This has been a fairly non-productive week. I had plans two evenings this week and my daughters first sleepover birthday party last night. Needless to say, these events severely limited the amount of time I was able to devote to reading and blogging. Book Club One of those evenings out, however, was for my book club. I suppose I can count that toward "bookish" time. We read My Father Before ...
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer
How could I could not say no when the publisher asked if I'd like to review this book?? Though I don't read many novellas, I am an absolute evangelist for anything written by Fredrik Backman. I would read his grocery lists. (5 stars, I'm sure!) I met the Fredrik Backman at BEA this year and was a little surprised to find that he's absolutely nothing like his aging, curmudgeonly characters. In ...
Top Ten Tuesday: My Favorite Movies
Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This is my first week participating in the TTT meme and I must admit, I'm a little out of my comfort zone. I enjoy going to the movies but I'm not what you'd call a movie buff. I've never seen most of the classics on all "Best Movies of All Time" lists. While most of the movies are on my top ten list are ...
Review of “Cruel Beautiful World” by Carolyn Leavitt
Cruel Beautiful World is a book filled with so many stories within stories I'm not sure how the author, Caroline Leavitt, managed to incorporate them all so organically and seamlessly into one book. Sixteen year old has run away with her high school English teacher. Though her sister, Charlotte, and her guardian, Iris, do everything in their power to find her and bring her home, Lucy remains ...
Weekly Wrap-up 11/12/2016
This is my first attempt at a weekly wrap-up. What I Did Do This week I had "fun" "playing" with the new site. As I've mentioned before, I'm not very techy. I am, therefore, most delighted that I managed to post four book reviews with only minimal assistance. I'm doing things like using Canva to create graphics for the slider and making attempts to optimize my SEO with my new Yoast plugin. ...
Review “His Bloody Project” by Graeme Macrae Burnet
Is young Roddy insane? The answer to this question will determine whether he lives or dies. You see, he has taken three lives in the small farming village of Culdie, Scotland in the year 1869. There is no doubt that he is the murder. He has freely admitted to being responsible for the killings upon showing up at a neighbor's house. He's covered head to foot in blood. He carries with him the murder ...
Review of “History of Wolves” by Emily Fridlund
History of Wolves is one of those novels that I couldn't put down but, in the end, I have mixed feelings about. Linda is a socially awkward 14 year old girl living in Minnesota with her family. Her parents, especially her mother, are somewhat strange and detached. When the Gardener family moves in across the lake, Linda begins babysitting for their four year old son,Paul, while Paul's mother, ...
Review of “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” by Iain Reid
I read I'm thinking of Ending Things a few weeks ago while my blog was being redesigned. As you will read below, I had a strong negative reaction to it. I wrote this review for Goodreads and was hoping I might have warmed a little to this book with some time and a few good reads in between. This has not happened and so the review stands as originally written: This was a very quick read and it ...
Review of “Dark Matter” by Blake Crouch
Holy weirdness! This book is as strange and compelling as a book can be! I wasn't sure what to expect when I began Dark Matter. It was much-hyped at BEA and I'd seen all of the rave reviews but still... I'm not even a sci-fi fan. Sure, I love a little Stephen King or Dean Koontz now and then. (Who doesn't??) But it has to be good. Really good. Weird enough to be interesting but not weird enough ...
A New Month, A New Look!
The Blog It's a new month, and I'm so happy to be starting it off by launching my new and improved blog. I'm very excited about the new look and improved features! The decision was made to have my blog professionally redesigned at the end of the summer. I really wanted a site that better reflected my personal style. I had a vague idea of what I was looking for in terms of aesthetics and ...
