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book review

Summer and Fall Book Report, 2017

Posted by Carolyn on January 4, 2018 Leave a Comment

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt.  This book always takes me back to fifth grade (I’m pretty sure), and reading it with Susan and talking about how we loved the name Winnie.  I loved this book back then, and I have to say it holds up pretty well.  I reread this book this summer after hearing some songs from the musical version that came up on my Spotify playlists.  The music was really fun and the girls were asking me tons of questions about what was happening in the show, so I thought a reread was a good idea.  The book is a nice story, with a child narrator (always my favorite), about immortality and family.  Winnie is the main character, who is living a boring, secluded life.  She meets the Tucks by accident, and is drawn into a grand and dangerous adventure.  She has to make some big, romantic decisions that were fascinating to my 5th grade mind, but a little creepy with my grown-up perspective.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio.  My friend Sara lent me this book, so I finally got to read it.  I’ve been wanting to for a long time.  It is another book that jumps between different points-of-view, so that was fun.  I really like books that do that.  It also has child narrators, so another plus in my book.  I think the reason I liked this book, as a middle school teacher, is that it really shows how everyone has their own perspective on problems, and that people shouldn’t just assume they know the truth of a situation.  The obvious main story is that of Auggie, who is a boy with severe facial deformities, and how he navigates going to school for the first time.  The more engaging story is that of all the other people whose lives connect to his, and how they navigate their own, unique connections to him, and their own unique struggles and successes.

The Forgetting Spell by Lauren Myracle.  This is the second book in a series that I started in the spring (Wishing Day was the first), and it follows the next Blok sister, Darya, as she approaches her 13th birthday.  She is a bit more cynical than Natasha was in the first book, but she ends up having her own reasons to be this way.  I don’t think I liked this one as much as the first book, but I’ll still read the third book when it comes out this spring.

Angelfall by Susan Ee.  This was a book club selection.  Apparently angels are the new vampires.  This was a weird book about a teenage girl, Penryn, living in California after the angels have attacked the humans in an apocalyptic rage. She meets up with Raffe (who ends up being Raphael, the archangel, spoiler alert) and they need each other to survive in the world.  Raffe did something to piss the other angels off, and Penryn is just a human, so that’s bad. As happens in young adults books these days, there’s some sexual tension between a mortal teenager and an immortal hottie.  It’s so weird.  He’s thousands of years old and an archangel, but still it might work out in the end?  Speaking of the end, the end of this book is off the rails weird.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. I picked this book for book club a few years ago, and decided to reread it when I was looking for something to read.  I loved this book, and thought the premise was so clever.  Ursula is such an interesting character, and seeing all her different lives is heartbreaking and lovely.  Somehow, Ursula is able to be reborn and live her life over again when she dies.  This creates so many different and fascinating scenarios for her life.  I want to map out everything that happens during her lives and see how they intersect and collide.  Like when she runs into people in lives where she’s never met them, but gets a weird feeling about them.  I need to read the companion book soon.

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green.  This was my first book from Book of the Month and I love John Green.  I haven’t actually read many of his books, but I love his presence on YouTube and how he uses his status as a successful young adult author to inspire and engage his readers.  This book is such a good representation of that.  Aza is the main character, and she is very is very relatable.  She has anxiety and other mental health issues that are important to be addressed in this way.  Green doesn’t shy away from the hard stuff that our youth are living with these days, and gives them the gift of reading a book about someone who has the same doubts, pressures, and unexpected triumphs that they experience in their lives.

Option B by Sheryl Sandberg.  After Jake died, Hannah picked this book for our book club to read.  I’m so happy she did, because I learned so much about grief and resilience from this book.  The main takeaway I found was the idea that Option A isn’t an option anymore, no matter how wonderful and perfect that option felt, so we have the right and the opportunity to move forward to find Option B.  There are some amazing ideas of how to support friends when they are experiencing grief (at times, this book made me mad – like how she name dropped so much.  I mean, I’d love to take my friends to my private island like Mark Zuckerberg did for Sheryl, but I can’t really do that), and perspective on how we can have expectations on how other people should grieve, and how that’s a pretty shitty thing to do. 

Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance by Ruth Emmie Lang.  This was a great book.  It had that magical realism that I love so much.  It was another Book of the Month selection – by the way, I love Book of the Month and I’ve really enjoyed all the selections I’ve gotten.  This book centers around Weylyn Grey – a boy who was raised by wolves and has some peculiar powers.  Again, the perspective shifts around between people who interact with Weylyn during his interesting and uncommon life.

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Posted in: book review, learned. | Tagged: book report, book review

Spring Book Report, 2017

Posted by Carolyn on June 15, 2017 1 Comment

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood.  This book was hard to put down, but also hard to read.  It was an amazing story that was touching and moving and heartbreaking.  It is told from different points of view, which, I’m learning, is a writing style that I find really interesting.  It did bother me, though, how some of the chapters were in first person, while some were in third.  I figured that the more important characters, who were living the story, were telling it in first person, while the characters who were more on the outside had a third person narrative.  But that wasn’t even true for all the chapters.  The story is about Wavy, who is a tragic little girl whose life has been difficult, at best.  I love child narrators and stories about children, and this book was no different.  At times, I felt so uncomfortable rooting for the love story because it was so such an unconventional love story.  My book club mostly agreed that this was a really good, well-liked book, that we would each have a hard time recommending to people because it made us feel uncomfortable.  But, I would totally recommend it to people.  If that makes sense at all.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel.  I read this book after seeing Evynne’s Contemporary American Songbook show at the Shedd.  She did a few songs from the show that is based on this graphic novel.  I don’t read many graphic novels, so it was fun to do something a little different.  It is a beautifully written and drawn memoir about the author’s family – most specifically her father, who was gay and killed himself.  It is honest and dark and funny and I really enjoyed it.  Now I really want to see Fun Home performed.

Wishing Day By Lauren Myracle.  This is a really great story about a girl in a special town.  It’s a young adult novel that is part of a trilogy.  Natasha lives in Willow Hill, where every girl, when they turn 13, gets to make three wishes – The first wish is an impossible wish. The second is a wish she can make come true herself. And the third is the deepest wish of her secret heart.  Natasha is a typical 13 year old girl, but she lives in a world with magic and wishes that can come true.  There is a good mystery and the characters are fun and likeable.  The only thing I don’t like is something that I don’t like in a lot of young adult series these days – they just leave off on a cliffhanger.  I mean, I get that it’s fun to leave things open that need to be solved throughout the series, but I like some sense of closure.  JK Rowling did this really well in her series – even though we knew there were bigger issues that weren’t resolved, she closed up each book and left us with a satisfying ending.  Wishing Day almost seemed like a long introduction to the series – a lot of exposition of the setting and backstory.  That being said, I look forward to reading the other books when they come out, so I’m not that mad about it.

Are You My Mother? By Alison Bechdel.  This is a follow-up to Fun Home, but more about Alison’s mother this time.  It actually was more of a meta-book that was about how Alison and her mother connected throughout the writing of Fun Home.  It also goes into how Alison has dealt with her life through an in-depth study of psychoanalysis.  It actually brought up a lot of information and questions about how we raise children, and how the way we were raised as affected us as adults.  The narrative wasn’t as engaging as Fun Home, but the psychology was interesting to learn, and having it presented as a graphic novel certainly made the details easier to read and understand.

Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.  This is my second time reading this one.  I read it with my book club a couple years ago and really enjoyed it (maybe ‘enjoyed’ is the wrong word).  I thought it was fascinating and I love this genre – the dystopian/ post-apocalyptic thing.  This book is particularly interesting because the future isn’t too distant.  I mean, Offred remembers a culture that is very similar to ours now and everything changes to the hyper-religious, hyper-patriarchal culture of Gilead within a couple years.  It’s fascinating, and more terrifying to think of things changing so quickly.  Obviously this book is well-written and well crafted, considering it is written by Atwood.  It’s beautiful and haunting and disturbing.  This time through, I was really struck by the fact that it doesn’t follow a typical narrative arch.  I mean, when you think about it, nothing really happens and nothing is ever really resolved.  This doesn’t sound like a glowing review, but literarily, it is really successful and really fascinating.

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Posted in: book review, learned. | Tagged: book report, book review

Fall & Winter Book Reports, 2016-2017

Posted by Carolyn on April 26, 2017 Leave a Comment

Rooms by Lauren Oliver.  This was a ghost story, but a really good one.  Creepy at times, though that wasn’t the main point as far as I could tell.  It is more of an exploration of a family.  There are a couple ghosts that live within a house, or they are the house, and they witness everything that happens when a family comes to pack up the house.  It was clever and the characters were interesting.

Boy Proof by Cecil Castellucci.  This was a really good young adult novel about a girl who is looking for her place and her people.  This is a well-written and simple story.  It is a coming of age story, but it is unique and creative.  I liked it.

Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer.  As many people know, Foer wrote my very favorite book of all time, so I was very anxious for this book to come out.  It wasn’t as good as Extremely Loud and Incredible Close, but it was a very good book.  It is about a family on the verge of collapse, but also about the world on the verge of collapse.  There were parts when I laughed out loud, and parts where I cried, and parts where I was just really confused about why I was reading it (if you’ve read it, you probably know that chapter I’m talking about).  All in all, I’d say I liked this book a lot.  It was hard to get through, but worth it.

Fly on the wall by E. Lockhart.  Another young adult novel about a girl who is looking for her place and her people.  She wishes to become a fly on the wall of the boy’s locker room, and her wish comes true.  Obviously an homage to Kafka, this modern story is pretty good.  Katya is a likeable, creative girl and her exploits are realistic and funny.

Big Little Lie by Laine Moriarty.  I read this because I was watching the HBO show and it wasn’t going fast enough.  I just couldn’t wait to know what happened and who died and who did it!  This is such a good mystery book.  The characters are all really interesting and the plot is so very creative.  It starts with someone dying at a school fundraiser, but you don’t find out who did it or even who died until the very end.  It is a difficult book because it tackles some difficult subjects.  But it’s a story of women and strength and relationships.  I really liked it.  Both the book and the show.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.  This is the first book in The Mortal Instruments series – a fantasy series for young adults.  I actually really liked the book and found it compelling.  Clary is the protagonist and she’s pretty cool, but it isn’t really the girl-power story that it could be.  Maybe that comes in the later books.  It’s mysterious and clever, but the dialog wasn’t super believeable.  I started the second book, but couldn’t get into it.  I think maybe I needed to take some time off before starting it.

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Winter, Spring, and Summer Book Report, 2016

Posted by Carolyn on October 14, 2016 Leave a Comment

And Then They Summer BooksWow, it’s been a while since my last book report!  I don’t know how this got away from me.  I’ve certainly been reading.  Here are some quick reviews of what I’ve read so far in 2016.

10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works–A True Story by Dan Harris.  This was a book club book, and I have to say I wasn’t impressed.  It was about Dan Harris’ on-air “panic attack” and how he changed his life afterward.  First of all, Dan Harris is completely unsympathetic.  I just didn’t care.  His public humiliation wasn’t very humiliating (watch the video… seriously… nobody would have noticed his flub).  I mean, it’s great that he became 10% happier, and tamed the voice in his head.  Good for him but frankly, I don’t care. 

Less is More by Kimberly Hill Campbell.  I really liked this education text book.  You can read a full review of it here.

