When I heard Nick Hornby was coming out with a new book, I preordered the minute I could. And Juliet, Naked did not disappoint. I’ll admit, I love Hornby and while I wasn’t a huge fan of A Long Way Down, I’ve loved all of his books. I love his style. His humor. His ability to take a serious subject and inject a lot of humor and emotion into it. Noone can do that like Hornby.
And this book is no exception. Its characters are well thought-out, interesting, relateable, and their story is worth reading.
I enjoyed this book so much I am not even sure what to pick for next week.
Sometimes a book keeps showing up everywhere I turn. The Book Thief was one of those books. I saw it in several blogs I read and week after week, it just kept showing up. So I decided it was time to read it. Had I known what it was about, I wouldn’t have even added it to my list.
I don’t read books that take place during the second world war. Ever. The only exceptions to this were “The Reader” which I did love and a book I read in Turkish a while ago written by a survivor. I have watched Schindler’s List and Life is Beautiful. In the case of the latter, after the movie ended, I wept in the theater for almost an hour. This topic gets under my skin. I am not ordinarily very religious but I cannot stand reading about the second world war. So I err on the side of not even picking such books up.
But I had picked this one up and when I found out what it was about (my sister told me) I decided to put it right back down. But my sister insisted. It’s really amazing she said. My friend literally couldn’t put it down. She read the whole thing in one day. So I read on.
It was terrible. Not the book, mind you. The book is odd but well-written and the story is touching and personal and so human. That’s what makes it that much worse. Because, of course, the story is terribly sad. So many horrible things happen. So many people die. And there’s so much destruction.
I just don’t have the stomach for this much sorrow. To see how incredibly cruel humans can be. Life is hard enough as it is, I don’t need my books to be this sad. I really don’t.
Well, one more book finished. My pick for next week is an author I adore and I hope it’s a happy story.
Quite a few months ago, I read the sequel to this book without realizing it was a sequel. I didn’t dislike the book but I also didn’t think it was anything special. At least that’s how I remember feeling when I read Belong To Me. Had I known this book was the prequel, I might have never read Love Walked In.
I am so glad I had no idea.
This is, by far, one of the most touching and wonderful books I’ve read. The characters are interesting and well-developed. But that’s not why. The story is touching and beautiful. But that’s not why either. The reason this book spoke to me so much, so deeply is because of all the emotion in it and how well it’s expressed. All the attention the two main characters pay to life, to their emotions and to the others. The way it’s expressed so carefully, so eloquently, and so well.
Here’s a small example: What she came to what that even if someone wasn’t perfect or even especially good, you couldn’t dismiss the love they felt. Love was always love, it has a rightness all its own, even if the person feeling the love was full of wrongness.
So simply stated yet such a strong sentiment and so eloquently put.
I felt so much love, so many emotions at the surface of this book that I adored every single minute of it. I almost want to go back and reread Belong To Me now that I know these characters.
I have mixed feelings about this book. Maybe cause it came with so much hype.
The first chapter was absolutely impossible to read. I tried three times before I could get myself to finish it. The story for the first half of the book was interesting but not amazing. I liked the characters but there were so many of them that I kept losing track and wondered how important it was going to be to remember them all.
For me, the book started getting good halfway through. Once the case started unlocking a bit. But then it got really scary and creepy and I am not such a fan of that. I didn’t see it coming at all. I did read the last 500 pages in one sitting and I loved most of the characters.
All in all, I think it was a good book. I’m going to have to sit with it for a week or two to decide what I think.
I’m not usually a book snob. I will read anything and everything (except fantasy and horror) but, for some reason, I was snobby about Sophie Kinsella. I am not really a chick lit kinda gal. I hated Bridget Jones’ Diary. I am not into shopping, drinking, dancing, and I’ve been with the same guy for 15 years so I always thought those books just don’t speak to me.
 But when I was pregnant, I had absolutely no attention span and I really wanted to read. So I grabbed a few of her books and realized that I really liked her style. Her quirky characters who always got into messes that were a size or two too big for them but managed to get out of them eventually.
Her books seem to always have a twist. Not mind-blowing or anything. But interesting and not always fully expected. And Twenties Girl was no exception. It’s fun. It’s sweet. And a wonderful read.
I am fully willing to admit it. I like Sophie Kinsella’s books. They’re fun.
I’ve done the book a week thing before. Twice. And both times I loved it. So I want to do it again. I miss reading. A lot.
I am not sure it will work with the baby, David, work, art, and everything else I am trying to do but I’m going to try. So here is my list for the rest of this year. There are more books here than weeks left but I wanted my list a bit bigger in case my mood changes and I want more choices.
- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
- The Devil in the White City
- The Black Swan
- The Road
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
- The Art of Racing in the Rain
- The Knitting Circle
- Julie and Julia
- The Book Thief
- The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
- Good in Bed
- Twenties Girl
- The Girl Who Played with Fire
- The Shack
- Home Repair?
- Love Walked In
- The Girl with No Shadow
- What I wish I knew when I was 20
- The Last Time They Met
- The Wonder Spot
- The Poisonwood Bible
- The Unaccustomed Earth
- In the Woods
- The wishing year
- The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
- Personal Development for Smart People
- Handle with Care
If you have other books to recommend, please tell me. Especially if they are great reads and hard to put down!!
I’m still reading. Not as fast and not as much, but I am. And each time
I do, I remember how much I miss it. How much I love getting lost in
another world. Here are a few from the last few weeks:
 Ever since I discovered him two years ago,
I immediately knew that I could never go wrong with Murakami and A
Wild Sheep Chase is no exception. An intriguing, hard to understand
book that leaves you with more questions than answers. I loved it
nonetheless. There’s something about Murakami’s style that just speaks
to me, I guess.
