Lucy's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:35:30 -0700 60 Lucy's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Spirit Crossing (Cork O'Connor, #20)]]> 199798007 A disappearance and a dead body put Cork O’Connor’s family in the crosshairs of a killer in the twentieth book in the New York Times bestselling series from William Kent Krueger­, “a master storyteller at the top of his game� (Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

The disappearance of a local politician’s teenaged daughter is major news in Minnesota. As a huge manhunt is launched to find her, Cork O’Connor’s grandson stumbles across the shallow grave of a young Ojibwe woman—but nobody seems that interested. Nobody, that is, except Cork and the newly formed Iron Lake Ojibwe Tribal Police. As Cork and the tribal officers dig into the circumstances of this mysterious and grim discovery, they uncover a connection to the missing teenager. And soon, it’s clear that Cork’s grandson is in danger of being the killer’s next victim.]]> 318 William Kent Krueger 1982179244 Lucy 3 Ordinary Grace and didn't realize he had a plethora of books out when I saw this title available on audio on Libby. I checked it out expecting a stand alone mystery and was frustrated for a while because there wasn't very much character development going on. I really struggled figuring out who was who and wondered if this was a narration technique and I just needed to be patient.

Patience did pay off as I eventually connected to the characters and their motivations but when I got on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ to review, and saw that this is #20 in a series...well...there may be more character development happening in the previous 19 books. Oops.

It's pretty impressive that Krueger was able to build an interesting enough world and plot without me really needing to have read 19 previous books to care. When he daughter of a prominent and wealthy state senator goes missing, state and national interest goes wild. The internet calls this Missing White Woman Syndrome. Most of the main characters in Spirit Crossing are part or full Obibwe, and there is a sense of frustration at the start of this novel about the amount of state and federal resources that are given to find missing white women when so many many native women go missing and are never found. That is definitely one of the themes of this book. But it really isn't overly preachy as I don't think this fact can be disputed. I think the motives behind the why can be but the book doesn't really go there. In fact, the intrigue grows because a young boy with visionary powers finds a shallow grave. It's not the missing white woman but a native woman and the feds soon lose interest in discovering who is. But the boy's vision leads the tribal detectives to believe there is another lost spirit nearby.

There is a lot of spirituality explored in the book. Both Christian faith and native beliefs in sacred gifts like visions and healings. The mystery and crime are adequately troubling and relevant (money, oil, human trafficking, generational trauma) but the characters are little too black and white for me. The good guys are good and the bad guys are terrible. There were a few redeemably flawed side characters thrown in as well and I appreciated it.

I doubt I'll pick up the other 19 books in this series.]]> 4.02 2024 Spirit Crossing (Cork O'Connor, #20)
author: William Kent Krueger
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:
I really liked Krueger's Ordinary Grace and didn't realize he had a plethora of books out when I saw this title available on audio on Libby. I checked it out expecting a stand alone mystery and was frustrated for a while because there wasn't very much character development going on. I really struggled figuring out who was who and wondered if this was a narration technique and I just needed to be patient.

Patience did pay off as I eventually connected to the characters and their motivations but when I got on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ to review, and saw that this is #20 in a series...well...there may be more character development happening in the previous 19 books. Oops.

It's pretty impressive that Krueger was able to build an interesting enough world and plot without me really needing to have read 19 previous books to care. When he daughter of a prominent and wealthy state senator goes missing, state and national interest goes wild. The internet calls this Missing White Woman Syndrome. Most of the main characters in Spirit Crossing are part or full Obibwe, and there is a sense of frustration at the start of this novel about the amount of state and federal resources that are given to find missing white women when so many many native women go missing and are never found. That is definitely one of the themes of this book. But it really isn't overly preachy as I don't think this fact can be disputed. I think the motives behind the why can be but the book doesn't really go there. In fact, the intrigue grows because a young boy with visionary powers finds a shallow grave. It's not the missing white woman but a native woman and the feds soon lose interest in discovering who is. But the boy's vision leads the tribal detectives to believe there is another lost spirit nearby.

There is a lot of spirituality explored in the book. Both Christian faith and native beliefs in sacred gifts like visions and healings. The mystery and crime are adequately troubling and relevant (money, oil, human trafficking, generational trauma) but the characters are little too black and white for me. The good guys are good and the bad guys are terrible. There were a few redeemably flawed side characters thrown in as well and I appreciated it.

I doubt I'll pick up the other 19 books in this series.
]]> The Frozen River 112975658 A gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history.

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.]]> 432 Ariel Lawhon 0385546874 Lucy 4 4.38 2023 The Frozen River
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:
This definitely got a bump up in stars once I realized this novel was fleshed out from the real life journal of 18th century midwife, Martha Ballard. Without the author's dedication to include as much of Ballard's real journal entries and family history as she did, I would have felt like this story of midwifery, crime and punishment in America's post revolutionary war with it's infant constitution and legal system overly dramatic and sensationalized. But it wasn't! I think Lawhon did a good job of inflecting personality into real historical people based on the research she did. The Kennebec River, the village of Hallowell, Maine and the Ballard family were very alive for me throughout the story. I did wonder if such a small village could keep a midwife as busy birthing babies as Martha always seemed to be but I think some timelines may have been condensed for intrigue and drama. Very interesting and readable.
]]> <![CDATA[The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness]]> 171681821
A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

“With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.� —Shannon Carlin, ,i>TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood� began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood� in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood� has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems� that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.]]> 400 Jonathan Haidt 0593655036 Lucy 4
Even with that pessimism, I want to shout out, "This book is true and we need to believe it and do something!" because a lot of it felt true and scary to me. Anybody with a smartphone knows how addictive they are. I remember, not that long ago, constantly losing my phones because 1) I have that kind of brain and 2) I didn't look at it or use it all the time. But I never lose my phone anymore. It's always on me or by me. I know I use it WAY too much. And not just for all the dumb stuff. I read my scriptures on it. I listen to really good podcasts. I call and FaceTime and text my friends and family. I use it for my job. I log my exercise with it. I shop with it. I find recipes on it. I read the news (and the tabloids...blushing). I monitor my sleep health. I also read a lot of ebooks on it, although I have been trying to read more exclusively on a kindle or even paper books...just to get off of my phone (that happened after reading Dopamine Nation).

I've also been very mindful over the past 5 years how harmful social media is for my own personal mental health. The likes and not likes and opinions and life envy can easily overwhelm and affect me so I don't keep any of the apps on my phone anymore. I use a computer or download the app if I want to post something to instagram, and then delete it before the scrolling begins. I guess knowing all this about myself, someone who grew up without any of this technology, and then realizing how harmful and addictive it is for kids today, who have never known anything different, was really soul shaking. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Why are we allowing this harm to our children?

But then a skeptical voice chimes in my head, "Is Jonathan Haidt's science solid or is he trying to sell a book?" Like I said earlier, a lot of it...most of it... felt true. He has lots of graphs and charts and sources that really validate his claims. But, charts and graphs can be skewed. There were just a few parts of his data and definitive claims that toggled my belief switch to off.

In spite of some doubt, I do think this book is an important resource to use as we continue to learn more about mental health and the World Wide Web. My own pure unsullied source that getting off of social media and spending more time connecting face to face in the real world improves mental health is that doing so has benefited me. I don't need a chart or statistics to prove that to me.

As a parent, I definitely plan to implement many of his suggestions. No social media for my kids (I only have one left at home but I will be doing it anyway) until 16. Even though my son has an iPhone at 13, I don't allow any games or access to the internet, hopefully reducing it to a basic phone (although I fully acknowledge some likelihood that he is more tech-savvy than I am and may be able to skirt around this). I would support the school system banning phone access during the school day. And I would support government legislation changing the legal age of children's internet consent to be 16 instead of 13 years old.

Mostly, I want my children to be happy. Not scared and not anxious and not living in an avatar, comparison based world. I think with continued research and awareness, we can tip the scales back towards happy and mentally healthy should we choose to.]]> 4.36 2024 The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
author: Jonathan Haidt
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves:
review:
In today's society, where most of available information seems to be hyperbolic, politically polarized and misinformation sourced, it's hard to know what is true. What are facts? What are statistics? Anyone who has taken a statistics class knows how easy it is to skew data and recent news stories show how motivated many scientists are these days to get the results they need to continue to get funding or to be relevant. It feels very pessimistic to write that paragraph.

Even with that pessimism, I want to shout out, "This book is true and we need to believe it and do something!" because a lot of it felt true and scary to me. Anybody with a smartphone knows how addictive they are. I remember, not that long ago, constantly losing my phones because 1) I have that kind of brain and 2) I didn't look at it or use it all the time. But I never lose my phone anymore. It's always on me or by me. I know I use it WAY too much. And not just for all the dumb stuff. I read my scriptures on it. I listen to really good podcasts. I call and FaceTime and text my friends and family. I use it for my job. I log my exercise with it. I shop with it. I find recipes on it. I read the news (and the tabloids...blushing). I monitor my sleep health. I also read a lot of ebooks on it, although I have been trying to read more exclusively on a kindle or even paper books...just to get off of my phone (that happened after reading Dopamine Nation).

I've also been very mindful over the past 5 years how harmful social media is for my own personal mental health. The likes and not likes and opinions and life envy can easily overwhelm and affect me so I don't keep any of the apps on my phone anymore. I use a computer or download the app if I want to post something to instagram, and then delete it before the scrolling begins. I guess knowing all this about myself, someone who grew up without any of this technology, and then realizing how harmful and addictive it is for kids today, who have never known anything different, was really soul shaking. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Why are we allowing this harm to our children?

But then a skeptical voice chimes in my head, "Is Jonathan Haidt's science solid or is he trying to sell a book?" Like I said earlier, a lot of it...most of it... felt true. He has lots of graphs and charts and sources that really validate his claims. But, charts and graphs can be skewed. There were just a few parts of his data and definitive claims that toggled my belief switch to off.

In spite of some doubt, I do think this book is an important resource to use as we continue to learn more about mental health and the World Wide Web. My own pure unsullied source that getting off of social media and spending more time connecting face to face in the real world improves mental health is that doing so has benefited me. I don't need a chart or statistics to prove that to me.

As a parent, I definitely plan to implement many of his suggestions. No social media for my kids (I only have one left at home but I will be doing it anyway) until 16. Even though my son has an iPhone at 13, I don't allow any games or access to the internet, hopefully reducing it to a basic phone (although I fully acknowledge some likelihood that he is more tech-savvy than I am and may be able to skirt around this). I would support the school system banning phone access during the school day. And I would support government legislation changing the legal age of children's internet consent to be 16 instead of 13 years old.

Mostly, I want my children to be happy. Not scared and not anxious and not living in an avatar, comparison based world. I think with continued research and awareness, we can tip the scales back towards happy and mentally healthy should we choose to.
]]> Small Things Like These 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 Lucy 5
“As they carried along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?�

I appreciate books that remind me of my core values. This book did just that without any lectures or scoldings but with a lovely look into the life of Bill Furlong and his choice to not look the other way.]]> 4.14 2021 Small Things Like These
author: Claire Keegan
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
I'm not sure I've ever read anything outside of poetry that says so much with so few words. And this is soooo much more accessible for me than poetry.

“As they carried along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?�

I appreciate books that remind me of my core values. This book did just that without any lectures or scoldings but with a lovely look into the life of Bill Furlong and his choice to not look the other way.
]]> One by One 54197718
A night spent sleeping on dirt and leaves is not how Claire Matchett expected to spend her vacation.

She thought this would be a break from the stresses of work and raising her young children. A chance to repair her damaged marriage. A week of hiking and hot tubs with two other couple friends. It sounded like heaven.

Then Claire’s minivan breaks down on a lonely dirt road. With no cell reception, the group has no choice but to hike the rest of the way to their hotel. But it turns out the woods aren’t as easy to navigate as they thought.

Hours later, they are lost. Hopelessly lost.

And as they navigate deeper into the woods, the members of their party are struck down mysteriously one by one. Has a wild animal been hunting them? Or is the hunter one of them?

But as more time passes, one thing becomes clear:

Only one of them will return home alive.]]> 295 Freida McFadden Lucy 2 3.87 2020 One by One
author: Freida McFadden
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves:
review:
I didn't believe any of it. Probably because the writing was so cliched and juvenile. The audio narration was worse (and ultimately really intentionally deceptive with the plot twist). Which meant I didn't care what happened or why.
]]> You Are Here 201465867
Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house.

Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Michael and Marnie are on the precipice of a bright future . . . if they can survive the journey.]]> 368 David Nicholls 0063394057 Lucy 4
I will admit that I enjoyed the first half of the book better than the last, which doesn't usually happen. All of that development and world building can be a slog fest but it was nice to enjoy all of the characters and really funny commentaries on geography, hiking, romance writing, awkward internal dialogue without being too weighed down with their personal stories yet. But the weight comes which gives the book purpose. Humans aren't designed to be alone. And the Covid-19 pandemic did a number on so many people.

Recommended for readers who want an updated story of a two people falling in love while walking around England's stunning lake district (Austen) and the wuthering Moors (Bronte).]]> 3.97 2024 You Are Here
author: David Nicholls
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves:
review:
I really enjoy British humor (humour???) Normally, while reading rom-com (and I don't think this fits squarely into this genre but elements are certainly there. It's interesting fiction touching on post-pandemic loneliness and the difficulties of forging connection in middle age), it's the dialogue that really pushes the story along and where the funny lines can shine. But David Nicholls is a pro at very witty narrative. I didn't want to miss a single sentence because each one had the potential to make me laugh out loud.

I will admit that I enjoyed the first half of the book better than the last, which doesn't usually happen. All of that development and world building can be a slog fest but it was nice to enjoy all of the characters and really funny commentaries on geography, hiking, romance writing, awkward internal dialogue without being too weighed down with their personal stories yet. But the weight comes which gives the book purpose. Humans aren't designed to be alone. And the Covid-19 pandemic did a number on so many people.

Recommended for readers who want an updated story of a two people falling in love while walking around England's stunning lake district (Austen) and the wuthering Moors (Bronte).
]]> The Let Them Theory 216351768
If you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated with where you are, the problem isn't you. The problem is the power you give to other people. Two simple words�Let Them—will set you free. Free from the opinions, drama, and judgments of others. Free from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage everything and everyone around you. The Let Them Theory puts the power to create a life you love back in your hands—and this book will show you exactly how to do it.

In her latest groundbreaking book, The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins�New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's most respected experts on motivation, confidence, and mindset—teaches you how to stop wasting energy on what you can't control and start focusing on what truly YOU. Your happiness. Your goals. Your life.

Using the same no-nonsense, science-backed approach that's made The Mel Robbins Podcast a global sensation, Robbins explains why The Let Them Theory is already loved by millions and how you can apply it in eight key areas of your life to make the biggest impact. Within a few pages, you'll realize how much energy and time you've been wasting trying to control the wrong things—at work, in relationships, and in pursuing your goals—and how this is keeping you from the happiness and success you deserve.

Written as an easy-to-understand guide, Robbins shares relatable stories from her own life, highlights key takeaways, relevant research and introduces you to world-renowned experts in psychology, neuroscience, relationships, happiness, and ancient wisdom who champion The Let Them Theory every step of the way.

Learn how

Stop wasting energy on things you can't control Stop comparing yourself to other peopleBreak free from fear and self-doubtRelease the grip of people's expectationsBuild the best friendships of your lifeCreate the love you deservePursue what truly matters to you with confidenceBuild resilience against everyday stressors and distractionsDefine your own path to success, joy, and fulfillment. . . and so much more.

The Let Them Theory will forever change the way you think about relationships, control, and personal power. Whether you want to advance your career, motivate others to change, take creative risks, find deeper connections, build better habits, start a new chapter, or simply create more happiness in your life and relationships, this book gives you the mindset and tools to unlock your full potential.

Order your copy of The Let Them Theory now and discover how much power you truly have. It all begins with two simple words.]]> 311 Mel Robbins 1401971377 Lucy 4
I feel motivated to waste less time feeling annoyed or resentful and more time concentrating on what I can change in my behavior, attitude, relationships to build the life I want. Let them and Let me!]]> 4.20 2024 The Let Them Theory
author: Mel Robbins
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves:
review:
I really liked this. There was nothing really groundbreaking or mind-blowing for me as I read Mel Robbins book that aims to help people access understanding about the difference between personal power, influence and things they have no control over in their own lives. I enjoyed her personal stories of application and example and think she does a really great job of breaking down pretty advanced psychological studies into really readable and relatable stories.

I feel motivated to waste less time feeling annoyed or resentful and more time concentrating on what I can change in my behavior, attitude, relationships to build the life I want. Let them and Let me!
]]> Margo's Got Money Troubles 199534613
“[An] enormously entertaining and lovable book.� —Nick Hornby, New York Times Book Review

A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman’s attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world—from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen.

As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.

Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who’s struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It’s a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off.

“A wholly original novel. . . . Thorpe is both poetic and profound in the way she brings her remarkable story to an end.� —The Associated Press]]> 304 Rufi Thorpe 0063356589 Lucy 3
Some synonyms of heartwarming are: cheering, comforting, encouraging, fulfilling, gladdening, rewarding, satisfying. Those are not the typical words I feel when thinking about girls posting nudes and joining Only Fans. And maybe that is indeed what the author is trying to do: turn all of our previous rules of morality on their heads and reverse the definition of what is good and virtuous and honorable and decent. What is heartwarming. Thorpe definitely makes a valiant effort with her protagonist, Margo, and Margo's sincere desire to independently provide financial security for herself and her newborn son in a world that makes it really difficult for a young, uneducated, untrained single mother to do. The gear. The housing. The childcare. The physical and all consuming demands of an infant. Those are all very immediate realities of motherhood and Margo has zero support. Not from her own single mother. Not from her absent father. Not from her impregnator. Not from any friends or roommates. Thorpe nails the exhaustion and stress of those early days and does an excellent job creating the sympathy and reasoning of Margo's resulting decision to create an Only Fans account and make money by posting nude photos of herself.

Except...then the author kind of glorifies the decision. Margo makes friends in that community and realizes she can use her Dad's experience being a WWE wrestler and create storylines and characters and become internet famous. Really, truly stupid story lines are laid out in detail for TikTok videos and YouTube videos and my heart hurt a bit that these are the kinds of things that actually go viral. It just feels embarrassing that this wasn't science fiction or dystopia. This is actually our current world and the state of the internet.

I kept waiting for the reality checks. I don't think you have to be a puritan or a member of the religious right to see the logic and sense that selling images of your naked body online to strangers is not the healthiest, safest, happiest way to live. Yes. Women's bodies and leveraging the vice of lust for many can be a source of income for desperate women. That has been true for millennia. That doesn't mean that the resulting pain, depression, disease and dysfunction that usually occurs to those in those professions is all made up or some result of the patriarchy. That's science. And the evolution of human beings and our need for connection and safety. That isn't in our heads. See why this lah-di-dah, walk-off-into-the-sunset, "I'm going to be the most ethical pimp ever!" conclusion troubled me? Because, really? That's the point?

Maybe it's not. Maybe I missed the point. There's the trouble. I'd actually really love to discuss this book with others. It's a fun read (except for some truly blasphemous lines. There are a couple of gasp out loud comments about Jesus and Mary that can definitely offend sensitive readers. I chose to read them with an attitude of tolerance towards a very ignorant but not intentionally mean or prejudiced narrator. But, I did have the thought that if the author made these kind of blasphemous comments about Allah or Muhammad, she may have to go into hiding - they are pretty rude) and some really important things to discuss. Do we have a responsibility in our lives to not put harm into the world? Like...drug dealers and makers of single-use plastic and producers of fentanyl and red food dye and carbon dioxide...these things all make some people money. For some, it's a lot of money. But, we've learned that this is not good for our world. It's not good for human beings. Selling lust and sex have produced a lot of harm in the world. Trafficking. Abuse. Addiction. Infidelity. Disease. Is that just somebody else's problem if it's not yours? Is it ok to profit from it? We condemn P. Diddy but not a single mom because...she's got to make a living somehow?

This gets billed as a light hearted read and chick-lit and women's fiction and even a romance (I don't think it's a romance at all) but I think it's a much bigger story than those genres typify. At one point, I got a very Ready, Player One vibe because Margo's online persona was not really her and so there was a whole conversation about what is real and what is fiction and which matters to being known? Another interesting conversation about online behavior.

I don't know if I liked it or not. Three stars seems like the most nondescript rating possible but I just don't know.]]> 3.87 2024 Margo's Got Money Troubles
author: Rufi Thorpe
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves:
review:
Wow. I'm not quite sure how to rate this book. On one hand, it's the kind of really fun, accessible writing that I enjoy and for the most part, I enjoyed my time in this book. On the other hand, I think this book's message is kind of dangerous. That is, if my takeaway is what the author intended -- that sex work and producing pornography can be ethical and empowering to women. Especially since the overall blurb is that this book is "heartwarming."

Some synonyms of heartwarming are: cheering, comforting, encouraging, fulfilling, gladdening, rewarding, satisfying. Those are not the typical words I feel when thinking about girls posting nudes and joining Only Fans. And maybe that is indeed what the author is trying to do: turn all of our previous rules of morality on their heads and reverse the definition of what is good and virtuous and honorable and decent. What is heartwarming. Thorpe definitely makes a valiant effort with her protagonist, Margo, and Margo's sincere desire to independently provide financial security for herself and her newborn son in a world that makes it really difficult for a young, uneducated, untrained single mother to do. The gear. The housing. The childcare. The physical and all consuming demands of an infant. Those are all very immediate realities of motherhood and Margo has zero support. Not from her own single mother. Not from her absent father. Not from her impregnator. Not from any friends or roommates. Thorpe nails the exhaustion and stress of those early days and does an excellent job creating the sympathy and reasoning of Margo's resulting decision to create an Only Fans account and make money by posting nude photos of herself.

Except...then the author kind of glorifies the decision. Margo makes friends in that community and realizes she can use her Dad's experience being a WWE wrestler and create storylines and characters and become internet famous. Really, truly stupid story lines are laid out in detail for TikTok videos and YouTube videos and my heart hurt a bit that these are the kinds of things that actually go viral. It just feels embarrassing that this wasn't science fiction or dystopia. This is actually our current world and the state of the internet.

I kept waiting for the reality checks. I don't think you have to be a puritan or a member of the religious right to see the logic and sense that selling images of your naked body online to strangers is not the healthiest, safest, happiest way to live. Yes. Women's bodies and leveraging the vice of lust for many can be a source of income for desperate women. That has been true for millennia. That doesn't mean that the resulting pain, depression, disease and dysfunction that usually occurs to those in those professions is all made up or some result of the patriarchy. That's science. And the evolution of human beings and our need for connection and safety. That isn't in our heads. See why this lah-di-dah, walk-off-into-the-sunset, "I'm going to be the most ethical pimp ever!" conclusion troubled me? Because, really? That's the point?

Maybe it's not. Maybe I missed the point. There's the trouble. I'd actually really love to discuss this book with others. It's a fun read (except for some truly blasphemous lines. There are a couple of gasp out loud comments about Jesus and Mary that can definitely offend sensitive readers. I chose to read them with an attitude of tolerance towards a very ignorant but not intentionally mean or prejudiced narrator. But, I did have the thought that if the author made these kind of blasphemous comments about Allah or Muhammad, she may have to go into hiding - they are pretty rude) and some really important things to discuss. Do we have a responsibility in our lives to not put harm into the world? Like...drug dealers and makers of single-use plastic and producers of fentanyl and red food dye and carbon dioxide...these things all make some people money. For some, it's a lot of money. But, we've learned that this is not good for our world. It's not good for human beings. Selling lust and sex have produced a lot of harm in the world. Trafficking. Abuse. Addiction. Infidelity. Disease. Is that just somebody else's problem if it's not yours? Is it ok to profit from it? We condemn P. Diddy but not a single mom because...she's got to make a living somehow?

This gets billed as a light hearted read and chick-lit and women's fiction and even a romance (I don't think it's a romance at all) but I think it's a much bigger story than those genres typify. At one point, I got a very Ready, Player One vibe because Margo's online persona was not really her and so there was a whole conversation about what is real and what is fiction and which matters to being known? Another interesting conversation about online behavior.

I don't know if I liked it or not. Three stars seems like the most nondescript rating possible but I just don't know.
]]> Every Summer After 58014893
Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.

For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.

When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.

Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic look at love and the people and choices that mark us forever.

Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right.]]> 320 Carley Fortune 0593438531 Lucy 3
The conflict that came after a disastrous decision one summer was believable but way less fun to read.

Luckily, it's a romance so there was a nice Happily Ever After at the end.]]> 4.17 2022 Every Summer After
author: Carley Fortune
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves:
review:
I really liked the first quarter of this book. I think Carley Fortune nailed writing chemistry and connection between her two teen characters. There was a lovely and believable tension between Persephone, Sam and Charlie and the angst of being that age and falling in love.

The conflict that came after a disastrous decision one summer was believable but way less fun to read.

Luckily, it's a romance so there was a nice Happily Ever After at the end.
]]> Pictures of You 197156017 If you knew then what you know now, would you make the same choices? Imagine having a second chance with the one you never forgot.

From the author of the global breakout bestseller The Last Love Note comes the story of a young woman struggling to piece her life back together in the wake of a tragic accident, and the man who gives up everything to help her.

When Evie Hudson wakes in an unfamiliar hospital room, she thinks she’s fresh out of a teenage party with her best friend, Bree. Except, Bree isn’t around anymore and high school was years ago. Evie had just survived the crash that killed her husband, Oliver—whom she can't remember either. After suffering a traumatic loss of memory, she’s left to connect the dots. But how?

Drew, a promising photographer whose chance encounter with Evie unravels the elusive details of her marriage and her husband’s death. As Drew watches Evie stitch the story of her life together, secrets emerge that might shatter both of their worlds.

This tangled second-chance romance leads Evie to question every decision she ever made. This time around, she’s seeing all the things she missed–and the life she gets to choose...again.]]> 416 Emma Grey 195850646X Lucy 2
While it was never difficult to read, it was almost always difficult for me to like. The book is centered on 29 year old Evie Hudson, who wakes up in a hospital following a car accident that killed her husband is now suffering from dissociative amnesia that has her unable to remember anything beyond her 16-year old self. The entirety of the book is spent alternating between present day...where she narrates as a mentally 16 year old thrust into an adult world with adult relationships and no idea why she hasn't heard from her parents or her best friend from high school, Bree, and her actual 16 year-old self where the decisions and relationships she ends up having and not having as an adult begin.

I think what bugs me so much about this book is that it addresses really important topics in a really juvenile way. Things like emotional abuse, sexual abuse, gaslighting, chronic illness, and suicide are filtered through the lens of immature Evie who never wants to get married until she gets knocked into a pool at a teen party by the rich, gorgeous and popular Oliver and then...wham...she's in luv! Without any really good reason. At least any good reason that was shown. We readers were just told over and over and over again that she was.

Enter in Drew, head of the photography club Evie joins, who is moody and mysterious and even though they literally have 2 scenes together as 16 year-olds, they become best friends in a way that makes it impossible for 29 year-old Drew to fully get over her. Again...why this relationship is so important to him and why he is so drawn to Evie are not show just told. He can't get her out of his head and he feels happy when she's around for the first time in a long time. Ok then.

The mystery exists only because literally no one will tell Evie anything. It's just too painful. So she has to figure out why she is estranged from her best friend and her parents and who this mysterious Chloe girl is and why her brain would want to forget it all. I'm not saying it couldn't happen but it all played out much more like a soap opera than I expected. Secret paternities and secret babies and then a really out-of-nowhere crime solved through linguistics pattern that ended the book.

Sorry to those that liked it.]]> 4.01 2024 Pictures of You
author: Emma Grey
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/03
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves:
review:
I was really disappointed that I didn't enjoy this book. The synopsis ticked all of my boxes: mystery, romance, fiction...those are my jams! With its high Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ ratings and several friends really liking it, I opened this thinking it would be instalove.

While it was never difficult to read, it was almost always difficult for me to like. The book is centered on 29 year old Evie Hudson, who wakes up in a hospital following a car accident that killed her husband is now suffering from dissociative amnesia that has her unable to remember anything beyond her 16-year old self. The entirety of the book is spent alternating between present day...where she narrates as a mentally 16 year old thrust into an adult world with adult relationships and no idea why she hasn't heard from her parents or her best friend from high school, Bree, and her actual 16 year-old self where the decisions and relationships she ends up having and not having as an adult begin.

I think what bugs me so much about this book is that it addresses really important topics in a really juvenile way. Things like emotional abuse, sexual abuse, gaslighting, chronic illness, and suicide are filtered through the lens of immature Evie who never wants to get married until she gets knocked into a pool at a teen party by the rich, gorgeous and popular Oliver and then...wham...she's in luv! Without any really good reason. At least any good reason that was shown. We readers were just told over and over and over again that she was.

Enter in Drew, head of the photography club Evie joins, who is moody and mysterious and even though they literally have 2 scenes together as 16 year-olds, they become best friends in a way that makes it impossible for 29 year-old Drew to fully get over her. Again...why this relationship is so important to him and why he is so drawn to Evie are not show just told. He can't get her out of his head and he feels happy when she's around for the first time in a long time. Ok then.

The mystery exists only because literally no one will tell Evie anything. It's just too painful. So she has to figure out why she is estranged from her best friend and her parents and who this mysterious Chloe girl is and why her brain would want to forget it all. I'm not saying it couldn't happen but it all played out much more like a soap opera than I expected. Secret paternities and secret babies and then a really out-of-nowhere crime solved through linguistics pattern that ended the book.

Sorry to those that liked it.
]]> <![CDATA[From Here to the Great Unknown]]> 204905217
A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, never know the passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman that Riley loved and grieved.

Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, laid in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story after story about smashing golf carts together in the yards of Graceland, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. About getting dragged screaming out of the bathroom as she ran towards his body on the floor. About living in Los Angeles with her mother, getting sent to school after school, always kicked out, always in trouble. About her singular, lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, about being married to Michael Jackson, what they shared in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About ever-present grief. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother’s wish to reveal these memories, incandescent and painful, to the world.

To make her mother known.

This extraordinary book is written in both Lisa Marie’s and Riley’s voices, a mother and daughter communicating—from this world to the one beyond—as they try to heal each other. Profoundly moving and deeply revealing, From Here to the Great Unknown is a book like no other—the last words of the only child of an American icon.]]> 304 Lisa Marie Presley 0593733878 Lucy 4
I think some people have the spiritual, mental, emotional resilience to handle fame and adulation but I think that number is quite small and fame more often does great harm to the human soul than good. I believe both Elvis Presley, Priscilla Presley and especially Lisa Marie Presley stood no chance against the demons of fame and wealth. This isn't Elvis's or Priscilla's story so I don't know exactly how it affected them other than they were unable to be better for their young daughter. The love was there but the healthy boundaries of expectations, consequences and responsibility that all children deserve from their parents were not. Add in drugs, overdoses, death, sexual and physical abuse, a probable learning disability and all the money and neglect to indulge in reckless behavior and a sad story seems inevitable.

Riley Keough shines throughout this book as a hopeful break in generational trauma. Lisa Marie may have been traumatized and unable to give herself the love, esteem and support she herself needed but she gave it to her daughter who is so generous in her recollections of both her mother and her childhood.]]> 4.27 2024 From Here to the Great Unknown
author: Lisa Marie Presley
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves:
review:
I listened to this, which I think adds a star. Lisa Marie wanted to write an autobiography and had asked for help from her daughter, Riley Keough, before she unexpectedly died at the age of 54. In between Julia Roberts narrating Lisa Marie's writings and Riley narrating her own additions to the memoir, recordings of Lisa Marie, as she tried to collect her thoughts for this book, are peppered throughout. I always listen to audio books and podcasts at 1.5X speed (because, holy cow, people narrate so slowly) but I would always slow it back to original recording speed for Lisa Marie's recordings. Hearing Lisa Marie Presley and her muffled, alto voice ramble through her thoughts adds a tremendous amount of credibility to her ever present trauma. This is a pretty sad book.

I think some people have the spiritual, mental, emotional resilience to handle fame and adulation but I think that number is quite small and fame more often does great harm to the human soul than good. I believe both Elvis Presley, Priscilla Presley and especially Lisa Marie Presley stood no chance against the demons of fame and wealth. This isn't Elvis's or Priscilla's story so I don't know exactly how it affected them other than they were unable to be better for their young daughter. The love was there but the healthy boundaries of expectations, consequences and responsibility that all children deserve from their parents were not. Add in drugs, overdoses, death, sexual and physical abuse, a probable learning disability and all the money and neglect to indulge in reckless behavior and a sad story seems inevitable.

Riley Keough shines throughout this book as a hopeful break in generational trauma. Lisa Marie may have been traumatized and unable to give herself the love, esteem and support she herself needed but she gave it to her daughter who is so generous in her recollections of both her mother and her childhood.
]]> Same As It Ever Was 199344873
She’s unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which threaten to draw her back into the patterns that had previously kept her on a razor’s edge.

Same As It Ever Was traverses the rocky terrain of real life, —exploring new avenues of maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial cause-and-effect that governs us all. Delving even deeper into the nature of relationships—how they grow, change, and sometimes end—Lombardo proves herself a true and definitive cartographer of the human heart and asserts herself among the finest novelists of her generation.]]> 498 Claire Lombardo 0385549555 Lucy 3 Same As It Ever Was but, Julia's character and her extreme low self esteem became an obstacle in connecting to this story. Instead of having any "me too" moments, instead, I often thought, "Holy cow. You are one traumatized human being." I could never relate to the leaps of logic in her thoughts but I also didn't have her traumatic childhood or whack-a-doodle mother. I think our childhoods deeply impact our abilities to connect and trust in adult relationships and so I believed Julia. I just didn't enjoy Julia. However, I do commend Lombardo portraying a female protagonist who may look like she has it all from outside appearances (wealth, the ability to stay at home with her toddler, a loving husband, health and beauty) but has all kinds of hidden damage.