Maus and Maus II by Art Spiegelman.  This is another one of those books that I read at least every couple years.  My brother gave me this book for Christmas the first year he was in college.  It’s an incredible Holocaust biography graphic novel where the Nazis are cats and the Jewish people are mouses.  I got to see Art Spiegelman speak a few years ago in Eugene.  If you’ve never read these books, go do it.  They are genius.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.  Has anyone not read this yet?  Such a horrific, heartbreaking, hopeful story.  Without spoiling too much, this book is about people before, during, and after a pandemic flu that kills almost everyone.  Station Eleven jumps around in time and between characters, presenting the story in an engaging, masterful way.  Seriously a wonderful book that is hard to read, but impossible to put down.  I love this kind of story about possible futures, but I hate reading about huge disasters because they totally stress me out.  The cool thing about this book, is in the end, it isn’t a disaster book.  It’s a book about relationships, art, human spirit, and strength.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling.  Whenever a new Harry Potter book would come out, I would reread all the previous ones.  That means I’ve only read the final book one time, and I figured it was time to read it again.  But I can’t just read the last one, that would be crazy.  So I started the series.  Unfortunately, the middle school where I was working didn’t have the second book in stock (and it’s the only one I don’t own because it’s my least favorite), so I stopped after the first one.

Cinder and Scarlett by Marissa Meyer.  We read Cinder in my book club, and I read Scarlett on my own after I finished Cinder.  These are cool young adult science fiction books set in a dystopian future.  They are really interesting and have strong, brave female characters who only get a little bit sidetracked by love.  They are predictable to my discerning adult reader’s mind, but I can see how they would be amazing and surprising to a middle schooler. There are more in the series, but I haven’t gotten around to reading them yet.

Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison.  Another book club pick.  This one is a book of essays by a narcissistic, mediocre, millennial writer.  I kept checking to see if the book was actually written by Hannah Horvath from Girls.  I have to admit that I really did like a couple of the essays – the first one especially – but there were a few that were almost painful. There are so many metaphors the book almost flew out of my hands and into the wall, fracturing into 40,000 paper cranes flying back to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

Image Grammar by Harry Noden. Another book report to renew my teaching license.  This is a good book about how to incorporate figurative language into writing.  Maybe Leslie Jamison should read this to be reminded of the importance of doing this in an artful way.

10 Things Every Writer Should Know by Jeff Anderson. Yep, another text book.  The ten things are pretty obvious, but the author did a good job giving strategies and materials to teach these things to students.

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant. I really liked this book.  It was well written, in a way that was unpretentious and relatable.  It told the story of a Jewish girl growing up in Boston right after the turn of the 20th century.  She is present for women’s suffrage, labor reform, and all those other amazing things that happened in the early 1900s.  I loved Addie and loved how she was a strong girl who stood up for herself and made her own way in the world.

The Red Tent by Ania Diamant.  After reading The Boston Girl, I was ready for another book by Diamant.   The Red Tent is now one of my favorite books.  This story of motherhood and womanhood is so important and beautiful.  We all know the story of Jacob, but I’ve never even thought to stop and wonder about his wives or his daughter  Dinah’s story is eternal and beautiful and connects us all together in a way that Joseph’s never could.  I don’t even really have words for how this book made me feel.  You know how, when you finish a really good book, you close it and feel sad that it’s over.  This book devastated me when it was over.  Dinah’s story was so tragic, but the last two pages destroyed me with hope and love and connection.  I took a photo of the last two pages so I could always have them with me.

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff.  Book club!  I have to say that the discussion about this book might have been the best ever.  There were so many things to say – so many observations, questions, ideas, reactions.  I still don’t know if I liked the book.  I mean, it was really, really good, but I’m not sure if I liked it.  The characters were completely unlikable, even though they were presented as perfectly adorable.  It was an interesting story with lots of twists and turns and it makes me happy for my beautiful simple life.  I’m glad I read it, and I would recommend it to other people.  I just have a hard time with unlikable characters.

