Weekly Reading Thread: Sept 23-29

I just finished Ghosted by Rosie Walsh. I got the recommendation here then I was worried. Some reviews really enjoyed it and some said it was pure trash. I liked it 3 stars worth. Not enough to tell my bff to read it immediately but well enough that it was not a waste of time! I did not buy it after the really good reviews and I was not so patiently biding my time on the hide list. Glad I didn’t buy it.

I am going to read Forgive Me Leonard peacock next. Saw it available at the library when I was looking up another recommendation from here by the same author.

I finished listening to The Diplomat's Daughter by Karin Tanabe. I liked the story and would have enjoyed it more if I had actually read it since (imo) one of the narrators was terrible. I'm currently listening to The Tour (A Trip Through Ireland) by Jean Grainger, a lighter read that I'm enjoying.

I finished Jar of Hearts last night (3/5 stars). I downloaded the sample of Good Neighbors and it caught my interest so I think I'll end up downloading the full version.

I read The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittal. I really enjoyed it, but also felt she left a number of things hanging that should have been resolved.  And she kind of gave up at the end and it just went 

Finished Cross My Heart By Sarah Pinborough, 2/5 stars. The first half was pretty good, the second half was awful. I will not be reading anymore books by this author. Basically about a paranoid woman and her daughter, and then we find out why she's so paranoid. Ugh, the reveal was too stupid to believe. Not as bad as Behind Her Eyes, but not good either. 

Finished A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner, 4/5 stars. Two narrations, one set in 1911 during the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, and one set in 2011 and follows a widow ten years after 9/11. I really loved this book and actually loved all the characters. The mystery of the scarf and the process of grief was really well done. I related to the main character of Clara. 

Currently reading Educated by Tara Westover. I am really enjoying this book right now. I can't wait to keep reading it. It reminds me of The Glass Castle, which was a book I loved. 

Thanks for this review! I had to ask my library to order it and, when it came in, I was anxious to start it right away.  I only got through about 25% of it before I gave up because I just couldn't see it going anywhere.  I may have to borrow it again and give it a bit more time.

In the last few weeks, I read:

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng - 3.5/5 - There were a number of depressing mother-daughter plotlines and it left me feeling just kind of blah.  I read it for book club, so I'm anxious to see what everyone else thought about it.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn - 4/5 - I watched the mini-series recently, and both my husband and I were left stupefied with the jaw-dropping ending. I had to read the book to fill in the gaps and, of course, get a better understanding of the characters.  The book was really very good, with great character development, and it was a bit less "harsh" than the series.  Also the ending was much more satisfying, as there was an epilogue which explained a lot of questions we were left with.

Need to Know by Karen Cleveland - 2.5/5 - Ugh, another book about an intelligent woman making stupid, stupid choices.  I actually yelled at her a few times while reading. 

Currently reading The Dirty Book Club by Lisi Harrison - From Amazon: " A novel about the importance of friendship, and, of course, the pleasure of a dirty book".    I'm about half way through, and so far it's been an enjoyable, light read.

Trying to get through Fear by Bob Woodward - but I can only stomach a few chapters at a time, so this may take a while.

I read a nonfiction book, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou. Talk about truth being stranger than fiction!

Bad Blood is the story of Elizabeth Holmes, a twenty year old Stanford drop out, who raised hundreds of millions of dollars for her start up company which had supposedly developed a blood testing machine which could run numerous blood tests using only a tiny drop of blood. Rupert Murdoch invested 125 million in her company. George Schultz and Henry Kissinger sat on her board. Joe Biden toured the lab and posed for pictures with Holmes. The Obamas invited Holmes to a State Dinner.

However, things are not as rosy at the company as they appear. The story unfolds like a great true crime story.

I just read that a movie will be made and Jennifer Lawrence will play Holmes.

So were her actions malicious? When it went down, I had assumed she just got in over her head and couldn't deliver the product she thought she could. Was it all a scam from the beginning?

Just one for me this week, The Things We Wish Were True by MaryBeth Mayhew Whalen. So this book is a little chick lit and a little predictable, but I really liked it. Sometime there's a line in a book that really jumps out at me that kind of erases all those negative checkmarks in my head because it really speaks to me. And reading this- "And yet, Jencey understood, there were the things she wished were true, and there was what was actually true. She was learning that there was usually a great distance between the two." was that moment for me. (And btw, one of those negative checkmarks is a book full of weird names which this book has its share of, but "Jencey" is a nickname fro Jennifer C. and I have a sister named Jennifer so I know all about having multiple Jennifers in a class). This is the story of some individuals in a small town whose lives were once intertwined year back. The story flips between providing the background as well as a local tragedy that makes them examine their past relationships and shows that not everything on the surface is true. If you like Lianne Moriarty, it has a bit of that type of storytelling.

