Reading Update

I really wish I was good at book reviews. Really, really.  Unfortunately I just can't form my thoughts into entertaining words, which is why I am a blogging failure.  I thought maybe if I blogged more I would get better.  I have had different blogs over the years and I'm pretty sure I was better with words pre-Facebook.  The easier things get the more my brain turns to mush.  Raising four kids didn't help.

I really wish I had started a book blog wayyy back when blogs first came out.  If I had written daily maybe I would have gotten really good at it and made some money from said imaginary blog and also maybe would have been sent free books to review.  This is my dream that I didn't dream in time and now it's too late.

Anyway...I'm still reading.  I love that my kids are grown or almost grown and I don't have much to do and I have a ton of time to read and am able to buy books whenever I would like.  I am living a book lover's dream, to a certain degree.  If you don't dream too big.

I'm currently reading a few books:

Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar
The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly
Notes from a Blue Bike:  The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World by Tsh Oxenreider (on my Kindle)
Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye (aloud to my teens for their curriculum)
The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien (aloud to my teens for fun)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (aloud to my daughter to share a great book)


Maybe I'll come here more often and just record what I'm reading and ramble on a bit.  Maybe I'll forget about this blog again for a few months.  Who knows?
Today the plan is to go read on the beach while watching my husband and oldest son attempt to surf.  I hate that they're surfing...sharks, rip tide and all that fun Florida stuff...but I will enjoy reading and the relief I feel when they finally finish and they both still have all their limbs.
Happy Reading fellow book lovers!

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

Wow.  I just finished this book.  It was hard to put down at times and at times I needed a 15 minute break from it.

I've read a few Jodi Picoult's novels.  The Storyteller was amazing, My Sister's Keeper made me cry (I saw the movie first, which prompted me to read the book), The Pact, which I wasn't too impressed with.  I think that's it.  The Storyteller is what made me pick up her newest book.  I have seen many negative comments about it, including that it goes too much into elephants and their behavior.  I'll agree there were times when I was tempted to skim a page or two, but I didn't.  For the most part I enjoyed learning more about these majestic, intelligent animals.

Leaving Time is about a young teenage girl, Jenna, who is looking for her mother, who disappeared when she was three years old.  Her mother was a scientist studying elephant behaviors, specifically elephant grief.  Both her parents worked at an elephant sanctuary in New Hampshire (of all places) and one night there is a death that is deemed an accident to avoid a messy, possible murder investigation. That night her mother disappears from the local hospital and is never heard from again and her father ends up in the psychiatric hospital, where he still resides 10 years later.

Jenna, who has lived with her grandmother since that night, finds a washed-up psychic and the detective that was on the scene the night of the accident who blames himself for not digger deeper, to help her find her mother or at least figure out the truth of that night.  There are twists and just when I thought I had figured it out, I turned the page and was shocked at the turn of events.  Leaving Time is definitely a good story and I look forward to reading Jodi's next book.

4/5

Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith

This was my final book in 2014.  I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  I first read it sometime around 2005 and I've since reread it and had my oldest daughter read it and she also loved it. 

I don't know what took me so long to try another novel by Betty Smith, but I'm glad I finally did.  I really enjoyed this story.  Annie and Carl are young and in love and they decide to get married even though both families are against it.  He's in law school and she comes out to his college and embarks on her own self-education.  She discovers she has a passion and talent for writing and just like Francie Nolan, she loves books.  The young couple goes through some hard times, but always some bit of luck or help comes at the last minute to save them, which I thought was a bit too convenient but I remembered when the book was written and enjoyed the story for what it is.

There's a few things that did annoy me:  Her vague references to her step-father and some incidents that are never fully disclosed and also through most of the book I just did not like her husband, Carl.  I felt that he antagonized her purposely, only to make up with her right away for his own selfish reasons.   He's also jealous of her reading and writing, worried she may out-grown him and I can totally see that happening if the story continued on.  As it was it ended with a bright future ahead of them.  I truly enjoyed this sweet, simple story of a new couple's first year together.

4/5

Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery

This book was recommended by a friend, but I didn't think it was going to be of interest to me.  Then I saw it on GoodReads list for best books of 2014 and I decided I should give it a chance.  It did start a bit slow, but then I got into it.

Terribly abused by her husband for decades, when Emma Gatewood was 67 she decided to do something for herself.  Take a walk.  She didn't let her children know where she was going until much later, she started in Georgia and hiked the entire Appalachian Trail through to the end in Maine.  She then hiked it again in its entirety.  She traveled light and depended on others for much of her food and shelter along the way  She didn't use any fancy gear and didn't spend much money in the 5 months it took her to complete.  Emma became the first woman to hike the entire trail.  As she gained national attention she was able to call attention to much needed improvements for the AT.  Trails were not clearly marked, shelters were is disrepair and/or filthy.

