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Anomaly was another impulse read for me. Not sure what led me to it but sometimes that happens. I read this one over another vacation and even though I made myself finish it, I don’t think I liked it. I liked bits of it. But not the whole thing. It tried too hard. But it was a quick read.
The Four Ms Bradwells was for book club. I had to read it super-fast as I had put it off too long. So I sat and read the whole thing in one sitting. It was too long and too wordy for that. Even though I found parts of it interesting, I think the book was too long for what it was. 100 fewer pages would have made this book much, much better. I haven’t read anything else by the author so I don’t know if it’s an anomaly or just her style. But I am not reading anything more by her anytime soon.
I picked up A Tale for the Time Being because it was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. I had never read Ruth Ozeki before and I figured there’s no time like now. I read this book on the flight back to San Fran and I have to say it wasn’t the best time to be reading this book. It’s not a super-fast moving book. At least it wasn’t for me. But I really did like it. Especially once the twisting part started. The problem is, there is a lot of sadness in this book. Some terrible things happen. And I’ve sworn off reading books where terrible things happen. So this was a challenge for me.
The Execution of Noa P. Singleton was my next pick for the Summer holiday (also from Amazon’s list.) Not sure what drew me to it. The beginning was interesting and kept me going. But then it just didn’t lead anywhere. And it never got much more interesting. At least not to me. So even though I let it drag me the whole time and spent all my vacation reading a few pages here and there, I don’t think I can say that I really liked this book. More like, meh.
I read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry because it was on the Amazon Book of the Month list. I read it last summer (yea this are a bit delayed!) on my way home and I kept reading a few pages and having to stop. So even though I liked it, I couldn’t read it with any sort of attention span. Then we got to Turkey and I was up from 2-4am with jetlag. I lay in bed, thankful for my iPad and read the book in the dark quiet of the early morning. And I loved it. I just loved, loved, loved it. I recommend this one.
I am a huge Glennon fan so there was no question that I was going to read Carry On Warrior as soon as I got my hands on it. In my opinion, Glennon has the best combination of humor and heart. She is so wonderful with her words and can make you feel things deeply. I love how she is working hard at being a good human and doing hard things. I feel like that’s my goal in life: to be the best human I can be and work regularly at doing hard things. If I can accomplish those, I am in good shape. She may not be your cup of tea and she can be over the top but, to me, she’s wonderful. And so is her book.
I picked up The Mockingbirds because I read about it somewhere. I wish I could remember where but I can’t. It must have been in a good context, though, cause I felt compelled to read it right away. I got it, sat down, and read it. And it was….meh. It was okay. It wasn’t terrible but I can’t say that it was a great book. It was a quick, fun read. Sensitive subject and I think it was trying to send a message but I have mixed feelings even about that. Alas, there we go.
The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards was a recommendation from a friend in book club. It’s a short story collection from a first-time author. I don’t usually read short stories, so I wasn’t sure about this one. But I am so so so glad I read it. It was absolutely awesome. I can’t even explain the weird, unusual, awesomeness of this book. You have to read it to see the creative way it’s written. For some people it might have been too cute for its own good. But not for me. I loved it.
I loved several of Elizabeth Strout’s books so when The Burgess Boys came out, I knew I wanted to read it. She has a magical way with words. I will admit it’s been a while since I read this book and I don’t remember it as well as I remember some of her other ones like Olive Kitteridge. But I still remember liking it. Elizabeth has a gift for creating characters and even if this wasn’t my favorite of hers, all of her books are wonderful and completely worthy of your time. Though if you’ve not read her before, start with Olive Kitteridge.
The Interestings was another Amazon recommendation. This particular book was long and involved. It follows friends who are close at a summer camp and lasts through their lives. I had a hard time getting through it but when I was done, the characters stayed with me for many, many days. This is my definition of a good book. So this one is mixed feelings. Reading it was relatively slow but I am glad I did.
Parallel was an impulse read. I saw it and decided I had to read it. So I started and finished in one swoop. I don’t care if it wasn’t high literature. I loved it. It was a fun, fast read and if the genre is your style, I highly recommend it. I find that it’s always good to shake up the reading every now and then so I don’t ever get in any kind of rut. Given the choice, I’d always read amazing books but those are hard to find. So having some fun ones like this in between okay books is always good to have.
The Woman Upstairs was another one of the Book of the Month recommendations from Amazon. It was another interesting read. I am not sure I liked it. I didn’t dislike it. The main character was interesting and grumpy and even downright angry at times but she was three-dimensional. Interesting. Even if not likable. This novel got a bunch of press over the fact that the author created this “angry” woman. In the end, I think I’d recommend it. |
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