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda.  I got this book through an Instagram hashtag.  A woman sent me the book along with some fabric, and I sent it on to another woman with some of my fabric.  The book was a good, interesting story with painfully stiff dialog.  It took me a while to get over the dialog and the writing style, but the story was sweet and sad and will stick with my for a while, I’m sure.

Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist with reflections by Debbies Grable and Gibson.  Here’s another self-indulgent book of essays.  My mom and aunt read this book together a couple years ago, and sent their reflections to each other after each chapter.  My mom put all those reflections into a book and I read that along with Cold Tangerines.    I have to say that my favorite part of the experience was reading what my mom and aunt had to say about it.  I learned about how they see the world, and that was more interesting and powerful than seeing how Niequist sees the world.  I didn’t relate to her very much at all, but I found new ways to relate to my mom and aunt. 

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Posted in: book review, created., learned., writing | Tagged: book report, book review, books, reading

Autumn Book Report, 2015

Posted by Carolyn on January 8, 2016 Leave a Comment

And Then They Summer Books

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah.  This was a slam-dunk for me.  It is set in France – check.  It is set during World War II – check.  It deals with motherhood – check.  It is well written – check.

My dad loaned me this historical fiction novel and I absolutely loved it.  It is the story of sisters, mothers, fathers, survival, choices, war, love, and women.  You get to read about the lives of two sisters and their experiences during WWII in France.  They each make their own decisions about how to handle the occupation.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.  I picked this one up during one of my jobs in a middle school.  To be honest, I grabbed it because I love Dante and thought it might take about his work.  It didn’t really do that, but it was still a very good book.  It is about two teenage boys who meet and become friends.  It is a good coming of age story, and I would highly recommend it to teenage kids, especially boys or those who are interested in LGBT stories.

Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe.  This was a book club book, and it was really good.  I never would have read this if it hadn’t been for book club.  It is an epistolary memoir from Nina’s time as a nanny for a creative, quirky family.  I read it wondering if it had a point, but maybe that was the point.  I laughed out loud in public while reading it.  The characters are incredible and hilarious.

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool.  This was another reread.  I love this book so much.  I had Jesse read it, too.  It’s such a lovely story of family and love and community.  The main character is a spunky girl who lands in a mysterious and eclectic town during the Great Depression.  It’s  a Newberry winner, so there you go.

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg.  Another favorite of mine.  I have read this many, many times.  It has it all – mystery, adventure, art history, strong female characters.

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson.  My book club pick for December.  I loved it.  It’s another young adult novel, but I’d say it’s more for high school than middle school.  It is a lovely story about twins and growing up.  It’s unique because it’s told from both twins’ perspectives – but at different times.  You hear Noah’s story from when the twins were 14, and you hear Jude’s story from when they were 17.  A lot has happened in between, and the story unfolds through both of their narrations.  There is art, love, coming of age, mystery, love, magical realism, ghosts, love, family, and love.  One of my new favorites.

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Posted in: book review, created., gave thanks., learned., writing | Tagged: autumn, book, book love, book report, book review, books, read, teaching, writing

I KonMari-ed All The Things!

Posted by Carolyn on September 24, 2015 2 Comments

We read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up in my book club, and I have to say, it really is magic.  If you haven’t heard already about Marie Kondo’s book about how to tidy up for the last time, this post will tell you what the KonMari Method is all about.  If you already know what it’s about, but don’t want to tackle the life-changing magic yourself, hopefully this post will help convince you.

kon mari readingThe basic explanation for the KonMari Method is that you only keep things that spark joy.  You don’t choose what you’re throwing out, you choose what you’re keeping, and you choose with joy.  You hold everything in your hands and feel if there is joy.  If there is, keep it.  If not, thank it, and put it aside.  I know that this sounds silly, and this one idea seems to have prevented a lot of people from doing the method.  It feels strange to thank an object, but it really made sense to me.

