Two Months of Reading

I just was traveling too much in March.  I couldn't make myself sit down and write my post about the March books and then one day I woke up and it was the last day of April.  So here is an abbreviated post on all the books I read or listened to in March/April.  Some of the books I already highlighted in other posts due to publishers sending me them to review. As always I love to hear what people think.  There was some really good story telling in many of these books.  Only a few of them were duds.  Happy Tuesday!  Happy Reading!

The Girl He Used To Know by Tracey Garvis Graves

I was lucky enough to get to read this book prior to it coming out.  Thanks to St. Martin's Press for sending me this book to review.  #tghutkheartbreakers.  I loved this book- 5 stars.  

Annika and Jonathan's relationship is complex, but yet simple.  Their relationship begins in college and from the get go I knew there was something different about Annika and their would be something different about their relationship.  It is a needed story for this day and age.  I can't say a whole lot without giving the book away.  I will say I enjoyed the settings this book takes place in... Champaign-Urbana, Chicago and New York City-  settings I knew and it made the book come to life for me.  

Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Book Club book for March.  The Bookies liked it a lot.  I gave it four stars.  Kya, "the marsh girl", is abandoned as a young child.  She perseveres and with the help of childhood friend Tate learns to read and then goes onto be solely independent (friends Jumpin and Tate do help her out at times).  This story highlights how those who are different are judged, bullied, excluded, and become isolated.  This story weaves a good mystery.

The Shoemaker's Wife by Adriana Trigiani

I listened to this book on audio.  I gave it three stars.  I think I started listening to this book a year or so ago and stopped.  A friend loved this book and suggested it so I picked it up again.  I made it through, but it was just OK for me.

Enza and Chiro meet on the mountain in their hometown in Italy.  This meeting turns their lives upside down and it becomes a story of love, immigration, perseverance, friendship and family.  I am an Adriana Trigiani fan, but seem to enjoy her books that take place in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia- highly recommend Big Stone Gap, Big Cherry Holler, and Milk Glass Moon.  I also enjoyed Lucia, Lucia which takes place in New York City in the 1950's.  

Almost Home by Valerie Fraser Luesse

4 stars.  Check the review out here: http://imchattynatty.blogspot.com/2019/03/almost-home.html

Reforesting Faith: What Tress Teach Us About the Nature of God and His Love for Us 

by Matthew Sleeth

4 stars.  Check the review out here:  http://imchattynatty.blogspot.com/2019/03/reforesting-faith.html

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

Book Club book for April.  I listened to this book on audio.  I gave it four stars.  Liane Moriarty knows how to write about complex, tough subjects.  She knows how to write characters so that I can envision them when I'm reading or listening.  The characters are full of "character".  This book had many different stories that all were intertwined.  There is a husband's secret and I enjoyed figuring it out.  This book made for good discussion around a table of Bookies.  For instance, would it be easier for your to lie about your husband beating or cheating on you? Some interesting Bookie conversation.  

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

I have had this book on my shelf for quite awhile.  I think I was a little intimidated by the length, the subject matter (Count Rostov who was sentenced to house arrest at Metropol Hotel Moscow) and  readers who commented it reads "slow".  

I enjoyed this book and I didn't feel like it read "slow" unless I wanted it to.  Its the kind of book I could sit down at the end of the night with a glass of Cabernet or a hot cocoa and just cozy up into a reading chair and read.  The characters in this book made the story, including the Metropol Hotel, itself.  I know very little about Russian history and reading this story made me want to learn more.  One thing I struggled with was the very little mentioned on why Count Rostov was sentenced to house arrest.  I wanted specifics and I thought those would uncover throughout the story, but they didn't, instead other people's stories uncovered.  There are some very endearing relationships that bloom during this read- I truly enjoyed it.  4 stars (but after writing this review I think I should give it 5 stars- it makes me happy to think I read it).  

Next year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton

A bookie suggested this read/listen.  So I tried it on audio.  I gave it three stars.  

