I have been reading like a fiend. Just give me a book (Kindle these days), coffee, and my dog. I know I could be doing other things; I am procrastinating with my music. I guess that is why I just want to read. And I have read some good ones since I last wrote a book post a couple of months ago. Here we go…
Everyone Is Lying to You by Jo Piazza – Goodreads 3.73/ Amazon 4.1/ Me *** – A thriller about two close friends who become estranged after college, one becoming a traditional wife and mother and the other a social media star. They reunite at a conference. And no one is telling the truth. I thought it was good, but not great.
The Wedding People by Alison Espach – Goodreads 4.06/ Amazon 4.3/ Me **** – A really popular read – A depressed woman shows up at an inn where all the other guests are there for a wedding. They end up saving her life and giving her a new beginning. I liked this book.
Heart the Lover by Lily King – Goodreads 4.16/ Amazon 4.4/ Me **** – My friend, a reader who loves Lily King, recommended this book to me. I enjoyed it, but maybe not as much as she did. A woman meets two men in college. The men are best friends. She ends up with one of them, but becomes involved in a triangle — which isn’t the usual love triangle. This book is much more than a romance. Recommended.
The Mad Wife by Meagan Church – Goodreads 3.84/Amazon 4.0/ Me ***** – A 1950s housewife, known for her amazing gelatin salads, quietly suffers from postpartum depression and other maladies while dealing with neighbors who are hiding their own traumas. This is a great book about the societal expectations for women.
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf – Goodreads 3.92/Amazon 4.0/ Me **** – This one was made into a television movie with Jane Fonda and Robert Redford. An older widow and a widower who are neighbors come together to alleviate their loneliness, and a special relationship develops. A heartwarming story. I really liked it.
Love, Leashes, and Letting Go: A Memoir by Dawn Reno Langley – Goodreads 4.67/Amazon 4.9/ Me **** – Dawn is an acquaintance of mine and a wonderful writer. Here is the review I wrote for it. And I did give it five stars on Amazon: I loved this beautifully written memoir by a woman who left a life that degraded her and found new strength and hope in travel, animals, yoga, new friends, and the small pleasures in life. After losing her marriage, her home, and her beloved dog, she makes the brave choice to travel alone to find herself and to find peace. This book is filled with truth and raw emotion, and everyone can identify with a part of Dawn as she recreates herself and her life. Lovely descriptions of Britain, Scotland, and her newfound animal and human friends. I found it hard to put this book down, and I highly recommend it.
Big Little Truths by Liane Moriarty – Goodreads 4.14/ Amazon 4.4/ Me *** – I have read all of Moriarty’s books. I absolutely loved the first several. The last few — meh. I just didn’t like this one very much; it is part 2 of Big Little Lies, her first book, which was much better. The book stars the same five women who have kids in high school together. I had forgotten all about them since I read the first book, although I watched the movie a while ago. It claims you can read this one without reading the first one. It was fine, but nothing special in my opinion.
Whistler by Ann Patchett – Goodreads 4.9/Amazon 4.5/ Me *** – Another one that everyone seemed to love, but I thought was just okay, although I like Patchett. The story of a women who runs into her stepfather after not seeing him for decades. They renew their past special relationship and look back on their lives and the choices they made. Maybe I would give it four stars, looking back.
The Me I Used to Be by Kristan Higgins – Goodreads 4.50/Amazon 4.6/Me**** – This is a good one. It is about four friends, all with different styles (which sounds exactly like my novel, Girls of a Feather, but has sold many more copies!), who reunite 25 years later for their college reunion to try to wrestle with the event that shattered their friendship so many years ago. Recommended.
The Bookshop Woman: My Year Transforming Lives—One Book at a Time by Nanako Hanada – Goodreads. 3.45/ Amazon 4.3/ Me ***** – Loved it. A quiet book about a book lover in Tokyo who leaves her marriage and joins a meetup group of sorts. She ends up giving each person she meets the perfect book for them. Loved it!
The Good Parts by Evann Normandin – Goodreads 3.68/Amazon 4.1/Me ***** – All I will say is I loved this unique book, and cried near the end. And I rarely cry reading books..Highly recommended.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee – Goodreads 4.34/ Amazon 4.5/ Me *** – I read some reviews of people who also gave it a lower rating than most readers did. This is a big book. I read it on Kindle, but I think it is about 500 pages. The other people who gave it three stars agreed with what I thought, The first two thirds of the book was at least four stars. Then, it just got too long and too confusing, with many new characters coming in who were not really developed. It was difficult to figure out who was who. But as a whole, the book is a good family saga that deals with the discrimination and wars between Japan and Korea. Recommended.
Whew! That was a tough one to write. So many books. I will have to slow down. And of course, I never remember a book once I finish it, with the exception of a few extraordinary books. So I have to look them up to remind myself what they were about. The last book I remember well is Theo of Golden, which I wrote about before and really loved.
I apologize that these are mostly women’s books by women authors.
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