I also liked the active choice by the end of the story to acknowledge the feelings (that were the same as they ever were...self destructive, isolating, judgmental, warped) but choose a different outcome in spite of those feelings. Yes! We can overcome. That is novel worthy. The meandering timeline and unfleshed out secondary characters (husband, children, even Helen, who all felt one dimensional to me) got on my nerves but I persevered and I'm glad I did. I think I'd like it more if I could discuss it with other women, mothers, and wives who may have different feelings and experiences than me, because of course they would. ]]> 3.82 2024 Same As It Ever Was
author: Claire Lombardo
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves:
review:
I can appreciate the desire to capture the highs and lows, the joys and disconnect, the feeling of not knowing who you even are outside of marriage and motherhood. Claire Lombardo does that with her protagonist, Julia, in Same As It Ever Was but, Julia's character and her extreme low self esteem became an obstacle in connecting to this story. Instead of having any "me too" moments, instead, I often thought, "Holy cow. You are one traumatized human being." I could never relate to the leaps of logic in her thoughts but I also didn't have her traumatic childhood or whack-a-doodle mother. I think our childhoods deeply impact our abilities to connect and trust in adult relationships and so I believed Julia. I just didn't enjoy Julia. However, I do commend Lombardo portraying a female protagonist who may look like she has it all from outside appearances (wealth, the ability to stay at home with her toddler, a loving husband, health and beauty) but has all kinds of hidden damage.

I also liked the active choice by the end of the story to acknowledge the feelings (that were the same as they ever were...self destructive, isolating, judgmental, warped) but choose a different outcome in spite of those feelings. Yes! We can overcome. That is novel worthy. The meandering timeline and unfleshed out secondary characters (husband, children, even Helen, who all felt one dimensional to me) got on my nerves but I persevered and I'm glad I did. I think I'd like it more if I could discuss it with other women, mothers, and wives who may have different feelings and experiences than me, because of course they would.
]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Lucy 5 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves:
review:
Right book at the right time. I know this isn't literary gold but I really loved reading it. It was entertaining and funny but also so thoughtful about depression and numbness. What I loved best was all of the hope I felt at the end.
]]> Burn 202102018 From the best-selling author of The Dog Stars, a novel about two men—friends since boyhood—who emerge from the woods of rural Maine to a dystopian country racked by bewildering violence

Every year, Jess and Storey have made an annual pilgrimage to the most remote corners of the country, where they camp, hunt, and hike, leaving much from their long friendship unspoken. Although the state of Maine has convulsed all summer with secession mania—a mania that has simultaneously spread across other states—Jess and Storey figure it’s a fight reserved for legislators or, worst-case scenario, folks in the capital.

But after weeks hunting off the grid, the men reach a small town and are shocked by what they find: a bridge blown apart, buildings burned to the ground, and bombed-out cars abandoned on the road. Trying to make sense of the sudden destruction all around them, they set their sights on finding their way home, dragging a wagon across bumpy dirt roads, scavenging from boats left in lakes, and dodging armed men—secessionists or U.S. military, they cannot tell—as they seek a path to safety. Then, a startling discovery drastically alters their path and the stakes of their escape.

Drenched in the beauty of the natural world and attuned to the specific cadences of male friendship, even here at the edge of doom, Burn is both a blistering warning about a divided country’s political strife and an ode to the salvation found in our chosen families.]]> 291 Peter Heller 0593801628 Lucy 3
Interspersed between the dystopian action chapters, the narration straddles the present and the past and we learn more about Storey and Jess, but mostly about Jess as the narration is in his perspective. At first, I thought, "This is why books are so much better than movies! You can't get this kind of introspection, memory and description in a movie!" I was loving it.

But all of that introspection, memory and description ended up being not very helpful in understanding the why of the book and by the end, I felt both removed from their present crisis and had pretty much stopped caring about Jess because he was just then (as a man in his late 30s) figuring out that he probably shouldn't have chosen to spend 2 months out of every year going on hunting trips with his best friend instead of traveling with his wife. Like...that was seriously a major realization. Ok, Jess.

Even the dystopian part of the story could have been so much better. It was exciting and super relevant. Maine seceded from the union and there was a full on war between well-prepared and heavily armed secessionists and the US Military! I had all kinds of thoughts about the 2nd Amendment and how plausible this could be but there wasn't a lot of satisfaction from the story. The reader is left in the dark along with Jess and Storey for about 75% of the book and even when some light is finally shone on which side is which, motives and characters are never explained or developed. I was disappointed to finish and not care much at all.]]> 3.51 2024 Burn
author: Peter Heller
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves:
review:
I really thought this was going to be so much better than it ended up being. Burn, by Peter Heller, follows two best friends, Jess and Storey, as they emerge from a 2 week central Maine back woods hunting trip to burned out towns, blown up bridges and dead bodies. Storey, who is from nearby Vermont, and Jess, who grew up in Vermont but now lives in Colorado, try to figure out what happened but whenever they find someone alive, they get shot at. With no way to drive out of their predicament (no bridges but all the vehicles have been burned anyway), they forage for food from abandoned homes, marinas and boats, and put their camping and survival skills to the test and try to navigate their way out of Maine and towards their homes.

Interspersed between the dystopian action chapters, the narration straddles the present and the past and we learn more about Storey and Jess, but mostly about Jess as the narration is in his perspective. At first, I thought, "This is why books are so much better than movies! You can't get this kind of introspection, memory and description in a movie!" I was loving it.

But all of that introspection, memory and description ended up being not very helpful in understanding the why of the book and by the end, I felt both removed from their present crisis and had pretty much stopped caring about Jess because he was just then (as a man in his late 30s) figuring out that he probably shouldn't have chosen to spend 2 months out of every year going on hunting trips with his best friend instead of traveling with his wife. Like...that was seriously a major realization. Ok, Jess.

Even the dystopian part of the story could have been so much better. It was exciting and super relevant. Maine seceded from the union and there was a full on war between well-prepared and heavily armed secessionists and the US Military! I had all kinds of thoughts about the 2nd Amendment and how plausible this could be but there wasn't a lot of satisfaction from the story. The reader is left in the dark along with Jess and Storey for about 75% of the book and even when some light is finally shone on which side is which, motives and characters are never explained or developed. I was disappointed to finish and not care much at all.
]]> Sandwich 200028726 From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.]]> 240 Catherine Newman 0063345161 Lucy 1
Sandwich is narrated by Rachel, who goes by Rocky, and it's about a week she spends in Cape Cod with her husband, Nick, daughter, Willa, Son, Jamie, and his girlfriend, Maya but also her memories from visiting this same place in years past. Her parents come for a couple of days towards the end of the week (and novel) as well.

Rocky is 54 and her kids are grown and she loves them and misses them and obsesses about their lives in a way that never felt healthy or admirable to me. I think the narration included Rocky thinking, "They are perfect" in some iteration about 50 times. And since I definitely didn't think either was perfect, especially Willa, who was written as bossy, narcissistic, judgmental and gossipy, those motherly sighs got on my nerves.

I think knowing Rocky's thoughts all the time was what tipped this book from something I may have liked (because the writing is not bad) into something I have to rate as, "I hated." That seems super extreme but that was my reaction. Rocky was obnoxious. The last book I read right before this was a non-fiction, "The New Menopause" and when I realized that a woman going through menopause was going to be a major feature of Sandwich's story arc, I figured I would be pretty open to it with all of my newly acquired knowledge and understanding. But I think the author had Rocky experience every possible symptom of menopause and in an extreme way. Ok. Fine. That's a story, I guess. But there was absolutely no managing them. They seemed to mainly exist to excuse some really bad behavior and make being female seem cruel.

As the book continued, however, I realized that what was described as menopausal symptoms might actually just be Rocky's personality. When the story flashed back to Rocky's early motherhood years, she was just as insane and moody and resentful. Hormones then too? Maybe.

This whole book just felt like a really rage-y feminist novel that doesn't portray motherhood, femininity, marriage, aging, nurturing, and family life in a way I recognized or enjoyed. I'll allow that this was Rocky's story and not a universal story of navigating parenting and marriage in midlife (thank goodness) but that allowance means I can hate it. And I did. I was so glad this was a short book and didn't have to spend any more time with a woman who treated her husband so recklessly for granted, especially knowing that she is more than able to care and serve and look past the flaws of the people she loves (ahem...her annoying children).

I'm only going to mention but not go into the deep irritation I felt with the defense and casualness of one too many abortions, and all of the repetitive and mostly unnecessary swearing. I think the scale had already flattened out on the side of dislike but both things definitely added their weight to that side.

I've learned over the years that books are never only good or bad. I don't think this is a bad book and even as I write this, I know I'm leaving out some things I actually liked about the book. There were a few moments. I can certainly understand why some people may even like it. Perhaps in a different mood, at a different age or read after a different book I wouldn't have had such a negative reaction but this is how I feel today, at 12:45 pm on January 15th, 2025. Maybe it's my own peri-menopausal rage reaction. How's that for irony? ]]> 3.55 2024 Sandwich
author: Catherine Newman
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves:
review:
It's been awhile since I've had such an emotional dislike of a book. I've been trying to figure out why the past couple of days and I'm still not sure. All I can say is that I felt a tightening of annoyance in my chest and literally rolled my eyes and puffed out more than one, "Ugh"s of aggravation as I listened to this novel.

Sandwich is narrated by Rachel, who goes by Rocky, and it's about a week she spends in Cape Cod with her husband, Nick, daughter, Willa, Son, Jamie, and his girlfriend, Maya but also her memories from visiting this same place in years past. Her parents come for a couple of days towards the end of the week (and novel) as well.

Rocky is 54 and her kids are grown and she loves them and misses them and obsesses about their lives in a way that never felt healthy or admirable to me. I think the narration included Rocky thinking, "They are perfect" in some iteration about 50 times. And since I definitely didn't think either was perfect, especially Willa, who was written as bossy, narcissistic, judgmental and gossipy, those motherly sighs got on my nerves.

I think knowing Rocky's thoughts all the time was what tipped this book from something I may have liked (because the writing is not bad) into something I have to rate as, "I hated." That seems super extreme but that was my reaction. Rocky was obnoxious. The last book I read right before this was a non-fiction, "The New Menopause" and when I realized that a woman going through menopause was going to be a major feature of Sandwich's story arc, I figured I would be pretty open to it with all of my newly acquired knowledge and understanding. But I think the author had Rocky experience every possible symptom of menopause and in an extreme way. Ok. Fine. That's a story, I guess. But there was absolutely no managing them. They seemed to mainly exist to excuse some really bad behavior and make being female seem cruel.

As the book continued, however, I realized that what was described as menopausal symptoms might actually just be Rocky's personality. When the story flashed back to Rocky's early motherhood years, she was just as insane and moody and resentful. Hormones then too? Maybe.

This whole book just felt like a really rage-y feminist novel that doesn't portray motherhood, femininity, marriage, aging, nurturing, and family life in a way I recognized or enjoyed. I'll allow that this was Rocky's story and not a universal story of navigating parenting and marriage in midlife (thank goodness) but that allowance means I can hate it. And I did. I was so glad this was a short book and didn't have to spend any more time with a woman who treated her husband so recklessly for granted, especially knowing that she is more than able to care and serve and look past the flaws of the people she loves (ahem...her annoying children).

I'm only going to mention but not go into the deep irritation I felt with the defense and casualness of one too many abortions, and all of the repetitive and mostly unnecessary swearing. I think the scale had already flattened out on the side of dislike but both things definitely added their weight to that side.

I've learned over the years that books are never only good or bad. I don't think this is a bad book and even as I write this, I know I'm leaving out some things I actually liked about the book. There were a few moments. I can certainly understand why some people may even like it. Perhaps in a different mood, at a different age or read after a different book I wouldn't have had such a negative reaction but this is how I feel today, at 12:45 pm on January 15th, 2025. Maybe it's my own peri-menopausal rage reaction. How's that for irony?
]]> <![CDATA[Just for the Summer (Part of Your World, #3)]]> 195820807
Emma hadn't planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too good of an opportunity to pass up, especially when they get to rent an adorable cottage on a private island on Lake Minnetonka.

It's supposed to be a quick fling, just for the summer. But when Emma's toxic mother shows up and Justin has to assume guardianship of his three siblings, they're suddenly navigating a lot more than they expected--including catching real feelings for each other. What if this time Fate has actually brought the perfect pair together?]]> 432 Abby Jimenez 1538704439 Lucy 4 4.35 2024 Just for the Summer (Part of Your World, #3)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves:
review:
Smart rom-com that feels fun and light and romantic while also exploring adult trauma and emotional pain that complicates relationships. It was an enjoyable read-in-on-sitting kind of book for me.
]]> <![CDATA[The New Menopause: Navigating Your Path Through Hormonal Change with Purpose, Power, and Facts]]> 197516602 Filling a gaping hole in menopause care, everything a woman needs to know to thrive during her hormonal transition and beyond, as well as the tools to help her take charge of her health at this pivotal life stage--by the bestselling author of The Galveston Diet.

Menopause is inevitable, but suffering through it is not! This is the empowering approach to self-advocacy that pioneering women's health advocate Dr. Mary Claire Haver takes for women in the midst of hormonal change in The New Menopause. A comprehensive, authoritative book of science-backed information and lived experience, it covers every woman's needs:
- From changes in your appearance and sleep patterns to neurological, musculoskeletal, psychological, and sexual issues, a comprehensive A to Z toolkit of science-backed options for coping with symptoms.
- What to do to mediate the risks associated with your body's natural drop in estrogen production, including for diabetes, dementia, Alzheimer's, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, and weight gain.
- How to advocate and prepare for annual midlife wellness visits, including questions for your doctor and how to insist on whole life care.
- The very latest research on the benefits and side effects of hormone replacement therapy.
Arming women with the power to secure vibrant health and well-being for the rest of their lives, The New Menopause is sure to become the bible of midlife wellness for present and future generations.]]> 304 Mary Claire Haver 059379625X Lucy 4
BUT...

AS a 49 year old woman who isn't even sure if I'm in menopause, I found the advocacy and defense of Hormone Replacement Therapy or Menopause Hormone Therapy to be interesting and helpful. I'm so glad that I have this tool in my tool bag should I start to experience the kind of nightmare scenarios lived and dismissed by so many. Women deserve to have relief if suffering from menopausal symptoms and definitely deserve access to anything that will protect their cognitive, bone, heart, muscle, digestive and endocrine health. I now feel a deep curiosity and desire to take charge of my own health as I graduate from the fertility years and begin a new phase of life. feel better informed to talk to my own health care provider about my own questions and health. Although, I'll probably get a physical copy of the book so that I can actually remember all this info.]]> 4.26 The New Menopause: Navigating Your Path Through Hormonal Change with Purpose, Power, and Facts
author: Mary Claire Haver
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.26
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves:
review:
I listened to the audio version of this book and, while it was narrated well, I think this is a book best consumed in print. The narrator frequently referenced charts and indexes and then they were read. Kind of tedious listening.

BUT...

AS a 49 year old woman who isn't even sure if I'm in menopause, I found the advocacy and defense of Hormone Replacement Therapy or Menopause Hormone Therapy to be interesting and helpful. I'm so glad that I have this tool in my tool bag should I start to experience the kind of nightmare scenarios lived and dismissed by so many. Women deserve to have relief if suffering from menopausal symptoms and definitely deserve access to anything that will protect their cognitive, bone, heart, muscle, digestive and endocrine health. I now feel a deep curiosity and desire to take charge of my own health as I graduate from the fertility years and begin a new phase of life. feel better informed to talk to my own health care provider about my own questions and health. Although, I'll probably get a physical copy of the book so that I can actually remember all this info.
]]> Blue Sisters 195430687 Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity, and the complexities of family.

The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.

But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves.]]> 342 Coco Mellors 0593723767 Lucy 3
In Blue Sisters, by Coco Mellors, three sisters, Avery, Bonnie and Lucky deal with their own struggles and heartbreak following the death of their sister, Nicky, to a drug overdose. It's been a year and none of the sisters are doing well. Avery is living in London with her wife and seems to be functioning well but is secretly shoplifting and destroying her marriage. Bonnie is in California-then New York, trying to figure out her future when she walked away from her promising boxing career and coach after being the one to discover her sister dead. Lucky is a beautiful and successful young model dealing with addiction and high risk living. The sisters individual stories are interesting enough but filled with so much depressing navel gazing that I couldn't empathize or sympathize with any of them. Their grief was a baseball bat hitting me over the head.

But, at the end of the book, all three sisters end up in New York and the beauty of this novel emerges. The relationships and the willingness to forgive the horrible because....family. And past love. And loyalty. And honesty. It wasn't like I started to like everyone or what their choices were but I finally started to believe it. This is what having sisters is/can/should be like. And grief is horrible.

Three stars may seem like a mediocre rating but I was leaning on 1 or 2 for a long time so 3 feels celebratory and redemptive. I'm not sorry I read it.

]]> 3.94 2024 Blue Sisters
author: Coco Mellors
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves:
review:
I was surprised at my feelings at the end of this book. For probably 75% of it, I didn't like any of the characters and wondered why contemporary fiction/ literary fiction only ever seems to be about the most dysfunctional families. Are people who are horrible to each other because they are related more artsy? Or is this what the families of the world most relates to?

In Blue Sisters, by Coco Mellors, three sisters, Avery, Bonnie and Lucky deal with their own struggles and heartbreak following the death of their sister, Nicky, to a drug overdose. It's been a year and none of the sisters are doing well. Avery is living in London with her wife and seems to be functioning well but is secretly shoplifting and destroying her marriage. Bonnie is in California-then New York, trying to figure out her future when she walked away from her promising boxing career and coach after being the one to discover her sister dead. Lucky is a beautiful and successful young model dealing with addiction and high risk living. The sisters individual stories are interesting enough but filled with so much depressing navel gazing that I couldn't empathize or sympathize with any of them. Their grief was a baseball bat hitting me over the head.

But, at the end of the book, all three sisters end up in New York and the beauty of this novel emerges. The relationships and the willingness to forgive the horrible because....family. And past love. And loyalty. And honesty. It wasn't like I started to like everyone or what their choices were but I finally started to believe it. This is what having sisters is/can/should be like. And grief is horrible.

Three stars may seem like a mediocre rating but I was leaning on 1 or 2 for a long time so 3 feels celebratory and redemptive. I'm not sorry I read it.


]]> Hello Beautiful 61771675
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters� unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?]]> 416 Ann Napolitano Lucy 4 4.14 2023 Hello Beautiful
author: Ann Napolitano
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves:
review:

]]> The Women 127305853 From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women—at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie� McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Lucy 3 4.59 2024 The Women
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
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]]> Sabrina & Corina 40236964 A haunting debut story collection on friendship, mothers and daughters, and the deep-rooted truths of our homelands, centered on Latinas of indigenous ancestry that shines a new light on the American West.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s magnetic story collection breathes life into her Latina characters of indigenous ancestry and the land they inhabit. Set against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado–a place that is as fierce as it is exquisite–these women navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace, and quiet force.

In “Sugar Babies,� ancestry and heritage are hidden inside the earth but tend to rise during land disputes. “Any Further West� follows a sex worker and her daughter as they leave their ancestral home in southern Colorado only to find a foreign and hostile land in California. In “Tomi,� a woman leaves prison and finds herself in a gentrified city that is a shadow of the one she remembers from her childhood. And in the title story, “Sabrina & Corina,� a Denver family falls into a cycle of violence against women, coming together only through ritual.

Sabrina & Corina is a moving narrative of unrelenting feminine power and an exploration of the universal experiences of abandonment, heritage, and an eternal sense of home.]]> 224 Kali Fajardo-Anstine Lucy 4 4.18 2019 Sabrina & Corina
author: Kali Fajardo-Anstine
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
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]]> The Seven Year Slip 62926938 An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.

Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.

So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.

And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.

Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.

Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.

After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.]]> 336 Ashley Poston Lucy 4 4.18 2023 The Seven Year Slip
author: Ashley Poston
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
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]]> The Ministry of Time 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all:

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats� from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge�: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as �1847� or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,� “Spotify,� and “the collapse of the British Empire.� But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Lucy 3 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
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review:

]]> Table for Two 195474144 From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories set in New York and Los Angeles. The millions of readers of Amor Towles are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of compromise which operate at the heart of modern marriages. In Towles’s novel, Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September, 1938, with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood� describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in the midst of Hollywood’s golden age. Throughout the stories, two characters often find themselves sitting across a table for two where the direction of their futures may hinge upon what they say to each other next. Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting historical fiction.]]> 451 Amor Towles 0593296370 Lucy 4 4.15 2024 Table for Two
author: Amor Towles
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
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]]> Intermezzo 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 Lucy 4 3.88 2024 Intermezzo
author: Sally Rooney
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
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]]> Swan Song (Nantucket, #4) 200484931 In the grand finale of "queen of the beach read" Elin Hilderbrand's beloved Nantucket novels, there's a new couple in town... and they instantly shake things up. Amid the extravagant parties on land and sea, there's trouble on the island, forcing Chief of Police Ed Kapanesh to postpone his retirement and changing the fabric of life on the picturesque island forever...

After thirty-five years serving as the Chief of Police on the island of Nantucket, Ed Kapenash's heart can no longer take the stress. But his plans to retire are thwarted when, with only three days left to serve, he receives a phone call. A 22-million-dollar summer home, recently purchased by the flashy new couple in town, the Richardsons, has burned to the ground. The Richardsons are far from hurt—in fact, they're out on the water, throwing a lavish party on their yacht—but when news of the fire reaches them, they discover that their personal assistant has vanished. The Chief is well-acquainted with the Richardsons, and his daughter is best friends with the now-missing girl, leaving him no choice but to postpone his retirement and take on the double case.

On a small island like Nantucket, the Richardsons shook things up from the second they stepped on to the scene, throwing luxurious parties and doing whatever they could to gain admittance to the coveted lunches at the Field & Oar Club (with increasing desperation). They instantly captured the attention of local real estate agent Fast Eddie, and the town gossip Blond Sharon, both dealing with their own personal dramas. Blond Sharon is going through a divorce, and in order to avoid becoming a cliché, she's enrolled in a creative writing class, putting her natural affinity for scandal towards a more noble purpose. To solve the case of the fire and track down his daughter's best friend, the Chief will have to string together the pieces of the lives of all of these characters and more, rallying his strength for his final act of service to the tight-knit community he knows and loves.

The last of Elin Hilderbrand's bestselling Nantucket novels, Swan Song is a propulsive medley of glittering gatherings, sun-soaked drama, wisdom and heart, featuring the return of some of her most beloved characters, including, most importantly, the beautiful and timeless island of Nantucket itself.]]> 384 Elin Hilderbrand 0316258873 Lucy 3 3.98 2024 Swan Song (Nantucket, #4)
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
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]]> Ordinary Grace 15803059 “That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.�

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson’s Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.

Frank begins the season preoccupied with the concerns of any teenage boy, but when tragedy unexpectedly strikes his family—which includes his Methodist minister father; his passionate, artistic mother; Juilliard-bound older sister; and wise-beyond-his-years kid brother—he finds himself thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal, suddenly called upon to demonstrate a maturity and gumption beyond his years.

Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God.]]> 307 William Kent Krueger 1451645821 Lucy 5 4.23 2013 Ordinary Grace
author: William Kent Krueger
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
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review:

]]> The River We Remember 101160844 In 1958, a small Minnesota town is rocked by the murder of its most powerful citizen, pouring fresh fuel on old grievances in this dazzling standalone novel.

On Memorial Day, as the people of Jewel, Minnesota gather to remember and honor the sacrifice of so many sons in the wars of the past, the half-clothed body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. Investigation of the murder falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife. As suspicions and accusations mount and the town teeters on the edge of more violence, Dern struggles not only to find the truth of Quinn’s murder but also put to rest the demons from his own past.

Caught up in the torrent of anger that sweeps through Jewel are a war widow and her adolescent son, the intrepid publisher of the local newspaper, an aging deputy, and a crusading female lawyer, all of whom struggle with their own tragic histories and harbor secrets that Quinn’s death threatens to expose.

Both a complex, spellbinding mystery and a masterful portrait of midcentury American life, The River We Remember is an unflinching look at the wounds left by the wars we fight abroad and at home, a moving exploration of the ways in which we seek to heal, and a testament to the enduring power of the stories we tell about the places we call home.]]> 432 William Kent Krueger 198217921X Lucy 4 4.19 2023 The River We Remember
author: William Kent Krueger
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
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]]> Creation Lake 207300960 416 Rachel Kushner 1982116528 Lucy 3 3.35 2024 Creation Lake
author: Rachel Kushner
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Crown Duel (Crown & Court #1-2)]]> 8464112
Once the king is gone, she faces a new type of battlefield: not muddy fields and sharpened steel, but marble palaces. The weapons now are fashion, manners, and the subtle and secret language of fans. Finally, there is the toughest challenge of all, courtship. For how do you defend yourself when the one who draws your eye, and your heart, is your worst enemy?

The e-book edition has the above plus several scenes from the hero’s point of view.]]> 425 Sherwood Smith 1611380715 Lucy 0 to-read 4.19 2002 Crown Duel (Crown & Court #1-2)
author: Sherwood Smith
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Helen of Pasadena: A Novel 19171693 The Los Angeles Times–bestselling “deliciously witty rompâ€� about a wife and mother who loses it all only to find herself—and a whole lot more (Caroline Leavitt). Ěý Helen Fairchild is living a privileged life in a Pasadena paradise. She’s married to a supposed pillar of the community. Her son is destined for the most prestigious high school. She volunteers on the most fashionable committees. Then along comes a Rose Parade float that kills her two-timing husband. In a flash, Helen is broke, booted out of her perfect home, and scrambling to salvage her enviable existence. Ěý When archaeologist Patrick O’Neill offers her a job as his research assistant, it’s the lifeline Helen needs to reinvent herself. Suddenly, there are ancient mysteries to solve! Charity events to plan! A whole new world to explore! And if Helen doesn’t keep getting so distracted by her attractive boss, she might just be able to pull off this new lifeĚý.Ěý.Ěý. Ěý With its keen social observations, laugh-out-loud scenes and whip-smart dialogue, Helen of Pasadena spent more than a year on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. It is a wise story from an author “known for her humorous take on day-to-day issues facing women everywhereâ€� (Oprah.com).]]> 223 Lian Dolan 0984410244 Lucy 0 to-read 4.03 2010 Helen of Pasadena: A Novel
author: Lian Dolan
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Lucy 4 Heft and have read all her subsequent novels, each one impressing me with the different topics she tackles and how she deftly interweaves fantastic characters into an interesting plot into a teaching moment.

I'm not sure The God of the Woods has the grand moral take away that her other books do but I think it might be her most interesting and hard-to-put-down book. I first purchased this audiobook and then was told by someone that due to a map, this book is best in print so I bought it as a paper copy as well. I ended up using both formats and really enjoyed both (btw, I don't think it needs to be in print. The map is not detailed and can easily be imagined. There are, however, various sections of the novel grouped together that aren't announced in the audio book [at least I don't remember them being announced]: Barbara, Bear, When Lost, Visitors, Found and Survival. Those may help a reader more easily navigate the different timelines and narrators). The book is composed of short chapters that bounce around in time from the 1950s to August 1975 Days 1-6, those days being spent searching for a missing 13 year girl, Barbara Van Laar. The setting is the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, mostly at a youth camp called Camp Emerson where the children of the wealthy spend their summers. The mystery to solve Barbara's disappearance is heightened due to her family owning the camp and her older brother, Bear, also going missing at the property 13 years earlier.

Each chapter is narrated in the 1st person, mostly by female characters Tracy, Alice, Louise, and Judyta but there are a few narrated by male characters Carl and Jacob, suspects in both Bear and Barbara's disappearances. Besides the mystery to solve, Moore has her characters struggle with the divide between the haves and the have-nots and the stark differences afforded to both when it comes to crime and punishment. She also addresses sexism, nepotism, abuse, neglect and horribly dysfunctional parenting. With the camp's theme being survival skills in the wilderness, it's all very suitably thematic.

This is a terrific book, with a terrific title and theme that only misses out on 5 stars because I didn't ever react emotionally to the story. I occasionally felt very frustrated by the timidity and lack of confidence and honesty from most of the female characters, especially Alice, but Judyta's detective work redeemed the females! It was the 1960s and 1970s after all. Women have come so far.]]> 4.16 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2024/09/05
shelves:
review:
I think Liz Moore is a wildly talented author. I absolutely loved her book Heft and have read all her subsequent novels, each one impressing me with the different topics she tackles and how she deftly interweaves fantastic characters into an interesting plot into a teaching moment.

I'm not sure The God of the Woods has the grand moral take away that her other books do but I think it might be her most interesting and hard-to-put-down book. I first purchased this audiobook and then was told by someone that due to a map, this book is best in print so I bought it as a paper copy as well. I ended up using both formats and really enjoyed both (btw, I don't think it needs to be in print. The map is not detailed and can easily be imagined. There are, however, various sections of the novel grouped together that aren't announced in the audio book [at least I don't remember them being announced]: Barbara, Bear, When Lost, Visitors, Found and Survival. Those may help a reader more easily navigate the different timelines and narrators). The book is composed of short chapters that bounce around in time from the 1950s to August 1975 Days 1-6, those days being spent searching for a missing 13 year girl, Barbara Van Laar. The setting is the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, mostly at a youth camp called Camp Emerson where the children of the wealthy spend their summers. The mystery to solve Barbara's disappearance is heightened due to her family owning the camp and her older brother, Bear, also going missing at the property 13 years earlier.

Each chapter is narrated in the 1st person, mostly by female characters Tracy, Alice, Louise, and Judyta but there are a few narrated by male characters Carl and Jacob, suspects in both Bear and Barbara's disappearances. Besides the mystery to solve, Moore has her characters struggle with the divide between the haves and the have-nots and the stark differences afforded to both when it comes to crime and punishment. She also addresses sexism, nepotism, abuse, neglect and horribly dysfunctional parenting. With the camp's theme being survival skills in the wilderness, it's all very suitably thematic.

This is a terrific book, with a terrific title and theme that only misses out on 5 stars because I didn't ever react emotionally to the story. I occasionally felt very frustrated by the timidity and lack of confidence and honesty from most of the female characters, especially Alice, but Judyta's detective work redeemed the females! It was the 1960s and 1970s after all. Women have come so far.
]]> All the Colors of the Dark 203019740 From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that spans decades.

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Mohammed Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.

When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy with one eye, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake.

Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession, and the blinding light of hope.]]> 608 Chris Whitaker 0593798872 Lucy 3
The beginning of the book was great. Lots of foreshadowing. Maybe an excessive amount with several of the early short chapter sentences producing a duh-duh-duh kind of mood. Ignore that niggle of annoyance, Lucy! It's going to be great!

The climax of the book, or what I think it should have been, was finished about a third of the way through. Patch and Saint and the dark and the fire and the rescue scene...I was engrossed. What a horrible crime! What depravity! What in the world is going to fill the pages of the rest of the book?

Turns out, an awful lot of obsessive behavior. By obsessive, I mean their entire character arc revolved around them making choices for decades about one thing. Patch = obsessive painting of kidnapped girls and obsession to find Grace, the girl who was present during his captivity but whom he never saw due to being kept entirely in the dark. Saint: Obsessive searching for Grace on behalf of Patch and then obsessively searching for Patch and just general obsession with Patch. Misty = obsession with Patch, who saved her life. Jimmy = obsession with Saint (for no explained reason). Norma = obsession with Saint and her job and if she goes to church and who she likes. Nix and Tooms eventually explained obsession with protecting each other. Sammy = obsession with Misty's mom from decades before the events in the book but later are the explanation for his destructive lifestyle. And of course the horrifying obsession of Eli and teenage girls he deemed sinful (that one at least I could believe. He was a psychopath after all). All of that obsession led to so many unnecessary secrets. Abortions. Adoptions. Gay relationships. Infatuations. Romantic feelings. Abuse. Paternity. Eye witnessing crimes. More paternity. Ugh. Somebody just tell the truth to someone, please!

By the end of the book, my disappointment was overwhelming. For a character-driven book, I just don't understand why all of these characters behaved so singularly. They were each allowed one personality trait and there was no deviation from it. I truly don't know a single person like this in real life. People change...grow up....fall out of love...move on. Time heals wounds. If the span of time had been shorter, I would have believed the behavior more. But, decades pass by. Decades!

Apparently, I had similar feelings after the last Chris Whitaker book I read, We Begin at the End which I did not realize was written by the same author until I came here to review this book. I re-read that review and it's all of these same complaints. I guess I shouldn't read Chris Whitaker. Lots of people like his books but now I know his style and my need for a bit of reality don't mesh. I did like the story of All The Colors of the Dark a bit better though so it gets one additional star.]]> 4.24 2024 All the Colors of the Dark
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/28
date added: 2024/08/28
shelves:
review:
I was so excited to read this book. From the first time I read a blurb about it, I thought, "This is exactly the kind of book I like!" and put a hold on it from the library. Then I learned it was a Read With Jenna book club pick and my eagerness dropped a bit. My likes don't strongly align with her likes but I'm not going to be a snob about it...she didn't write the blurb. And the blurb looked good! I was determined to proceed.

The beginning of the book was great. Lots of foreshadowing. Maybe an excessive amount with several of the early short chapter sentences producing a duh-duh-duh kind of mood. Ignore that niggle of annoyance, Lucy! It's going to be great!

The climax of the book, or what I think it should have been, was finished about a third of the way through. Patch and Saint and the dark and the fire and the rescue scene...I was engrossed. What a horrible crime! What depravity! What in the world is going to fill the pages of the rest of the book?

Turns out, an awful lot of obsessive behavior. By obsessive, I mean their entire character arc revolved around them making choices for decades about one thing. Patch = obsessive painting of kidnapped girls and obsession to find Grace, the girl who was present during his captivity but whom he never saw due to being kept entirely in the dark. Saint: Obsessive searching for Grace on behalf of Patch and then obsessively searching for Patch and just general obsession with Patch. Misty = obsession with Patch, who saved her life. Jimmy = obsession with Saint (for no explained reason). Norma = obsession with Saint and her job and if she goes to church and who she likes. Nix and Tooms eventually explained obsession with protecting each other. Sammy = obsession with Misty's mom from decades before the events in the book but later are the explanation for his destructive lifestyle. And of course the horrifying obsession of Eli and teenage girls he deemed sinful (that one at least I could believe. He was a psychopath after all). All of that obsession led to so many unnecessary secrets. Abortions. Adoptions. Gay relationships. Infatuations. Romantic feelings. Abuse. Paternity. Eye witnessing crimes. More paternity. Ugh. Somebody just tell the truth to someone, please!