Marisol has to travel back to Cuba to spread her grandma Elisa's ashes.  The story spans 1950's to 2017.  Cuban ruler Batista is being overthrown during the Cuban Revolution with Fidel Castro seeking rule after Batista is overthrown. This part of the 1950's Cuban story was fascinating.  I knew Fidel's name and his dictator rule, but I didn't know about Batista.  Flash forward to present day when Marisol is learning about her grandmother's involvement with a "Castro" man even though her wealthy father supported Batista.  Marisol during her travel through Cuba and discovering her grandmother's story finds her own revolutionary man.  There is violence during both the Batista and Castro eras.  I enjoyed this story and learning about a time in history I know little about, but the story started to become a little too unbelievable.  Too many stars "aligned" for me.  This book is a great reminder of why I enjoy historical fiction so much... it reminds me of how little I know of history.  

A Silken Thread by Kim Vogel Sawyer

Thanks to WaterBrook for sending me this book to review.  A three star historical fiction read.  For the full review check out this review: http://imchattynatty.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-silken-thread.html

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

4 star read about a library on fire.  Yep you read that right.  This book's story is based around the LA central public library fire that took place in the mid 1980s.  It is a book about what libraries do and mean for so many people.  I chose to listen to this book on audio and at first I thought I was going to have to stop because the author, who narrated the book, just sounded to monotone to me.  As I went on to listen her voice grew on me and I felt like I was listening to a radio journalist/news reporter.  This book is packed with information about libraries, and  book history.  Plus its a mystery... who set fire to the LA central public library?  Any book lover/library lover I think would enjoy this read. 

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman

Three star read.  I have avoided Anne Fadiman for quite a while.  I read her book "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" early in my Bookie/book club life.  I didn't enjoy the book due to frustration over a religious/cultural/health care issue (a child wasn't receiving medical treatment for her epilepsy due to cultural/religious beliefs).  I gave up on the book- which I rarely did back in my younger years. That's telling you how much I didn't enjoy it.  

Fast forward to a recent podcast- One Great Book by Anne Bogel - and she highlighted this book.  A book about reading how could I go wrong.  Well lets just say that I don't think Anne Fadiman or her family members are "common readers".  She is a "high brow/heavy lit" kind of a reader.  Each chapter is a short essay about a part of her reading life/experience.  Some of the chapters I could relate to others I was loss just for my own sheer idiocy/intelligence level not up to Fadiman's.  Luckily it was a short read so I plowed through it.

Well that's it.  Two months of reading- 11 books, 4 audiobooks, 7 hard cover, and some great story telling and characters.  Onward to May!

A Silken Thread

A Silken Thread by Kim Vogel Sawyer

This year along with trying to read longer books I'm also trying to be a bit more selective in what I'm reading.  Last year I pretty much read any book I could get from publishers to review.    This year I'm working on being more selective.  When I received the request for reading this book for Waterbrook Publishing the story line intrigued me.  I love reading about history in a fiction content.  This story highlights the International Cotton Exposition that took place in Atlanta following Civil War (1881).  I had never heard of this exposition and when I looked up a brief synopsis of the exposition it took place near the Western & Atlantic railroad.  It's goal was to show the progress made since the city's destruction during the Battle of Atlanta (que Gone With the Wind music and visual of Scarlett O'Hara driving frantically out of the burning city of Atlanta- love that movie).  

That is the backdrop/setting of this story.  The story highlights three main characters.  18 year old Laurel Millard- who is the youngest of 7 children and early on in the story is given the task of being the care taker of her widowed mother since the other 6 children have families and are married.  Laurel doesn't appreciate this request by her siblings and worries that unless she finds a man that can take her mother in all the while starting a life with her she is destined to becoming a spinster.  The next character Willie Sharp is dealing with his own widowed father, who the reader finds has suffered a debilitating stroke.  Wille's father needs rehabilitation/therapy in a "home" which Willie can only afford if he gets hired on as a workman during the Exposition.  He previously had been a factory worker for Mr. Rochester, a wealthy businessman in town.  Mr. Rochester, knowing Willie needs the money for his father's rehab, gives Willie his blessing to work at the Exposition and says his job in the factory will be awaiting him when the Exposition ends.  Lastly, Langdon Rochester, Mr. Rochester's son, has been given an ultimatum- settle down, start taking the family business serious, find a wife, or his inheritance is gone.  Langdon decides what better place than the Exposition to check out the options for his bride to be.  He picks Laurel as his object of affection. 