She hiked the trail a 3rd time in portions and later walked the 2,000 mile Oregon Trail.  Today there is a 6 mile trail in her home state of Ohio named after her and people gather once a year to hike together in her memory. 

When I was reading this book, I could picture the beautiful scenery and wished that I was also on the AT experiencing the nature and solitude.  Several years ago I read Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods and I also daydreamed of hiking the trail.  We've hiked a small portion of the AT in North Carolina a few years ago when on vacation.  As a family we have always enjoyed day hikes when we lived up in CT.  Lately my older children have expressed an interest in hiking a longer portion of the trail so we are planning to do that when our grandbaby is old enough to go with us. 

I definitely recommend picking up this book and getting to know this strong woman who isn't as well known anymore.  I'm glad I got to know her.

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

I saw this book featured on a bookish website.  I think it may have been Book Riot.  I checked it out on Amazon and saw the mixed reviews and worried about buying it.  Luckily my (very small) library had a copy and so I put it on hold and it came in quickly.  I had never read anything by Amy Bloom before.

The first two lines were great:  "My father's wife died.  My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us."

In my mind I said "Oh, this sounds good.  All those people were wrong,  it's going to be a good book."

Um, nope.  After the first couple of chapters the story gets a little odd and becomes mainly about the older sister's sexuality and her issues with other women.  She is not a likeable character.  In fact there are only a few characters I could stand.  The writing style was very odd.  There were many times I didn't know who was thinking or talking and would have to go back and reread.  Quite a bit of the book is told through letters that only go one way.

Set mostly in the 1940's the characters have a string of bad luck brought on mostly by their own choices or the people they've let into their lives. Eva is abandoned by her mother without a goodbye or explanation and left to live with a father she doesn't know well and a sister she has never met. Their father is a mess:  a liar, theif, con man and coward, just to name a few of his faults. Iris' actions are criminal and abusive. Eva seems to try to do her best to keep things going and pick up the mess everyone creates. I kept hoping things would turn around but it took until the end of the book for a glimmer of future hope.  I also thought the end was abrupt and the final page I was just like "whaaaat?"  That didn't really go with the entire book in my opinion, but ok. The whole book just felt like a train veering off the tracks and never righted itself. 

To sum up:  Nice cover art, great opening lines, crappy mixed up story written badly and ended abruptly.  It could have been a much better story.  Thankfully I saved my money and used the library.
2/5 Stars

Challenge Wrap-up...quite a bit late

I finished my challenge on August 15, 2014 and sadly I did not make my goal.  In all I read 147 books.  At the time I felt good about having read so much, but looking back I wish I would have made my goal.  It's very hard to read so much when you have a family though.  I homeschool my children so a good chunk of my days are taken up. 

Soon after I finished my challenge I became a Mimi, which is why I haven't been blogging, not that I was keeping up with it well in the first place.  My new grandson is such a sweetie and a lot of my days are spent holding him, but I am surprised I'm still finding time to read.

I am actually re-reading Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, which is the book that inspired me to try and read 200 books in one year.  The author actually reads a book a day, which I knew I wouldn't be able to do.

I'm going to use this blog to try and keep track of what I'm reading.  I do that religiously on Goodreads, but I would like to try to write a little something about what I'm reading.  We'll see if I can keep up with it somewhat.  I feel like I used to be able to write better than I can now.  The older I get the mushier my brain becomes. I blame the kids. Maybe if I start and keep at it I'll get better at it.

Book 131: The Storyteller

I 

I wasn't too sure about this book because I usually really dislike books about the Holocaust.  I just can't take the human torture, it's too much for me.  I happen to currently be rereading The Diary of  Young Girl by Anne Frank as well, getting ready for a WWII unit I'm doing with my kids and I had ordered this book based solely on the number of stars it received on Amazon, and that it was by Jodi Picoult.  I've read a couple of her books and like them and since this one had gotten such good reviews I ordered it without even reading the summary to find out what the book was about.  To my surprise (and a little disappointment) it was about WWII.  I started it and it was ok, but then it got good.  REALLY good.  It ended up being one of the best books I've ever read.  Yes, it is sad and it did make me cry, but it was so worth it.

The book starts out with Sage, a young girl in modern times.  She works at a bakery and she has her own secrets, she has scars on her face and tries to hide from the world.  She befriends an elderly gentleman, Josef, and it turns out he has secrets of his own.  He used to be an SS officer and worked at Auschwitz.  Sage is Jewish by heritage only, she is an atheist.  Her own grandmother was a survivor of Auschwitz.  As she gets to know Josef a little better, he asks her for a shocking favor and she also gets to hear his story of being a German SS officer during WWII.  However, it is her grandmother's story that held me captivated.  This is definitely a beautiful book written about the Holocaust, from two points of view and how it still affects people and their families to this day.  I highly recommend it.