By the end of the book, my disappointment was overwhelming. For a character-driven book, I just don't understand why all of these characters behaved so singularly. They were each allowed one personality trait and there was no deviation from it. I truly don't know a single person like this in real life. People change...grow up....fall out of love...move on. Time heals wounds. If the span of time had been shorter, I would have believed the behavior more. But, decades pass by. Decades!

Apparently, I had similar feelings after the last Chris Whitaker book I read, We Begin at the End which I did not realize was written by the same author until I came here to review this book. I re-read that review and it's all of these same complaints. I guess I shouldn't read Chris Whitaker. Lots of people like his books but now I know his style and my need for a bit of reality don't mesh. I did like the story of All The Colors of the Dark a bit better though so it gets one additional star.
]]> James 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Lucy 5 James by Percival Everett rarely live up to the expectation, but this book exceeded it. I knew I liked the book intellectually when I finished but about an hour after closing it shut, I lay in bed and got emotional thinking about James and his simple desires: to be with his family, to feel safe, to write his story on paper with a pencil, to live an authentic life. Why do we as human beings continually make that so impossible for anyone who threatens our perceived feelings of righteous superiority?

If you haven't heard, James is Jim, the slave who travels with Huckleberry Finn in Mark Twain's famous and controversial book. The book starts with familiar scenes from Huck Finn and it's akin to reading or watching Wicked knowing the original Wizard of Oz. It's clever. It's adventurous. It's very, very ironic which has led some to describe it as funny. Irony can definitely be categorized as a form of humor but if you are expecting to giggle or burst out any ha-has, you will be disappointed. I think it's best described as blatantly brutal.

As the story continues, Everett leaves Twain's well known adventure behind and we follow Jim through all the fear, trepidation, violence, abuse, caution, friendship, daring, sacrifice, loneliness, hunger, courage, strength, risk-taking and anger he goes through on his journey as a runaway slave trying to find a way to return and free his wife, Sadie, and daughter, Lizzie. Jim, who is labeled a thief, a kidnapper, a murderer, Ceasar from Borneo from the duke and king, a blacksmith, a minstrel, and a slave owned by just about every other character in the story, decides by the end of the book in his fury and wrath that he is not that Jim. He never was. He never will be. He is James.

This book is everything. It is smart but accessible. It is familiar but so creative. It is true but fantastical. It teaches. It exposes. It humanizes and condemns. It touched me deeply.]]> 4.47 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/23
date added: 2024/07/23
shelves:
review:
In my reading experience, books with as much hype and cult fanfare as James by Percival Everett rarely live up to the expectation, but this book exceeded it. I knew I liked the book intellectually when I finished but about an hour after closing it shut, I lay in bed and got emotional thinking about James and his simple desires: to be with his family, to feel safe, to write his story on paper with a pencil, to live an authentic life. Why do we as human beings continually make that so impossible for anyone who threatens our perceived feelings of righteous superiority?

If you haven't heard, James is Jim, the slave who travels with Huckleberry Finn in Mark Twain's famous and controversial book. The book starts with familiar scenes from Huck Finn and it's akin to reading or watching Wicked knowing the original Wizard of Oz. It's clever. It's adventurous. It's very, very ironic which has led some to describe it as funny. Irony can definitely be categorized as a form of humor but if you are expecting to giggle or burst out any ha-has, you will be disappointed. I think it's best described as blatantly brutal.

As the story continues, Everett leaves Twain's well known adventure behind and we follow Jim through all the fear, trepidation, violence, abuse, caution, friendship, daring, sacrifice, loneliness, hunger, courage, strength, risk-taking and anger he goes through on his journey as a runaway slave trying to find a way to return and free his wife, Sadie, and daughter, Lizzie. Jim, who is labeled a thief, a kidnapper, a murderer, Ceasar from Borneo from the duke and king, a blacksmith, a minstrel, and a slave owned by just about every other character in the story, decides by the end of the book in his fury and wrath that he is not that Jim. He never was. He never will be. He is James.

This book is everything. It is smart but accessible. It is familiar but so creative. It is true but fantastical. It teaches. It exposes. It humanizes and condemns. It touched me deeply.
]]> Real Americans 62929342 Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.

In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can't shake the sense she's hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than answers.

In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance—a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home.

Exuberant and explosive, Real Americans is a social novel par excellence that asks: Are we destined, or made, and if so, who gets to do the making? Can our genetic past be overcome?

From the award-winning author of Goodbye, Vitamin: How far would you go to shape your own destiny? An exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family, and asks: What makes us who we are? And how inevitable are our futures? ]]> 399 Rachel Khong 0593537254 Lucy 3
Real Americans follows three Chinese-American generations and their ability and limitations to be who they really want to be. The book begins with Lily Chen in the year 1999. Lily is working in New York City as an unpaid intern at a magazine conglomerate. She recognizes she is filling in a diversity quota as a token asian, even though she was born in Florida, speaks no Chinese and doesn't really have much interest in her job. She falls in love with a very wealthy white man, Matthew, who is an heir to a huge pharmaceutical company, and they have a son, Nico, who has no Chinese phenotypes.

The book then skips ahead 15 years to teenage Nick living on an island in Washington state, completely isolated from everyone. He isn't allowed to have a phone or a computer and has one friend, Timothy. He doesn't understand his mother, Lily, or why they live the way they do or why he looks so white when he is half Chinese. His friend urges him to take a DNA sample and send it into the 23 and Me company and discovers his father's family.

The book ends with Mei/May, and her time in China during Mao Zedong's cultural revolution. She is born into poverty but finds opportunity as a scientist at a University in Beijing. Things become more and more dangerous for the scientists and intellectuals and she eventually is invited to escape to America with a man who is not her true love. She goes and spends the next few decades dedicated to becoming a "real American" and controlling her and her daughter, Lily's, fortune through genetics.

The odd chronology wasn't a deal breaker because each story was well developed and had an interesting story arc, but each story was also depressing. I don't need a rah rah good time to enjoy a book but I kept wondering what I was supposed to be learning. For most of the book, I felt like the title should have been "Real Chinese" because the struggle for these characters didn't seem to be their American-ness but the fallout from denying their Chinese-ness. It wasn't until the end of the book that I think I got the author's point. It wasn't about family heritage or race or location at all. It was about the human motivation for advancement and prosperity and progress and perfection. Fortune. America and its ideals personifies this goal. Does that quest cause our deepest harm?

I liked the ending enough to like the book but I wish that each generation could have found a little more forgiveness sooner for each parent who tried to do their best in the worst possible way.]]> 3.94 2024 Real Americans
author: Rachel Khong
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2024/07/20
shelves:
review:
It's hard to like a book whose characters spend the majority of the narrative deeply unhappy and trying to undo the harm their parents caused them.

Real Americans follows three Chinese-American generations and their ability and limitations to be who they really want to be. The book begins with Lily Chen in the year 1999. Lily is working in New York City as an unpaid intern at a magazine conglomerate. She recognizes she is filling in a diversity quota as a token asian, even though she was born in Florida, speaks no Chinese and doesn't really have much interest in her job. She falls in love with a very wealthy white man, Matthew, who is an heir to a huge pharmaceutical company, and they have a son, Nico, who has no Chinese phenotypes.

The book then skips ahead 15 years to teenage Nick living on an island in Washington state, completely isolated from everyone. He isn't allowed to have a phone or a computer and has one friend, Timothy. He doesn't understand his mother, Lily, or why they live the way they do or why he looks so white when he is half Chinese. His friend urges him to take a DNA sample and send it into the 23 and Me company and discovers his father's family.

The book ends with Mei/May, and her time in China during Mao Zedong's cultural revolution. She is born into poverty but finds opportunity as a scientist at a University in Beijing. Things become more and more dangerous for the scientists and intellectuals and she eventually is invited to escape to America with a man who is not her true love. She goes and spends the next few decades dedicated to becoming a "real American" and controlling her and her daughter, Lily's, fortune through genetics.

The odd chronology wasn't a deal breaker because each story was well developed and had an interesting story arc, but each story was also depressing. I don't need a rah rah good time to enjoy a book but I kept wondering what I was supposed to be learning. For most of the book, I felt like the title should have been "Real Chinese" because the struggle for these characters didn't seem to be their American-ness but the fallout from denying their Chinese-ness. It wasn't until the end of the book that I think I got the author's point. It wasn't about family heritage or race or location at all. It was about the human motivation for advancement and prosperity and progress and perfection. Fortune. America and its ideals personifies this goal. Does that quest cause our deepest harm?

I liked the ending enough to like the book but I wish that each generation could have found a little more forgiveness sooner for each parent who tried to do their best in the worst possible way.
]]> Euphoria 18467802 Inspired by the true story of a woman who changed the way we understand our world.

In 1933 three young, gifted anthropologists are thrown together in the jungle of New Guinea. They are Nell Stone, fascinating, magnetic and famous for her controversial work studying South Pacific tribes, her intelligent and aggressive husband Fen, and Andrew Bankson, who stumbles into the lives of this strange couple and becomes totally enthralled. Within months the trio are producing their best ever work, but soon a firestorm of fierce love and jealousy begins to burn out of control, threatening their bonds, their careers, and, ultimately, their lives...]]> 256 Lily King 0802122558 Lucy 3
Saved correspondence and journal entries reveal that Mead, thrice married and a mother of one, also had two known female lovers. Two of her husbands were the men King based Fen and Bankson on: Reo Fortune and Gregory Bateson. However, King admits that her story is only loosely based on their histories so I'm not sure how much to rely on what Google tells me anyway.

What I ended up finding fascinating was that upon knowing more about Mead/Stone, I couldn't help but notice that Stone's character was always hyper focused on these cultures' gender, mating and family norms. Hyper focused and yet not at all unbiased. She noted and recorded a lot of fluidity and sexual permissiveness that no other anthropologist seemed to notice, maybe because she was looking for it to fit with how she saw the world, or maybe because no one else's lenses allowed them to see it. It goes along with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: that once you start to observe or measure something, your observation or measurement changes the very thing attempted to be observed or measured.

Once I noticed that pattern with Stone, it was obvious this was how Fen and Bankson's observations worked as well. They were each experiencing, analyzing and recording these cultures through their own limitations and biases. King writes, “When only one person is the expert on a particular people, do we learn more about the people or the anthropologist when we read the analysis?�

For me, that was the point of the book. Not the cultures or people of New Guinea. Not the Love Triangle. Not even the fact/fiction of the anthropologists' real lives. But the impossibility of true anthropology. None of us are able to see the world except through our own filters. Which makes right/wrong/civilized/savage forever dependent upon who is being observed and who is doing the observing.]]> 3.84 2014 Euphoria
author: Lily King
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/01
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves:
review:
Hmmm. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't what I got. Euphoria, written by Lily King, explores the relationships, personalities, strengths and weaknesses of three anthropologists studying the people and tribes living along the Sepik River in New Guinea in the 1930s. The brief synopsis on back of the book made it sound like this was mostly the story of a love triangle between anthropologists Nell Stone, an American, her husband, Schuyler Fenwick (Fen), an Australian and Andrew Banskon, a Brit. Nell Stone was based on real life anthropologist Margaret Mead, who I knew absolutely nothing about except remembering I had seen some displays with her picture and name among some collections found in the Museum of Natural History in New York City. I didn't think knowing anything about real life Margaret Mead would matter much as I began this fictionalized novel, but as the book focused more and more on Nell Stone's sexuality, her views about monogamy and gender identity, I found myself doing a deep dive on Google to find out what was true and what was fictionalized to make a more interesting novel.

Saved correspondence and journal entries reveal that Mead, thrice married and a mother of one, also had two known female lovers. Two of her husbands were the men King based Fen and Bankson on: Reo Fortune and Gregory Bateson. However, King admits that her story is only loosely based on their histories so I'm not sure how much to rely on what Google tells me anyway.

What I ended up finding fascinating was that upon knowing more about Mead/Stone, I couldn't help but notice that Stone's character was always hyper focused on these cultures' gender, mating and family norms. Hyper focused and yet not at all unbiased. She noted and recorded a lot of fluidity and sexual permissiveness that no other anthropologist seemed to notice, maybe because she was looking for it to fit with how she saw the world, or maybe because no one else's lenses allowed them to see it. It goes along with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: that once you start to observe or measure something, your observation or measurement changes the very thing attempted to be observed or measured.

Once I noticed that pattern with Stone, it was obvious this was how Fen and Bankson's observations worked as well. They were each experiencing, analyzing and recording these cultures through their own limitations and biases. King writes, “When only one person is the expert on a particular people, do we learn more about the people or the anthropologist when we read the analysis?�

For me, that was the point of the book. Not the cultures or people of New Guinea. Not the Love Triangle. Not even the fact/fiction of the anthropologists' real lives. But the impossibility of true anthropology. None of us are able to see the world except through our own filters. Which makes right/wrong/civilized/savage forever dependent upon who is being observed and who is doing the observing.
]]> <![CDATA[Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence]]> 55723020
In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain...and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery.

"Brilliant... riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued."--Beth Macy, author of Dopesick


INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES and LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER
“Brilliant� riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued.”—Beth Macy, author of Dopesick
As heard on Fresh Air]]> 304 Anna Lembke 1524746738 Lucy 5
The book starts uncomfortably. The very first chapter is about a masturbation machine and sex addiction and it feels disturbing and jarring at first. As Dr. Lembke continues sharing the notes and conversations from her therapy sessions with this client, it quickly becomes obvious that her intention is not to shock or be gratuitous, but to explain how something that many consider a common source of easy and harmless pleasure can be taken to an extreme level that does, in fact, become harmful.

Lembke weaves in the science of how we experience pleasure and pain when she shares other client experiences and even her own relatively mild anecdote of middle-aged-marital-stress-escapism for a few years reading repetitive vampire erotica on her kindle. I found her vulnerability and experience to be the most relatable compared to some of the other more chemically dangerous addictions, such as a reliance on opiates, cannibis and psychedelics, which are now a thousand times more potent and lethal with today's use of synthetics and the illegal and unregulated drug trade.

She gives some helpful suggestions of applied therapy she calls self-binding. Again, the vitriol against this book surprised me because this section of the book felt the least judgmental to me. Sometimes a certain way to overcome addiction works for some and a different way works for others and sometimes abstinence (like AA) works for some and for some other lucky people, moderation become possible. She brings up the difficulty of some modern addictions where total abstinence is impossible, such as with food and certain forms of technology. I found her tone to be hopeful and compassionate towards her clients and the pain so many find themselves trying to alleviate due to abuse, trauma and poverty.

She finishes her book addressing the use of pain in therapeutic ways. Think of the current popularity of ice baths or cold plunges and intense exercise, which she explains actually cause the body to experience pain, which forces the endocrine system to bring the body back to homeostasis by then releasing dopamine for an extended feeling of pleasure afterwards. There's that runner's high or good mood. This also explains the less palatable behavior of cutting or BDSM. I found that interesting.

I don't give this book five stars because I think it is the end all be all explanation of mental health, addiction or the only solution to any of our problems. I actually rarely give five stars because, for me, that fifth star is an emotional reaction to a book. I experienced that while reading this. I felt a light bulb turn on and felt grateful for access to the information and experiences of someone with her knowledge and credentials. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about how, why and when we experience pleasure and pain. It would be an excellent book to discuss with someone.]]> 3.88 2021 Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
author: Anna Lembke
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/26
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves:
review:
I feel a little shocked getting on here to review this book to see that so many other readers found it objectionable. I did not. At all. It seemed like an unemotional, non-morally superior explanation of the endocrine system's homeostasis mechanism to balance pleasure and pain. I'd heard quite a bit of the same things from a few Huberman Lab podcasts but found Dr. Lembke's anecdotes and citations a bit more helpful, BECAUSE they felt less emotionally based.

The book starts uncomfortably. The very first chapter is about a masturbation machine and sex addiction and it feels disturbing and jarring at first. As Dr. Lembke continues sharing the notes and conversations from her therapy sessions with this client, it quickly becomes obvious that her intention is not to shock or be gratuitous, but to explain how something that many consider a common source of easy and harmless pleasure can be taken to an extreme level that does, in fact, become harmful.

Lembke weaves in the science of how we experience pleasure and pain when she shares other client experiences and even her own relatively mild anecdote of middle-aged-marital-stress-escapism for a few years reading repetitive vampire erotica on her kindle. I found her vulnerability and experience to be the most relatable compared to some of the other more chemically dangerous addictions, such as a reliance on opiates, cannibis and psychedelics, which are now a thousand times more potent and lethal with today's use of synthetics and the illegal and unregulated drug trade.

She gives some helpful suggestions of applied therapy she calls self-binding. Again, the vitriol against this book surprised me because this section of the book felt the least judgmental to me. Sometimes a certain way to overcome addiction works for some and a different way works for others and sometimes abstinence (like AA) works for some and for some other lucky people, moderation become possible. She brings up the difficulty of some modern addictions where total abstinence is impossible, such as with food and certain forms of technology. I found her tone to be hopeful and compassionate towards her clients and the pain so many find themselves trying to alleviate due to abuse, trauma and poverty.

She finishes her book addressing the use of pain in therapeutic ways. Think of the current popularity of ice baths or cold plunges and intense exercise, which she explains actually cause the body to experience pain, which forces the endocrine system to bring the body back to homeostasis by then releasing dopamine for an extended feeling of pleasure afterwards. There's that runner's high or good mood. This also explains the less palatable behavior of cutting or BDSM. I found that interesting.

I don't give this book five stars because I think it is the end all be all explanation of mental health, addiction or the only solution to any of our problems. I actually rarely give five stars because, for me, that fifth star is an emotional reaction to a book. I experienced that while reading this. I felt a light bulb turn on and felt grateful for access to the information and experiences of someone with her knowledge and credentials. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about how, why and when we experience pleasure and pain. It would be an excellent book to discuss with someone.
]]> First Lie Wins 164444179 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593492918.

Evie Porter has everything a nice Southern girl could want: a doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence, a tight group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.

The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job.

Evie isn’t privy to Mr. Smith’s real identity, but she knows this job isn’t like the others. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she’s starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can’t make any mistakes—especially after what happened last time.

Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there’s still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn’t be higher—but then, Evie has always liked a challenge. . . .]]> 340 Ashley Elston Lucy 4
I don't think there is anything earth shattering or important to discover by reading this set in the south thriller but I enjoyed the morally ambiguous characters, potentially unreliable narrator and back and forth chronology that kept the clues from being red herrings or decoys.]]> 3.97 2024 First Lie Wins
author: Ashley Elston
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/26
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves:
review:
I thought this was a fun thriller that kept me guessing. I thought I had it all figured out and even planned on writing in a review, "mystery a little too easy to solve," but then it twisted again at the end in a believable way which earned a slow clap from me.

I don't think there is anything earth shattering or important to discover by reading this set in the south thriller but I enjoyed the morally ambiguous characters, potentially unreliable narrator and back and forth chronology that kept the clues from being red herrings or decoys.
]]> Funny Story 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé, Peter, told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it... right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned-up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Lucy 4 4.21 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/23
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves:
review:

]]> Project Hail Mary 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Lucy 3 4.49 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/23
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves:
review:
Ugh. I loved the Martian so much so my expectations were too high with this one. I can appreciate the mixture of humor and science with which Weir writes with but this book’s tone was a little too yuk-yuk for me to enjoy. And the frequent random remembering of very complex science and equations got on my nerves. He’s smart but he is has been teaching middle school science for a while! I’m not sure all his learning and training would be so easy to recall without a google search memory refresh. Still…there are only a handful of people who could write such a complicated science fiction book and kudos to the author for making space drama so accessible.
]]> The Bee Sting 62039166 From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under―but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.

Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil―can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written―is there still time to find a happy ending?]]> 645 Paul Murray 0374600309 Lucy 3 3.92 2023 The Bee Sting
author: Paul Murray
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/23
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves:
review:
I appreciated the art of the writing and narration technique more than I enjoyed reading the story.
]]> Lady Tan’s Circle of Women 62919732
According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,� but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.

From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus , they tell from adversity beauty can bloom.

But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.

How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? A captivating story of women helping each other, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a triumphant reimagining of the life of one person who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.]]> 352 Lisa See 1982117087 Lucy 4 4.31 2023 Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
author: Lisa See
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/23
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves:
review:
I liked this no apologies historical fiction story of women and their relationships, marriages, status and health in a very patriarchal society. Believable and satisfying.
]]> <![CDATA[The Running Grave (Cormoran Strike, #7)]]> 139399948 In the seventh installment in the Strike series, Cormoran and Robin must rescue a man ensnared in the trap of a dangerous cult.

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside.

The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organization that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.

In order to try to rescue Will, Strike's business partner, Robin Ellacott, decides to infiltrate the cult, and she travels to Norfolk to live incognito among its members. But in doing so, she is unprepared for the dangers that await her there or for the toll it will take on her. . .

Utterly pulse-pounding, The Running Grave moves Strike's and Robin's story forward in this epic, unforgettable seventh installment of the series.]]> 960 Robert Galbraith 0316572101 Lucy 4 4.56 2023 The Running Grave (Cormoran Strike, #7)
author: Robert Galbraith
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/23
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves:
review:
One of the best in this entire series. I don’t know if it would be nearly as enjoyable to a reader who hasn’t invested the time in Strike and Robin’s character and relationship arcs but the mystery and investigation into a charismatic leader and his cultish commune is really well done.
]]> The Covenant of Water 180357146 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.]]> 715 Abraham Verghese 0802162177 Lucy 4
First of all, this book is 736 pages so expect to put in some effort. In fact, I would recommend buying a physical copy of this book so that you can see both the reminder of what you are getting into and the pride of the accomplishment when finished. Unfortunately, I checked out a digital copy from the library and had to return it before I had finished. It was 5 months before I got a copy again and was so lost and confused by the dates, characters and storylines that I had to Google the crap out of the book. It helped, but all of that emotionless ease of rediscovery stole the magic and investment that comes when you get into a book honestly.

Which brings me to my second point. You need to give yourself a good chunk of time to get into the book! While the writing is beautiful and interesting throughout, it wasn't until the last 25% of the book where I felt like I couldn't put it down. Not that it was ever a page-turner but I just finally really, really cared what happened. There is so much symbolism and history and family lore and geography and plot and then Verghese throws in all of his amazing medical background and an Indian culture I know very little about and it all takes effort. For so long, including the first time I had the book on loan from the library, the effort didn't seem to be worth it but I promise it is.

It should have been a 5 star book for me but my own shortcomings and poor planning robbed me of its full effect. Read it better than I did!]]> 4.34 2023 The Covenant of Water
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/06
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves:
review:
I think to fully benefit from the wonder and majesty of this book, it needs to be read under the right conditions. I did not do this and my ability to appreciate and love the craftsmanship suffered because of it.

First of all, this book is 736 pages so expect to put in some effort. In fact, I would recommend buying a physical copy of this book so that you can see both the reminder of what you are getting into and the pride of the accomplishment when finished. Unfortunately, I checked out a digital copy from the library and had to return it before I had finished. It was 5 months before I got a copy again and was so lost and confused by the dates, characters and storylines that I had to Google the crap out of the book. It helped, but all of that emotionless ease of rediscovery stole the magic and investment that comes when you get into a book honestly.

Which brings me to my second point. You need to give yourself a good chunk of time to get into the book! While the writing is beautiful and interesting throughout, it wasn't until the last 25% of the book where I felt like I couldn't put it down. Not that it was ever a page-turner but I just finally really, really cared what happened. There is so much symbolism and history and family lore and geography and plot and then Verghese throws in all of his amazing medical background and an Indian culture I know very little about and it all takes effort. For so long, including the first time I had the book on loan from the library, the effort didn't seem to be worth it but I promise it is.

It should have been a 5 star book for me but my own shortcomings and poor planning robbed me of its full effect. Read it better than I did!
]]> Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2) 90202302 “The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.� —Xaden Riorson

Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.

Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders� capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.

Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits—and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules.

But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year.

Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College—and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.]]> 623 Rebecca Yarros 1649374178 Lucy 2
That entertainment did not continue for me with Iron Flame, book 2 in I'm not sure how many sequels she plans for this now series. With her fantasy world pretty much built, Iron Flame's 640 pages were left to fill with cringe worthy dialogue between dragon and human written in italics and a plot that didn't bother with a steady development but, instead, threw climax after climax at its readers. Each of these plot conflicts leading to a climax felt like it could have (maybe even should have) ended the story, but I knew from my page number that it wasn't ending soon. Instead of all of these dire situations feeling exciting, I felt like I was sprinting to false summit after false summit on a frustrating hike. Is this the top? No! I've still got a couple of miles to go. This must be the end....but no! There's more.

Not to mention, all of these conflicts were always life and death. And it feels a little weird to not really care if any of these characters die because part of the story is this total nonchalance this world has towards the life of most of the supporting characters. Characters literally die all the time and I never know when it's going to just be a side note, like, "oh...the death toll for today is 7," or "now I cannot function because there is chance of death for a friend if I cannot control the lightning shooting out of my hands!" It's really unbalanced.

The book ends on a false summit again...shocker. Why write one great book when you can draw it out into 4 or 5 mediocre ones? Authors have to follow the money but readers don't. I'm turning around now to get off this hike.]]> 4.33 2023 Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/03/11
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves:
review:
I read the very, very hyped Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros last year and enjoyed it enough to continue with the sequel from the library when it finally became available. Yarros is wisely milking the insane success of her fantasy/YA/romance, Fourth Wing, which felt quite clever in its world building of Dragons, a military academy, relics and runes and signets. Not my normal choice for reading but I was entertained.

That entertainment did not continue for me with Iron Flame, book 2 in I'm not sure how many sequels she plans for this now series. With her fantasy world pretty much built, Iron Flame's 640 pages were left to fill with cringe worthy dialogue between dragon and human written in italics and a plot that didn't bother with a steady development but, instead, threw climax after climax at its readers. Each of these plot conflicts leading to a climax felt like it could have (maybe even should have) ended the story, but I knew from my page number that it wasn't ending soon. Instead of all of these dire situations feeling exciting, I felt like I was sprinting to false summit after false summit on a frustrating hike. Is this the top? No! I've still got a couple of miles to go. This must be the end....but no! There's more.

Not to mention, all of these conflicts were always life and death. And it feels a little weird to not really care if any of these characters die because part of the story is this total nonchalance this world has towards the life of most of the supporting characters. Characters literally die all the time and I never know when it's going to just be a side note, like, "oh...the death toll for today is 7," or "now I cannot function because there is chance of death for a friend if I cannot control the lightning shooting out of my hands!" It's really unbalanced.

The book ends on a false summit again...shocker. Why write one great book when you can draw it out into 4 or 5 mediocre ones? Authors have to follow the money but readers don't. I'm turning around now to get off this hike.
]]> <![CDATA[The Ink Black Heart (Cormoran Strike, #6)]]> 60144955
When frantic, disheveled Edie Ledwell appears in the office begging to speak to her, private detective Robin Ellacott doesn’t know quite what to make of the situation. The co-creator of a popular cartoon, The Ink Black Heart, Edie is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie. Edie is desperate to uncover Anomie’s true identity.

Robin decides that the agency can’t help with this—and thinks nothing more of it until a few days later, when she reads the shocking news that Edie has been tasered and then murdered in Highgate Cemetery, the location of The Ink Black Heart.

Robin and her business partner, Cormoran Strike, become drawn into the quest to uncover Anomie’s true identity. But with a complex web of online aliases, business interests and family conflicts to navigate, Strike and Robin find themselves embroiled in a case that stretches their powers of deduction to the limits � and which threatens them in new and horrifying ways . . .]]> 1391 Robert Galbraith 0316473537 Lucy 4
The Ink Black Heart feels significantly more modern than Galbraith's previous books in this series because much of the investigation involves researching suspects' YouTube videos, Instagram, Facebook, online chat forums, fan fiction games, Twitter threads, blogs and a developing Netflix series. The amount of anonymity available online, as well as the possibility that any of the suspects/characters being responsible for more than one account made this murder crime tricky to solve. Just about everyone seemed a likely suspect with plenty of motive and evil in them to do it. I did feel like the final reveal took a bit too long to get to and wasn't as satisfying as earlier books. I just wanted to be done with all of these psychos!

One thing that was quite tedious in the audiobook format was the many, many, many chat forum/private message/twitter scenes. The narrator had to verbalize all of these, including the names, dates, times and user handles at the start of each message plus each hashtag at the end. This became pretty annoying over time and I know had I been reading, I could have gone through these passages much faster.

Still, if you like mysteries and crime thrillers, these are enjoyable books to take you there. The writing is great. The moral commentary is nuanced enough to not feel preachy and the characters are flawed enough to root for and believe. I'm glad to be back in the Cormoran Strike world. ]]> 4.07 2022 The Ink Black Heart (Cormoran Strike, #6)
author: Robert Galbraith
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/05
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves:
review:
It's been three years since I last took on a Cormoran Strike novel and I felt a little disoriented as the book started as I couldn't remember how the last book ended. As the 6th book in a series, there is a continuous, developing story among the main characters, mostly focusing on the relationship between Cormoran Strike and his detective parter, Robin Ellacott. While not necessarily vital to understanding the plot of this book, knowing that story does help shade the motivations, frustrations and reactions of the two detectives throughout their investigation. I had to go back and read the summaries of each book. Then, I discovered they had all been developed into a show that is currently available on Max, so I watched them too!

The Ink Black Heart feels significantly more modern than Galbraith's previous books in this series because much of the investigation involves researching suspects' YouTube videos, Instagram, Facebook, online chat forums, fan fiction games, Twitter threads, blogs and a developing Netflix series. The amount of anonymity available online, as well as the possibility that any of the suspects/characters being responsible for more than one account made this murder crime tricky to solve. Just about everyone seemed a likely suspect with plenty of motive and evil in them to do it. I did feel like the final reveal took a bit too long to get to and wasn't as satisfying as earlier books. I just wanted to be done with all of these psychos!

One thing that was quite tedious in the audiobook format was the many, many, many chat forum/private message/twitter scenes. The narrator had to verbalize all of these, including the names, dates, times and user handles at the start of each message plus each hashtag at the end. This became pretty annoying over time and I know had I been reading, I could have gone through these passages much faster.

Still, if you like mysteries and crime thrillers, these are enjoyable books to take you there. The writing is great. The moral commentary is nuanced enough to not feel preachy and the characters are flawed enough to root for and believe. I'm glad to be back in the Cormoran Strike world.
]]> <![CDATA[The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store]]> 65678550
Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served the neighborhood's quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated the town's first dance hall. When the state came looking for a deaf black child, claiming that the boy needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill's residents—roused by Chona's kindess and the courage of a local black worker named Nate Timblin—banded together to keep the boy safe.

As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear how much the people of Chicken Hill have to struggle to survive at the margins of white Christian America and how damaging bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit can be to a community. When the truth is revealed about the skeleton, the boy, and the part the town’s establishment played in both, McBride shows that it is love and community—heaven and earth—that ultimately sustain us.]]> 385 James McBride 0593422945 Lucy 2
My first impression was that the narration was almost fairytale-esq. It felt folksy and a little bit...goofy? I don't know it just wasn't the kind of writing I could take seriously. Each character was developed in an almost slapstick way, like this was all some kind of vaudeville play. Then, the plot did not develop in a straightforward manner. Every time the story progressed, a new character and their backstory and their nickname and who their relatives are and what their jobs are and where they came from and what their religion is and even they way they walk were written about for pages. If someone were telling me this story, I would interrupt them and say, "Focus!" because it felt so tangential. Lastly, I couldn't help but feel like this story that was about the unjust prejudices of the Chicken Hill neighborhood outside of Philadelphia in the 1920s and 30s felt very prejudicial. Or at least very stereotypical. The jewish characters were mystical and tribal and owned all the businesses and maybe even a little unethical with money. The black characters were down on their luck, gritty, hardened and not law abiding. The Italians were emotional and uneducated and willing to do anything for money. And the white people were rapists, members of the KKK and had horrible taste in music.

So, I should have maybe even hated this book but I didn't. It's not a bad book. On that last day, when I just plowed through all of my grievances, I felt its charm. I got the themes of the American dream and working together and doing the right thing the hard way. It has a strong message of hope and the power of inclusivity and what could be possible without the evils of corruption. Maybe a little bit of heaven on earth. ]]> 3.84 2023 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
author: James McBride
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/03/01
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves:
review:
I was surprised by how irritated I found myself feeling every time I opened this book. First of all, I had to wait for forever to get it from the library. I think I waited on hold for a digital copy for almost 6 months. I was so excited once I finally got the book and figured the 21 day loan to read it would be about 18 days longer than I needed, but I ended up power reading it on the day it was due because...I never felt like reading it!

My first impression was that the narration was almost fairytale-esq. It felt folksy and a little bit...goofy? I don't know it just wasn't the kind of writing I could take seriously. Each character was developed in an almost slapstick way, like this was all some kind of vaudeville play. Then, the plot did not develop in a straightforward manner. Every time the story progressed, a new character and their backstory and their nickname and who their relatives are and what their jobs are and where they came from and what their religion is and even they way they walk were written about for pages. If someone were telling me this story, I would interrupt them and say, "Focus!" because it felt so tangential. Lastly, I couldn't help but feel like this story that was about the unjust prejudices of the Chicken Hill neighborhood outside of Philadelphia in the 1920s and 30s felt very prejudicial. Or at least very stereotypical. The jewish characters were mystical and tribal and owned all the businesses and maybe even a little unethical with money. The black characters were down on their luck, gritty, hardened and not law abiding. The Italians were emotional and uneducated and willing to do anything for money. And the white people were rapists, members of the KKK and had horrible taste in music.

So, I should have maybe even hated this book but I didn't. It's not a bad book. On that last day, when I just plowed through all of my grievances, I felt its charm. I got the themes of the American dream and working together and doing the right thing the hard way. It has a strong message of hope and the power of inclusivity and what could be possible without the evils of corruption. Maybe a little bit of heaven on earth.
]]> The Firm (The Firm, #1) 452235 --jgrisham.com]]> 501 John Grisham 044021145X Lucy 4 4.26 1991 The Firm (The Firm, #1)
author: John Grisham
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves:
review:

]]> Horse 59109077 A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.

