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.

Book 108: Midnight in Austenland

 

This is the second book in this series and I liked it better than the first.  It's still a simple, sometimes cheesy story of a single woman going to vacation at Pembrook Park and hoping to find love in the recreated Regency Era.  This one had a better plot, a mystery and a fairly likeable main character, although at times she does get on your nerves.  

Book 107: The Chaperone

 

I knew I was going to love this book and I was right.  It's about a woman who volunteers to chaperone a young girl to NYC in the 20's.  Her children are grown and she has her own reasons for wanting to leave Kansas and go to New York City.  Her charge is a difficult 15 year old girl who wants to make it big in theatre and has no intention of going back home.  There were a few surprises in this book, one where my mouth was left hanging open for a few minutes.  I love that it followed to story through to a natural ending and didn't leave you hanging and wondering what became of the characters.  Highly recommended.  I'd love to see this made into a movie.

Recently Read

101.  4:50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie
102.  Austenland by Shannon Hale
103.  My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse
104.  The Queen by Robert Lacey
105.  Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford *
106.  Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen

Books 81 - 100

81.  A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
82.  When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt *
83.  The House at Tyneford by Natasha Solomons *
84.  Kitchen Chinese by Ann Mah
85.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling *
86.  What's Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges *
87.  Divergent by Veronica Roth
88.  Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
89.  What She Left Behind by Ellen Marie Wiseman
90.  The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
91.  Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis (Worst book I've ever read, got rid of it after)
92.  The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J. K. Rowling
93.  The Summer We Read Gatsby by Danielle Ganek
94.  The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
95.  Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
96.  The Wives of Los Alamos by Tarashea Nesbit (Disappointing)
97.  Genesis by Bernard Becket
98.  Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers
99.  The Chosen by Chaim Potok
100.  Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim

* = Recommended 

Books 61 - 80

61.  Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok *
62.  The Rose Project by Graeme Simsion
63.  Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston *
64.  The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain *
65.  Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
66.  Just One Day by Gayle Forman
67.  About a Boy by Nick Hornby *
68.  Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist by R. Cohn and D. Levithan
69.  How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
70.  The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman *
71.  Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
72.  The Silent Wife by S. A. Harrison
73.  Gone in a Flash by Susan Cooper
74.  The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane
75.  Mary Coin by Marisa Silver *
76.  The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin
77.  Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt *
78.  Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder *
79.  Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
80.  The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout

* = Recommended

Books 40-60

40.  The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee
41.  Betsy and the Emperor by Staton Rabin
42.  The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
43.  Our Town by Thornton Wilder
44.  This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz *
45.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak *
46.  Disneylanders by Kate Abbott
47.  Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
48.  The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Alexander McCall Smith *
49.  The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
50.  Bridget Jones, Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding
51.  Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates *
52.  Small Damages by Beth Kephart
53.  The Expats by Chris Pavone
54.  Starry Night by Debbie Macomber
55.  The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley
56.  Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
57.  Tinkers by Paul Harding
58.  Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women's Literary Society by Amy Hill Hearth
59.  Christmas is Murder by C. S. Challinor
60.  The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen *

* = Recommended

Fallen behind in blogging

But I am still working on my reading challenge.
I am currently reading Book #65, which is Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton.

So far in 2014, I have read some great books:

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok, which I LOVED.  One of the best books I've ever read. 

The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen.  It was a little slow at times, but a really good book about a freed slave who becomes a Union spy.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion.  I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought, but still a cute book about an Autistic geneticist who is looking for the perfect wife.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.  I can't believe I've gotten to 39 and never read this book.  I loved it and am picking up the movie at the library tomorrow.

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain.  Again, another book I've always heard of, but never read.  I really liked it.  About a transient who happens upon a couple, falls in love with the wife and they plot to do away with the husband.  I'm looking into reading more by this author.

I put up every book I'm reading on my Instagram, if any other book lovers are on there, add me, I'm Lamerefamily and use the #200challenge.