 And then I read The
Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes. This was a Costco find. I always try
to peruse the book aisle at Costco. I take photos of the titles I like
and then check them out at amazon and if they still look good, I check
them out from the library. This was one of those. It took me a while to
get into the story but I did enjoy it quite a bit by the end. I don’t
know if I would recommend it as much as say that it wasn’t a bad read.
 Which brings me to the sequels of Twilight.
I read Twilight back in January and I have no idea why I waited this
long to read the sequels, but I am so glad I finally remembered to check
them out. In the last week, I read 1,200 pages and I wish there were
more. Many more. These books are really wonderful. The characters are
well thought out and far from perfect or typical. The story keeps moving
forward constantly. The dialog is far from flat. One can sympathize with
each character in a different way. The writing is smooth and doesn’t get
in the way of the story or the characters.
 Reading New
Moon and Eclipse
made me wish I was writing again. It made me wish I could write such
good stories, so well. It must be an amazing feeling to be able to write
books that people love to read. Books that are page turners. I
absolutely love these books. The fact that they are about vampires,
which is something I would never read about and young adult
novels, which I also don’t read, is just icing on the cake that shows
good books are just good books regardless of subject or targeted age group.
And I remember saying to her, “The show is over by
noon. I could be in the car by twelve-thirty and be able to pick up my
kids from school every afternoon.”
“It’s perfect,” Elizabeth said again. “It’s the perfect balance of
family and work.” And it seemed it would be. A mid-morning show, four
days a week, someone else’s signature on it. A show that didn’t belong
to me – it would give me a certain distance, and the freedom necessary
to raise my family. I think this is close to every workingwoman’s dream.
It’s the fantasy that somehow you’ll land a gig that allows you to
explore your talents without shortchanging your children, a job both big
and small to allow you to exist in all your dimensions – domestic,
corporate, maternal, artistic.
I’ve always been a fan of Rosie O’Donnell. I like her rawness. Her
honesty. How so much of herself she is. So I was bound to read Celebrity
Detox. The most profound parts of the book, for me, were about the
struggle between motherhood and self-identity.
There is no such thing as having it all. It does not happen. People who
say it does are lying. People who think they have it are wrong. It’s
just not humanly possible. Each time you do something, you’re
sacrificing something else. It’s just a fact of life. So the trick is to
choose how you spend your moments wisely.
As opposed to last year’s Christmas vacation, I got a lot less reading
(however a lot more scrapping) done this year. The two I managed to read
are Twilight
and Breakdown
Lane. So let’s talk about Twilight. I’d read about this one on
multiple blogs and thought that there would be no way I’d like it since
I don’t generally read young adult novels and I definitely don’t read
anything about vampires. Ever. I really mean ever. Yet I loved this
book. It was a lightweight, easy read. Well enough written that it
didn’t bother me the story was a perfect fit for my mood. I’d sort of
hate to admit it, but I did really enjoy reading this book.
 I picked up Breakdown Lane because when I
absolutely hated Twelve times Blessed, Kim and Cheryl told me to read
this one instead. And, man, they were right. I absolutely adored this
book. It was depressing as shit. Really, really depressing. And I was so
very sick so it only exacerbated my grief. But it was so much better
written than the other book that it’s hard to believe it was the same
writer. The book left me with a lot of thoughts but that’s for another day.
I’ve also read a few scrapping books but that’s for another day. I
really need some good fiction. Any ideas?
The first time I heard of
Water For Elephants
was on a beach in Connecticut. We were there for Jake’s cousin’s wedding and David was running around the beach.
I saw this woman reading the book and got it confused with another one and when I realized my mistake, I asked her
how it was. She said she was liking it, but didn’t seem enthusiastic enough for me to want to place it on my library queue.
A few weeks ago, I was at Kepler’s and saw the book again. I decided I wanted to give it a try. I got it from the library three weeks ago and it’s been sitting around, waiting to be read.
Despite being on vacation, I haven’t read much at all in the last three weeks and I was getting worried that something was wrong with me.
Turns out nothing was wrong with me, and everything was wrong with the books I was trying to read. I picked this book up since it was due back in two days and I wanted to at least check it out.
And, man, am I glad I did. I read it in two days and loved loved LOVED it. I can’t even tell you why. I fell into the story immediately and enjoyed every single minute of it.
Despite the unusual setting, this is a timeless story and fantastic writing. Highly recommended.
I absolutely loved Snowflower and the Secret Fan so I was thrilled when I heard about Peony In Love
I couldn’t wait to read more of Lisa See. Yet, it turns out the book is terrible. I mean it was so bad that I put it down 5 times. I told myself that I had to get to page 100 before I made a final decision and then at page 101, I gave up. It was bad and
it got exponentially worse. What a shame it is to see an author, who can obviously do ten times better, write such a mediocre (actually it isn’t even mediocre) book.
I’ve been a fan of Ian McEwan for a few years now and I absolutely loved his previous book, _Saturday_, so when I saw he had a new one, I couldn’t
wait to pick it up. On Chesil Beach is a tiny book
and I read the whole thing in an hour. While the last 5 pages were fantastic, I can’t say that for the rest of the book. It was bleh. It went on and on and about
something I didn’t care too much to read about. I didn’t care about the characters enough to care. It was sweet, elegant and a fast read but it was definitely not up to his potential.
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projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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