New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.

Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse--one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.]]> 401 Geraldine Brooks 0399562966 Lucy 4
I can't imagine the amount of research required to put a novel like this together and voices to both real and imaginary characters along side the actual history. Everything is so smart and helps uncover the mystery of several paintings. I've never been passionate about art and I loved getting a glimpse into the lives of those that art...from the artists to art collectors to gallery owners.

While I didn't quite believe the love story between the modern characters, Jess and Theo, I appreciated their inclusion. Both were extremely well educated and described as attractive but Jess was a white Australian and Theo was a black Nigerian American and the subtle yet present traces of systemic racism impact their own views of their blossoming relationship. It was such an interesting contrast to the blatant systemic racism throughout the rest of the book and an important juxtaposition. I'm embarrassed to admit that my own privilege prevented me from predicting the tragic ending. It's horrifying that any of it is a reality for anyone living in the United States today.

This is definitely my favorite book of the year so far.]]> 4.17 2022 Horse
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/27
date added: 2024/02/27
shelves:
review:
I loved the first half of this book. I felt giddy while reading it, feeling certain that I was finally going to have a 5 star book reaction but something happened in the second half of the book. I'm not certain if I just got tired of the back and forth between the 1850s and 60s and 2019 (with a little time spent during the 1950s) but I lost a bit of zeal towards the end. Still, this is high quality historical fiction. It's really almost everything I love about a book. I actually learned a lot! I had never heard of the horse named Lexington, a real horse from the Civil War era that dominated horse racing until a physical ailment forced him into early retirement. I learned about art provenance and its archiving, horse anatomy and what you can tell from skeletons and more about the Civil War including some new, but sadly not surprising, injustices of slavery.

I can't imagine the amount of research required to put a novel like this together and voices to both real and imaginary characters along side the actual history. Everything is so smart and helps uncover the mystery of several paintings. I've never been passionate about art and I loved getting a glimpse into the lives of those that art...from the artists to art collectors to gallery owners.

While I didn't quite believe the love story between the modern characters, Jess and Theo, I appreciated their inclusion. Both were extremely well educated and described as attractive but Jess was a white Australian and Theo was a black Nigerian American and the subtle yet present traces of systemic racism impact their own views of their blossoming relationship. It was such an interesting contrast to the blatant systemic racism throughout the rest of the book and an important juxtaposition. I'm embarrassed to admit that my own privilege prevented me from predicting the tragic ending. It's horrifying that any of it is a reality for anyone living in the United States today.

This is definitely my favorite book of the year so far.
]]> Yellowface 62047984
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 319 R.F. Kuang 000853277X Lucy 4
All of that immersion of June and her theft and following Tell-Tale-Heart experience made the book difficult to like. I get it. I kind of admire the satire and tongue-in-cheek navel gazing at how impure books can be...from the writing, publishing, marketing, reviewing and even award giving. But that didn't mean I enjoyed it. I couldn't wait for it to end and had my own cultural appropriation questions by its end.

Does anyone have the freedom to write anything? It seems like a given to me that the answer to that question is yes but this book and many books released, adored and criticized over the last decade call that freedom into question. Should it be a requirement that an author somehow represent the main character or plot in a book, whether that be by race or gender or sexual identity or religion or nationality or any possible thing? This seems only fair to marginalized authors who have such a hard time breaking into the publishing world and finding mass success and appeal to all readers. Many accounts document that experience to be true. So, if that is the highest priority...to increase the percentage of representation of minority and marginalized authors, then the answer to that must be yes. Then, we can at least hope that those books we are reading will be more authentic or true.

But Huang, a Chinese-American, throws this question into the book sphere by not only writing about white authors appropriating the culture of others, her Asian culture specifically, but by diving into cultural appropriation herself...by writing the entire perspective of this novel as a white woman, which she is not. I thought it was clever and infuriating. I think (I hope) she intended it to be so. Because she is wildly successful. This book is a hit. But is it fair? Isn't that the point of it all?

I thought so until I read her afterward where she says wrote the book to expose the loneliness and stress of being an author. What the what? I mean...yeah. That was in there. But, that can't be the point of this book.

To even write a review of this book seems fraught of possible offense. Kuang touches on the influence and weight of book reviews, even Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ, and how polarizing good and bad reviews to authors as well as those who love or hate any book. She also exposes the absolutely toxic world of Twitter (ok...X), the hustle of book promotion and the surprising accusation that best-sellers and critical darlings are chosen before most books are even finished. That seems super depressing and very George Orwellian.

What a weird, troubling, interesting, book. My rating is more my reaction and desire to discuss than how well I liked it.]]> 3.69 2023 Yellowface
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/19
date added: 2024/02/19
shelves:
review:
Truly one of the most interesting and unpleasant books I have ever read. I'm always impressed with authors who have the courage to allow the protagonist to be unlikable. In Kuang's case, she not only allows it, but puts the narration in first person, which totally immerses the reader into the obnoxious, jealous, insecure, racist and unpleasant thoughts of the main character, June Hayward. June, an unsuccessful novelist, steals her very successful Asian-American friend's manuscript and then publishes it as her own work after her friend's death. The novel becomes a huge success even though June is a white author and the book is about Chinese Laborers on the European front during World War I.

All of that immersion of June and her theft and following Tell-Tale-Heart experience made the book difficult to like. I get it. I kind of admire the satire and tongue-in-cheek navel gazing at how impure books can be...from the writing, publishing, marketing, reviewing and even award giving. But that didn't mean I enjoyed it. I couldn't wait for it to end and had my own cultural appropriation questions by its end.

Does anyone have the freedom to write anything? It seems like a given to me that the answer to that question is yes but this book and many books released, adored and criticized over the last decade call that freedom into question. Should it be a requirement that an author somehow represent the main character or plot in a book, whether that be by race or gender or sexual identity or religion or nationality or any possible thing? This seems only fair to marginalized authors who have such a hard time breaking into the publishing world and finding mass success and appeal to all readers. Many accounts document that experience to be true. So, if that is the highest priority...to increase the percentage of representation of minority and marginalized authors, then the answer to that must be yes. Then, we can at least hope that those books we are reading will be more authentic or true.

But Huang, a Chinese-American, throws this question into the book sphere by not only writing about white authors appropriating the culture of others, her Asian culture specifically, but by diving into cultural appropriation herself...by writing the entire perspective of this novel as a white woman, which she is not. I thought it was clever and infuriating. I think (I hope) she intended it to be so. Because she is wildly successful. This book is a hit. But is it fair? Isn't that the point of it all?

I thought so until I read her afterward where she says wrote the book to expose the loneliness and stress of being an author. What the what? I mean...yeah. That was in there. But, that can't be the point of this book.

To even write a review of this book seems fraught of possible offense. Kuang touches on the influence and weight of book reviews, even Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ, and how polarizing good and bad reviews to authors as well as those who love or hate any book. She also exposes the absolutely toxic world of Twitter (ok...X), the hustle of book promotion and the surprising accusation that best-sellers and critical darlings are chosen before most books are even finished. That seems super depressing and very George Orwellian.

What a weird, troubling, interesting, book. My rating is more my reaction and desire to discuss than how well I liked it.
]]> <![CDATA[Tending Roses (Tending Roses #1)]]> 514301
When Kate Bowman temporarily movesĚýto her grandmother’s Missouri farmĚýwith her husband and baby son, she learns that the lessons that most enrich our lives often come unexpectedly. The family has given Kate the job of convincing Grandma Rose, who’s become increasingly stubborn and forgetful, to move off her beloved land and into a nursing home. But Kate knows such a change would break her grandmother’s heart.
Ěý
Just when Kate despairs of finding answers, she discovers her grandma’s journal. A beautiful handmade notebook, it is full of stories that celebrate the importance of family, friendship, and faith. Stories that make Kate see her life—and her grandmother—in a completely new way...]]> 336 Lisa Wingate 0451205790 Lucy 0 to-read 3.94 2001 Tending Roses (Tending Roses #1)
author: Lisa Wingate
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Elon Musk 122765395 From the author of Steve Jobs and other bestselling biographies, this is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era—a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Oh, and took over Twitter.

When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.

His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive.

At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,� he said.

It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground.

For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?]]> 688 Walter Isaacson 1982181281 Lucy 5
Which deeply bothers the masses who demand our modern day heroes also subscribe to modern day sensibilities. In an age where cancel culture tries its darnedest to silence any offender, attempts to cancel Elon Musk have been often but also futile because...he'll just take over the company trying to silence him instead. Just this week, a news article in the Wall Street Journal claimed the boards for Tesla, Space X, and X (formerly Twitter) all want him gone because of his purported drug use. Now, I don't know if the article is true or not, but I'm sure the boards want him gone. He must be a nightmare to work with.

After reading this biography by Walter Isaacson, I can't help but wonder what's true. Did the reporter have sources that have a grudge against Musk? It's very likely. Elon Musk is a polarizing figure. You either admire him or hate him. There doesn't seem to be much in between. Walter Isaacson, as a biographer, definitely admired him. I read a few warning reviews that this book is biased in favor of Elon Musk but I disagree. I think Isaacson does a fair job in laying out the facts of Musk's life. As a reader, I definitely felt repulsed by him. He and my values do NOT align. But, I found myself admiring Musk, much like Isaacson, anyway because...well...I don't really know. He's just a really unique person who is changing the world in real time. Not decades after the fact or after they die like so many artists, musicians, genius are only allowed to do. It's pretty incredible to think about.

His priorities in life are creating sustainable energy to try and save the earth (Tesla), creating an interstellar reality where people can escape Earth due to nuclear war or climate change (Space X and trying to get people to Mars), and protecting all of humanity by ensuring artificial intelligence won't have the ability to wipe out humans (Open AI. Google's Sergey Brin accused Musk of being a speciesist for thinking humans have superiority over other forms of intelligence, even artificial intelligence. These geniuses are definitely weird!). He also thinks artificial intelligence can help humans never have to drive again (self driving cars), and recover from paralysis, blindness, deafness and other brain or neurologic ailments (Neuralink).

What's crazy is these aren't just ideas for him. He's doing it. He's creating the cars. He's building the rockets. He's starting to put chips into human brains that code into computers the tasks they just thought about doing. Every time Isaccson uncovered another fascinating tidbit about Elon Musk's life and actions, I felt a bit in awe.

But, Isaacson didn't shy away from all the things that make Elon Musk soooo unlikable. In great, and often tiresome detail, there is incident after incident of Musk firing people for challenging his ideas or not doing things his way. Because Musk has zero work/life balance (again...he doesn't operate like most people) he doesn't allow others to say "no" or "later" to a job demand. He has no compassion or interest in anything that doesn't serve his interests. He undoubtedly had a bad childhood with lots of physical and emotional abuse. He self-diagnoses himself to be on the autism spectrum. He keeps having children with different women through surrogacy and IVF because he thinks smart people need to have more children, never mind the future train wrecks these kids may be in the future because there isn't much nurturing going on there. I don't think these are the actions of a "great" person.

Truly, I loved this biography. I can't think of a more interesting person than Elon Musk on the earth today and Walter Isaacson is a talented enough biographer to share his genius, maybe even evil genius, with the world. ]]> 4.29 2023 Elon Musk
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/16
date added: 2024/01/16
shelves:
review:
I'm so curious how history will judge Elon Musk. I don't think there are many people who can deny his legitimate genius. But...he's not very likable. Fortunately for Musk, he's one of the rare cases who truly doesn't care. In fact, if there were a hierarchy of values, being "likable" might be at the very bottom. He believes worrying about stepping on toes or following rules or being concerned if someone's feelings might get hurt inhibits innovation and progress.

Which deeply bothers the masses who demand our modern day heroes also subscribe to modern day sensibilities. In an age where cancel culture tries its darnedest to silence any offender, attempts to cancel Elon Musk have been often but also futile because...he'll just take over the company trying to silence him instead. Just this week, a news article in the Wall Street Journal claimed the boards for Tesla, Space X, and X (formerly Twitter) all want him gone because of his purported drug use. Now, I don't know if the article is true or not, but I'm sure the boards want him gone. He must be a nightmare to work with.

After reading this biography by Walter Isaacson, I can't help but wonder what's true. Did the reporter have sources that have a grudge against Musk? It's very likely. Elon Musk is a polarizing figure. You either admire him or hate him. There doesn't seem to be much in between. Walter Isaacson, as a biographer, definitely admired him. I read a few warning reviews that this book is biased in favor of Elon Musk but I disagree. I think Isaacson does a fair job in laying out the facts of Musk's life. As a reader, I definitely felt repulsed by him. He and my values do NOT align. But, I found myself admiring Musk, much like Isaacson, anyway because...well...I don't really know. He's just a really unique person who is changing the world in real time. Not decades after the fact or after they die like so many artists, musicians, genius are only allowed to do. It's pretty incredible to think about.

His priorities in life are creating sustainable energy to try and save the earth (Tesla), creating an interstellar reality where people can escape Earth due to nuclear war or climate change (Space X and trying to get people to Mars), and protecting all of humanity by ensuring artificial intelligence won't have the ability to wipe out humans (Open AI. Google's Sergey Brin accused Musk of being a speciesist for thinking humans have superiority over other forms of intelligence, even artificial intelligence. These geniuses are definitely weird!). He also thinks artificial intelligence can help humans never have to drive again (self driving cars), and recover from paralysis, blindness, deafness and other brain or neurologic ailments (Neuralink).

What's crazy is these aren't just ideas for him. He's doing it. He's creating the cars. He's building the rockets. He's starting to put chips into human brains that code into computers the tasks they just thought about doing. Every time Isaccson uncovered another fascinating tidbit about Elon Musk's life and actions, I felt a bit in awe.

But, Isaacson didn't shy away from all the things that make Elon Musk soooo unlikable. In great, and often tiresome detail, there is incident after incident of Musk firing people for challenging his ideas or not doing things his way. Because Musk has zero work/life balance (again...he doesn't operate like most people) he doesn't allow others to say "no" or "later" to a job demand. He has no compassion or interest in anything that doesn't serve his interests. He undoubtedly had a bad childhood with lots of physical and emotional abuse. He self-diagnoses himself to be on the autism spectrum. He keeps having children with different women through surrogacy and IVF because he thinks smart people need to have more children, never mind the future train wrecks these kids may be in the future because there isn't much nurturing going on there. I don't think these are the actions of a "great" person.

Truly, I loved this biography. I can't think of a more interesting person than Elon Musk on the earth today and Walter Isaacson is a talented enough biographer to share his genius, maybe even evil genius, with the world.
]]> Tom Lake 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Lucy 3
There was a lot I liked about this book. The writing is great. Very fluid and descriptive and so easy that you feel like you're in the cherry orchard or at the lake or on the stage. I liked the dialogue and felt like the rhythm and conversations were natural and how people actually talk and interrupt and listen. And I loved listening to Meryl Streep on the audio. I'm pretty sure that was a perfect pairing.

But, there was quite a bit I didn't love. I didn't love the dependence on knowing something about a play called, "Our Town." As it sometimes happens when I listen to an audio book, I missed the title of the play when it was given at the very beginning, when Laura (pre Lara) and her friend Veronica were checking in the locals for the community play auditions. She kept talking about Emily, Emily, Emily and George, George, George so I actually Googled (because it can be hard to rewind and find a certain spot in an audiobook), "What play are they talking about at the beginning of Tom Lake?" I saw the answer, "Our Town" which I have never seen but didn't worry too much about it because I didn't figure a literary novel would require a prerequisite knowledge of an old play.

I guess it's not a prerequisite but it sure would have helped me connect to the book better. The entire plot is intertwined with the main character's love and participation in the role of Emily. I still don't know anything about the play but I know there's a guy frequently referred to as the Stage Manager, who is Emily's father (I think) and that she marries George and that Emily eventually dies. Sorry if that's a spoiler but, like I said, there's almost an assumption made that this play is all part of the general consciousness.

The story is a back and forth between mother and daughters who want to know every single detail about a summer their mother spent at Tom Lake acting in the play "Our Town" opposite a now-famous movie actor, Peter Duke. Most of the book is spent in recollections building up to a summer Lara spent at Tom Lake. The current setting is at a fruit farm in Michigan during the world-is-shut-down phase of the Covid-19 pandemic. At least, I am guessing why all three of Lara's (I don't think she goes back to being Laura but it's hard to tell in audio format) daughters are at their childhood home as grown adults with their aging parents (eventually revealed to be 57, which is seeming less and less elderly to me now that I'm only a decade away from it).

I'm not saying it's unrealistic that all of her children are equally eager to hear their mother monologue about a summer 33 years earlier over the course of many days but....ok...it feels a bit unrealistic. I have two children in their 20s and I think I could hold their attention and bend their ear with the kind of details Lara includes (what she was wearing, how my boyfriend (who...yes is a famous actor but is not their dad) dresses and walks and hits tennis balls) of my young adult life for maybe 10 minutes. Maybe. And it was always Lara cutting off the story. Her daughters didn't want to go to bed. They didn't want to go to work. They never wanted to miss a single detail so if someone had to go somewhere, Lara was given strict orders not to continue the story until they returned.

I found this ability to monologue and share so many details (not all but most. The reader gets to know all) inconsistent with the modern day Lara. This easy going, cherry-pickin', seamstress, hard-working farmhouse dwelling Lara doesn't seem like an attention whore or someone who possesses a particularly dynamic personality. She seems pleasant and easy to be around...as a teenager, college student, summer-stock actress and mother. I just couldn't figure out how this big love story of her youth had never been shared before and how comfortable she now felt sharing it. Even around her husband. It's possible I guess. But...her two characters just didn't melt together the way my brain needed to happen.

It also didn't seem that devastating when all the details were revealed. So, someone she loved at 24 didn't end up being the love of her life. This is probably most 57 year-old's stories. I guess Peter Duke's fame made it more interesting but since we didn't really get to know older Peter Duke (other than he became a sterotypically troubled Hollywood star), none of it seemed that earth shattering.

All my complaining aside, this is a really sweet, fun piece of fiction. It made me want to take up sewing and eat fresh fruit. It made me want to go to my local theater and witness the disparity between good acting and you-get-what-you-get-and-you-don't-throw-a-fit acting. It made me want to swim in a lake.

But, I don't think this is a big revelatory story that connects us as humans. Most people don't date people who go on to become famous and most of us don't have a chance at fame but decide we want to live on a farm instead. And most of us will never get our children begging us to share all the details of our young lives because...there's probably a TikTok (or 100) they'd rather watch.]]> 3.92 2023 Tom Lake
author: Ann Patchett
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/06
date added: 2024/01/06
shelves:
review:
It must be January because, once again, I have this optimistic hope that this will be the year I get back to reviewing books regularly. We'll see...

There was a lot I liked about this book. The writing is great. Very fluid and descriptive and so easy that you feel like you're in the cherry orchard or at the lake or on the stage. I liked the dialogue and felt like the rhythm and conversations were natural and how people actually talk and interrupt and listen. And I loved listening to Meryl Streep on the audio. I'm pretty sure that was a perfect pairing.

But, there was quite a bit I didn't love. I didn't love the dependence on knowing something about a play called, "Our Town." As it sometimes happens when I listen to an audio book, I missed the title of the play when it was given at the very beginning, when Laura (pre Lara) and her friend Veronica were checking in the locals for the community play auditions. She kept talking about Emily, Emily, Emily and George, George, George so I actually Googled (because it can be hard to rewind and find a certain spot in an audiobook), "What play are they talking about at the beginning of Tom Lake?" I saw the answer, "Our Town" which I have never seen but didn't worry too much about it because I didn't figure a literary novel would require a prerequisite knowledge of an old play.

I guess it's not a prerequisite but it sure would have helped me connect to the book better. The entire plot is intertwined with the main character's love and participation in the role of Emily. I still don't know anything about the play but I know there's a guy frequently referred to as the Stage Manager, who is Emily's father (I think) and that she marries George and that Emily eventually dies. Sorry if that's a spoiler but, like I said, there's almost an assumption made that this play is all part of the general consciousness.

The story is a back and forth between mother and daughters who want to know every single detail about a summer their mother spent at Tom Lake acting in the play "Our Town" opposite a now-famous movie actor, Peter Duke. Most of the book is spent in recollections building up to a summer Lara spent at Tom Lake. The current setting is at a fruit farm in Michigan during the world-is-shut-down phase of the Covid-19 pandemic. At least, I am guessing why all three of Lara's (I don't think she goes back to being Laura but it's hard to tell in audio format) daughters are at their childhood home as grown adults with their aging parents (eventually revealed to be 57, which is seeming less and less elderly to me now that I'm only a decade away from it).

I'm not saying it's unrealistic that all of her children are equally eager to hear their mother monologue about a summer 33 years earlier over the course of many days but....ok...it feels a bit unrealistic. I have two children in their 20s and I think I could hold their attention and bend their ear with the kind of details Lara includes (what she was wearing, how my boyfriend (who...yes is a famous actor but is not their dad) dresses and walks and hits tennis balls) of my young adult life for maybe 10 minutes. Maybe. And it was always Lara cutting off the story. Her daughters didn't want to go to bed. They didn't want to go to work. They never wanted to miss a single detail so if someone had to go somewhere, Lara was given strict orders not to continue the story until they returned.

I found this ability to monologue and share so many details (not all but most. The reader gets to know all) inconsistent with the modern day Lara. This easy going, cherry-pickin', seamstress, hard-working farmhouse dwelling Lara doesn't seem like an attention whore or someone who possesses a particularly dynamic personality. She seems pleasant and easy to be around...as a teenager, college student, summer-stock actress and mother. I just couldn't figure out how this big love story of her youth had never been shared before and how comfortable she now felt sharing it. Even around her husband. It's possible I guess. But...her two characters just didn't melt together the way my brain needed to happen.

It also didn't seem that devastating when all the details were revealed. So, someone she loved at 24 didn't end up being the love of her life. This is probably most 57 year-old's stories. I guess Peter Duke's fame made it more interesting but since we didn't really get to know older Peter Duke (other than he became a sterotypically troubled Hollywood star), none of it seemed that earth shattering.

All my complaining aside, this is a really sweet, fun piece of fiction. It made me want to take up sewing and eat fresh fruit. It made me want to go to my local theater and witness the disparity between good acting and you-get-what-you-get-and-you-don't-throw-a-fit acting. It made me want to swim in a lake.

But, I don't think this is a big revelatory story that connects us as humans. Most people don't date people who go on to become famous and most of us don't have a chance at fame but decide we want to live on a farm instead. And most of us will never get our children begging us to share all the details of our young lives because...there's probably a TikTok (or 100) they'd rather watch.
]]> The Shipping News 7354
A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, The Shipping News shows why E. Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.
(back cover)]]> 337 Annie Proulx 0743225422 Lucy 3 3.88 1993 The Shipping News
author: Annie Proulx
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/10/31
shelves:
review:

]]> Year of Wonders 4965
Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition.

As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love.

As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders."

Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history. ]]> 304 Geraldine Brooks 0142001430 Lucy 0 4.00 2001 Year of Wonders
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at: 2009/06/10
date added: 2023/07/30
shelves:
review:

]]> Lucy by the Sea (Amgash #4) 60657583
Rich with empathy and emotion, Lucy by the Sea vividly captures the fear and struggles that come with isolation, as well as the hope, peace, and possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire. At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we're apart--the pain of a beloved daughter's suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love.]]> 291 Elizabeth Strout 0593446062 Lucy 3
I don't know if Strout writes this way in her other books or if this particular tendency was intentional for her character, Lucy Barton, but there is a phrase (and it's close cousins) that she uses too much. After explaining a thought, Lucy Barton would often then follow with "What I'm saying is..." or "is what I mean." It happens a lot. And every time I heard it (I listened to the audio), I felt annoyed by the repetition and suggestion that I couldn't possibly have understood what she meant the first time around. Like I said, it could be (and probably is) a character nuance which is fair. Some people do annoying repeat themselves and re-explain a statement. But, if it's just her writing style, I'm surprised an editor didn't point it out because it happens all the time and it seems like a grevious sin against the "show don't tell" technique I've heard is a writing virtue.]]> 3.80 2022 Lucy by the Sea (Amgash #4)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/01
date added: 2023/03/15
shelves:
review:
I finished this a few weeks ago and would have more things to say back then about what I liked and disliked about this 4th book in the Lucy Barton series but, it turns out, I don't care that much about Lucy Barton. Weeks later I will admit that the craftsmanship was interesting as the setting is very recent (Covid pandemic when the world, especially New York, was shut down) and it was interesting to remember all of those immediate fears and unknowns. Still, it was a lot of time with Lucy and her ex-husband, William, - neither of whom I think I would enjoy sitting next to at a dinner party.

I don't know if Strout writes this way in her other books or if this particular tendency was intentional for her character, Lucy Barton, but there is a phrase (and it's close cousins) that she uses too much. After explaining a thought, Lucy Barton would often then follow with "What I'm saying is..." or "is what I mean." It happens a lot. And every time I heard it (I listened to the audio), I felt annoyed by the repetition and suggestion that I couldn't possibly have understood what she meant the first time around. Like I said, it could be (and probably is) a character nuance which is fair. Some people do annoying repeat themselves and re-explain a statement. But, if it's just her writing style, I'm surprised an editor didn't point it out because it happens all the time and it seems like a grevious sin against the "show don't tell" technique I've heard is a writing virtue.
]]> <![CDATA[Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing]]> 59641216
So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who traveled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more.

In an extraordinary story that only he could tell—and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it—Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he’s found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humor, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all.

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening—as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for.]]> 250 Matthew Perry 1250866448 Lucy 3
His story is filled with a strange combination of self-deprecation and narcissism which makes sense for a celebrity but it also made his memoir, for me, very hard to find relatable. I hope he continues with his recovery and search for love. ]]> 3.89 2022 Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing
author: Matthew Perry
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/01
date added: 2023/03/15
shelves:
review:
5 stars for vulnerability and honesty and probably 2 stars for memoir writing. Without clear chronology, Matthew Perry's recollections of his frequent relapses into addiction to cope with abandonment issues and a lack of self-love felt very tedious. Sad...but tedious. I admire his willingness to share his a-ha moments, his triggers and his weird, wild ride into celebrity.

His story is filled with a strange combination of self-deprecation and narcissism which makes sense for a celebrity but it also made his memoir, for me, very hard to find relatable. I hope he continues with his recovery and search for love.
]]> Oh William! (Amgash, #3) 56294820
So Lucy is both surprised and not surprised when William asks her to join him on a trip to investigate a recently uncovered family secret—one of those secrets that rearrange everything we think we know about the people closest to us. What happens next is nothing less than another example of what Hilary Mantel has called Elizabeth Strout’s “perfect attunement to the human condition.� There are fears and insecurities, simple joys and acts of tenderness, and revelations about affairs and other spouses, parents and their children. On every page of this exquisite novel we learn more about the quiet forces that hold us together—even after we’ve grown apart.

At the heart of this story is the indomitable voice of Lucy Barton, who offers a profound, lasting reflection on the very nature of existence. “This is the way of life,� Lucy says: “the many things we do not know until it is too late.”]]> 240 Elizabeth Strout 0812989430 Lucy 3
At least, that's my take away after reading three of her books in three weeks. Maybe reading them all so close together skews my view but I can't help but see the same story happening over and over. And as interesting as that story is and as well as Strout writes and develops it, I felt bored.

I did like this one better than Anything Is Possible and will finish this series by reading Lucy By the Sea next because I've already invested this much into Lucy and William and their weird, unhealthy relationship so let's see what getting stuck together during the Covid Pandemic does for their trauma! Fun!]]> 3.79 2021 Oh William! (Amgash, #3)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/19
date added: 2023/02/20
shelves:
review:
What I keep seeing as a common reaction to Elizabeth Strout's books is how well she writes the human condition. I don't agree. I think she writes a particular human condition - pain - quite well. But, she rarely manages to include the many, many other, and often happier, wonders of being human. I notice and wish for the added diversity.

At least, that's my take away after reading three of her books in three weeks. Maybe reading them all so close together skews my view but I can't help but see the same story happening over and over. And as interesting as that story is and as well as Strout writes and develops it, I felt bored.

I did like this one better than Anything Is Possible and will finish this series by reading Lucy By the Sea next because I've already invested this much into Lucy and William and their weird, unhealthy relationship so let's see what getting stuck together during the Covid Pandemic does for their trauma! Fun!
]]> Carrie Soto Is Back 60435878 Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular.

By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. And if you ask her, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father as her coach.

But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player named Nicki Chan.

At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the 'Battle-Axe' anyway. Even if her body doesn't move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to prove before he gives up the game forever.

In spite of it all: Carrie Soto is back, for one epic final season. In this riveting and unforgettable novel, Taylor Jenkins Reid tells a story about the cost of greatness and a legendary athlete attempting a comeback.]]> 384 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593158687 Lucy 3
But, I heard from several respectable readers that Carrie Soto Is Back was a different style and better. So I tried again.

And....

I enjoyed it much more than her previous books. For a book about tennis, it contains A LOT of tennis. That's kind of fun. Maybe it was a little tennis heavy (there are whole games that are play by plays) but I admired the unadulterated ode to tennis and professional athletes.

For a book whose plot is based solely on the main character, Carrie Soto, I thought it was rather bold of the author to make her hard-to-like. Carrie Soto is ambitious to the point of being rude, selfish and unkind to almost everyone. Through back story and conversation, the reader is led to understand some of the why behind her behavior but I liked that the protagonist was prickly. It felt real. She seemed a little neurodivergent to me - disliking hugs, eye contact and pleasant conversation, and I found the characterization interesting. She is different and unlikable but maybe that is ok. Maybe I can still cheer for her and want her success.

There is a little bit of romance. Some trauma. Some growth. I never felt bored and wanted to know how the story would end. That's a solid "like" for me. Now I don't know what to do with Taylor Jenkins Reid books.]]> 4.19 2022 Carrie Soto Is Back
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/16
date added: 2023/02/17
shelves:
review:
Less than six months ago, I reviewed Jenkins Reid's Evelyn Hugo and claimed I was done with the author. Why read an author whose books you don't enjoy?

But, I heard from several respectable readers that Carrie Soto Is Back was a different style and better. So I tried again.

And....

I enjoyed it much more than her previous books. For a book about tennis, it contains A LOT of tennis. That's kind of fun. Maybe it was a little tennis heavy (there are whole games that are play by plays) but I admired the unadulterated ode to tennis and professional athletes.

For a book whose plot is based solely on the main character, Carrie Soto, I thought it was rather bold of the author to make her hard-to-like. Carrie Soto is ambitious to the point of being rude, selfish and unkind to almost everyone. Through back story and conversation, the reader is led to understand some of the why behind her behavior but I liked that the protagonist was prickly. It felt real. She seemed a little neurodivergent to me - disliking hugs, eye contact and pleasant conversation, and I found the characterization interesting. She is different and unlikable but maybe that is ok. Maybe I can still cheer for her and want her success.

There is a little bit of romance. Some trauma. Some growth. I never felt bored and wanted to know how the story would end. That's a solid "like" for me. Now I don't know what to do with Taylor Jenkins Reid books.
]]> <![CDATA[The Icebound Land (Ranger's Apprentice, #3)]]> 127823
Ěý]]> 266 John Flanagan 0399244565 Lucy 3 4.24 2005 The Icebound Land (Ranger's Apprentice, #3)
author: John Flanagan
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/07
date added: 2023/02/10
shelves:
review:
My son is loving this series. It's fun to share this experience with him by listening to these books in the car together. Personally, I thought this one was way more boring in terms of plot but a lot of character building was done so I expect more from the next book.
]]> <![CDATA[Anything Is Possible (Amgash, #2)]]> 32080126 Olive Kitteridge in its richness, structure, and complexity, Anything Is Possible explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others.

Here are two sisters: One trades self-respect for a wealthy husband while the other finds in the pages of a book a kindred spirit who changes her life. The janitor at the local school has his faith tested in an encounter with an isolated man he has come to help; a grown daughter longs for mother love even as she comes to accept her mother’s happiness in a foreign country; and the adult Lucy Barton (the heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton, the author’s celebrated New York Times bestseller) returns to visit her siblings after seventeen years of absence.

Reverberating with the deep bonds of family, and the hope that comes with reconciliation, Anything Is Possible again underscores Elizabeth Strout’s place as one of America’s most respected and cherished authors.]]> 254 Elizabeth Strout 0812989406 Lucy 3 My Name Is Lucy Barton (although...I can't help but think how hard it would be to recall any of these minor characters without having it so fresh in my mind). Perhaps I shouldn't have listened to both on audio. Because for some reason, I liked Anything Is Possible, the sequel or book #2 in the Lucy Barton series written by Elizabeth Strout, a whole lot less than the first book.

I asked myself if I would have liked this more had I not read Lucy Barton first...if it would have even made sense. Anything Is Possible is A LOT like Strout's Pulitzer Prize winning Olive Kitterage. There are 9 short stories that each have characters that somehow tie into knowing Lucy Barton or one of her siblings or the town of Amgash, Illinois where the Bartons grew up in abject poverty. In my opinion, I think I like the narrative style of connecting in this book even MORE than when Strout used it with Olive Kitterage. It made sense to take these mere mentions of names from one book and develop them in another. It's really clever and worth all of the writing accolades and praise Strout receives with this style.

What I didn't like at all is that each story ultimately reveals a horrific, criminal level amount of abuse, sexual deviancy, or unresolved trauma in every person's story. As if every Tom, Dick or Jane walking around the streets has a hidden story that could and probably should put someone in jail. For me, that beautiful humanity that Strout creates crumbles into something almost unbelievable because it's just so overdone. I'm not saying these stories don't exist. They certainly do. But most people have marital problems because someone has a higher libido than the other partner or resentment over socks not making it into the hamper or just boredom. Not spouses secretly having affairs with prostitutes, being voyeurs and predators, or abstinent due to past sexual abuse. As each short story would start, I found myself asking, "I wonder what the weird sexual dysfunction will be in this story?" and would only need to wait a while before it was revealed. There was always a revelation.

