Book Reviews
I know I haven't done book reviews this year. And it's sad that I am finally posting one now just because I read a book I did not like.
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
Fiction
My notes - Took me a while to get through this. I had to keep putting it down and then talk myself into getting back to it. I hate books where people cont...inuously make incredibly stupid decisions and other "intelligent" people go along with it. This book was full of that. The beginning was hard to follow because there is too much jumping around between three different stories. Every main character in the book is completely dysfunctional, to the point of unbelievable stupidity. The end was such a downer. But, at least that part made sense to me, a rare event in this book. It's a shame since I really loved her first book.
Book Description - Audrey Niffenegger's second novel opens with a letter that alters the fate of every character. Julia and Valentina Poole are semi-normal American twenty-year-olds with seemingly little interest in college or finding jobs. Their attachment to one another is intense. One morning the mailman delivers a thick envelope to their house in the suburbs of Chicago. From a London solicitor, the enclosed letter informs Valentina and Julia that their English aunt Elspeth Noblin, whom they never knew, has died of cancer and left them her London apartment. There are two conditions to this inheritance: that they live in it for a year before they sell it and that their parents not enter it. Julia and Valentina are twins. So were the estranged Elspeth and Edie, their mother.The girls move to Elspeth's flat, which borders the vast and ornate Highgate Cemetery, where Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Radclyffe Hall, Stella Gibbons and Karl Marx are buried. Julia and Valentina come to know the living residents of their building. There is Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword-puzzle setter suffering from crippling obsessive compulsive disorder; Marijke, Martin's devoted but trapped wife; and Robert, Elspeth's elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunt's neighbors, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including -- perhaps -- their aunt.Author of one of the most beloved first novels in recent years, Niffenegger returns with an unnerving, unforgettable and enchanting ghost story, a novel about love and identity, secrets and sisterhood and the tenacity of life -- even after death.
I had had high hopes for Niffenegger's second book since I really enjoyed The Time Traveler's Wife so much.
To counter that negative review, Here is my favorite book of the year.
The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
Audio - Fiction - Mystery - Read by Paul Boehmer, Susan Duerden, Rosalyn Landor, John Lee, and Juliet Mills
My notes - It took me about 10 pages to finally get interested in the story. But once I did there was no turning back. I really enjoyed the book, the story line, and the character development.
Book Description - “ I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….
As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends-and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society-born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island-boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.
Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.
Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.
I read many more books than just these two this year. Some good, some not so good. Some just for escape, like J.D. Robb's "In Death" series and a new series for me "Sisters of the Moon" by Yasmine Galenorn. I read four books in each of those two series. Loved the J.D. Robb ones best, but the Galenorn ones were good fun ones too. I read plenty of YA books too. The latest two in the "Secrets of Nicholas Flamel" series by Michael Scott (good series); all six books in the "House of Night" series by P.C. Cast + Kristin Cast (some of them better than others); of course The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan (can't wait for the Percy Jackson movie to come out, just love the series); and the "Mortal Instruments" series by Cassandra Claire (loved the entire series, made MG read them and she devoured them).
I think next year I'll go back to writing my reviews. It's good for me to think about what I read and put it down into words.
Happy Holidays everyone.
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
Fiction
My notes - Took me a while to get through this. I had to keep putting it down and then talk myself into getting back to it. I hate books where people cont...inuously make incredibly stupid decisions and other "intelligent" people go along with it. This book was full of that. The beginning was hard to follow because there is too much jumping around between three different stories. Every main character in the book is completely dysfunctional, to the point of unbelievable stupidity. The end was such a downer. But, at least that part made sense to me, a rare event in this book. It's a shame since I really loved her first book.
Book Description - Audrey Niffenegger's second novel opens with a letter that alters the fate of every character. Julia and Valentina Poole are semi-normal American twenty-year-olds with seemingly little interest in college or finding jobs. Their attachment to one another is intense. One morning the mailman delivers a thick envelope to their house in the suburbs of Chicago. From a London solicitor, the enclosed letter informs Valentina and Julia that their English aunt Elspeth Noblin, whom they never knew, has died of cancer and left them her London apartment. There are two conditions to this inheritance: that they live in it for a year before they sell it and that their parents not enter it. Julia and Valentina are twins. So were the estranged Elspeth and Edie, their mother.The girls move to Elspeth's flat, which borders the vast and ornate Highgate Cemetery, where Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Radclyffe Hall, Stella Gibbons and Karl Marx are buried. Julia and Valentina come to know the living residents of their building. There is Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword-puzzle setter suffering from crippling obsessive compulsive disorder; Marijke, Martin's devoted but trapped wife; and Robert, Elspeth's elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunt's neighbors, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including -- perhaps -- their aunt.Author of one of the most beloved first novels in recent years, Niffenegger returns with an unnerving, unforgettable and enchanting ghost story, a novel about love and identity, secrets and sisterhood and the tenacity of life -- even after death.
I had had high hopes for Niffenegger's second book since I really enjoyed The Time Traveler's Wife so much.
To counter that negative review, Here is my favorite book of the year.
The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
Audio - Fiction - Mystery - Read by Paul Boehmer, Susan Duerden, Rosalyn Landor, John Lee, and Juliet Mills
My notes - It took me about 10 pages to finally get interested in the story. But once I did there was no turning back. I really enjoyed the book, the story line, and the character development.
Book Description - “ I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….
As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends-and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society-born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island-boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.
Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.
Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.
I read many more books than just these two this year. Some good, some not so good. Some just for escape, like J.D. Robb's "In Death" series and a new series for me "Sisters of the Moon" by Yasmine Galenorn. I read four books in each of those two series. Loved the J.D. Robb ones best, but the Galenorn ones were good fun ones too. I read plenty of YA books too. The latest two in the "Secrets of Nicholas Flamel" series by Michael Scott (good series); all six books in the "House of Night" series by P.C. Cast + Kristin Cast (some of them better than others); of course The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan (can't wait for the Percy Jackson movie to come out, just love the series); and the "Mortal Instruments" series by Cassandra Claire (loved the entire series, made MG read them and she devoured them).
I think next year I'll go back to writing my reviews. It's good for me to think about what I read and put it down into words.
Happy Holidays everyone.