On the section on clothes, she wrote about how there are things we buy, but never wear.  I had a couple shirts I had bought for $2, but never liked to wear.  Her philosophy on this is that I already got the joy out of them – the moment I got a great deal, that was the joy.  But if they don’t continue to bring joy, that’s okay, let them go.  Thank them for the joy they brought and move on.  It was such a relief to be given permission to let go of something.

Another thing I had a hard time with was my box of clothes from college.  These clothes no longer fit me, but I’ve kept them.  Perhaps I hold out hope to be that size again, but the reality is that if I were ever that size again, I won’t want to wear dated, old clothes.  There was one skirt, in particular, that I have been holding onto.  I have to admit that holding it, thinking about my memories of it, thanking it, and putting it in the charity box with all the hopes and dreams of the future owner all helped me let go of it.  I know that all my memories will remain, even if I don’t have the skirt anymore.  Memories of my sweet basketball skills included:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Jesse and I have been living in this house for almost six years.  That means the last time we went through all our stuff was six years ago, and even then, we just threw things in boxes and moved them from one place to another.  I know that I had some boxes that had moved with my parents from house to house and finally to my house, never having been opened.  Honestly, knowing that those boxes were in my attic stressed me out.

kon mari clothes harrietWe started with clothes, and brought each and every article of clothing out to the living room and created clothes mountains.  There were things like the skirt that I was sad to get rid of, but knowing that they didn’t bring me joy anymore, it was easy to put them in the donate pile.  The girls’ clothes were easier to do that my own.  I have a few boxes of clothes for the girls.  I’m keeping some outfits forever and ever.  I’m keeping some to turn into a quilt or two.  I’m keeping some to pass on to future nieces.

kon mari booksNext was books.  Another thing in the book said that if you bought a book a few years ago and never read it, you will probably never read it.  There will never come a time that you look at your bookshelf and decide that it is finally time.  The joy was in the buying, and every time you see the book on your self, you feel guilty that you never read it.  This was totally true for so many of my books!  I would love to have a whole library full of books, someday, but I know that I don’t need to fill it with books that don’t spark joy.  We sold a bunch of books, then donated the rest.

kon mari bathroomKitchen and bathroom stuff was next.  The kitchen was awesome, and my mom helped me reorganize all the things that spark joy.  I love the flow so much better now.  The bathroom cracked me up.  We had so much crap!  Serious crap.  Expired pills, random broken hair elastics, four Sonicare chargers, old gross lotions.  The photo above is everything pulled out of all the cabinets and drawers (not what our counters usually look like… haha!).  It feels so much better to open a drawer and see everything and know that it’s all useful.

kon mari special thingsIt took me a long time to get to the next part of the KonMari Method.  This was the mementos and keepsakes.   This was those boxes that had followed me around for almost two decades.  The photo above is everything I’m getting rid of.  That means that I’ve basically moved four separate boxes that I should have thrown out every time I’ve moved.  Isn’t that sort of depressing?  What you don’t see pictured are the two small boxes of photos and keepsakes that I decided to save.  It seriously stressed me out, knowing that there were boxes and boxes of this stuff up in the attic.  I knew that I didn’t want to just get rid of the photos, but the thought of putting the vast numbers of photos in albums was dizzying.  Now I have a shoebox sized box full of photos.  I can totally tackle that someday and get them all in albums.  Not dizzying anymore.

I’ll get to the Autumn decor, Christmas, and other seasonal decorations as they come, but I’m not going to take something back up to the attic that I don’t want to keep there.

So, the verdict?  I love the KonMari Method.  It feels great.  I feel more free.  I love seeing tidy surfaces and drawers.  It’s hard with kids since they grow so quickly and seem to play with so many things, but it’s worth it.  I have gone through their toys a few times since the first time, and I can usually find a few toys that don’t spark joy anymore.  I also really think before I buy them something new.  Do they really need this item?  Will it be something that sparks joy in the long-term?  Usually the answer is no, and it’s easy to just put it back on the shelf.

