidance of a spiritual Father. 4/5 stars.



84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. My little bath book for a couple of weeks. It’s been probably 20 years since I read this series of letters and while I remembered the overarching story, I’d forgotten how impulsive and brash Helene was, but it covered a heart of gold. Several laugh-out-loud moments. 4/5 stars.



Anne of Ingleside by LM Montgomery. I was contemplating how you wrote a children’s book about an adult person as I was reading, and the answer is to shift to the kids. There were glimpses of Anne as an adult (including an episode that keeps my mom from continuing this series,) but for the most point we got repetitive scrapes that the kids got in to and then confessed to their mother, who tried to keep from laughing. 2.75/5 stars.



Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. My Lenten Read-along this year. It is only the second Berry book that I’ve read but this one touched me. It’s beautiful, quiet, wise. I felt like I read in in my membership 5/5 stars.

I actually finished two books this week because I've been reading both at the same time. haha Also, a third that I finished last week that I can't remember if I posted... That one was Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. One of my dystopian books that are either excellent or pretty bad. haha This one leaned toward the "pretty bad" side, although it was intriguing enough that I kept going just to find out what happened. Basically it's San Francisco that has just had a terrorist attack, and Homeland Security turns the city into a police state. Plausible these days, but still just "meh". 

This week I finished Hula by Jasmin Iolani Hakas. I LOVED this book. It follows one family in Hawaii, from the old pre-USA Hawaii into the current day. I leaned a lot of history from this book, about the shameful way the native Hawaiians were treated by the United States, how their traditional lands were taken to make way for tourist hotels, etc. Very sad. Woven through the book was the story of the hula dances which I also had no idea of. I mean, I know what a hula dance is of course, but only what is presented to us as tourists. I had no idea of the history and tradition of it. Definitely a 5-star book for me. 

The second one I read was one I heard about here in this thread. Confessions on the 7:45 by Lisa Unger. A very quick read, with a plot twist every time you turn your head. I really enjoyed it. I did have to make a little cheat sheet though with all the names and relationships until I got more into the book, because so many people are introduced at the beginning that I mixed everyone up. I liked it though because I do like plot-twisty books.  

Also I just put a John Marrs book on hold because of this thread.

Confessions was a good page turner for me but I also got confused by all of the characters and changing names. 

I have fallen down the John Marrs rabbithole thanks to this thread and luckily some of his books are on Kindle Unlimited.