The story shows not only the lives and stories of our three main characters, but brings out the underlying story line of post Civil War Atlanta.  There has been changes post war, but as so prevalent in even today's world, there is still evidence showing inequality, racism, and difference between socio-economic classes.  

All of that said- I found this book a little slow and predictable/cliche'.  I was hoping for a little surprise, unexpected story line twist and didn't get it.  It was an easy read, and I give it three stars.

Thanks to WaterBrook for sending me this book to review.  

DNF... a book

In racing lingo there is a term called DNF- Did Not Finish- meaning you didn't finish the race you were in.  DNS means you didn't start the race.  Well I'm having to post a review on a book that I DNF.  I rarely do this, especially if it is a book that has been sent to me to review, but alas almost half-way through the following book I just couldn't push further. I was mentally not into it and lately I'm feeling bogged down by travel, kid's activities, all the "to do's" and so when it comes to reading I don't want to feel like it is just one more thing "to do"/"to finish".  Reading is supposed to be enjoyable not a chore.

Breaking the Power of Negative Words

How Positive Words Can Heal 

by Mary C. Busha

This book was sent to me by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group to review. #RevellReads

I started it and the first three chapters were just fine.  The premise is negative words that have been said to us, or that we have said can greatly impact our present/future.  For example, let's say you were told "you are homely" by someone you know (or even don't know) as a child.  That comment can if internalized and believed leads to some not great self esteem.  The first few chapters the author shares different stories she gleamed by interviewing different people who were affected by parent's comments in childhood and then leading into their young adult life. Many of these people persevered despite the negative comments and bad environments they were raised in.  They persevered by forgiving the person who did them harm.   She introduces the way in which we can forgive our verbal offenders. 

Then chapter four came about and I just couldn't "drink the Koolaid".  I struggled to follow along with her weaving of biblical scripture and stating many times the importance of reading the Bible.  She talked about how we need to "know our true selves" and hence move forward with forgiveness of past painful comments by others- just by knowing that God loves us.  Maybe it is the stage in my  life I'm in, but I felt this book quickly turned into an advertisement for daily Bible reading and Christianity/knowing God and praying to God being the answer to dealing with the "negative words" in our lives.   She emphasized the importance of scripture in our lives and I felt like that was her sole answer to the problems these negative words created.  She laid on heavily that if you weren't reading scripture you were, in my words, failing.  

I read the Bible and I do believe it's words and most of the message, but I also am not a literal Bible reader so I have always avoided those who push Biblical Scripture as the end all be all to world's problems.  I figured Chapter 4- The Truth About You- just wasn't for me so then I moved onto Chapter 5- Breaking Free Through the Power of Prayer.  I was hoping for some redemption here as I like reading about different forms of prayer.  However, I just was more lost and disappointed in the reading experience. 

I think this book just didn't speak to me.  I felt the writing was geared to an older demographic- I can't exactly state why I feel this way, but I felt like it was a grandma telling her child- "just go pray about forgiving that person who said that hurtful thing" and " read your Bible and you will find the answer".  

So Chapter 5 was where I stopped.  Interestingly enough this book on Amazon has almost 5 stars and Good Reads it clocks in at 4 stars.  So I think this book just isn't a "me" book.  I think I was hoping for applicable/every day ways,  that weren't related to reading Biblical scripture, to handle when people say not nice things.  I was hoping for reminders on how to watch what I say to my own children, patients, friends, family, and strangers.  We all need to work on communicating better and I recognize that I have let hard comments sit in my gut/heart too long.  I've also said hurtful things I wish I could take back.  Those type of topics were what I was hoping to get covered/answered in this reading experience.  Didn't happen so I'm DNF this one.

Hope Revell doesn't fire me from reviewing books for them.