Next up for me for me is Us Against You. I actually preordered this book, but I've been waiting for a quiet week so I could savor this one. I'm five minutes in and already have my line that speaks to me. I can tell I'm going to love this as much as Bear Town.

I read this a couple months ago and liked it more than I thought I would too. I think when I reviewed it I thought that I felt like I hadn’t read any books with adults diagnosed with autism and I think it is a neglected subject. Particularly those who are on the spectrum and are functioning in a world where not everybody understands their diagnosis and just thinks they are weird.

Honestly, this makes me feel better. She really, really believed in something and wanted it to work. 

I read Surprise Me by Sophie Kinsella. I really like Sophie Kinsella, but this book was just a little annoying. I liked the protagonist quite a bit, but did not like her husband and mother. I thought the premise was pretty flimsy. 3.5 out of 5

I wish I could stop everyone from reading Ghosted, though. I think I gave it 2.5 out of 5 and now I regret the high rating. I did not like the protagonist at all.

Yes on the weird part.  My son is high functioning like Stella so it is that fine line of people knowing something is different vs just being weird.  I like how she finally decided that nothing was wrong with her...she was different and that was ok.  

I'm late to the thread this week. Been fighting a migraine since Friday night-it's comes and goes, keeps coming back. I'm feeling okay now and I really wanted to get this book reviewed because it was incredible. 

This week I read The Fire by Night by Teresa Messineo. This was a historical fiction novel (the author's first) about 2 American military nurses experiences during WWII. Jo and Kay meet in nursing school and become close friends. When they graduate Kay seems to have landed the best duty assignment-she is sent to Hawaii, the Pacific. Jo is sent to the Western Front. Through this book's incredible writing I felt as though I was there with each nurse as she experienced the horrors of war around her and yet she kept to her duties of taking care of "her" men. I've read a lot of historical fiction and non-fiction about WWII. I've never read anything about what the nurses went though and this was such an eye-opener for me. This is a well researched novel. The book is split between two narratives going back and forth between Jo's experience and Kay's experience. The book is very detailed and realistic. I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads. This is a book I plan to buy a copy of to keep for myself. 

My system is to borrow everything I read from my local library (which I'm so grateful to have an amazing one) and then at the end of the year or every so often buy copies in hardback of the books I really love the most to keep for myself. I am very lucky to have a local library that gets in new books in print fairly quickly. I read everything in paper format-I know ebooks would be a lot quicker but with migraines I don't like the screen experience. 

Currently I'm reading a light read, something a lot of you have read that I haven't gotten to-The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware. I'm about half way through and will do a review on this next week. It's been a good one during migraine days because I don't have to concentrate too much.  I have to read every day. It is impossible for me to skip a day unless I am really, really sick. Reading to me is a passion, it is a part of me like breathing. It calms me down. I read every night before going to sleep. 

After that I have a bookshelf full of library books to choose from. 
                                                                                         

I had a good reading week - finishing two books that were both 5 stars for me.

The first was Sadie by Courtney Summers. Sadie has never really had a lot of support in her life. Her mother was addict that never connected with her daughter. Her father was not ever in the picture. But then her mom has a new baby and for all intents and purposes, Sadie takes over as mom to that little girl, even after their real mom leaves them alone. Then, Sadie is devastated when her little sister Maddie is killed. The only thing that makes sense to Sadie is to go after the killer.

The book is written in alternating viewpoints. You follow Sadie as she is trying to find the man who killed her sister. You also follow along with a "Serial-type" of podcast as West McCray tries to find Sadie and find out what happened. It is a hard story to read and you just really want life to cut Sadie some breaks. And it is also one of those books that the author writes the book as it should be written even if it is hard to read.

The second book was Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. This was a great book! A great storyline of a young girl whose family leaves her to survive in the marsh alone. She learns to survive with virtually no help from the outside world. She does befriend a boy who teaches her to read. The book follows her as she grows and makes a life in the marsh. There is a secondary storyline of a local man who is found murdered and the question of who did it. This is a quick read that you can emerge yourself in fully. I highly recommended it!