Thursday, November 1, 2018

October Reads (9)


One star = did not like it at all
Two stars = eh, it was okay
Three stars =  liked it
Four stars = really, really liked it
Five stars = absolutely loved it

1-Star (2)
*Picnic at Hanging Rock (Fiction, J. Lindsay)
This is a ‘classic’ book about a group of girls in boarding school in Australia who go for a picnic at ‘Hanging Rock’.  4 of the girls wander off.  1 comes back, in a petrified state, unable to recall anything that happened.  The other 3 girls never come back, as well as their ‘headmistress’ (who has also disappeared).  This book had so much promise and a very ‘creepy’ feel to it (which I like).  However, the good people in the book were pretty and thin.  And the bad people were ugly and fat.  ?  I realize this book was written many moons ago, but still.  It just left a bad taste in my mouth.  AND…there’s no resolution.  Which I knew.  And I’m okay with.  But I at least have to have someone to root for.  And I hated almost every character in this book, and I had no one to root for.  I’m glad I got this one for free through the library.

*Girl, Wash Your Face (Non-Fiction, R. Hollis)
Written for privileged white women BY a privileged white woman. 

2-Star (1)
**Unsheltered (Fiction, B. Kingsolver)
Soooooo disappointed in this one.  If you read the book jacket, it looks promising.  But it was nothing but lectures about the environment, climate change, social issues and politics.  At times it felt like I was reading transcripts of a debate.

3-Star (2)
***There There (Fiction, T. Orange)
I have so many feelings about this book.  I ultimately gave it 3 stars because of content.  This was a book I put on hold at the library months ago and it finally came through on my Kindle. It almost feels like a short story collection at the beginning, because each chapter introduces a new character (unrelated to the last one), their history, and their current situation.  There are two things that each character has in common with one another:  they are all Native American, and they are all heading to a big powwow in Oakland, California. 

The book tackles how difficult modern Native Americans still have it today living here and why.  It tackles alcoholism, drug use, obesity, sexual assault, poverty, and more.  Each chapter is told from a different perspective. 

It’s one of those books that I think everyone SHOULD read (especially if you live in an area with a heavy population of Native Americans like I do, but really, everyone should read it).

But it’s an incredibly difficult read.  Especially the prologue, because the prologue is kind of a history lesson and it’s 100% true.  And it’s incredibly violent and horrifying because these things actually happened.

So…lots of mixed feelings.  But I’m really glad I read it.  And it will stick with me for quite a while.

***The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Fiction, A. Barrows)
I enjoyed this book.  I will admit, the only reason I read it was because I want to watch the Netflix series and wanted to read the book first.  I listened to it on audio, but I think I would have enjoyed it a bit more if I had read it.  I have the ‘real’ book at home though, so I’ll keep it (in case I love the Netflix series).  Anyways, in a nutshell, it’s about a secret book club in England post World War II.  There are various members of this club, one of whom is an author herself and wants to write a book about the book club and its members.

4-Star (3)
****Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat (Non-Fiction, M. May)
I read this as part of an 8-week workshop offered for free at work.  It’s basically intuitive/mindful eating.  The book was really good though and an easy read.  I learned a lot!

****The Trouble With Goats and Sheep (Fiction, J. Cannon)
My second Cannon book (her first ha ha).  I’m a fan.  This was a somewhat dark mystery about 2 girls on a mission to find out what’s happened to a disappearing woman in their neighborhood.

****Scarlet (Fiction, M. Meyer)
This is the 2nd book in the Lunar Chronicles series (Cinder was the first). This book picks up exactly where Cinder left off (on a cliffhanger of course).  We are introduced to Scarlet, a young lady who lives on a farm in France and tries to keep it going when her grandmother mysteriously disappears.  Cinder is also in the story quite a bit and their stories intertwine as we find out their connection and find out why Scarlet’s grandmother disappeared.  We’re also introduced to Thorne, Cinder’s…friend (?) as well as Wolf, who is a very surprising character (and no, he’s not an ACTUAL wolf, he’s a human, that’s just his name).  Anyways, it was really good and I enjoyed it better than the first book.  And during the last few chapters I could NOT put down.  It’s just a fun series!  Cress (Rapunzel) is up next.   

5-Star (1)
*****Virgil Wander (Fiction, L. Enger)
Lief Enger is an author that only writes a book every 10 years or so.  I LOVED his last book, Peace Like a River, so when Virgil Wander hit the shelves I got it right away. 

Virgil is recovering from a traumatic brain injury due to his car flying (literally) into the Lake Superior.  He runs (and lives above) the only movie theater in town, The Empress.  The movie theater is failing, and the small town is failing in many ways.  But the eccentric townspeople rally around Virgil and help him along with his recovery.  This is a slow read, but I believe it’s intentionally slow.  Because Virgil speaks slowly.  He thinks slowly.  And he’s telling the story. 

Total Books Read: 9 (2 non-fiction, 7 fiction)

Formats
Kindle: 2
Audio: 3           
Real Books: 4

Books I read for FREE via the library e-book/audio book system:  6
Books I paid for (actual books/Kindle books):  3

DNF (Did Not Finish) 5:     

Howard’s End (couldn’t get into it)

Being Mortal (life’s too short to read more books about death)

The Lifeboat (made it about halfway through and got bored)

In Pieces (the Sally Field memoir).  It wasn’t because I didn’t like it….I made it about 75 pages and then other books were calling my name.  So I set this one aside.  And it was a library book.  So I had to return it.  I’m not sure if I’ll attempt checking it out again.  I got enough ‘into’ it that I saw glimpses of Sally Field’s troubled childhood.  And it was difficult to read.

The Good Neighbor (the Fred Rogers memoir).  So this was a free audio book.  I think if I would have read this BEFORE I watched recent documentary ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’ I would have enjoyed it more.  But the book kind of felt like a recap of the documentary and the documentary was SO GOOD.  So it just felt repetitive to me.  I made it about halfway through.

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