If you’re wondering, I feel like the book has already served its purpose in my life, so I passed it on.

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Posted in: book review, created., decorating, DIY, learned., STRONG | Tagged: books, decorating, kon mari, organizing, tidy, tidying up

Summer Book Report, 2015

Posted by Carolyn on September 7, 2015 1 Comment

I wish I had paid more attention to all the books I’ve been reading this year since it’s part of my 35 Before 35 deal. Oh well, here are the books I read this summer (to the best of my memory… I suppose if I’m missing something it wasn’t that great anyway).

And Then They Summer BooksAll the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  One of my top 5 books of all time.  This book is amazing and beautiful and difficult and lovely.  Set in Europe – mostly France – during World War II, it follows three different characters.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, but I love child narrators.  Two of the narrators are young people and their stories are told with fragility and depth.  This is a war story, a mystery, a love story.  It broke me and it raised me.  Please read it.

The Girl On the Train by Paula Hawkins.  This one was for book club, but I had already read it.  Fitting with many of the other books we’ve read in book club, it was full of unreliable narrators.  This is an interesting literary idea, but I’m afraid it’s getting played out.  I mean, really, what does it say about our culture is full of books and movies and shows with liars, antiheroes, and despicable people about whom we are supposed to care?  That’s how I felt about this book – I just didn’t really care. I didn’t care what happened to the characters because they weren’t good people.  That being said, I read this book completely and quickly.  It was interesting enough and I supposed I cared about the characters enough to find out what happened.  I just didn’t feel good about it as I was reading it.  Does that make sense?  No, not at all?  Okay, moving on.

The Vacationers by Emma Straub.  I picked this book up on the Lucky Day shelf near the checkout line at the library.  It was a quick, easy, summertime book.  It is about a family who travels to Spain at a very turbulent time in all of their lives.  Not literature by any stretch of the imagination.  Completely predictable, yet enjoyable.  The characters were simple, but at least they were honest!

Great House by Nicole Krauss.  I love Nicole Krauss.  Obviously, since I named my daughter after some characters in The History of Love. I’ve been meaning to read this book for a long time, and earlier this summer I found myself at the library by myself with time to actually venture beyond the children’s section.  I picked it up and started it right away.  The story was interesting and enthralling.  It is about a desk and its owners and how they are connected through wars and across continents.  I really liked the story, and that kept me reading.  The writing I could barely handle.  Krauss used eternal paragraphs, and this just got under my skin.  It was difficult to read, the long paragraphs, the dialog not traditionally broken up.  But I kept with it and I’m glad I did.  This is a story that I love.  It raises questions about loss, memory, and what we are leaving for our children along the way.  It is a beautiful piece of literature full of amazing words and sentences crafted by a true artist.

Sisters, Long Ago by Peg Kehret.  This is one of those ridiculous things about childhood.  I borrowed this book from my best friend Susan Schoenfeld when we were probably in 5th grade.  I know this because her name is still in the cover.  Meaning I actually stole this book from my best friend Susan Schoenfeld.  Sorry, Sue-Sue.  I can mail it to you if you want it back.  But it’s really not a great book.  It’s just a good book that takes me back to my childhood.  It’s about a young girl who has a flashback to a past life in Egypt.  I’ve read this book probably a dozen times over the years, mostly because it’s there and it’s quick and it’s entertaining.

Hands Free Mama by Rachel Macy Stafford.  I’m working my way through this book and I am loving it.  It is inspiring and lovely.  I’m sure I’ll do a more complete review in 2016.

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Posted in: book review, gave thanks., learned., writing | Tagged: book, book love, book report, book review, books, teaching, writing
If God said, ‘Rumi pay homage to everything that has helped you enter my arms,’ there would not be one experience of my life, not one thought, not one feeling, nor any act, I would not bow to. -Rumi

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