I also took a bit of offense at Strout's repetitive body shaming. She, or at least the narrators of her books, seems to hate fat people! The word fat is used as the worst kind of insult in almost every story. Her fat characters were usually pathetic and pitied...as if it was the worst possible thing. The man who had an affair with his secretary for a decade. But the secretary was fat! Patty had such a pretty face. But she was fat! The sister who couldn't cross her legs on the sofa. Because she was fat! I appreciate getting a picture of the characters but this repeated and condemned flaw in many of Strout's characters seemed to stand out to me.

Ultimately, I felt tired at the end of the book because all of these stories were pretty depressing. I definitely believe that every human suffers and there are unknown tragedies in every life but there were very little triumphs in these stories to help balance it all out. For such an optimistic title, I did not feel like any of these characters actually believed that anything was possible in their lives. Most, if not all, were stuck in their unspoken about horror.

The writing is good. Really good. There is that.]]> 3.74 2017 Anything Is Possible (Amgash, #2)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/09
date added: 2023/02/10
shelves:
review:
Perhaps I shouldn't have read this immediately after My Name Is Lucy Barton (although...I can't help but think how hard it would be to recall any of these minor characters without having it so fresh in my mind). Perhaps I shouldn't have listened to both on audio. Because for some reason, I liked Anything Is Possible, the sequel or book #2 in the Lucy Barton series written by Elizabeth Strout, a whole lot less than the first book.

I asked myself if I would have liked this more had I not read Lucy Barton first...if it would have even made sense. Anything Is Possible is A LOT like Strout's Pulitzer Prize winning Olive Kitterage. There are 9 short stories that each have characters that somehow tie into knowing Lucy Barton or one of her siblings or the town of Amgash, Illinois where the Bartons grew up in abject poverty. In my opinion, I think I like the narrative style of connecting in this book even MORE than when Strout used it with Olive Kitterage. It made sense to take these mere mentions of names from one book and develop them in another. It's really clever and worth all of the writing accolades and praise Strout receives with this style.

What I didn't like at all is that each story ultimately reveals a horrific, criminal level amount of abuse, sexual deviancy, or unresolved trauma in every person's story. As if every Tom, Dick or Jane walking around the streets has a hidden story that could and probably should put someone in jail. For me, that beautiful humanity that Strout creates crumbles into something almost unbelievable because it's just so overdone. I'm not saying these stories don't exist. They certainly do. But most people have marital problems because someone has a higher libido than the other partner or resentment over socks not making it into the hamper or just boredom. Not spouses secretly having affairs with prostitutes, being voyeurs and predators, or abstinent due to past sexual abuse. As each short story would start, I found myself asking, "I wonder what the weird sexual dysfunction will be in this story?" and would only need to wait a while before it was revealed. There was always a revelation.

I also took a bit of offense at Strout's repetitive body shaming. She, or at least the narrators of her books, seems to hate fat people! The word fat is used as the worst kind of insult in almost every story. Her fat characters were usually pathetic and pitied...as if it was the worst possible thing. The man who had an affair with his secretary for a decade. But the secretary was fat! Patty had such a pretty face. But she was fat! The sister who couldn't cross her legs on the sofa. Because she was fat! I appreciate getting a picture of the characters but this repeated and condemned flaw in many of Strout's characters seemed to stand out to me.

Ultimately, I felt tired at the end of the book because all of these stories were pretty depressing. I definitely believe that every human suffers and there are unknown tragedies in every life but there were very little triumphs in these stories to help balance it all out. For such an optimistic title, I did not feel like any of these characters actually believed that anything was possible in their lives. Most, if not all, were stuck in their unspoken about horror.

The writing is good. Really good. There is that.
]]> <![CDATA[My Name Is Lucy Barton (Amgash, #1)]]> 25893709 193 Elizabeth Strout 1400067693 Lucy 4
"There is a series?" I replied.

Indeed there is and My Name Is Lucy Barton is the first book. I read this slim book fast...not knowing what to expect. I was immediately taken in by Lucy's narration of spending nine weeks due to complications following an appendectomy in a New York City hospital with a view of the Chrysler building. All of that time for her to lie around thinking about her past, her present, her relationships. The reader learns that Lucy grew up in extreme poverty in Amgash, Illinois with a brother and a sister and that they all were, at times, horribly neglected and abused. Lucy is intoxicated by kindness and immediately loves any person who displays any, especially towards her.

When her mother comes to visit her in the hospital for five days, we learn little about their relationship but quite a bit about their discomfort to talk about their feelings and their past. Instead, they gossip about other people and their marriages, never talking about the problems in their own. Lucy has two young daughters and a husband who seems to care for her and shows it by making sure she has a private room and a television, even though she never watches TV and feels lonely almost all of the time, but he rarely comes to visit her because of his own trauma with hospitals.

I understand the frustration with this type of narration because it IS frustrating to read at times. So many things are referenced vaguely (I hate this in real life. If you're going to share...share!) There is rarely a point to her ruminations except for a gentle uncovering of the human condition in such a painfully honest way. When I let go of my need for greater details about a character or loose ends to be tied up from one of her memories, I really appreciated witnessing Lucy Barton's vulnerability. And I enjoyed Elizabeth Strout writing her.

Now onto the next book: Anything Is Possible (9 short stories set in Amgash, Illinois featuring many of the people in the stories and memories shared between Lucy and her mother).]]> 3.56 2016 My Name Is Lucy Barton (Amgash, #1)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/05
date added: 2023/02/07
shelves:
review:
While talking with my sister about what we're currently reading and what we plan to read next, I mentioned I had Lucy by the Sea on hold from the library and she asked me if I had read the other books in the series?

"There is a series?" I replied.

Indeed there is and My Name Is Lucy Barton is the first book. I read this slim book fast...not knowing what to expect. I was immediately taken in by Lucy's narration of spending nine weeks due to complications following an appendectomy in a New York City hospital with a view of the Chrysler building. All of that time for her to lie around thinking about her past, her present, her relationships. The reader learns that Lucy grew up in extreme poverty in Amgash, Illinois with a brother and a sister and that they all were, at times, horribly neglected and abused. Lucy is intoxicated by kindness and immediately loves any person who displays any, especially towards her.

When her mother comes to visit her in the hospital for five days, we learn little about their relationship but quite a bit about their discomfort to talk about their feelings and their past. Instead, they gossip about other people and their marriages, never talking about the problems in their own. Lucy has two young daughters and a husband who seems to care for her and shows it by making sure she has a private room and a television, even though she never watches TV and feels lonely almost all of the time, but he rarely comes to visit her because of his own trauma with hospitals.

I understand the frustration with this type of narration because it IS frustrating to read at times. So many things are referenced vaguely (I hate this in real life. If you're going to share...share!) There is rarely a point to her ruminations except for a gentle uncovering of the human condition in such a painfully honest way. When I let go of my need for greater details about a character or loose ends to be tied up from one of her memories, I really appreciated witnessing Lucy Barton's vulnerability. And I enjoyed Elizabeth Strout writing her.

Now onto the next book: Anything Is Possible (9 short stories set in Amgash, Illinois featuring many of the people in the stories and memories shared between Lucy and her mother).
]]> <![CDATA[The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)]]> 46000520
But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?

Alternate cover edition can be found here .]]> 382 Richard Osman Lucy 2
But.

I wasn't ever engaged enough in the mystery to follow the plot, which I thought was convoluted. Truthfully, I had to google, "Thursday Murder Club plot synopsis" when I was done because I wasn't sure who Bogdan was and why he was playing chess with Elizabeth's husband and then I realized I didn't really know who any of the "bad" guys were in this who-dunnit. Even when I realized I didn't know who they were, I further realized I actually didn't care much because the book's schtick seemed to be investing in Elizabeth, Ron, Ibriham and Joyce, the four quirky aging sleuths living in a retirement home, and their hobby of spending Thursdays together going over old, unsolved murder cases. When a murder happens at their very own residence, they manipulate the detectives on the case to letting them help solve the case. And, of course, they do. It's all very cute. Just not at all believable.

I really liked the detectives: overweight, smart lonely Chris and jilted but kind Donna. The narrator's time spent with Chris's self-reflection were some of my favorite parts of the book.

However, I don't think I like cute murders or cozy mysteries all that much. They require me to suspend disbelief beyond my capacity. I think I would enjoy reading about these four friends, their eccentricities and late-in-life lessons in another book setting though. But solving murders together? Meh.]]> 3.87 2020 The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)
author: Richard Osman
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2023/02/04
date added: 2023/02/06
shelves:
review:
I am surprised that I just clicked on 2 stars because I didn't not like this book...but I didn't like it either. Hence the "OK" rating. This seems harsh because the writing is quite good, the dialogue very witty (sometimes too much so) and the protagonists are charming.

But.

I wasn't ever engaged enough in the mystery to follow the plot, which I thought was convoluted. Truthfully, I had to google, "Thursday Murder Club plot synopsis" when I was done because I wasn't sure who Bogdan was and why he was playing chess with Elizabeth's husband and then I realized I didn't really know who any of the "bad" guys were in this who-dunnit. Even when I realized I didn't know who they were, I further realized I actually didn't care much because the book's schtick seemed to be investing in Elizabeth, Ron, Ibriham and Joyce, the four quirky aging sleuths living in a retirement home, and their hobby of spending Thursdays together going over old, unsolved murder cases. When a murder happens at their very own residence, they manipulate the detectives on the case to letting them help solve the case. And, of course, they do. It's all very cute. Just not at all believable.

I really liked the detectives: overweight, smart lonely Chris and jilted but kind Donna. The narrator's time spent with Chris's self-reflection were some of my favorite parts of the book.

However, I don't think I like cute murders or cozy mysteries all that much. They require me to suspend disbelief beyond my capacity. I think I would enjoy reading about these four friends, their eccentricities and late-in-life lessons in another book setting though. But solving murders together? Meh.
]]> Apples Never Fall 56143578 #1 New York Times Bestseller
A Peacock Original TV Series–Streaming Soon

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Liane Moriarty comes a novel that looks at marriage, siblings, and how the people we love the most can hurt us the deepest

The Delaney family love one another dearly—it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other . . .

If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father?

This is the dilemma facing the four grown Delaney siblings.

The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it their chemistry is palpable. But after fifty years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable?

The four Delaney children—Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke—were tennis stars in their own right, yet as their father will tell you, none of them had what it took to go all the way. But that’s okay, now that they’re all successful grown-ups and there is the wonderful possibility of grandchildren on the horizon.

One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaneys are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. If only that was all she wanted.

Later, when Joy goes missing, and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question the one person who remains: Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he, like many spouses, seems to have a lot to hide. Two of the Delaney children think their father is innocent, two are not so sure—but as the two sides square off against each other in perhaps their biggest match ever, all of the Delaneys will start to reexamine their shared family history in a very new light.]]> 467 Liane Moriarty 1250220254 Lucy 4
Apples Never Fall is a wonderful mixture of serious and funny. The situations are almost always serious: marital strife, poor health, sibling rivalry, jealousy, infidelity and then the big ones...a missing person and suspected murder. The humor woven throughout is never slapstick or out of place but mostly comes from the inner thoughts of the characters as the story timeline swings back and forth between present and past. It's effect was very entertaining and allowed me to feel all the feelings.

As much as I enjoyed the book and truly didn't know how it would end, I didn't love the actual ending. It felt overly....psychotic. I felt like all of the characters of the book were really relatable and empathetic until the last chapter and then...yeah...no. The ultimate take away is that dysfunctional adults can most often blame their dysfunctions on the way they were raised but Moriarty took her effectively made point and then turned it campy with Savannah's character. At least, that's how I felt. I get why she had to tie up that loose end but it shifted the entire focus of the book really abruptly and I rather liked what I was looking at before.

I can see this being made into a fun movie or mini-series.]]> 3.69 2021 Apples Never Fall
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/02
date added: 2023/02/03
shelves:
review:
This was great fun as an audiobook. Set in Australia, having a narrator with an Australian accent really helped me feel immersed in the setting. I'm not sure I would have been able to feel the setting as an additional character without simultaneously hearing the charming vowel diphthongs so throughly enunciated by the narrator. I loved it.

Apples Never Fall is a wonderful mixture of serious and funny. The situations are almost always serious: marital strife, poor health, sibling rivalry, jealousy, infidelity and then the big ones...a missing person and suspected murder. The humor woven throughout is never slapstick or out of place but mostly comes from the inner thoughts of the characters as the story timeline swings back and forth between present and past. It's effect was very entertaining and allowed me to feel all the feelings.

As much as I enjoyed the book and truly didn't know how it would end, I didn't love the actual ending. It felt overly....psychotic. I felt like all of the characters of the book were really relatable and empathetic until the last chapter and then...yeah...no. The ultimate take away is that dysfunctional adults can most often blame their dysfunctions on the way they were raised but Moriarty took her effectively made point and then turned it campy with Savannah's character. At least, that's how I felt. I get why she had to tie up that loose end but it shifted the entire focus of the book really abruptly and I rather liked what I was looking at before.

I can see this being made into a fun movie or mini-series.
]]> <![CDATA[The Ruins of Gorlan (Ranger's Apprentice, #1)]]> 60400 249 John Flanagan 0142406635 Lucy 3 4.25 2004 The Ruins of Gorlan (Ranger's Apprentice, #1)
author: John Flanagan
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/27
date added: 2023/02/01
shelves:
review:
Listened to the audiobook with my 11 year-old son who was mesmerized. I was entertained too. Solid fantasy/fiction choice for young readers with enough adventure and peril to in which to stay interested and characters with enough development to make you want to root for and hiss at.
]]> The Key to My Heart 60321042 A heartwarming novel about hope after loss as a young widow receives mysterious messages of love from the author of Eight Perfect Hours.

Sparkly and charming Natalie Fincher has it all—a handsome new husband, a fixer-upper cottage of her dreams, and the opportunity to tour with the musical she’s spent years writing. But when her husband suddenly dies, all her hopes and dreams instantly disappear.

Two and a half years later, Natalie is still lost. She works, sleeps (well, as much as the sexually frustrated village foxes will allow), and sees friends just often enough to allay their worries, but her life is empty. And she can only bring herself to play music at a London train station’s public piano where she can be anonymous. She’s lost motivation, faith in love, in happiness…in everything.

But when someone begins to mysteriously leave the sheet music for her husband’s favorite songs at the station’s piano, Natalie begins to feel a sense of hope and excitement for the first time. As she investigates just who could be doing this, Natalie finds herself on an unexpected journey toward newfound love for herself, for life, and maybe, for a special someone.]]> 336 Lia Louis 1668001268 Lucy 3 3.94 2022 The Key to My Heart
author: Lia Louis
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/31
date added: 2023/01/31
shelves:
review:
I am a fan of British chick-lit/romance/fiction. Their friends, conversations and conflict seem to me to be much more witty, lively and believable than their American counterparts. This book was the perfect escape read for me with enough depth about the mystifying paralysis of grief and the fear, pain and hope that accompanies healing. I liked it!
]]> <![CDATA[The Burning Bridge (Ranger's Apprentice, #2)]]> 144349 Bracing for a final clash with the evil warlord Morgarath, the Rangers rally the kingdom's allies, and Will is chosen, along with his friend Horace, as special envoys to nearby Celtica. But the simple mission soon takes an unsettling turn - the Celticans have disappeared, their town abandoned. The scheming hand of Morgarath, it seems, has been far from idle. He has found a way to bring his legions over the once impassible eastern mountains and is planning to ambush the king's army in a rout. Now with help many miles away, Will and Horace are the only ones standing in the way of the dark lord's plans. They have shown great skill and courage in their training, but how will they fare in the face of true evil?

With bigger battles and higher stakes, John Flanagan's epic adventure charges ahead with this rousing follow-up to The Ruins of Gorlan.

]]> 262 John Flanagan 0399244557 Lucy 3 4.31 2005 The Burning Bridge (Ranger's Apprentice, #2)
author: John Flanagan
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/31
date added: 2023/01/31
shelves:
review:
My 11 year-old loved the first book so much, he begged to listen to the 2nd book immediately after finishing the first. That's a win for me! I didn't find it as interesting as the first book and there is no way any reader would understand much of what's going on without reading Book One first. But, I think this will be a fun series to enjoy with my boy.
]]> <![CDATA[Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow]]> 58784475 In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Lucy 4
Of course, this is my own admittedly polarizing opinion but I've been very cautious as a parent in their access to the world of video gaming. For a long time...no interactive play (that's near impossible now). Nothing online where the creeps of the world could have any access to them. No shooter games. Nothing rated M. Allowed games were sports games like Fifa. Madden. Or unrealistic fantasy games like Lego Star Wars. I fondly reminisce about the innocent days of Wii bowling.

Anyway, I share my anti-gaming bias (that will likely enrage some) because I didn't know going into reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow that it was a book about gaming. I'm sure I wouldn't have read/listened to it had I known. It came as an audio library hold that I think I initially selected because it was in the "popular" category and I'd seen the cover on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ and figured I'd get in the hold line. I didn't read a book jacket or look anything up on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ or Amazon and once I started listening to it, I was immediately pulled into the characters of Sadie and Sam. Sam and Sadie who met as kids in a hospital and bonded over their love of video games. Sadie and Sam who later meet again in Boston while both are in college and reconnect to design and build a video game. Sam and Sadie who spend the next 20 years pushing each other towards career and financial success, resenting each other for perceived failures and jealousies, hurting each other by not saying the things that should be said, living through shared traumas and reconnecting again through video games.

By the end of the book, Sadie and Sam became the book for me. It wasn't so much about video games as it was about these two people who happened to play and like video games. Their characters and how real they felt and how much I understood their hopes and fears and why they lived their lives in the manner they each chose felt perfectly reasonable. They experienced trauma, abuse, poverty, sexism, racism, pain, love, ability, perception, attention, lack of attention, ambition....and all of those building blocks created a very believable world. A world that is vastly different from mine but one I appreciated having access to while in this story. Yes, the process of video game design and the strong defense of it as an art form were both effectively shared, but I loved these beautifully flawed characters who hurt and loved each other in beautifully flawed ways.

The meaning of the title wasn't revealed until I was nearly 80% through and I loved the metaphor. It comes from Shakespeare's MacBeth (which I haven't read but it is explained) where he despairs the futility of life. That all our tomorrows ultimately, pointlessly lead to the same end as everyone else: death. But for gamers, Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow is the point. There is always the opportunity to Restart. Level up. Earn more lives. Play it differently. Learn the cheats from someone else. Keep playing. Both Sadie and Sam love games because gaming allows them to escape to a different world...a better world that is more fair and more equal and where they can be who they want to be without limits. But Sam and Sadie ultimately learn that they can use what they learn through their games to be the versions of themselves they want to be and maybe even have the relationship with each other that they both crave.

I don't think I'll ever be a genuine fan of video gaming but this book opened my eyes to my own bias towards a world and population of people that now feels unfair. It shouldn't keep shocking me but once again I learned that judging people really just means that I don't understand them. Or fear them somehow. I judge when I don't take the time to see or try to understand something foreign to me. The book Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow helped me learn something. I see the world....their world...my world....our world differently now. Just a little bit. And that changes my own tomorrow.]]> 4.12 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/24
date added: 2023/01/25
shelves:
review:
I have told my sons before that there are few things in life as unattractive to me as an adult male gamer. The times I've said it have been motivated by fear after realizing one of them has spent an entire day playing some game that seems pointless and stupid to me in hopes that they'll be so swayed by my prejudice and motherly influence that they'll recognize the folly of their ways and go outside to play or read a book...my ideas of appropriate and better uses of free time. Video games have always seemed like a horrible and addictive hobby to me. A time waster. Possibly even dangerous.

Of course, this is my own admittedly polarizing opinion but I've been very cautious as a parent in their access to the world of video gaming. For a long time...no interactive play (that's near impossible now). Nothing online where the creeps of the world could have any access to them. No shooter games. Nothing rated M. Allowed games were sports games like Fifa. Madden. Or unrealistic fantasy games like Lego Star Wars. I fondly reminisce about the innocent days of Wii bowling.

Anyway, I share my anti-gaming bias (that will likely enrage some) because I didn't know going into reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow that it was a book about gaming. I'm sure I wouldn't have read/listened to it had I known. It came as an audio library hold that I think I initially selected because it was in the "popular" category and I'd seen the cover on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ and figured I'd get in the hold line. I didn't read a book jacket or look anything up on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ or Amazon and once I started listening to it, I was immediately pulled into the characters of Sadie and Sam. Sam and Sadie who met as kids in a hospital and bonded over their love of video games. Sadie and Sam who later meet again in Boston while both are in college and reconnect to design and build a video game. Sam and Sadie who spend the next 20 years pushing each other towards career and financial success, resenting each other for perceived failures and jealousies, hurting each other by not saying the things that should be said, living through shared traumas and reconnecting again through video games.

By the end of the book, Sadie and Sam became the book for me. It wasn't so much about video games as it was about these two people who happened to play and like video games. Their characters and how real they felt and how much I understood their hopes and fears and why they lived their lives in the manner they each chose felt perfectly reasonable. They experienced trauma, abuse, poverty, sexism, racism, pain, love, ability, perception, attention, lack of attention, ambition....and all of those building blocks created a very believable world. A world that is vastly different from mine but one I appreciated having access to while in this story. Yes, the process of video game design and the strong defense of it as an art form were both effectively shared, but I loved these beautifully flawed characters who hurt and loved each other in beautifully flawed ways.

The meaning of the title wasn't revealed until I was nearly 80% through and I loved the metaphor. It comes from Shakespeare's MacBeth (which I haven't read but it is explained) where he despairs the futility of life. That all our tomorrows ultimately, pointlessly lead to the same end as everyone else: death. But for gamers, Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow is the point. There is always the opportunity to Restart. Level up. Earn more lives. Play it differently. Learn the cheats from someone else. Keep playing. Both Sadie and Sam love games because gaming allows them to escape to a different world...a better world that is more fair and more equal and where they can be who they want to be without limits. But Sam and Sadie ultimately learn that they can use what they learn through their games to be the versions of themselves they want to be and maybe even have the relationship with each other that they both crave.

I don't think I'll ever be a genuine fan of video gaming but this book opened my eyes to my own bias towards a world and population of people that now feels unfair. It shouldn't keep shocking me but once again I learned that judging people really just means that I don't understand them. Or fear them somehow. I judge when I don't take the time to see or try to understand something foreign to me. The book Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow helped me learn something. I see the world....their world...my world....our world differently now. Just a little bit. And that changes my own tomorrow.
]]> Babel 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 Lucy 4
There are parts of this book that are written so lyrically and philosophically sound that I found myself nodding my head at times. I am impressed b Kuang's dedication to defend language translation as art as well as a source of power. This modality of communication has the power to unite, divide, explain, confuse, reveal and lie and yet it's billed as something as banal as academic. It's certainly not an exact science and those who can translate...those who understand languages fully enough to look beyond definition but, instead, can see use and meaning...have a gift and power to use for all of the above.

With my gushing awe in mind, I forgave Kuang a lot for writing some unapologetically boring paragraphs in her narrative. The etymology of words was her schtick, and I knew it and the book is so full of long descriptions of what words mean and what they used to mean that I feel like I can't complain about not caring but...I stopped caring early on. Every time she does this, which happens way more frequently at the beginning of the book than at the end, my reading muscles would tense and I'd feel irritated to be taken out of the story and into a lecture.

But, the literal translation of many words is only a small part of this massive work in the end. Kuang effectively builds a fantasy world set in 1830s Oxford England that closely resembles actual history. The fantasy only lies in the actual power she gives translators instead if the symbolic and philosophical power they have in the real world. In Kuang's Babel, translators can etch words on the sides of silver bars in different languages and the subtle differences between the meanings powers or gives energy to the silver in a way that makes things like ships, bricks, wheels, and even food function better. Since efficiency and luxury are products for the wealthy, those that have have even more and those with less get nothing.

Kuang's attack of capitalism and Britain's colonial past is not subtle and the revolution that ultimately serves as the climax of the book felt heavy handed to me. The main character, Robin Swift, was the best developed and I felt his struggles with equality, friendship, loyalty, self-interest and power the most but nearly all the other characters were allowed to be only good or bad. No book can do all things but characters and nuance are not this book's strengths.

So, why 4 stars when I'm complaining about what I didn't like? This book is massively impressive. It's smart. It's really ambitious. And, even though it has boring moments, it's not boring. So, while 4 stars on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ is supposed to mean "really liked it" for me, it's more "really admired it." More of a 3 for liking.

Thanks, Em, for the suggestion and fun discussion! ]]> 4.17 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/16
date added: 2023/01/19
shelves:
review:
Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution would not have found itself in my hands had my sister not asked me if I was interested in a sisters read/bookclub challenge. It's listed as historical fantasy and the title is long and weird and the cover really unappealing to me. But, I trust my sister's taste a lot and needed something to motivate me into reading and discussing something with some oomph and teeth again.

There are parts of this book that are written so lyrically and philosophically sound that I found myself nodding my head at times. I am impressed b Kuang's dedication to defend language translation as art as well as a source of power. This modality of communication has the power to unite, divide, explain, confuse, reveal and lie and yet it's billed as something as banal as academic. It's certainly not an exact science and those who can translate...those who understand languages fully enough to look beyond definition but, instead, can see use and meaning...have a gift and power to use for all of the above.

With my gushing awe in mind, I forgave Kuang a lot for writing some unapologetically boring paragraphs in her narrative. The etymology of words was her schtick, and I knew it and the book is so full of long descriptions of what words mean and what they used to mean that I feel like I can't complain about not caring but...I stopped caring early on. Every time she does this, which happens way more frequently at the beginning of the book than at the end, my reading muscles would tense and I'd feel irritated to be taken out of the story and into a lecture.

But, the literal translation of many words is only a small part of this massive work in the end. Kuang effectively builds a fantasy world set in 1830s Oxford England that closely resembles actual history. The fantasy only lies in the actual power she gives translators instead if the symbolic and philosophical power they have in the real world. In Kuang's Babel, translators can etch words on the sides of silver bars in different languages and the subtle differences between the meanings powers or gives energy to the silver in a way that makes things like ships, bricks, wheels, and even food function better. Since efficiency and luxury are products for the wealthy, those that have have even more and those with less get nothing.

Kuang's attack of capitalism and Britain's colonial past is not subtle and the revolution that ultimately serves as the climax of the book felt heavy handed to me. The main character, Robin Swift, was the best developed and I felt his struggles with equality, friendship, loyalty, self-interest and power the most but nearly all the other characters were allowed to be only good or bad. No book can do all things but characters and nuance are not this book's strengths.

So, why 4 stars when I'm complaining about what I didn't like? This book is massively impressive. It's smart. It's really ambitious. And, even though it has boring moments, it's not boring. So, while 4 stars on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ is supposed to mean "really liked it" for me, it's more "really admired it." More of a 3 for liking.

Thanks, Em, for the suggestion and fun discussion!
]]> The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1) 55196813
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly's orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it's too late?

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.]]> 304 Nita Prose 0593356152 Lucy 2
I should probably not review books I didn't like because it feels mean. I don't know if I just wasn't in the right mood or what but this book irritated me. I didn't find the plot entertaining, believable or thrilling. I didn't find the narrator charming, likable or even consistent in her own actions. I've read some really good books that have a neurodivergent narrator so I don't think that was my problem here. Everything about the book was just too infuriatingly bad, from Molly's (the narrator) rationale for making some really poor decisions to the way all the other characters treated Molly, whose way of thinking and reacting was taken advantage of by everyone. With no one to root for, an unsatisfying ending, the only positive for me was that the actual writing and grammar was fine. I just wish all the fine words had created a story I enjoyed. ]]> 3.71 2022 The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1)
author: Nita Prose
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/04/03
date added: 2022/04/05
shelves:
review:
Sigh.

I should probably not review books I didn't like because it feels mean. I don't know if I just wasn't in the right mood or what but this book irritated me. I didn't find the plot entertaining, believable or thrilling. I didn't find the narrator charming, likable or even consistent in her own actions. I've read some really good books that have a neurodivergent narrator so I don't think that was my problem here. Everything about the book was just too infuriatingly bad, from Molly's (the narrator) rationale for making some really poor decisions to the way all the other characters treated Molly, whose way of thinking and reacting was taken advantage of by everyone. With no one to root for, an unsatisfying ending, the only positive for me was that the actual writing and grammar was fine. I just wish all the fine words had created a story I enjoyed.
]]> <![CDATA[Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead (Finlay Donovan, #2)]]> 57693474
On the not-so-bright side, someone out there wants her ex-husband, Steven, out of the picture. Permanently. Whatever else Steven may be, he's a good father, but saving him will send her down a rabbit hole of hit-women disguised as soccer moms, and a little bit more involvement with the Russian mob than she'd like.

Meanwhile, Vero's keeping secrets, and Detective Nick Anthony seems determined to get back into her life. He may be a hot cop, but Finlay's first priority is preventing her family from sleeping with the fishes... and if that means bending a few laws then so be it.

With her next book's deadline looming and an ex-husband to keep alive, Finlay is quickly coming to the end of her rope. She can only hope there isn't a noose at the end of it...

From Edgar-Award nominee Elle Cosimano, comes Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead―the hilarious and heart-pounding follow-up to Finlay Donovan is Killing It.]]> 357 Elle Cosimano 1250242185 Lucy 2 Finlay Donovan Is Killing It to be beyond my ability to suspend disbelief. It didn't feel funny or outrageous or a colossal bungling of misinterpretation and good intentions like the first book, which I quite enjoyed. Instead it felt ridiculous, confusing, and tedious.

The same cast of characters appears in Finlay Donovan Knocks'Em Dead as the first book only this time, Finlay, a romantic suspense author struggling to write the sequel to her smash hit book (it's a parallel story), is now on the hunt for two online forum posters: the person who offered cash to kill her ex husband and the contract killer who said they would do it.

Since the entire premise of the first book is how awful her ex-husband is, it was hard to drum up any sympathy and urgency for his safety to begin with. Then, all of the fun supporting characters from the first book were just....no longer fun. Vero, her live-in nanny, is not only not helpful, she's a total leech and criminally irresponsible. Then, there was zero heat between Finlay and her two love interests, Nick, the cop and Julien, the law student. The Russian Mob shows up again but the bad guy is behind bars and less present and threatening. However, Finaly's callous disregard for human life and corpses makes her only slightly more sympathetic than them. Her children, who supposedly make her the hot mess we're supposed to be rooting for, barely make any of the scenes. They are just never around.

Ultimately, I felt annoyed for most of the book and super disappointed that I didn't get the fun escapist mystery that I hoped for. The author is clearly building a series as the book ended in somewhat of a cliff hanger but Finlay Donovan and her lack of common sense or really any redeeming qualities is dead for me now.]]> 3.95 2022 Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead (Finlay Donovan, #2)
author: Elle Cosimano
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/03/08
date added: 2022/03/09
shelves:
review:
I promise I wasn't expecting Pulitzer Prize level of plot or writing but I found this sequel to Finlay Donovan Is Killing It to be beyond my ability to suspend disbelief. It didn't feel funny or outrageous or a colossal bungling of misinterpretation and good intentions like the first book, which I quite enjoyed. Instead it felt ridiculous, confusing, and tedious.

The same cast of characters appears in Finlay Donovan Knocks'Em Dead as the first book only this time, Finlay, a romantic suspense author struggling to write the sequel to her smash hit book (it's a parallel story), is now on the hunt for two online forum posters: the person who offered cash to kill her ex husband and the contract killer who said they would do it.

Since the entire premise of the first book is how awful her ex-husband is, it was hard to drum up any sympathy and urgency for his safety to begin with. Then, all of the fun supporting characters from the first book were just....no longer fun. Vero, her live-in nanny, is not only not helpful, she's a total leech and criminally irresponsible. Then, there was zero heat between Finlay and her two love interests, Nick, the cop and Julien, the law student. The Russian Mob shows up again but the bad guy is behind bars and less present and threatening. However, Finaly's callous disregard for human life and corpses makes her only slightly more sympathetic than them. Her children, who supposedly make her the hot mess we're supposed to be rooting for, barely make any of the scenes. They are just never around.

Ultimately, I felt annoyed for most of the book and super disappointed that I didn't get the fun escapist mystery that I hoped for. The author is clearly building a series as the book ended in somewhat of a cliff hanger but Finlay Donovan and her lack of common sense or really any redeeming qualities is dead for me now.
]]> Crying in H Mart 54814676
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band � and meeting the man who would become her husband � her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.]]> 243 Michelle Zauner 0525657746 Lucy 4 Crying in H Mart, I did not know anything about Michelle Zauner. I didn't even know what an H mart was. All I knew was that this book gets great reviews and it was available at my library. That's usually enough motivation for me to read something.

I liked it right away. From the opening pages, I found the writing to be very accessible, vividly described and emotional. I could see each scene almost as if I was watching a movie. I loved the author's honesty and authentic feelings towards a mother who adored her, belittled her, smothered her, shared things with her, kept secrets from her and then died way too soon. I loved the description and access to her grief. It was so raw.

Eventually, I found out through the book that Michelle Zauner is an indie rock star for a band named Japanese Breakfast. I had never heard of the band and went to Apple Music and YouTube to check it out. Talk about great cross-promotion. I didn't love the music but she is a fantastic writer. A real artist in many ways.

Food and Korean food in particular play a starring role throughout the book. Zauner's description of dishes, which include nothing I have ever eaten, sometimes made my mouth water and other times, I grimaced. But the connection that she had to her mother through food, and then to her Korean roots through food was powerful. It made me want to connect to my children through my own style of cooking.

Towards the end of the book, Zauner talks about preparing Kimchi and the process of fermentation that is required to make it. The description isn't out of place because there is so much talk about food throughout the book but then she ties the Kimchi to this amazing metaphor about death and remembering those we love who have died. She writes:

“The memories I stored, I could not let fester. Could not let trauma infiltrate and spread, to spoil and render them useless. They were moments to be tended. The culture we shared was active, effervescent in my gut and in my genes, and I had to seize it, foster it so it did not die in me. So that I could pass it on someday. The lessons she imparted, the proof of her life lived on in me, in every move and deed. I was what she left behind. If I could not be with my mother, I would be her.�


Just....wow.

I would never presume a 20-something year old Korean American rocker who has a passion for Korean food would already have a lived a life that I need to know anything about or that would help me in any way, but Crying in H Mart honesty and clear writing helps its readers build bridges of understanding between generations and cultures...between mothers and daughters...between resentment and forgiveness... between grief and hope.]]> 4.25 2021 Crying in H Mart
author: Michelle Zauner
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/25
date added: 2022/02/26
shelves:
review:
Memoirs are an interesting genre. Who is this person? Why should I care about their life? Most of the time, when I choose to read a memoir, I have some previous knowledge about who the author is. In the case of Crying in H Mart, I did not know anything about Michelle Zauner. I didn't even know what an H mart was. All I knew was that this book gets great reviews and it was available at my library. That's usually enough motivation for me to read something.

I liked it right away. From the opening pages, I found the writing to be very accessible, vividly described and emotional. I could see each scene almost as if I was watching a movie. I loved the author's honesty and authentic feelings towards a mother who adored her, belittled her, smothered her, shared things with her, kept secrets from her and then died way too soon. I loved the description and access to her grief. It was so raw.

Eventually, I found out through the book that Michelle Zauner is an indie rock star for a band named Japanese Breakfast. I had never heard of the band and went to Apple Music and YouTube to check it out. Talk about great cross-promotion. I didn't love the music but she is a fantastic writer. A real artist in many ways.

Food and Korean food in particular play a starring role throughout the book. Zauner's description of dishes, which include nothing I have ever eaten, sometimes made my mouth water and other times, I grimaced. But the connection that she had to her mother through food, and then to her Korean roots through food was powerful. It made me want to connect to my children through my own style of cooking.

Towards the end of the book, Zauner talks about preparing Kimchi and the process of fermentation that is required to make it. The description isn't out of place because there is so much talk about food throughout the book but then she ties the Kimchi to this amazing metaphor about death and remembering those we love who have died. She writes:

“The memories I stored, I could not let fester. Could not let trauma infiltrate and spread, to spoil and render them useless. They were moments to be tended. The culture we shared was active, effervescent in my gut and in my genes, and I had to seize it, foster it so it did not die in me. So that I could pass it on someday. The lessons she imparted, the proof of her life lived on in me, in every move and deed. I was what she left behind. If I could not be with my mother, I would be her.�


Just....wow.

I would never presume a 20-something year old Korean American rocker who has a passion for Korean food would already have a lived a life that I need to know anything about or that would help me in any way, but Crying in H Mart honesty and clear writing helps its readers build bridges of understanding between generations and cultures...between mothers and daughters...between resentment and forgiveness... between grief and hope.
]]> <![CDATA[The Color Purple (The Color Purple Collection, #1)]]> 40235399
Then her husband's lover, a flamboyant blues singer, barreled into her world and gave Celie the courage to ask for more - to laugh, to play, and finally - to love.]]> 288 Alice Walker Lucy 4 The Color Purple before reading it: Oprah Winfrey was in the movie version and loved it, there is a Broadway musical adaptation that is being made into a movie this year, it has to do with racism in the south and it has sometimes been banned from school libraries as being too graphic and upsetting. That's it. I was pretty ignorant.

From all of the book suggestions I saw across Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ, Amazon and my public library promoting Black History Month, I saw this cover and decided to read this classic to educate myself about a world and perspective on race that is surely different from my own life experiences.

The Color Purple is narrated in an epistolary style with letters written by Celie first to God and, later, to her sister, Nettie as well as Nettie's letters written to Celie. The sisters are separated after Celie, who was sexually abused by the man she knew as her father, sold her off to another man who wanted a wife to help raise his young children. The man, Mr. ____ (this is how Celie refers to him in all of her letters) really wants Nettie, who is better educated and described as more attractive, but Celie protects Nettie from both their father's and now husband's sexual interest and abuse by sending her away, even though Nettie is Celie's only experience of feeling love and kindness. Nettie ends up in Africa on a missionary trip so the story highlights the racial and economic issues from European colonization there as well through Nettie's letters. It was an interesting way to intersect two pretty different settings and stories.

While I was just getting into the book and realized it was set in pre World-War II Georgia, I wondered if my time, energy and understanding about racial matters in America would be better served reading a more contemporary novel with current outlooks and voices. I soon realized that some books and the themes they present can never become outdated because the issues never go away. Who is God? Why do we suffer? What does love look like? How does abuse and oppression affect its victims? What are the effects of slavery...the descendants of slaves...the traders of slaves from Africa...the owners and descendants of owners of slaves? Why do we adhere to gender roles and what is the harm or help in them?

The title is perfect. Early on in the novel, when Celie needs a new dress and notices and likes a purple one in the store, she writes in her letter to God that purple is the color of royalty and reserved for confident, independent and queenly women like Shug Avery. Not feeling worthy to wear such a beautiful color, she chooses a blue dress instead. Later on, when Celie is friends and lovers with Shug, Shug tells Celie, �I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.� Celie is finally able to enjoy the color purple, even after all of the harm and pain she has experienced.

This book brings an important and timeless voice to any current conversation about race, gender roles, abuse, family, love and the dignity and joy every human should experience in life. I'm grateful to have read it and no longer be ignorant of its compelling story.]]> 4.44 1982 The Color Purple (The Color Purple Collection, #1)
author: Alice Walker
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/17
date added: 2022/02/18
shelves:
review:
What I knew about The Color Purple before reading it: Oprah Winfrey was in the movie version and loved it, there is a Broadway musical adaptation that is being made into a movie this year, it has to do with racism in the south and it has sometimes been banned from school libraries as being too graphic and upsetting. That's it. I was pretty ignorant.

From all of the book suggestions I saw across Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ, Amazon and my public library promoting Black History Month, I saw this cover and decided to read this classic to educate myself about a world and perspective on race that is surely different from my own life experiences.

The Color Purple is narrated in an epistolary style with letters written by Celie first to God and, later, to her sister, Nettie as well as Nettie's letters written to Celie. The sisters are separated after Celie, who was sexually abused by the man she knew as her father, sold her off to another man who wanted a wife to help raise his young children. The man, Mr. ____ (this is how Celie refers to him in all of her letters) really wants Nettie, who is better educated and described as more attractive, but Celie protects Nettie from both their father's and now husband's sexual interest and abuse by sending her away, even though Nettie is Celie's only experience of feeling love and kindness. Nettie ends up in Africa on a missionary trip so the story highlights the racial and economic issues from European colonization there as well through Nettie's letters. It was an interesting way to intersect two pretty different settings and stories.

While I was just getting into the book and realized it was set in pre World-War II Georgia, I wondered if my time, energy and understanding about racial matters in America would be better served reading a more contemporary novel with current outlooks and voices. I soon realized that some books and the themes they present can never become outdated because the issues never go away. Who is God? Why do we suffer? What does love look like? How does abuse and oppression affect its victims? What are the effects of slavery...the descendants of slaves...the traders of slaves from Africa...the owners and descendants of owners of slaves? Why do we adhere to gender roles and what is the harm or help in them?

The title is perfect. Early on in the novel, when Celie needs a new dress and notices and likes a purple one in the store, she writes in her letter to God that purple is the color of royalty and reserved for confident, independent and queenly women like Shug Avery. Not feeling worthy to wear such a beautiful color, she chooses a blue dress instead. Later on, when Celie is friends and lovers with Shug, Shug tells Celie, �I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.� Celie is finally able to enjoy the color purple, even after all of the harm and pain she has experienced.

This book brings an important and timeless voice to any current conversation about race, gender roles, abuse, family, love and the dignity and joy every human should experience in life. I'm grateful to have read it and no longer be ignorant of its compelling story.
]]> State of Terror 56898262 From the #1 bestselling authors Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny comes a novel of unsurpassed thrills and incomparable insider expertise�State of Terror.

State of Terror follows a novice Secretary of State who has joined the administration of her rival, a president inaugurated after four years of American leadership that shrank from the world stage. A series of terrorist attacks throws the global order into disarray, and the secretary is tasked with assembling a team to unravel the deadly conspiracy, a scheme carefully designed to take advantage of an American government dangerously out of touch and out of power in the places where it counts the most.

This high-stakes thriller of international intrigue features behind-the-scenes global drama informed by details only an insider could know.]]> 495 Hillary Rodham Clinton 198217367X Lucy 2
When I saw this book, and saw that Louise Penny had co-authored with Hillary Clinton, I felt some apprehension, (because how different could it be?) but I do like Louise Penny's mystery books a lot more than Patterson's books so thought I'd give it a try. I like mysteries. I like political thrillers. I'm not a Hillary Clinton hater and even voted for her but who she is in real life shouldn't influence whether I like a fictional thriller she wrote or not. Right?

Ummmm, it totally influenced my reaction to this book because I found her guilty of the same writing sin as her husband! Her protagonist, Secretary of State Ellen Adams, was clearly based on herself and while the certainly realistic and behind-the-scene political settings are fascinating to read about, and something Clinton has had an up close and personal view of for years, it's such a turn-off to me to recognize the real-life feelings, politics, and opinions expressed as poorly disguised fiction. It feels petty, blatantly biased and, honestly, uninteresting. Obama is in there as the character of the newly elected president who appoints her as Secretary of State just to watch her fail (but she doesn't...surprise!) and Trump is definitely in there as the former president and reason the entire earth is about to be blown to smithereens by crazy terrorists because he is just that horrible of a human being and his administration ruined America. Subtle, it is not.

After about half-way thought the book, I found myself disengaging from the plot, which shouldn't happen in a thriller. That's when I should be the most invested. The most concerned. The most desperate to discover how the threat is going to be averted. But, it was clear that the smart women were going to save the day from the powerful but incompetent men in charge and...ta da.

Hillary Clinton is obviously a very smart woman, capable politician, experienced diplomat and has the skills to be a good writer of fiction. I think she should try to write a book using all of those positive attributes and leave out the airing of all her real-life grievances. I may like it better. ]]> 3.97 2021 State of Terror
author: Hillary Rodham Clinton
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2022/02/04
date added: 2022/02/04
shelves:
review:
A few years ago, I read the first James Patterson/Bill Clinton co-authored book and was left unimpressed. The president in that book was a thinly veiled caricature of President Clinton and it struck me as a bit narcissistic to write a "fictional" book so flattering about oneself and so obvious about it. But, I also have never been a big James Patterson fan so chalked it up to a combo of a story/writing that didn't appeal to me.

When I saw this book, and saw that Louise Penny had co-authored with Hillary Clinton, I felt some apprehension, (because how different could it be?) but I do like Louise Penny's mystery books a lot more than Patterson's books so thought I'd give it a try. I like mysteries. I like political thrillers. I'm not a Hillary Clinton hater and even voted for her but who she is in real life shouldn't influence whether I like a fictional thriller she wrote or not. Right?

Ummmm, it totally influenced my reaction to this book because I found her guilty of the same writing sin as her husband! Her protagonist, Secretary of State Ellen Adams, was clearly based on herself and while the certainly realistic and behind-the-scene political settings are fascinating to read about, and something Clinton has had an up close and personal view of for years, it's such a turn-off to me to recognize the real-life feelings, politics, and opinions expressed as poorly disguised fiction. It feels petty, blatantly biased and, honestly, uninteresting. Obama is in there as the character of the newly elected president who appoints her as Secretary of State just to watch her fail (but she doesn't...surprise!) and Trump is definitely in there as the former president and reason the entire earth is about to be blown to smithereens by crazy terrorists because he is just that horrible of a human being and his administration ruined America. Subtle, it is not.

After about half-way thought the book, I found myself disengaging from the plot, which shouldn't happen in a thriller. That's when I should be the most invested. The most concerned. The most desperate to discover how the threat is going to be averted. But, it was clear that the smart women were going to save the day from the powerful but incompetent men in charge and...ta da.

Hillary Clinton is obviously a very smart woman, capable politician, experienced diplomat and has the skills to be a good writer of fiction. I think she should try to write a book using all of those positive attributes and leave out the airing of all her real-life grievances. I may like it better.
]]> <![CDATA[First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith]]> 57379304
Drawing upon letters written by Emma to Joseph and to many others, along with minutes from Relief Society meetings and other artifacts, this book sketches a more complete portrait of this elect lady. It allows each of us to become personally acquainted with Emma as we learn more about her essential work as a leader, a wife, and a mother in the early days of the Church.]]> 224 Jennifer Reeder 1629728780 Lucy 3
The main issue I have with First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith is the formatting. It is very scholarly and divided into topic rather than any sort of chronology. With heavy documentation, sourcing and footnoting, I usually had one hand on the page I was reading and the other hand saving the place to that chapter's footnotes so that I could identify the source from sentence to sentence while I read. It's frustrating that very few of the sources are ever from Emma Smith herself. She did not keep a journal and did not write many letters. Several times, the same source was used repeatedly in different chapters which had me feeling like I was maze reading...passing by the same spot again and again. All of that attention to historical detail, while super important for validity, wasn't exactly conducive to riveting reading.

There weren't many surprises for me, which was a relief but also a source of frustration. Especially in regards to the end of Joseph Smith's life and the chaotic schism that happened between Emma and the main body of church members who continued to follow Brigham Young. It was clear to me, although there is very little explanation as to why, how deeply betrayed Emma was by the practice of polygamy. My heart hurt for her and she has all of my compassion and empathy because I honestly can't imagine being any less hurt in her situation. Jennifer Reeder, the author, suggests an equally compassionate and empathetic response to the practicers of polygamy and I need to probably lend them the same time and effort to understand their why as I made to Emma by reading more.

Although it didn't adequately answer the questions I had, mainly why she vehemently denounced polygamy and even lied to her children and others about her knowledge of it, but never denounced Joseph, who betrayed her by practicing it without her approval or even knowledge (not every time but multiple times). I appreciated the well sourced book of information about Emma and the remarkable woman she was. I echo Emma's own desire when she wrote, "I desire the Spirit of God to know and understand myself, that I might be able to overcome whatever tradition or nature that would not tend to my exaltation in the eternal worlds." What a pure desire of the heart. ]]> 3.91 First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith
author: Jennifer Reeder
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.91
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/30
date added: 2022/01/31
shelves:
review:
I first heard of Jennifer Reeder when she was a guest on a podcast and found her to be articulate, honest, fair and extremely knowledgeable about Emma Smith and other early female saints from the 19th century restoration. I really enjoyed the confidence and strength she gave these voices from the past as well as her plea to judge them based on their own words and their own sources rather than strictly through our 21st century lens or from historically weak sources. When I came across this book, I was eager to know more about Emma Hale Smith, a well recognized but often misunderstood woman.

The main issue I have with First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith is the formatting. It is very scholarly and divided into topic rather than any sort of chronology. With heavy documentation, sourcing and footnoting, I usually had one hand on the page I was reading and the other hand saving the place to that chapter's footnotes so that I could identify the source from sentence to sentence while I read. It's frustrating that very few of the sources are ever from Emma Smith herself. She did not keep a journal and did not write many letters. Several times, the same source was used repeatedly in different chapters which had me feeling like I was maze reading...passing by the same spot again and again. All of that attention to historical detail, while super important for validity, wasn't exactly conducive to riveting reading.

There weren't many surprises for me, which was a relief but also a source of frustration. Especially in regards to the end of Joseph Smith's life and the chaotic schism that happened between Emma and the main body of church members who continued to follow Brigham Young. It was clear to me, although there is very little explanation as to why, how deeply betrayed Emma was by the practice of polygamy. My heart hurt for her and she has all of my compassion and empathy because I honestly can't imagine being any less hurt in her situation. Jennifer Reeder, the author, suggests an equally compassionate and empathetic response to the practicers of polygamy and I need to probably lend them the same time and effort to understand their why as I made to Emma by reading more.

Although it didn't adequately answer the questions I had, mainly why she vehemently denounced polygamy and even lied to her children and others about her knowledge of it, but never denounced Joseph, who betrayed her by practicing it without her approval or even knowledge (not every time but multiple times). I appreciated the well sourced book of information about Emma and the remarkable woman she was. I echo Emma's own desire when she wrote, "I desire the Spirit of God to know and understand myself, that I might be able to overcome whatever tradition or nature that would not tend to my exaltation in the eternal worlds." What a pure desire of the heart.
]]> Greenlights 52838315 From the Academy Award®–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.

I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges - how to get relative with the inevitable - you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.�

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights - and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck.]]> 289 Matthew McConaughey 0593139135 Lucy 3
But, it's also a good memoir. He's a unique person and an interesting guy with a pretty crazy childhood and really fascinating life experiences, like floating on the Amazon and motorcycling through Europe. I couldn't help but envy his sense of freedom and unconventionality. I don't think anyone could avoid being at least mildly entertained listening to his stories. It's certainly not boring listening to a story about him being around 5 years old and witnessing his mother breaking his father's nose with the phone handset she has in her hand while she calls 911 because he is chasing her around the kitchen with a broken ketchup bottle, squirting her with ketchup but when he finally reaches her, instead of fighting they passionately embrace, drop to the floor and begin making love. IN FRONT OF THEIR CHILDREN. No, not boring at all but also not ok. That's called family dysfunction and chaos and abuse and kudos to McConaughey for still managing to become a productive member of society in spite of his chaotic "old school" childhood he had. But, the fact that he giggles (really giggles) while sharing these stories and somehow seems to believe that this tough love was all for his benefit makes me question the wisdom of any of his moral certainty.

I did really like the title and his perspective that life is full of green lights (signals to proceed, act, go!) if you look at most experiences the right way. And, even if it's a clear red or a yellow light, and you don't get the go you want...patience and perseverance will eventually switch those reds and yellows to greens.

I'm very happy that Matthew McConaughey loves his life so much. Good for him. Things definitely worked out in his case. If you pay close attention, there is some life advice that is pretty darn solid. You just have to wade through all the giggles and crazy to get to it.]]> 4.21 2020 Greenlights
author: Matthew McConaughey
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/27
date added: 2022/01/28
shelves:
review:
I just finished listening to this and I don't know if the audiobook version enhanced or detracted from the overall takeaway. On one hand, you hear Matthew McConaughey's voice with his distinct Texas drawl and it's very easy listening. On the other...was he on something when he wrote/narrated this? It's so jumpy and with all of the "notes to self" and "bumper stickers" and poems interjected into stories, it was hard to follow at times and...well...kind of weird.

But, it's also a good memoir. He's a unique person and an interesting guy with a pretty crazy childhood and really fascinating life experiences, like floating on the Amazon and motorcycling through Europe. I couldn't help but envy his sense of freedom and unconventionality. I don't think anyone could avoid being at least mildly entertained listening to his stories. It's certainly not boring listening to a story about him being around 5 years old and witnessing his mother breaking his father's nose with the phone handset she has in her hand while she calls 911 because he is chasing her around the kitchen with a broken ketchup bottle, squirting her with ketchup but when he finally reaches her, instead of fighting they passionately embrace, drop to the floor and begin making love. IN FRONT OF THEIR CHILDREN. No, not boring at all but also not ok. That's called family dysfunction and chaos and abuse and kudos to McConaughey for still managing to become a productive member of society in spite of his chaotic "old school" childhood he had. But, the fact that he giggles (really giggles) while sharing these stories and somehow seems to believe that this tough love was all for his benefit makes me question the wisdom of any of his moral certainty.

I did really like the title and his perspective that life is full of green lights (signals to proceed, act, go!) if you look at most experiences the right way. And, even if it's a clear red or a yellow light, and you don't get the go you want...patience and perseverance will eventually switch those reds and yellows to greens.

I'm very happy that Matthew McConaughey loves his life so much. Good for him. Things definitely worked out in his case. If you pay close attention, there is some life advice that is pretty darn solid. You just have to wade through all the giggles and crazy to get to it.
]]> Five Tuesdays in Winter 57812401
Told in the intimate voices of unique and endearing characters of all ages, these tales explore desire and heartache, loss and discovery, moments of jolting violence and the inexorable tug toward love at all costs. A bookseller's unspoken love for his employee rises to the surface, a neglected teenage boy finds much-needed nurturing from an unlikely pair of college students hired to housesit, a girl's loss of innocence at the hands of her employer's son becomes a catalyst for strength and confidence, and a proud nonagenarian rages helplessly in his granddaughter's hospital room. Romantic, hopeful, brutally raw, and unsparingly honest, some even slipping into the surreal, these stories are, above all, about King's enduring subject of love.]]> 240 Lily King 0802158765 Lucy 4
Some of the 10 were misses for me; they left me unfulfilled after following the arc, but many of these stories were incredibly profound for being so short. I loved the longing of Creature, although I hated what the protagonist had to learn. I wanted to hug the bookseller in Five Tuesdays in Winter, his loneliness and awkwardness constantly shadowing his goodness. Waiting for Charlie was so short but a powerful punch about how excruciating hope can feel. And I loved the last bizarre story, The Man at the Door. As a conflicted mother, who still wonders if there is/was a better balance between the love and care of my children and my own personal ambition, I was fascinated by the writer/mother's fever dream/vision about her own book.

However, there is something ultimately unsatisfying to me when I finish a book of short stories. I don't read a ton, so I don't have a lot of experience, but when I've finished the few that I have read, I don't come away with the one big "this is what I got out of this" finished satisfaction that I usually experience when I finish a novel, or even a work of non-fiction. I had that feeling after each story but I know I don't get credit for reading 10 books and a review of each story would feel tedious and overly verbose. Still, I admire reading writing that can do so much with so little.

Recommended for those who appreciate glimpses into different lives told through superb writing.]]> 3.70 2021 Five Tuesdays in Winter
author: Lily King
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/24
date added: 2022/01/24
shelves:
review:
Five Tuesdays in Winter is a book of 10 short stories that all have the elements of discovery, insecurity, rejection and hope using vibrant and vulnerable characters who act and react in the midst of incredibly mundane settings. It's an interesting mix.

Some of the 10 were misses for me; they left me unfulfilled after following the arc, but many of these stories were incredibly profound for being so short. I loved the longing of Creature, although I hated what the protagonist had to learn. I wanted to hug the bookseller in Five Tuesdays in Winter, his loneliness and awkwardness constantly shadowing his goodness. Waiting for Charlie was so short but a powerful punch about how excruciating hope can feel. And I loved the last bizarre story, The Man at the Door. As a conflicted mother, who still wonders if there is/was a better balance between the love and care of my children and my own personal ambition, I was fascinated by the writer/mother's fever dream/vision about her own book.

However, there is something ultimately unsatisfying to me when I finish a book of short stories. I don't read a ton, so I don't have a lot of experience, but when I've finished the few that I have read, I don't come away with the one big "this is what I got out of this" finished satisfaction that I usually experience when I finish a novel, or even a work of non-fiction. I had that feeling after each story but I know I don't get credit for reading 10 books and a review of each story would feel tedious and overly verbose. Still, I admire reading writing that can do so much with so little.

Recommended for those who appreciate glimpses into different lives told through superb writing.
]]> <![CDATA[Beautiful World, Where Are You]]> 56597885 356 Sally Rooney 0374602603 Lucy 3
Her characters in Beautiful World, Where Are You are all so gorgeously flawed, complicated and even contradictory at times to how it seems Rooney would want them be and act that it makes me believe them. I'm convinced that Eileen and Alice and Felix and Simon really think and act like they do and why. And, then the writing...it just flows. Nothing exciting ever happens and there is so much melancholy and frustratingly poor communication happening and yet I was almost always eager to get back to the book after a break. Because I wanted to know...could these unhappy souls find their beautiful worlds? Would they?

Beautiful World, Where Are You dives into the lives of two women, their friendship with each other, their romantic interests and failures and their search for meaning in their careers, their families, their community, their political beliefs and even their joint non-belief in religion. There is a lot of philosophical navel-gazing as the two exchange emails back and forth throughout the novel. As interesting as these emails were, and as much as they give the book its bit of gravitas, I also had to seriously question whether anybody actually sends or receives emails like this. I, for one, love to email. But, I have never, in any exchange with anyone, ever, discussed the lost truths of the Bronze Age or the irony of conservatism or the never-ending evils of plastics. They were definitely more essay than a conversation. There was also a lack of distinctive voices in these emails and I could never tell if it was Alice or Eileen writing, if I happened to put the book down and pick it up later (I always had to turn back a few pages to get my bearings back). My guess is that is because the emails were both Sally Rooney. Which made the parts of the email where Alice, who was a successful but cynical writer, complaining about the disingenuous ability of successful contemporary literary authors to write anything honest or real, because their success and worry about awards and fame preclude them from knowing anything honest or real anymore, really interesting.

I'm about as anti-marxist as it pertains to a viable economic system as you can get in my personal beliefs but I do appreciate Rooney's convictions in her books. Her characters really hate capitalism and the oppression of the working class. I'm also an unapologetic believer in Jesus and even though I think Rooney does a thorough job of making sure her readers understand that anyone that believes in Jesus is pretty much an ignoramus, she also allows the beauty of sincere belief to be described with kindness in her character, Simon (who happened to be my favorite character. Shocking, I know).

I'm not a millennial. I'm not a marxist. I'm not Irish. I'm not an atheist. But, somehow, I still like looking into Sally Rooney's beautiful, complicated worlds. ]]> 3.53 2021 Beautiful World, Where Are You
author: Sally Rooney
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/06
date added: 2022/01/07
shelves:
review:
I like Sally Rooney's writing a heck of a lot but I suspect I might not like Sally Rooney. And since she seems to imbue her own morality, thinking and politics into her books, (as I'm sure most authors do but it's quite obvious here) eventually, I'm left a bit turned off.

Her characters in Beautiful World, Where Are You are all so gorgeously flawed, complicated and even contradictory at times to how it seems Rooney would want them be and act that it makes me believe them. I'm convinced that Eileen and Alice and Felix and Simon really think and act like they do and why. And, then the writing...it just flows. Nothing exciting ever happens and there is so much melancholy and frustratingly poor communication happening and yet I was almost always eager to get back to the book after a break. Because I wanted to know...could these unhappy souls find their beautiful worlds? Would they?

Beautiful World, Where Are You dives into the lives of two women, their friendship with each other, their romantic interests and failures and their search for meaning in their careers, their families, their community, their political beliefs and even their joint non-belief in religion. There is a lot of philosophical navel-gazing as the two exchange emails back and forth throughout the novel. As interesting as these emails were, and as much as they give the book its bit of gravitas, I also had to seriously question whether anybody actually sends or receives emails like this. I, for one, love to email. But, I have never, in any exchange with anyone, ever, discussed the lost truths of the Bronze Age or the irony of conservatism or the never-ending evils of plastics. They were definitely more essay than a conversation. There was also a lack of distinctive voices in these emails and I could never tell if it was Alice or Eileen writing, if I happened to put the book down and pick it up later (I always had to turn back a few pages to get my bearings back). My guess is that is because the emails were both Sally Rooney. Which made the parts of the email where Alice, who was a successful but cynical writer, complaining about the disingenuous ability of successful contemporary literary authors to write anything honest or real, because their success and worry about awards and fame preclude them from knowing anything honest or real anymore, really interesting.

I'm about as anti-marxist as it pertains to a viable economic system as you can get in my personal beliefs but I do appreciate Rooney's convictions in her books. Her characters really hate capitalism and the oppression of the working class. I'm also an unapologetic believer in Jesus and even though I think Rooney does a thorough job of making sure her readers understand that anyone that believes in Jesus is pretty much an ignoramus, she also allows the beauty of sincere belief to be described with kindness in her character, Simon (who happened to be my favorite character. Shocking, I know).

I'm not a millennial. I'm not a marxist. I'm not Irish. I'm not an atheist. But, somehow, I still like looking into Sally Rooney's beautiful, complicated worlds.
]]> <![CDATA[The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo]]> 32620332
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the �80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501139231 Lucy 2
I keep asking myself why this book was mostly a miss for me. The truthful answer is...I finished it feeling unmoved. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to feel aghast and ashamed at how the world treated the LGBTQ+ community in the past (and there certainly is a sort of wonder and embarrassment about how, not that very long ago, a lack of acceptance or at least tolerance towards members in the community was not only NOT cancelled, but considered a virtue) but I think Jenkins Reid's tangling those sentiments with Evelyn Hugo's selfish and ambitious-to-the-point-of-cruel character lessened that effect for me. And I didn't want it to be lessened. I wanted to step into the fictional character's shoes and feel a pain I don't feel in my real life. I wanted to learn. But I didn't really get to wear her shoes due to the format of the narration and I didn't buy her love story and, in the end, I really didn't feel much sympathy towards her after the way she manipulated and treated others her entire life. Hugo's grand life lesson in the end...that it isn't the money or the fame that matters but the people who you love and who love you...was still doled out in an extremely manipulative manner.

So..no thanks. I think I'm done with Taylor Jenkins Reid books.]]> 4.39 2017 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2022/01/07
shelves:
review:
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo seemed to be constantly suggested to me via my Amazon and Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ accounts and it has such a high rating from other readers that I finally succumbed to the algorithmic pressure and listened to the audiobook. As smart as those computers usually are at predicting what I'll like, they were wrong this time.

I keep asking myself why this book was mostly a miss for me. The truthful answer is...I finished it feeling unmoved. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to feel aghast and ashamed at how the world treated the LGBTQ+ community in the past (and there certainly is a sort of wonder and embarrassment about how, not that very long ago, a lack of acceptance or at least tolerance towards members in the community was not only NOT cancelled, but considered a virtue) but I think Jenkins Reid's tangling those sentiments with Evelyn Hugo's selfish and ambitious-to-the-point-of-cruel character lessened that effect for me. And I didn't want it to be lessened. I wanted to step into the fictional character's shoes and feel a pain I don't feel in my real life. I wanted to learn. But I didn't really get to wear her shoes due to the format of the narration and I didn't buy her love story and, in the end, I really didn't feel much sympathy towards her after the way she manipulated and treated others her entire life. Hugo's grand life lesson in the end...that it isn't the money or the fame that matters but the people who you love and who love you...was still doled out in an extremely manipulative manner.

So..no thanks. I think I'm done with Taylor Jenkins Reid books.
]]> <![CDATA[The Girl with the Louding Voice]]> 50214741 All you have are your words.

Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education.

As the only daughter of a broke father, she is a valuable commodity. Removed from school and sold as a third wife to an old man, Adunni's life amounts to this: four goats, two bags of rice, some chickens and a new TV. When unspeakable tragedy swiftly strikes in her new home, she is secretly sold as a domestic servant to a household in the wealthy enclaves of Lagos, where no one will talk about the strange disappearance of her predecessor, Rebecca. No one but Adunni...

As a yielding daughter, a subservient wife, and a powerless servant, fourteen-year-old Adunni is repeatedly told that she is nothing. But Adunni won't be silenced. She is determined to find her voice - in a whisper, in song, in broken English - until she can speak for herself, for the girls like Rebecca who came before, and for all the girls who will follow.

]]> 371 Abi Daré 1524746029 Lucy 4 4.40 2020 The Girl with the Louding Voice
author: Abi Daré
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/01/01
date added: 2021/12/21
shelves:
review:

]]> The Last Thing He Told Me 54981009
As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a U.S. marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.]]> 307 Laura Dave 1501171348 Lucy 3 3.78 2021 The Last Thing He Told Me
author: Laura Dave
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2021/01/01
date added: 2021/12/21
shelves:
review:

]]> Malibu Rising 55404546 Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. But over the course of twenty-four hours, their lives will change forever.

Malibu: August, 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva.

The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth.

Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there.

And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.

By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come bubbling to the surface.

Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them... and what they will leave behind.]]> 369 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1524798657 Lucy 2 4.02 2021 Malibu Rising
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2021/01/01
date added: 2021/12/21
shelves:
review:

]]> The Lincoln Highway 57109107 The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America

In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.

Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.]]> 576 Amor Towles 0735222355 Lucy 4 4.18 2021 The Lincoln Highway
author: Amor Towles
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/01/01
date added: 2021/12/21
shelves:
review:

]]> Shuggie Bain 52741293 Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher's policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city's notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.

Shuggie's mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie's guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good--her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamourous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion's share of each week's benefits--all the family has to live on--on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs.

Agnes's older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Shuggie is meanwhile struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is "no right," a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her--even her beloved Shuggie.

A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Recalling the work of Edouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell.]]> 430 Douglas Stuart 0802148042 Lucy 3 4.29 2020 Shuggie Bain
author: Douglas Stuart
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2021/01/01
date added: 2021/12/21
shelves:
review:

]]> Cloud Cuckoo Land 56783258 When everything is lost, it’s our stories that survive.

How do we weather the end of things? Cloud Cuckoo Land brings together an unforgettable cast of dreamers and outsiders from past, present and future to offer a vision of survival against all odds.

Constantinople, 1453:
An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love.

Idaho, 2020:
An impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that’s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans?

Unknown, Sometime in the Future:
With her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance.

Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. Like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s new novel is a tale of hope and of profound human connection.]]> 626 Anthony Doerr 1982168439 Lucy 5
During the 1st chapter of Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (I'll admit the weird title put me off a bit), I thought to myself, "This is exactly my kind of book! I think I'm going to love this!" The description of the characters...what they were wearing...how they felt...why they were in a library...the hint of conflict and foreshadowing of trouble...I felt so excited.

Then, the book shifted to a transcript of an old greek play (umm....I don't read those on purpose), followed by a story of Ana in Constantinople in the 15th century during the siege of the sultan of the Ottoman Empire (is this historical fiction??), and THEN a chapter of Konstance in some future spaceship on its way to another inhabitable planet lightyears away. Very sci-fi. I was disheartened. Doerr was not going to feed me my fiction in my preferred contemporary or at least fairly recent historical form. This book was going to take some effort.

It did take effort. Anytime narrators change and settings change and even the conflict changes, the author takes a leap of faith that the reader will be motivated enough to go through another development. Connect to more characters. Doerr at least hints throughout his multiple narratives that all the various stories will eventually come together but I had to be patient because not all of the narratives held my interest. I did not enjoy the retelling of the translated greek story Cloud Cuckoo Land. It was fanciful and mythological and juvenile and I had to force myself to read it instead of skip over it. I figured Doerr included it (and used it as his novel's title) for a reason. I'm glad I persevered and slogged my way through those parts because it ends up being THE metaphor for all the stories.

My takeaway is that every generation is experiencing its own end-of-days type apocalypse and searching and hoping for a way to find relief from the suffering. I think I read a news story or a social media post every day that somehow alludes to the belief that "things have never been worse than they are right now." And I always think, "Really? Ever?" That's not to say I don't think things are bad right now or that we don't face serious challenges. We do. So has every generation before us. And logic argues that so will every generation that follows. So, what is the point of the struggle and suffering and is there a place for hope amidst the despair?

The point IS the struggle and the hope that knowledge, courage, resilience, cooperation, truth, ideals and love will carry us through. Because they have...through every generation. And our stories, when written down, saved and shared will be the hope and source of power for future generations.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is a ridiculously ambitious work of fiction but one I whole-heartedly think deserves the effort to be read. Because our stories matter and connect each one of us to the past and future world.]]> 4.24 2021 Cloud Cuckoo Land
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/11/10
date added: 2021/11/22
shelves:
review:
I consider myself a competent reader. While I mostly select books I think I will like, I will occasionally challenge myself with something outside my comfort zone. Usually, those other genres only reinforce my preferences: I like fiction best (and a really good biography or non-fiction piece once in a while).

During the 1st chapter of Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (I'll admit the weird title put me off a bit), I thought to myself, "This is exactly my kind of book! I think I'm going to love this!" The description of the characters...what they were wearing...how they felt...why they were in a library...the hint of conflict and foreshadowing of trouble...I felt so excited.

Then, the book shifted to a transcript of an old greek play (umm....I don't read those on purpose), followed by a story of Ana in Constantinople in the 15th century during the siege of the sultan of the Ottoman Empire (is this historical fiction??), and THEN a chapter of Konstance in some future spaceship on its way to another inhabitable planet lightyears away. Very sci-fi. I was disheartened. Doerr was not going to feed me my fiction in my preferred contemporary or at least fairly recent historical form. This book was going to take some effort.

It did take effort. Anytime narrators change and settings change and even the conflict changes, the author takes a leap of faith that the reader will be motivated enough to go through another development. Connect to more characters. Doerr at least hints throughout his multiple narratives that all the various stories will eventually come together but I had to be patient because not all of the narratives held my interest. I did not enjoy the retelling of the translated greek story Cloud Cuckoo Land. It was fanciful and mythological and juvenile and I had to force myself to read it instead of skip over it. I figured Doerr included it (and used it as his novel's title) for a reason. I'm glad I persevered and slogged my way through those parts because it ends up being THE metaphor for all the stories.

My takeaway is that every generation is experiencing its own end-of-days type apocalypse and searching and hoping for a way to find relief from the suffering. I think I read a news story or a social media post every day that somehow alludes to the belief that "things have never been worse than they are right now." And I always think, "Really? Ever?" That's not to say I don't think things are bad right now or that we don't face serious challenges. We do. So has every generation before us. And logic argues that so will every generation that follows. So, what is the point of the struggle and suffering and is there a place for hope amidst the despair?

The point IS the struggle and the hope that knowledge, courage, resilience, cooperation, truth, ideals and love will carry us through. Because they have...through every generation. And our stories, when written down, saved and shared will be the hope and source of power for future generations.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is a ridiculously ambitious work of fiction but one I whole-heartedly think deserves the effort to be read. Because our stories matter and connect each one of us to the past and future world.
]]> The Gifts of Imperfection 52578859 In hardcover for the first time, this tenth-anniversary edition of the game-changing #1 New York Times bestseller features a new foreword and brand-new tools to make the work your own.

For over a decade, Brené Brown has found a special place in our hearts as a gifted mapmaker and a fellow traveler. She is both a social scientist and a kitchen-table friend whom you can always count on to tell the truth, make you laugh, and, on occasion, cry with you. And what's now become a movement all started with The Gifts of Imperfection, which has sold more than two million copies in thirty-five different languages across the globe.

What transforms this book from words on a page to effective daily practices are the ten guideposts to wholehearted living. The guideposts not only help us understand the practices that will allow us to change our lives and families, they also walk us through the unattainable and sabotaging expectations that get in the way.

Brené writes, "This book is an invitation to join a wholehearted revolution. A small, quiet, grassroots movement that starts with each of us saying, 'My story matters because I matter.' Revolution might sound a little dramatic, but in this world, choosing authenticity and worthiness is an absolute act of resistance."]]> 208 Brené Brown 0593133587 Lucy 4
Then, due to some cajoling from a respected friend, I watched her TED talk on Shame and Vulnerability last year. I really enjoyed it. I loved her humor and self deprecation and speaking style. She's someone I think I would love to have lunch with and someone with whom it's possible to have a "real" conversation. In a short 10 minutes, she gained my respect at what I believe she is trying to do: help people love and accept who they truly are. And, that message needs to be heard in today's culture of veneered perfection through filtered images on social media. We need to know that we, the imperfect, have value as we are. I value all roads that lead humanity to love each other as we are and strive towards accepting whole heartedness in ourselves and others. And Brené Brown is one of those roads. While I still didn't become a devotee, I did check out her Gifts of Imperfection 10 year edition when it became available at the library. And....drumroll....I liked it. I get why people really like Brené Brown and quote her incessantly on social media. She's quotable.

What I really liked about her Gifts of Imperfection book was the forward that mentioned how much easier it is to be vulnerable when you aren't also marginalized. I thought about that good and long. I absolutely flock to those who can be vulnerable in a palatable-to-me way but recognized immediately after her mentioning how uncomfortable I am with those who expose their different-than-me vulnerabilities. We're in a weird dynamic right now where some vulnerabilities are revered and others are cancelled. Like I said, I'm still thinking about it good and long.

I also appreciated her emphasis on how boundaries are necessary to be truly compassionate. I keep trying to apply her reasoning to different situations and I don't think most humans really recognize the compassion when accompanied by boundaries and instead interpret the boundaries as unkindness, judgment and selfishness. I wonder if we can evolve a bit more to really connect the two.

What I think is lacking in her book, a bit, is access to all the research she refers to in her writing. Most sentences are prefaced with some kind of "my research shows" or "the data indicates" but she never shares her data. It feels a bit made up, honestly. I don't think she's wrong or lying about her conclusions but because she doesn't include her hard data in the footnotes, I'm left to wonder if she can skew the results in whatever direction she wants them to go. Perhaps not, but I did notice the lack of transparency in how she got all of her big-reveal results.

After I finished the book, I listened to her podcast, "Dare to Lead." It may have been too much too soon. It happened to be a podcast devoted to the anxiety and depression we feel due to the Covid-10 pandemic and I just felt like she was less than gracious in some of her comments towards those who think differently than her. An intellectual snobbery towards the less than perfect in their vaccine understanding, if you will. So...shrug. I don't know. I guess she's still a bit of a golden calf to me.]]> 4.29 2010 The Gifts of Imperfection
author: Brené Brown
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2021/01/01
date added: 2021/09/27
shelves:
review:
I've avoided what I considered the cult of Brené Brown until very recently. This may sound extremely judgmental and narrow minded but as a religious person with a deep commitment and belief in Jesus Christ as THE source of peace, healing and personal growth, it offended me a bit whenever I felt like the masses, and especially my fellow believers, bowed down to the golden calf of Brené. In a reaction to that prejudice instead of a more honest reaction to any actual primary source material, I actively avoided all the books, the TED talks, the podcasts. I just didn't want to worship the wrong thing, you know?

Then, due to some cajoling from a respected friend, I watched her TED talk on Shame and Vulnerability last year. I really enjoyed it. I loved her humor and self deprecation and speaking style. She's someone I think I would love to have lunch with and someone with whom it's possible to have a "real" conversation. In a short 10 minutes, she gained my respect at what I believe she is trying to do: help people love and accept who they truly are. And, that message needs to be heard in today's culture of veneered perfection through filtered images on social media. We need to know that we, the imperfect, have value as we are. I value all roads that lead humanity to love each other as we are and strive towards accepting whole heartedness in ourselves and others. And Brené Brown is one of those roads. While I still didn't become a devotee, I did check out her Gifts of Imperfection 10 year edition when it became available at the library. And....drumroll....I liked it. I get why people really like Brené Brown and quote her incessantly on social media. She's quotable.

What I really liked about her Gifts of Imperfection book was the forward that mentioned how much easier it is to be vulnerable when you aren't also marginalized. I thought about that good and long. I absolutely flock to those who can be vulnerable in a palatable-to-me way but recognized immediately after her mentioning how uncomfortable I am with those who expose their different-than-me vulnerabilities. We're in a weird dynamic right now where some vulnerabilities are revered and others are cancelled. Like I said, I'm still thinking about it good and long.

I also appreciated her emphasis on how boundaries are necessary to be truly compassionate. I keep trying to apply her reasoning to different situations and I don't think most humans really recognize the compassion when accompanied by boundaries and instead interpret the boundaries as unkindness, judgment and selfishness. I wonder if we can evolve a bit more to really connect the two.

What I think is lacking in her book, a bit, is access to all the research she refers to in her writing. Most sentences are prefaced with some kind of "my research shows" or "the data indicates" but she never shares her data. It feels a bit made up, honestly. I don't think she's wrong or lying about her conclusions but because she doesn't include her hard data in the footnotes, I'm left to wonder if she can skew the results in whatever direction she wants them to go. Perhaps not, but I did notice the lack of transparency in how she got all of her big-reveal results.

After I finished the book, I listened to her podcast, "Dare to Lead." It may have been too much too soon. It happened to be a podcast devoted to the anxiety and depression we feel due to the Covid-10 pandemic and I just felt like she was less than gracious in some of her comments towards those who think differently than her. An intellectual snobbery towards the less than perfect in their vaccine understanding, if you will. So...shrug. I don't know. I guess she's still a bit of a golden calf to me.
]]> <![CDATA[Finlay Donovan Is Killing It (Finlay Donovan, #1)]]> 53138099 Finlay Donovan is Killing It.

Finlay Donovan is killing it . . . except, she’s really not. She’s a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist, Finlay’s life is in chaos: the new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors.

When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer, and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet . . . Soon, Finlay discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation.

Fast-paced, deliciously witty, and wholeheartedly authentic in depicting the frustrations and triumphs of motherhood in all its messiness, hilarity, and heartfelt moment, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It is the first in a brilliant new series from YA Edgar Award nominee Elle Cosimano.]]> 355 Elle Cosimano 1250241707 Lucy 4
Juggling unpaid bills, two young children, a broken down minivan, her ex-husband's conniving fiancée, a nagging book agent and a sassy babysitter, Finlay Donovan's life is a mess. While in disguise at a Panera with her agent (the disguise was necessary due to a lifetime ban from a previous Panera episode with conniving fiancée), someone overhears her book plot to her agent, mistakes her for a paid assassin and offers her 50K to kill her husband. Of course Finlay won't do it, because she's a struggling romantic suspense author, NOT a murderer, but she is curious about this man-so-horrible-his-wife-wants-him-dead and also very, very broke so she ends up at the bar at the same day and time his wife assures her he'll be there. Hijinks ensues and he ends up dead, but not at her hands. Now, she's got to cover up a crime she did not commit, figure out who did commit the crime so she can exonerate herself if necessary AND write a book about it all.

Like I said...far-fetched. But so entertaining. And there's going to be a sequel!]]> 3.99 2021 Finlay Donovan Is Killing It (Finlay Donovan, #1)
author: Elle Cosimano
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/17
date added: 2021/08/31
shelves:
review:
Completely far-fetched and glaring plot holes aside, this was a very entertaining read. I love satisfying humor in a book and Elle Cosimano packs lots of humorous punches in the very funny inner monologues and thoughts of her heroine, Finally Donovan.

Juggling unpaid bills, two young children, a broken down minivan, her ex-husband's conniving fiancée, a nagging book agent and a sassy babysitter, Finlay Donovan's life is a mess. While in disguise at a Panera with her agent (the disguise was necessary due to a lifetime ban from a previous Panera episode with conniving fiancée), someone overhears her book plot to her agent, mistakes her for a paid assassin and offers her 50K to kill her husband. Of course Finlay won't do it, because she's a struggling romantic suspense author, NOT a murderer, but she is curious about this man-so-horrible-his-wife-wants-him-dead and also very, very broke so she ends up at the bar at the same day and time his wife assures her he'll be there. Hijinks ensues and he ends up dead, but not at her hands. Now, she's got to cover up a crime she did not commit, figure out who did commit the crime so she can exonerate herself if necessary AND write a book about it all.

Like I said...far-fetched. But so entertaining. And there's going to be a sequel!
]]> We Begin at the End 50279680
Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids.

Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother.

Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released. And Duchess and Walk must face the trouble that comes with his return. We Begin at the End is an extraordinary novel about two kinds of families—the ones we are born into and the ones we create.]]> 384 Chris Whitaker 1250759668 Lucy 2 We Begin at the End. The quote says, "He [Walk] was all cop, and Vincent was all bad."

This quote shouldn't mean anything other than possibly revealing the black and white thinking of a young, traumatized, teenage girl but I underlined it because at that point of the book, more than half way through, it perfectly described my own thoughts about ALL of the characters of the book so far. They were all....something. And nothing else. When I read a book that is full of characters I have never met, who are only allowed to be one thing...I just...I don't believe the story anymore. Because I don't believe them.

The most obvious was Duchess Day Radley, who called herself an outlaw. Without a doubt, she had every reason to be messed up. Being the primary care-giver to her younger 5 year old brother, Robin, because her mother, Star, was incapable of caring for anyone, including herself, Duchess had a weight on her shoulders that most teenagers never experience. But, the things she does in this book with this weight on her shoulders are so extreme, and always extreme, that I could barely drum up any sympathy for her. She made bad situations worse and torched any bridge laid down to help her out of her desperate life. She never seemed 13. I get that her situation would have forced her to grow up fast and yada, yada, but she was never 13 in any scene.

That leads me to how all of the other characters treated her. Also not believable. From Walk (whose name I detested. I actually started this book on audio and had to stop because of this freaking name. Please don't give your characters a verb for a name), to Vincent to Hal to Dolly to annoying Thomas Nobel and even Darke, no one ever reacted realistically to this very messed up girl who gave off nothing but f$%! off vibes. You know what's a realistic reaction to someone who is mean to you, cusses at you, demeans you, scares you, assaults you or embarrasses you? To actually f%$! off! To ignore them because they are hard. But no one did except the perfectly stereotyped mean kids at Duchess's school who resembled every mean kid on every Disney show.

If Duchess annoyed me then Walk (it bugs me to even type his name) drove me insane. Why was he so messed up? Why couldn't he move on beyond his 15 year-old self ever? I hated being in his lonely brain. I hated his weird conversations with all of the other weird and completely stuck characters. Every character was limited to being one way because of one thing that was or had happened to them. And what was the bad thing that happened to them? For something that caused so much emotional and psychological damage to so many characters, a description...even a short one, of what actually happened to Star's sister, Sissy, would have been appreciated. Small town or not, nobody's life actually just stops that way. Ugh. Brandon and his mustang. Milton and his bloody meat. Darke and his completely irrational priorities. And, of course, Vincent and Star.

The one positive of the book was the somewhat satisfying mystery. I did not figure it out before it was revealed and that is always noteworthy, especially when you realize you could have had you been paying better attention. The clues were there but all of the annoying narration and characterization ruffled me. Of course, just as in infuriating and unbelievable rom-coms, so much trouble could have been avoided had people just told the whole truth from the get go. Every single character kept a game-changer truth from someone else only to reveal it when the harm had already been done. Again...Ugh!

Last gripe: Montana. I didn't know part of the book would be set there and I was thrilled when Duchess and Robin went. Because the author included quite a bit of detail about their route in his narration, I had them in Swan Valley in my mind. Then when Walk (%$!#) drove up, a couple of times, the author again detailed the route but had them going a way no one from California would ever go. I know....it's a stupid gripe. But, I'm from Montana and I was already disbelieving this whole book and the made up towns and relative distances irked me. Maybe people from whatever town on the coast of California Whitaker was trying to describe feel the same way.

OK. I'm done now. I think I liked this book more before I started writing about it.]]> 4.10 2020 We Begin at the End
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2021/08/30
date added: 2021/08/30
shelves:
review:
There is an inconsequential quote in Chapter 25 of this book when the narrator writes a thought from Duchess, the 13 year-old protagonist of Chris Whitaker's We Begin at the End. The quote says, "He [Walk] was all cop, and Vincent was all bad."

This quote shouldn't mean anything other than possibly revealing the black and white thinking of a young, traumatized, teenage girl but I underlined it because at that point of the book, more than half way through, it perfectly described my own thoughts about ALL of the characters of the book so far. They were all....something. And nothing else. When I read a book that is full of characters I have never met, who are only allowed to be one thing...I just...I don't believe the story anymore. Because I don't believe them.

The most obvious was Duchess Day Radley, who called herself an outlaw. Without a doubt, she had every reason to be messed up. Being the primary care-giver to her younger 5 year old brother, Robin, because her mother, Star, was incapable of caring for anyone, including herself, Duchess had a weight on her shoulders that most teenagers never experience. But, the things she does in this book with this weight on her shoulders are so extreme, and always extreme, that I could barely drum up any sympathy for her. She made bad situations worse and torched any bridge laid down to help her out of her desperate life. She never seemed 13. I get that her situation would have forced her to grow up fast and yada, yada, but she was never 13 in any scene.

That leads me to how all of the other characters treated her. Also not believable. From Walk (whose name I detested. I actually started this book on audio and had to stop because of this freaking name. Please don't give your characters a verb for a name), to Vincent to Hal to Dolly to annoying Thomas Nobel and even Darke, no one ever reacted realistically to this very messed up girl who gave off nothing but f$%! off vibes. You know what's a realistic reaction to someone who is mean to you, cusses at you, demeans you, scares you, assaults you or embarrasses you? To actually f%$! off! To ignore them because they are hard. But no one did except the perfectly stereotyped mean kids at Duchess's school who resembled every mean kid on every Disney show.

If Duchess annoyed me then Walk (it bugs me to even type his name) drove me insane. Why was he so messed up? Why couldn't he move on beyond his 15 year-old self ever? I hated being in his lonely brain. I hated his weird conversations with all of the other weird and completely stuck characters. Every character was limited to being one way because of one thing that was or had happened to them. And what was the bad thing that happened to them? For something that caused so much emotional and psychological damage to so many characters, a description...even a short one, of what actually happened to Star's sister, Sissy, would have been appreciated. Small town or not, nobody's life actually just stops that way. Ugh. Brandon and his mustang. Milton and his bloody meat. Darke and his completely irrational priorities. And, of course, Vincent and Star.

The one positive of the book was the somewhat satisfying mystery. I did not figure it out before it was revealed and that is always noteworthy, especially when you realize you could have had you been paying better attention. The clues were there but all of the annoying narration and characterization ruffled me. Of course, just as in infuriating and unbelievable rom-coms, so much trouble could have been avoided had people just told the whole truth from the get go. Every single character kept a game-changer truth from someone else only to reveal it when the harm had already been done. Again...Ugh!

Last gripe: Montana. I didn't know part of the book would be set there and I was thrilled when Duchess and Robin went. Because the author included quite a bit of detail about their route in his narration, I had them in Swan Valley in my mind. Then when Walk (%$!#) drove up, a couple of times, the author again detailed the route but had them going a way no one from California would ever go. I know....it's a stupid gripe. But, I'm from Montana and I was already disbelieving this whole book and the made up towns and relative distances irked me. Maybe people from whatever town on the coast of California Whitaker was trying to describe feel the same way.

OK. I'm done now. I think I liked this book more before I started writing about it.
]]> Homegoing 27071490 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

A novel of breathtaking sweep and emotional power that traces three hundred years in Ghana and along the way also becomes a truly great American novel. Extraordinary for its exquisite language, its implacable sorrow, its soaring beauty, and for its monumental portrait of the forces that shape families and nations, Homegoing heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.

Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi's magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time, delivering unforgettable characters whose lives were shaped by historical forces beyond their control. Homegoing is a tremendous reading experience, not to be missed, by an astonishingly gifted young writer.]]> 305 Yaa Gyasi Lucy 3
This was a difficult read for me because I didn't read it quickly and frequently couldn't remember lineage or what happened in previous chapters. While the lineage provides continuity, the book reads as short stories, in a way, because enough time has passed in most cases that the setting and secondary characters are all completely different and undeveloped for the reader. Still, it is really impressive literary fiction, filled with symbolism and recurring themes and an unapologetic look at the generational trauma that resulted from the slave trade. I don't use that phrase in any "woke" sense either. You can see and feel it on the pages. Lives that fall off track and families that break apart due to cruel laws, segregation, residual anger and complicity.

The strands beautifully come together at the end of the book. Descendents who are both living now in the United States (but who have no idea about their ancestors Esi or Effia because both lines have been made impossible to trace back due to violence, wars and changed identities) travel back to Ghana together and face their anguish, disappointment and hopes in the waters at the Gold Coast Castle.

I liked this book more than I enjoyed it. I can absolutely see its brilliance while simultaneously acknowledge that it feels a bit unaccessible to me. I choose to read mostly fiction because I thrill at the access to situations and lives I will never experience. I believe that fiction readers can tap more easily into empathy because of that access. But, for some reason, maybe just because of the incredible scope of the novel that covers two continents for over 200 years, I always felt like I was still outside looking in. I could see the rage but couldn't feel the rage.

My favorite quote from the book was in Yaw's chapter, a descendent of Effia, living in Ghana during their independence from British colonialism.

He said, “We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must always ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there, you begin to get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture."

I think Gyasi's Homegoing should end up in literature classrooms and with some guidance, the clearer, yet still imperfect story and history of the slave trade and its infinite, irreconcilable fallout can be uncovered by this and future generations.]]> 4.48 2016 Homegoing
author: Yaa Gyasi
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2021/08/20
date added: 2021/08/21
shelves:
review:
Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi, is a generational story that follows the lineage of two half sisters who were born to the same mother but never knew each other. One sister, Esi, gets sold as a slave after being captured from a rival tribe and is then raped and impregnated by a British soldier while being held captive on the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana. The other sister, Effia, is given away in marriage to a British officer who ends up loving her but also has a white wife in England. One half sister is living in luxury in the castle with her British husband while the other is being held in the dungeons down below. The rest of the novel follows their lineage in alternating chapters. Esi gives birth to a daughter aboard the slave ship and her descendants' stories take place in the United States. Effia's descendants stay in Ghana, although with privilege and complicity in the slave trade.

This was a difficult read for me because I didn't read it quickly and frequently couldn't remember lineage or what happened in previous chapters. While the lineage provides continuity, the book reads as short stories, in a way, because enough time has passed in most cases that the setting and secondary characters are all completely different and undeveloped for the reader. Still, it is really impressive literary fiction, filled with symbolism and recurring themes and an unapologetic look at the generational trauma that resulted from the slave trade. I don't use that phrase in any "woke" sense either. You can see and feel it on the pages. Lives that fall off track and families that break apart due to cruel laws, segregation, residual anger and complicity.

The strands beautifully come together at the end of the book. Descendents who are both living now in the United States (but who have no idea about their ancestors Esi or Effia because both lines have been made impossible to trace back due to violence, wars and changed identities) travel back to Ghana together and face their anguish, disappointment and hopes in the waters at the Gold Coast Castle.

I liked this book more than I enjoyed it. I can absolutely see its brilliance while simultaneously acknowledge that it feels a bit unaccessible to me. I choose to read mostly fiction because I thrill at the access to situations and lives I will never experience. I believe that fiction readers can tap more easily into empathy because of that access. But, for some reason, maybe just because of the incredible scope of the novel that covers two continents for over 200 years, I always felt like I was still outside looking in. I could see the rage but couldn't feel the rage.

My favorite quote from the book was in Yaw's chapter, a descendent of Effia, living in Ghana during their independence from British colonialism.

He said, “We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must always ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there, you begin to get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture."

I think Gyasi's Homegoing should end up in literature classrooms and with some guidance, the clearer, yet still imperfect story and history of the slave trade and its infinite, irreconcilable fallout can be uncovered by this and future generations.
]]> The Dearly Beloved 43822731
Charles is destined to succeed his father as an esteemed professor of history at Harvard, until an unorthodox lecture about faith leads him to ministry. How then, can he fall in love with Lily—fiercely intellectual, elegantly stern—after she tells him with certainty that she will never believe in God? And yet, how can he not?

James, the youngest son in a hardscrabble Chicago family, spent much of his youth angry at his alcoholic father and avoiding his anxious mother. Nan grew up in Mississippi, the devout and beloved daughter of a minister and a debutante. James's escape from his desperate circumstances leads him to Nan and, despite his skepticism of hope in all its forms, her gentle, constant faith changes the course of his life.

The Dearly Beloved follows these two couples through decades of love and friendship, jealousy and understanding, forgiveness and commitment. Against the backdrop of turbulent changes facing the city and the church’s congregation, these four forge improbable paths through their evolving relationships, each struggling with uncertainty, heartbreak, and joy. It's a poignant meditation on faith and reason, marriage and children, and the ways we find meaning in our lives.]]> 342 Cara Wall 198210452X Lucy 4
I absolutely love the first part of the book. The development of the characters is so well done so that I'm simultaneously feeling compassion and irritation for each one as their story progresses. As the title implies, this book showcases the nuances of faith through the lives of two Presbyterian ministers and their wives. I felt so incredibly hopeful for each of these characters as they navigated through college and early married life and found partners that both strengthened and challenged them. Mostly set in the late 1950s and 60s, the description of clothing and furnishings and society and gender roles was fascinating.

As the story slows down and a particular plot point gets developed, I was just as interested but less enamored. I can see why the author, Cara Wall, decided to zoom in on this particular plot point: a developmentally disabled child. All of the earlier viewpoints of faith had to now adapt to something less philosophical and way more immediate and intimate. But changing from the previous panoramic view to how each character handled a very specific challenge felt less accessible to me. Now, the story felt to me very much about these characters and less about human nature in general. Of course, its very possible to glean broader morals and lessons as the book ends, but I was still just a bit let down, somehow.

The prologue and epilogue attempt to foreshadow and summarize the book but the distance from each event in time to the actual setting of the novel felt too far removed. I didn't hate them but I almost wish they hadn't been included.

Still, all of those gripes notwithstanding, this is such a lovely, lovely book. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting a gentle, character driven, uplifting book. ]]> 4.03 2019 The Dearly Beloved
author: Cara Wall
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/16
date added: 2021/08/18
shelves:
review:
This is actually the second time I've read this book but didn't review it the first time. I really enjoyed it though so listened to the audio as I traveled through Montana last week.

I absolutely love the first part of the book. The development of the characters is so well done so that I'm simultaneously feeling compassion and irritation for each one as their story progresses. As the title implies, this book showcases the nuances of faith through the lives of two Presbyterian ministers and their wives. I felt so incredibly hopeful for each of these characters as they navigated through college and early married life and found partners that both strengthened and challenged them. Mostly set in the late 1950s and 60s, the description of clothing and furnishings and society and gender roles was fascinating.

As the story slows down and a particular plot point gets developed, I was just as interested but less enamored. I can see why the author, Cara Wall, decided to zoom in on this particular plot point: a developmentally disabled child. All of the earlier viewpoints of faith had to now adapt to something less philosophical and way more immediate and intimate. But changing from the previous panoramic view to how each character handled a very specific challenge felt less accessible to me. Now, the story felt to me very much about these characters and less about human nature in general. Of course, its very possible to glean broader morals and lessons as the book ends, but I was still just a bit let down, somehow.

The prologue and epilogue attempt to foreshadow and summarize the book but the distance from each event in time to the actual setting of the novel felt too far removed. I didn't hate them but I almost wish they hadn't been included.

Still, all of those gripes notwithstanding, this is such a lovely, lovely book. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting a gentle, character driven, uplifting book.
]]> The Rose Code 53914938 The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Huntress and The Alice Network returns with another heart-stopping World War II story of three female code breakers at Bletchley Park and the spy they must root out after the war is over.

1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything—beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses—but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Imperious self-made Mab, product of East-End London poverty, works the legendary code-breaking machines as she conceals old wounds and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Both Osla and Mab are quick to see the potential in local village spinster Beth, whose shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and soon Beth spreads her wings as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts. But war, loss, and the impossible pressure of secrecy will tear the three apart.

1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips post-war Britain into a fever, three friends-turned-enemies are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter—the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum. A mysterious traitor has emerged from the shadows of their Bletchley Park past, and now Osla, Mab, and Beth must resurrect their old alliance and crack one last code together. But each petal they remove from the rose code brings danger—and their true enemy...]]> 624 Kate Quinn 0062943472 Lucy 3
Osla (modeled after a real life woman named Osla Benning), is a wealthy debutante from a broken home who wants to be considered more than be a silly "deb." She uses her education and fluency in German to translate decoded message. Mab is desperately trying to leave her poor, working-class London upbringing behind and uses her keen observation skills to learn whatever she needs to land a husband that will raise her social class. And Beth is an awkward, shy and emotionally abused spinster whose extraordinary crossword puzzle skills land her a position as a cryptanalyst.

What Quinn does really, really well is developing and presenting all of the nuanced drama in each of these girls' lives. Their romantic interests. Their loneliness. Their ambition. Their unique voices. Their relationships with each other.

What Quinn does pretty well is weaving the fictional drama with some actual history. For instance, Osla's main love interest in the book is Prince Phillip, who ends up marrying Queen Elizabeth by the book's end. Yes. THE current Queen Elizabeth. And Phillip really did date a woman during the war named Osla Benning, who worked at Bletchley Park and was a wealthy debutante. But, The Rose Code's Osla is Osla KENDALL...so...fiction! I guess that's how it works but it feels weird. It could have been worse had any of these fictionalized-real-life-characters been involved in anything salacious or scandalous but they aren't so no harm, no foul. Also making an appearance in the novel is Alan Turing (briefly) and Kate Middleton (epilogue). Loads of the other characters were probably either real or based off of real people but those were the names I recognized.

What Quinn does poorly is describe the actual code breaking equipment and methods used to break the encrypted codes. Each time an attempt was made in the narrative, I could not picture what was being written. I vainly wished for the movie version so my brain didn't have to work so hard to visualize what Quinn was attempting to portray with words. For me, it didn't work at all, which is too bad since that was basically the point of the book. I ended up Googling what an enigma machine and bombe machine looked like just to satisfy my curiosity. Neither machine was what I was expecting based on my reading. And I still have no idea how they work.

All together, I still enjoyed this look at history and its feminist angle. We've come a long way from what women were and weren't able to say and do and be and I'm grateful for any and all women who contributed to my opportunities. Unless you're a cryptologist, you’ll very likely find this book entertaining. ]]> 4.42 2021 The Rose Code
author: Kate Quinn
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2021/08/05
date added: 2021/08/08
shelves:
review:
The Rose Code, by Kate Quinn, is about three different women whose paths cross when they each come to serve England during World War II at Bletchley Park, an estate in the English country side that served as the principal allied code-breaking center.

Osla (modeled after a real life woman named Osla Benning), is a wealthy debutante from a broken home who wants to be considered more than be a silly "deb." She uses her education and fluency in German to translate decoded message. Mab is desperately trying to leave her poor, working-class London upbringing behind and uses her keen observation skills to learn whatever she needs to land a husband that will raise her social class. And Beth is an awkward, shy and emotionally abused spinster whose extraordinary crossword puzzle skills land her a position as a cryptanalyst.

What Quinn does really, really well is developing and presenting all of the nuanced drama in each of these girls' lives. Their romantic interests. Their loneliness. Their ambition. Their unique voices. Their relationships with each other.

What Quinn does pretty well is weaving the fictional drama with some actual history. For instance, Osla's main love interest in the book is Prince Phillip, who ends up marrying Queen Elizabeth by the book's end. Yes. THE current Queen Elizabeth. And Phillip really did date a woman during the war named Osla Benning, who worked at Bletchley Park and was a wealthy debutante. But, The Rose Code's Osla is Osla KENDALL...so...fiction! I guess that's how it works but it feels weird. It could have been worse had any of these fictionalized-real-life-characters been involved in anything salacious or scandalous but they aren't so no harm, no foul. Also making an appearance in the novel is Alan Turing (briefly) and Kate Middleton (epilogue). Loads of the other characters were probably either real or based off of real people but those were the names I recognized.

What Quinn does poorly is describe the actual code breaking equipment and methods used to break the encrypted codes. Each time an attempt was made in the narrative, I could not picture what was being written. I vainly wished for the movie version so my brain didn't have to work so hard to visualize what Quinn was attempting to portray with words. For me, it didn't work at all, which is too bad since that was basically the point of the book. I ended up Googling what an enigma machine and bombe machine looked like just to satisfy my curiosity. Neither machine was what I was expecting based on my reading. And I still have no idea how they work.

All together, I still enjoyed this look at history and its feminist angle. We've come a long way from what women were and weren't able to say and do and be and I'm grateful for any and all women who contributed to my opportunities. Unless you're a cryptologist, you’ll very likely find this book entertaining.
]]> A Man Called Ove 18774964
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.]]> 337 Fredrik Backman 1476738017 Lucy 4
I've always believed that it's hard, maybe even impossible, to hate people you really know. The human experience tells us time and time again that we humans are more alike than different and when we understand the backstory...the history and experiences and perspectives and values that shape a person...we are capable of great love. Fredrik Backman showcases this phenomenon of humanity through a grumpy old man named Ove (pronounced /u-vuh/) who has decided to end his life but keeps getting sidetracked and interrupted by annoying neighbors needing his help. Backman used a similar narration technique of describing characters with labels and then transitioning into names as they become better known in his more recent novel, Anxious People, which I really enjoyed, and have come to realize that he used it first in A Man Called Ove. I think it's effective narration. Pregnant woman becomes Parvaneh. Overweight man becomes Jimmy. The Young Man With Dark Stuff Around His Eyes become Mirsad. And all of these people who Ove dislikes or who he finds irritating or who he judges based on what he can see from an initial look or an initial encounter lose their labels when they become known to him. Interesting then that the man in the white shirt and the blond weed, both permanent antagonists of Ove, who never get to have redeeming qualities, also never get named.

So, how do the labeled get names? How do they become known? By both needing help from Ove and by helping Ove. Ahhh....the great answer to humanity. To help and need each other. We can't and shouldn't do it all alone, as frustrating and disappointing that is to Ove. Sure, he can remodel his own home, back up a trailer without backup cameras and radar, fix a bike and brew his own coffee, unlike all of the other idiots around him, but when he realizes he can't buy an iPad, (because where is the keyboard?), and he can't stop all the men in white shirts from their bureaucratic tyranny and he can't see in color anymore without his beloved Sonja...he finally gets the help he needs and deserves from these same idiots.

The dry humor, the hilarious and emotional symbolism of Saabs and Volvos and the onion-like layers that get peeled away from Ove's crusty persona through flashbacks all add up to a memorable and heartwarming story about what it means to be human. ]]> 4.35 2012 A Man Called Ove
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/31
date added: 2021/08/05
shelves:
review:
Pretty sure I'm the last person I know to read this book. It just had too much hype to appeal to me for a very long time but when I saw it was available on Scribd as part of my monthly subscription, I decided to finally see what the fuss was about.

I've always believed that it's hard, maybe even impossible, to hate people you really know. The human experience tells us time and time again that we humans are more alike than different and when we understand the backstory...the history and experiences and perspectives and values that shape a person...we are capable of great love. Fredrik Backman showcases this phenomenon of humanity through a grumpy old man named Ove (pronounced /u-vuh/) who has decided to end his life but keeps getting sidetracked and interrupted by annoying neighbors needing his help. Backman used a similar narration technique of describing characters with labels and then transitioning into names as they become better known in his more recent novel, Anxious People, which I really enjoyed, and have come to realize that he used it first in A Man Called Ove. I think it's effective narration. Pregnant woman becomes Parvaneh. Overweight man becomes Jimmy. The Young Man With Dark Stuff Around His Eyes become Mirsad. And all of these people who Ove dislikes or who he finds irritating or who he judges based on what he can see from an initial look or an initial encounter lose their labels when they become known to him. Interesting then that the man in the white shirt and the blond weed, both permanent antagonists of Ove, who never get to have redeeming qualities, also never get named.

So, how do the labeled get names? How do they become known? By both needing help from Ove and by helping Ove. Ahhh....the great answer to humanity. To help and need each other. We can't and shouldn't do it all alone, as frustrating and disappointing that is to Ove. Sure, he can remodel his own home, back up a trailer without backup cameras and radar, fix a bike and brew his own coffee, unlike all of the other idiots around him, but when he realizes he can't buy an iPad, (because where is the keyboard?), and he can't stop all the men in white shirts from their bureaucratic tyranny and he can't see in color anymore without his beloved Sonja...he finally gets the help he needs and deserves from these same idiots.

The dry humor, the hilarious and emotional symbolism of Saabs and Volvos and the onion-like layers that get peeled away from Ove's crusty persona through flashbacks all add up to a memorable and heartwarming story about what it means to be human.
]]> <![CDATA[Restoration: God's Call to the 21st Century World]]> 56170555
That was two hundred years ago. As the Restoration enters its third century, the world has new questions. A loving God has answers. In Restoration, scholar and author Patrick Mason reflects on what it means for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to participate in the ongoing Restoration. Every generation must rediscover the gospel anew, and this book breathes new life into well-worn terms and phrases. What does it mean to restore Israel ? How can a church with less than one percent of the world s population be true ? What baggage have we picked up these past two centuries, and how do we move forward with confidence, relevance, and impact? The Restoration was intended to bless all of our Heavenly Parents children, especially the marginalized and vulnerable among us. This book will inspire and challenge you to rethink, recommit, and respond to God s call to the 21st-century world.]]> 100 Patrick Q. Mason 1953677053 Lucy 4
This book is filled with really helpful metaphors, like the various farmers working different parts of the farm and the Body of Christ, which speak to me. As much as I loved them, when breaking them down into what I actually think, I have a few intellectual and faith conflicts - mainly how to balance my understanding of his description of pluralism and that compassionate and without a doubt tenet that truth is abundant in various beliefs and not solely contained in any one belief system, and my ultimate belief that the covenants and ordinances that bring people closer to Jesus Christ, and ARE exclusive to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are necessary and matter.

It's a short book, either to read or to listen to, and definitely worth the few hours of your time. ]]> 4.53 Restoration: God's Call to the 21st Century World
author: Patrick Q. Mason
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.53
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/28
date added: 2021/08/03
shelves:
review:
Highly recommended read for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (mormons) about how to better understand the meaning of the Restoration rather than limiting the word as an adjective attached to the church or the gospel. I loved Mason's metaphor of a fortress church and the danger any religion has, but particularly one as insulated in culture, beliefs and dogma as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of remaining as a fortress.

This book is filled with really helpful metaphors, like the various farmers working different parts of the farm and the Body of Christ, which speak to me. As much as I loved them, when breaking them down into what I actually think, I have a few intellectual and faith conflicts - mainly how to balance my understanding of his description of pluralism and that compassionate and without a doubt tenet that truth is abundant in various beliefs and not solely contained in any one belief system, and my ultimate belief that the covenants and ordinances that bring people closer to Jesus Christ, and ARE exclusive to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are necessary and matter.

It's a short book, either to read or to listen to, and definitely worth the few hours of your time.
]]> Pretty Things 52217478
Nina once bought into the idea that her fancy liberal arts degree would lead to a fulfilling career. When that dream crashed, she turned to stealing from rich kids in L.A. alongside her wily Irish boyfriend, Lachlan. Nina learned from the best: Her mother was the original con artist, hustling to give her daughter a decent childhood despite their wayward life. But when her mom gets sick, Nina puts everything on the line to help her, even if it means running her most audacious, dangerous scam yet.

Vanessa is a privileged young heiress who wanted to make her mark in the world. Instead she becomes an Instagram influencer--traveling the globe, receiving free clothes and products, and posing for pictures in exotic locales. But behind the covetable façade is a life marked by tragedy. After a broken engagement, Vanessa retreats to her family's sprawling mountain estate, Stonehaven: A mansion of dark secrets not just from Vanessa's past, but from that of a lost and troubled girl named Nina.

Nina, Vanessa, and Lachlan's paths collide here, on the cold shores of Lake Tahoe, where their intertwined lives give way to a winter of aspiration and desire, duplicity and revenge.

This dazzling, twisty, mesmerizing novel showcases acclaimed author Janelle Brown at her best, as two brilliant, damaged women try to survive the greatest game of deceit and destruction they will ever play.]]> 496 Janelle Brown 0525479139 Lucy 2
I usually enjoy psychological thrillers, although preferably without homicidal psychos (harder and harder to find these days), and thought this book about a long con job by a reluctant grifter (grew up with a grifter mom) against a wealthy socialite whose family ruined her dreams to escape that kind of life would be an enjoyable summer read. As these flawed characters became more and more developed with their alternating first person narratives and perspectives, I couldn't help but strongly dislike both of them. Their motives were equally petty, immature and ridiculously selfish. Who am I supposed to root for? Am I supposed to care what happens? Are there really people this vain and stupid and without morals? Even when morality attempted to make a mortally wounded and limping return near the end, the climax and conclusion was just drivel. Pretty bummed this wasn't better.]]> 3.85 2020 Pretty Things
author: Janelle Brown
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2021/07/16
date added: 2021/07/19
shelves:
review:
I'm not sure what compelled me to start this book, but after a great start with all kinds of what's-going-to-happen promise, things took a quick and very disappointing turn.

I usually enjoy psychological thrillers, although preferably without homicidal psychos (harder and harder to find these days), and thought this book about a long con job by a reluctant grifter (grew up with a grifter mom) against a wealthy socialite whose family ruined her dreams to escape that kind of life would be an enjoyable summer read. As these flawed characters became more and more developed with their alternating first person narratives and perspectives, I couldn't help but strongly dislike both of them. Their motives were equally petty, immature and ridiculously selfish. Who am I supposed to root for? Am I supposed to care what happens? Are there really people this vain and stupid and without morals? Even when morality attempted to make a mortally wounded and limping return near the end, the climax and conclusion was just drivel. Pretty bummed this wasn't better.
]]> <![CDATA[The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane]]> 37186
Once, in a house on Egypt Street, there lived a china rabbit named Edward Tulane. The rabbit was very pleased with himself, and for good he was owned by a girl named Abilene, who treated him with the utmost care and adored him completely.

And then, one day, he was lost.

Kate DiCamillo takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the depths of the ocean to the net of a fisherman, from the top of a garbage heap to the fireside of a hoboes' camp, from the bedside of an ailing child to the bustling streets of Memphis. And along the way, we are shown a true miracle � that even a heart of the most breakable kind can learn to love, to lose, and to love again.]]> 228 Kate DiCamillo 0763625892 Lucy 4
Edward Tulane is a 3 ft toy rabbit with a china-made face and hinged body, long velvet ears and fluffy tail. His owner, Abilene, dresses him with fine clothes and loves him as dearly as any child has loved a toy. Edward is a vain little toy, however, and is frequently offended when treated with anything less than fawning admiration. When teasing boys steal Abilene's fussy toy and play keep away with Edward, the unexpected happens and Edward becomes lost. What happens next is a story about the purpose of existing: is it to love, or be loved? Or is it both?

I think the thing that kept me from loving the book is that with each parable that Edward's journey took us readers on, I wanted the thing I learned from it to be different. For example, towards the end of the book, Edward becomes broken and a doll fixer takes Edward from a sad, little boy who can't afford to pay for the repairs and I eagerly anticipated the doll fixer being a Christ-like figure: fixing what others can't fix without money and without price. But....nope. There was a lesson but it wasn't that and so I was disappointed with an ending I was never promised. That's weird, right?

Ultimately, this is a good book with a good message about love. There are some pretty depressing side stories like homelessness, neglect and abuse and alcoholism, that may be distressing to younger readers but with explanations and follow-up discussions, I think this would be a good read aloud with young people. But, I'm still on the hunt for a better one.]]> 4.38 2006 The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
author: Kate DiCamillo
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2021/06/12
date added: 2021/06/12
shelves:
review:
I've been on a mission to find a book I can read aloud to a group of young teen girls at a camp next week as a sort of "bedtime story" that helps wind everything down as well ending the day with a hook to keep interest for reading more the next night. I'm not sure that this is the book.

Edward Tulane is a 3 ft toy rabbit with a china-made face and hinged body, long velvet ears and fluffy tail. His owner, Abilene, dresses him with fine clothes and loves him as dearly as any child has loved a toy. Edward is a vain little toy, however, and is frequently offended when treated with anything less than fawning admiration. When teasing boys steal Abilene's fussy toy and play keep away with Edward, the unexpected happens and Edward becomes lost. What happens next is a story about the purpose of existing: is it to love, or be loved? Or is it both?

I think the thing that kept me from loving the book is that with each parable that Edward's journey took us readers on, I wanted the thing I learned from it to be different. For example, towards the end of the book, Edward becomes broken and a doll fixer takes Edward from a sad, little boy who can't afford to pay for the repairs and I eagerly anticipated the doll fixer being a Christ-like figure: fixing what others can't fix without money and without price. But....nope. There was a lesson but it wasn't that and so I was disappointed with an ending I was never promised. That's weird, right?

Ultimately, this is a good book with a good message about love. There are some pretty depressing side stories like homelessness, neglect and abuse and alcoholism, that may be distressing to younger readers but with explanations and follow-up discussions, I think this would be a good read aloud with young people. But, I'm still on the hunt for a better one.
]]> Washington: A Life 8255917
Despite the reverence his name inspires Washington remains a waxwork to many readers, worthy but dull, a laconic man of remarkable self-control. But in this groundbreaking work Chernow revises forever the uninspiring stereotype. He portrays Washington as a strapping, celebrated horseman, elegant dancer and tireless hunter, who guarded his emotional life with intriguing ferocity. Not only did Washington gather around himself the foremost figures of the age, including James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, he orchestrated their actions to help realise his vision for the new federal government, define the separation of powers, and establish the office of the presidency.

Ron Chernow takes us on a page-turning journey through all the formative events of America's founding. This is a magisterial work from one of America's foremost writers and historians.]]> 904 Ron Chernow 1594202664 Lucy 4
This is my third Chernow work and I have to say, I am throughly impressed with not only the breadth of his research but his ability to put it into context in an accessible and readable format. Like a lot of the world, Chernow first came to my attention with the incredible popularity of the musical, "Hamilton." Again, like a lot of the world, I didn't know much about Alexander Hamilton. I had wondered why this seemingly non famous founding father got his face printed on money. Knowing the musical was based off of Lin Manual-Miranda's reading of Chernow's biography of Hamilton and loving the musical, I wanted to go to the source for more information. I went from knowing nothing about a person to learning just how important someone's contributions in this world affected my own life. Warts and all.

Impressed, I then read his biography of Ulysses S. Grant and couldn't believe how much my opinion of that man changed after reading. My son had done a history day project of the past civil war general and president and had come to the conclusion that he was a failure. A drunk who had only gotten elected based on his military accomplishments. Once again, Chernow's book helped me feel like I learned actual history, not just the wikipedia or cliff notes version of it, and I realized how unfair Grant's legacy is. In Chernow fashion, the warts and all history formed a more complete picture and left me appreciative of Grant's amazing pluck, honor and accomplishments.

I started Washington with a completely different vantage point. Unlike a mostly unknown or misunderstood historical figure, I've heard and read lots and lots about George Washington. I've been to Mt. Vernon and its incredible museum twice and knew about the controversies concerning his slaves and that he was a slaveholder and wondered if I would be shocked, impressed or disappointed in any way by Chernow's VERY detailed book (41 hours of audio, people.)

Turns out...no. Because in spite of George Washington being a flawed human being, like ALL human beings are, he still did all of the amazing things I grew up learning about. His unique ability to command, inspire and lead in a quiet, confident and decisive way meant he was probably the only person in THAT environment, in THAT moment of history who could have led the American Revolution to victory, unified the American people to somehow ratify a controversial and unprecedented Constitution for a republic, and walk away from power when very few people wanted or encouraged him to do so. What I did come away with after finishing this book is the satisfaction that knowing the details...even the gritty ones, is ok. It's empowering. It's what we need.

Before literacy was widely encouraged, histories were often told with art and tapestries. If George Washington's history was a tapestry, there would be a huge, eye-catching stain on it in regards to his slave holding practices. Dark red. Can't be unseen. It is conflicting. Because how can you possibly continue to honor a person who owned human beings? There is no universal answer to that question but, for me, I choose to still be in awe of an amazing tapestry that holds a lot of beauty and detail and importance in spite of the stain. I see the stain and am glad that I've been taught what the stain means and that it's wrong. I recognize that my own personal tapestry, that is still being woven and designed, will very likely have stains on it that generations following will see and feel scorn towards because that is the purpose of time and hindsight. To learn. To become better. To be grateful.

You know that question: "Who, from history, would you invite to dinner?" Never very comfortable making chit chat with total strangers, I usually abhor this question. But, Chernow makes these historical figures seem like friends and family members. Flawed...even irritating at times, but known. And so, I'd have all three, Hamilton, Grant and Washington, over for dinner. We'd talk about America and her ideals and her never ending squabbles and how, in spite of all the trouble, she's worth fighting for and making better. I'd love to listen to all of their ideas about how to make this happen.

And, if you happen to get a Chernow biography written about your life, you'd probably get an invite too.]]> 4.14 2010 Washington: A Life
author: Ron Chernow
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2021/06/04
date added: 2021/06/04
shelves:
review:
We all know life isn't fair. Because if it was...everyone would get a biography of their life written by Ron Chernow.

This is my third Chernow work and I have to say, I am throughly impressed with not only the breadth of his research but his ability to put it into context in an accessible and readable format. Like a lot of the world, Chernow first came to my attention with the incredible popularity of the musical, "Hamilton." Again, like a lot of the world, I didn't know much about Alexander Hamilton. I had wondered why this seemingly non famous founding father got his face printed on money. Knowing the musical was based off of Lin Manual-Miranda's reading of Chernow's biography of Hamilton and loving the musical, I wanted to go to the source for more information. I went from knowing nothing about a person to learning just how important someone's contributions in this world affected my own life. Warts and all.

Impressed, I then read his biography of Ulysses S. Grant and couldn't believe how much my opinion of that man changed after reading. My son had done a history day project of the past civil war general and president and had come to the conclusion that he was a failure. A drunk who had only gotten elected based on his military accomplishments. Once again, Chernow's book helped me feel like I learned actual history, not just the wikipedia or cliff notes version of it, and I realized how unfair Grant's legacy is. In Chernow fashion, the warts and all history formed a more complete picture and left me appreciative of Grant's amazing pluck, honor and accomplishments.

I started Washington with a completely different vantage point. Unlike a mostly unknown or misunderstood historical figure, I've heard and read lots and lots about George Washington. I've been to Mt. Vernon and its incredible museum twice and knew about the controversies concerning his slaves and that he was a slaveholder and wondered if I would be shocked, impressed or disappointed in any way by Chernow's VERY detailed book (41 hours of audio, people.)

Turns out...no. Because in spite of George Washington being a flawed human being, like ALL human beings are, he still did all of the amazing things I grew up learning about. His unique ability to command, inspire and lead in a quiet, confident and decisive way meant he was probably the only person in THAT environment, in THAT moment of history who could have led the American Revolution to victory, unified the American people to somehow ratify a controversial and unprecedented Constitution for a republic, and walk away from power when very few people wanted or encouraged him to do so. What I did come away with after finishing this book is the satisfaction that knowing the details...even the gritty ones, is ok. It's empowering. It's what we need.

Before literacy was widely encouraged, histories were often told with art and tapestries. If George Washington's history was a tapestry, there would be a huge, eye-catching stain on it in regards to his slave holding practices. Dark red. Can't be unseen. It is conflicting. Because how can you possibly continue to honor a person who owned human beings? There is no universal answer to that question but, for me, I choose to still be in awe of an amazing tapestry that holds a lot of beauty and detail and importance in spite of the stain. I see the stain and am glad that I've been taught what the stain means and that it's wrong. I recognize that my own personal tapestry, that is still being woven and designed, will very likely have stains on it that generations following will see and feel scorn towards because that is the purpose of time and hindsight. To learn. To become better. To be grateful.

You know that question: "Who, from history, would you invite to dinner?" Never very comfortable making chit chat with total strangers, I usually abhor this question. But, Chernow makes these historical figures seem like friends and family members. Flawed...even irritating at times, but known. And so, I'd have all three, Hamilton, Grant and Washington, over for dinner. We'd talk about America and her ideals and her never ending squabbles and how, in spite of all the trouble, she's worth fighting for and making better. I'd love to listen to all of their ideas about how to make this happen.

And, if you happen to get a Chernow biography written about your life, you'd probably get an invite too.
]]> <![CDATA[The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race]]> 54968118 The Double Helix on her bed. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn’t become scientists, she decided she would.

Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his co-discovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned �a curiosity ​of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.

The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for coronavirus will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code.

Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful boon that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmmm…Should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids?

After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020.]]> 536 Walter Isaacson 1982115858 Lucy 4
I had never heard of Jennifer Doudna before reading this book. When I got my degree in microbiology 23 years ago (holy cow...I feel old), Doudna was just getting noticed as a brilliant young scientist with her specialized interest and discovery of the structure of RNA. At that time, back in the 90s, science was ALL about the DNA (the human genome project had just been expensively funded and completed) and RNA was definitely considered the scrawnier Robin to DNA's Batman status. With Doudna's research and later expertise at understanding the function of RNA in cells and her later ability to manipulate its function, RNA proved to be its very own superhero. Maybe even the most powerful of them all.

The beginning of the book is more biographical as it delves into Doudna's family life and her introduction to science. It quickly and very shallowly explores her personality and relationships but mostly focuses on what labs she worked in and her accomplishments and discoveries. It is VERY science heavy. I enjoyed that aspect because it threw me back into my college classrooms with many, "Oh yeah...I kind of remember that," moments. But, it's also very dense, very technical and not always very page turning. It felt a bit like work. I think I spent 2 weeks reading the first 150 pages. If Isaacson truly understood everything he wrote, then I'm impressed. There is quite of bit of assumption that the reader can follow along with all of the acronyms and remember what they all mean and what they do. Like I said earlier, I got my college degree in microbiology and had entire semester classes devoted to the chemistry and molecular biology of RNA and nucleotides and I was still frequently overwhelmed with the information presented on each page because it is complicated. If science isn't your thing, push through these pages it because it gets better and being taught or helped to understand the science gives the more literary and application of the science more weight. It's like you've earned the right to think seriously about it!

The second half of the book is where Isaacson shined. It's a little disappointing in that the biography of Doudna all but ends. I forgive Isaacson this abandonment of her nuanced involvement because The Code Breaker isn't really billed as her biography. I just let myself assume that it was because of the kind of author Isaacson is and his past books but The Code Breaker is more of a philosophical look at what is a new dawn in humanity: gene editing. What is it? What can it do? What should it do? What should it never do? And why, why, why? Who says? So many questions and thoughts.

Isaacson manages all of this by introducing a wide cast of characters and scientists who, for now, have been leading the way into this new frontier. They've unlocked the door, so to speak, with their crazy, unbelievable intelligence, perseverance, competitiveness and curiosity and with the door open...who gets to walk in? Should we walk in? Do we alter our genes? Do we have a say in our own evolution? What is a desirable trait and what is a disability? Who pays for it all? Will this even the score in the fairness game or widen inequality even farther between the privileged and the marginalized? Seriously interesting questions to think about and discuss with others who you trust not to infuriate you with their answers. I got to talk about it with my sisters and it was really fun. So, if you have a bookclub that can handle the science...there are few books that provoke better discussions.

Throw in the timely conversation about the covid pandemic, coronoviruses (an RNA virus), the rapid development of vaccines using the very science Doudna and RNA scientists have been developing and unraveling for years, boss female science empowerment as well as the merit and role of competitiveness vs. corroboration and I just really liked this book. Read it now and not in a few years. It's emphatically relevant to our current world. ]]> 4.23 2021 The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
author: Walter Isaacson
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/05/22
date added: 2021/05/24
shelves:
review:
When I learned that Walter Isaacson had a new biography coming about and it involved a female scientist and the complicated morality of gene editing, I was eager to get my hands on it. I loved his biography of Steve Jobs and Jobs's role in creating Apple still think about it years later. So, I anticipated a thoroughly researched and well interpreted narrative about science, ambition, ethics, opportunity and achievement. I was not disappointed.

I had never heard of Jennifer Doudna before reading this book. When I got my degree in microbiology 23 years ago (holy cow...I feel old), Doudna was just getting noticed as a brilliant young scientist with her specialized interest and discovery of the structure of RNA. At that time, back in the 90s, science was ALL about the DNA (the human genome project had just been expensively funded and completed) and RNA was definitely considered the scrawnier Robin to DNA's Batman status. With Doudna's research and later expertise at understanding the function of RNA in cells and her later ability to manipulate its function, RNA proved to be its very own superhero. Maybe even the most powerful of them all.

The beginning of the book is more biographical as it delves into Doudna's family life and her introduction to science. It quickly and very shallowly explores her personality and relationships but mostly focuses on what labs she worked in and her accomplishments and discoveries. It is VERY science heavy. I enjoyed that aspect because it threw me back into my college classrooms with many, "Oh yeah...I kind of remember that," moments. But, it's also very dense, very technical and not always very page turning. It felt a bit like work. I think I spent 2 weeks reading the first 150 pages. If Isaacson truly understood everything he wrote, then I'm impressed. There is quite of bit of assumption that the reader can follow along with all of the acronyms and remember what they all mean and what they do. Like I said earlier, I got my college degree in microbiology and had entire semester classes devoted to the chemistry and molecular biology of RNA and nucleotides and I was still frequently overwhelmed with the information presented on each page because it is complicated. If science isn't your thing, push through these pages it because it gets better and being taught or helped to understand the science gives the more literary and application of the science more weight. It's like you've earned the right to think seriously about it!

The second half of the book is where Isaacson shined. It's a little disappointing in that the biography of Doudna all but ends. I forgive Isaacson this abandonment of her nuanced involvement because The Code Breaker isn't really billed as her biography. I just let myself assume that it was because of the kind of author Isaacson is and his past books but The Code Breaker is more of a philosophical look at what is a new dawn in humanity: gene editing. What is it? What can it do? What should it do? What should it never do? And why, why, why? Who says? So many questions and thoughts.

Isaacson manages all of this by introducing a wide cast of characters and scientists who, for now, have been leading the way into this new frontier. They've unlocked the door, so to speak, with their crazy, unbelievable intelligence, perseverance, competitiveness and curiosity and with the door open...who gets to walk in? Should we walk in? Do we alter our genes? Do we have a say in our own evolution? What is a desirable trait and what is a disability? Who pays for it all? Will this even the score in the fairness game or widen inequality even farther between the privileged and the marginalized? Seriously interesting questions to think about and discuss with others who you trust not to infuriate you with their answers. I got to talk about it with my sisters and it was really fun. So, if you have a bookclub that can handle the science...there are few books that provoke better discussions.

Throw in the timely conversation about the covid pandemic, coronoviruses (an RNA virus), the rapid development of vaccines using the very science Doudna and RNA scientists have been developing and unraveling for years, boss female science empowerment as well as the merit and role of competitiveness vs. corroboration and I just really liked this book. Read it now and not in a few years. It's emphatically relevant to our current world.
]]> Klara and the Sun 54120408
In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?]]> 340 Kazuo Ishiguro 059331817X Lucy 2
At least, I think that was the point. Honestly, I thought this was going to be much deeper. Maybe another look at what it means to be human like I felt Ishiguro did so well in his books Never Let Me Go and Remains of the Day. If that's where he intended this book to go, I didn't get there. I never felt like any great lesson or warning about humanity was made. And the sun...is it God? Is it power? For awhile, I let myself imagine that the setting of the book was sort of like The Truman Show with Jim Carey: completely artificial and the sun wasn't even the sun but a prop that emits light but I think it was the sun. And for a robot to not scientifically understand what the sun can and can't do, where it does and doesn't set was just super unconvincing and eye rolling to me. Why would a robot be so obtuse about something like that? And why could absolutely no human being in this entire story speak in anything except vague generalities and incomplete thoughts? It was being mysterious in a completely annoying way. What was Josie's illness? What happened to Sal? I lost track of how many times the phrase, "I'm not going to talk about it," was uttered by the characters. OK. Why am I reading?

I had hope until the very end that all the symbols (like the very weird bull going back into the earth????) and the boxes of angry eyes would all eventually mean something. Perhaps they do but lots was left unexplained or developed. Perhaps I need a cliff notes guide to understanding this book. I can usually work symbolism out on my own. It's something I really enjoy about reading fiction. Sadly, this book was either too dense or too unfinished for my liking. ]]> 3.71 2021 Klara and the Sun
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Lucy
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2021/05/09
date added: 2021/05/10
shelves:
review:
This was such a tiresome read for me. I didn't enjoy the writing. I didn't enjoy the characters. I didn't enjoy the point. Having an AF (Artificial Friend i.e. intelligent robot) as the narrator made for a stilted, confusing and emotionless look at what our future might look like if/when we succumb to gene editing and a creating a more advanced or "lifted" human being. Not to mention how lonely we must become if we have to buy artificial friends.

At least, I think that was the point. Honestly, I thought this was going to be much deeper. Maybe another look at what it means to be human like I felt Ishiguro did so well in his books Never Let Me Go and Remains of the Day. If that's where he intended this book to go, I didn't get there. I never felt like any great lesson or warning about humanity was made. And the sun...is it God? Is it power? For awhile, I let myself imagine that the setting of the book was sort of like The Truman Show with Jim Carey: completely artificial and the sun wasn't even the sun but a prop that emits light but I think it was the sun. And for a robot to not scientifically understand what the sun can and can't do, where it does and doesn't set was just super unconvincing and eye rolling to me. Why would a robot be so obtuse about something like that? And why could absolutely no human being in this entire story speak in anything except vague generalities and incomplete thoughts? It was being mysterious in a completely annoying way. What was Josie's illness? What happened to Sal? I lost track of how many times the phrase, "I'm not going to talk about it," was uttered by the characters. OK. Why am I reading?

I had hope until the very end that all the symbols (like the very weird bull going back into the earth????) and the boxes of angry eyes would all eventually mean something. Perhaps they do but lots was left unexplained or developed. Perhaps I need a cliff notes guide to understanding this book. I can usually work symbolism out on my own. It's something I really enjoy about reading fiction. Sadly, this book was either too dense or too unfinished for my liking.
]]> Migrations 42121525
Epic and intimate, heartbreaking and galvanizing, Charlotte McConaghy's Migrations is an ode to a disappearing world and a breathtaking page-turner about the possibility of hope against all odds.]]> 256 Charlotte McConaghy 125020402X Lucy 2
Honestly, I wish the author would have focused on this story because I actually thought it was fascinating. Even though my mind was skeptic about the novel's setting (No animals? No forests?), I found the scenes on the ocean, on the boat, in the arctic and antarctic really fascinating. I liked the attention it forced on the devastation that is predicted (or that has happened in the book's case) if mankind doesn't stop raping the earth and its creations. Just as books like 1984 and Brave New World and Handmaid's Tale have us imagining corrupt societies and governments, Migrations is a bleak, futuristic look at an unproductive earth that can no longer support life.

What I didn't enjoy was the symbolic parallel story of a mentally ill woman's "migrations." Rather than being about a free-spirited woman who loves the sea and can't seem to choose to stay anywhere, even when leaving hurts her loved ones, the author gave us a nearly psychotic woman with a horrifically traumatic past who really shouldn't be living outside of a mental institution because of the harm she inflicts to individuals and property when sleepwalking or in whatever trances she goes into when she thinks about birds. It was all too weird and dramatic for me. My eye rolling at how implausible her life was made me feel like I was eye rolling at her passion for how important birds are and at climate change, which brought on a guilty feeling I did not appreciate.

I enjoyed the mystery, even though I predicted the big reveal before the big reveal. I was disappointed and ultimately frustrated by the foreshadowing because I don't feel like it necessarily matched the outcome. And Ennis, the fishing boat captain, was way too underdeveloped for how necessary his character was to the story. ]]> 4.11 2020 Migrations
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2021/04/15
date added: 2021/04/15
shelves:
review:
In an extremely dystopic future with no wild animals left on land (none!) and barely any fish left in the oceans due to barbaric humans dismissing any and all warning signs of climate change, deforestation and mass extinction of entire species, one woman attempts to follow the arctic terns, one of the last still living bird breeds, as they migrate from the arctic to the antarctic. She does this by convincing a commercial fishing captain and his crew to allow her passage on their vessel with the promise of helping them find fish while she follows a trio of birds to which she managed to attach tracking devices.

Honestly, I wish the author would have focused on this story because I actually thought it was fascinating. Even though my mind was skeptic about the novel's setting (No animals? No forests?), I found the scenes on the ocean, on the boat, in the arctic and antarctic really fascinating. I liked the attention it forced on the devastation that is predicted (or that has happened in the book's case) if mankind doesn't stop raping the earth and its creations. Just as books like 1984 and Brave New World and Handmaid's Tale have us imagining corrupt societies and governments, Migrations is a bleak, futuristic look at an unproductive earth that can no longer support life.

What I didn't enjoy was the symbolic parallel story of a mentally ill woman's "migrations." Rather than being about a free-spirited woman who loves the sea and can't seem to choose to stay anywhere, even when leaving hurts her loved ones, the author gave us a nearly psychotic woman with a horrifically traumatic past who really shouldn't be living outside of a mental institution because of the harm she inflicts to individuals and property when sleepwalking or in whatever trances she goes into when she thinks about birds. It was all too weird and dramatic for me. My eye rolling at how implausible her life was made me feel like I was eye rolling at her passion for how important birds are and at climate change, which brought on a guilty feeling I did not appreciate.

I enjoyed the mystery, even though I predicted the big reveal before the big reveal. I was disappointed and ultimately frustrated by the foreshadowing because I don't feel like it necessarily matched the outcome. And Ennis, the fishing boat captain, was way too underdeveloped for how necessary his character was to the story.
]]> The Vanishing Half 51791252
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.]]> 343 Brit Bennett 0525536299 Lucy 4
On top of all of these fascinating characters who lose part of their former identities is the obvious main theme. Two biracial sisters. Identical twins. Both light enough to pass as white. One rebels against the message that lighter is always better and marries a dark man and has a dark daughter. One gets mistaken for white and abandons her past to live a white life. Marries a white man. Has a white daughter. It's so clear when you're splitting up twins. Each sister has a vanishing half. But then, they each have a part of themselves that vanishes due to their choices. It's like doing math fractions.

I really enjoyed the writing and the commitment the author displayed in each storyline to developing this intriguing theme. The characters were believable and imperfect. The historical timeline from the late 50s/ early sixties to the late 80s was enjoyable and I felt the authenticity in the descriptions of cars, clothing, hairstyles and prejudice. It's incredible to me how recently unsaid but equally enforced segregation occurred. Is occurring.

An honest and unflinching look at prejudice and race but also an invitation to reflect on what part of our own lives have disappeared over the years.]]> 4.11 2020 The Vanishing Half
author: Brit Bennett
name: Lucy
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/04/09
date added: 2021/04/12
shelves:
review:
I thought reading The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet would immerse me in the confusion of racial identity that comes from being biracial. While it definitely did that, The Vanishing Half brings the theme of identity and how identity changes due to the circumstances of our lives and the choices that we make and inserts it into so many more situations. A man who used to be a girl. A child abandoned by his parents. A girl who loves learning but drops out of high school. A man who becomes a drag queen on the weekends. A wife whose husband is murdered. A housewife whose marriage suffers when she gets a job. A woman who leaves her abusive husband. A country girl trying to fit in in the city. An actress who no longer gets called for any jobs. A woman who succumbs to Alzheimers.

On top of all of these fascinating characters who lose part of their former identities is the obvious main theme. Two biracial sisters. Identical twins. Both light enough to pass as white. One rebels against the message that lighter is always better and marries a dark man and has a dark daughter. One gets mistaken for white and abandons her past to live a white life. Marries a white man. Has a white daughter. It's so clear when you're splitting up twins. Each sister has a vanishing half. But then, they each have a part of themselves that vanishes due to their choices. It's like doing math fractions.

I really enjoyed the writing and the commitment the author displayed in each storyline to developing this intriguing theme. The characters were believable and imperfect. The historical timeline from the late 50s/ early sixties to the late 80s was enjoyable and I felt the authenticity in the descriptions of cars, clothing, hairstyles and prejudice. It's incredible to me how recently unsaid but equally enforced segregation occurred. Is occurring.

An honest and unflinching look at prejudice and race but also an invitation to reflect on what part of our own lives have disappeared over the years.
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