pickI‘m not a huge romance reader but this series about a book club formed by men who read romance novels as manuals for romance is fun reading. Braden Mack knows everything the “manuals” have to offer but keeps striking out at love. While helping fiery, stubborn chef Liv Papandreas strike back against a sexual predator, he learns that sometimes the only way to get the girl is to go a little “off book.”
pickThis one gets off to a quick start with the tragedy of a man accidentally shooting his neighbor‘s son and offering his own young son, LaRose, to the family as replacement. Unfortunately, it drags badly in the middle and I almost bailed. Then the story changed time periods and that was enough to pull me back in. Erdrich‘s books can be slow going but there‘s always an emotional payoff that makes it worth the effort. #doublespin #authoramonth
pickWillowdean Dickson, her friends, and her love interests came alive in this book and I was taken by how well Murphy depicted first love and insecurity and the challenge of preserving friendships even while growing and changing. Along with being a sweet romance and homage to Dolly Parton, Dumplin‘ is a heartfelt and genuine story about learning who you are and who you want to be. Skip the dumbed down Netflix move - the book is where it‘s at!
Happy new year, all! I never set myself an official Goodreads goal because I find it makes reading feel like work. Nonetheless the number I always have in the back of my mind is 50. I usually fall well short…until this year! Here‘s hoping for a repeat performance in 2023. My TBR would thank me!
pickI started and ended the year with Vivian Apple. As Vivian continues her quest against the villainous Church of America which is busy at work deluding people and monetizing the apocalypse, she becomes a little less normal human being navigating the apocalypse and a little more “Vivian Apple, unlikely action hero.” As such, I preferred the first book but this one was still good and a satisfying conclusion to Viv‘s story. #bookspinbingo
bailedI hate to end my first ever successful #bookspinbingo with a DNF, but here we are. The Libby loan is about to expire and somehow this story is getting more boring just when it ought to be picking up. I‘m all for a slow burn story as long as it has *some* driving force or at least some characters I‘m really invested in. Here at 58%, this seems to have neither. Next!
pickWhile I have a hard copy of the book, I‘m glad I ended up listening to the audio of this one. Narrated by the other himself, the book is both informative and laugh out loud funny. As Bryson points out on the regular, Australia often flies under the radar of the world news, and it‘s true I didn‘t know much about it. Listening to this book was the most fun way to learn about its explorers, odd politics, unique fauna, and more. #bookspin
pickIt took me a little to get into this historical tale of two girls in 19th century China bonded as “old sames” as they await their marriage matches and beyond. Once I got into it, I was totally immersed. See brings to life the lives of rural Chinese girls whose one hope is to marry well and bear sons. Her abundant research is evident and enriches the story with realism. Lily and Snow Flower are vivid and unforgettable characters. #bookspin
pickLoved this Italian-adjacent YA romantic fantasy that features a girl trying to harness her powers to save her island and its people from invasion by demons. The world building is believable, the heroine is sympathetic, and the love interest with the dark secret is hot. I loved the growth of many of the characters and the ending was so great that I made myself late for making the Thanksgiving Day stuffing just to finish. I‘m ready for book 2!
Thanksgiving PTO activity #1, waiting for Serena the Sentra to get inspected. With a book, of course!
pickWhen Sylvie Lee goes missing after her grandmother‘s funeral in the Netherlands, it falls to her timid sister Amy to uncover the truth about her disappearance. What unfolds is a mystery made of long-held family secrets. Amy‘s growth and the book‘s exposure of the hardships of immigrant life where racism is ingrained were highlights but the book‘s occasionally stilted dialogue and uneven pace kept it from being great. A soft pick. #bookspin
pickIt‘s (unintentional) ancient ARC month here at Chez Megan, and The Farm finally made its way off the shelf. I enjoyed this mystery of a mother caught in a conspiracy…or is she? Son, Daniel, has the uneasy duty of determining whether his mother has fallen suddenly and dramatically ill or whether she is, indeed, caught up in a web of wrong-doing. The storytelling has an urgent, breathless quality to it that is perfectly pitched. Recommended.
so-soI didn‘t love this one like people do. Getting a call on the day of your death is an interesting plot device and I liked both main characters individually. However, I didn‘t find the romance very convincing and the dialogue didn‘t feel very genuine. I actually really liked the interludes with other minor characters and the feeling that created of everything being connected on the fateful day of Rufus and Mateo‘s death.
pickSpent the morning finishing this great book. When we meet her, Amber Appleton is a quirky homeless teenager living in a school bus who still daily manages to inject her own brand of hope and positivity into the world around her. When tragedy strikes, she finds that hope coming back her way. This book broke my heart and then put it back together. Love!
pickI have a Kindle copy of this but ended up getting the audio from the library. No regrets. No doubt listening to Fey‘s own narration of her laugh out loud funny memoir added plenty to the experience. Fey also tackles the more serious topics of barriers to women in comedy, balancing work with family, life lessons to be learned from improvisation, and more - all with a light touch and leavened with her trademark humor.
pickI enjoyed this story of young Diana Dunn coming of age in Tupelo, Mississippi during the 1960s. Diana‘s life is unusual given she is the daughter of a quadriplegic polio survivor still determined to parent her own daughter. Diana is a sympathetic stew of childish selfishness, confusion, responsibility beyond her years, protectiveness of her mother, and a growing, hard-won understanding of the world around her. Coming of age done right! #bookspin
pickThe Rapture of Canaan plumbs the depths of radical religion, the fragility of community, the mysterious ways of God, and the weaknesses of self-proclaimed arbiters of right and wrong. Reynolds has created a very captivating picture of a community dominated by a charismatic leader. Ninah‘s journey to discovery of what she herself will choose to believe is compelling reading.
pickThis will be my second time calling one of Grady Hendrix‘s comic satire of a horror book fun which seems weird but this book was…fun. I love how, like in Horrorstor, Hendrix has put his very otherwise ordinary characters to work fighting evil - not only the storybook evil of vampires but the more insidious evils of racism and misogyny that unfortunately plague our day to day lives.
I DNFed my August #bookspin and left my #doublespin in my dad‘s car after vacation so another month of resounding book spin success here. Will September be better? 🤷🏻♀️
I made up for all the reading I didn‘t do on vacation with book *buying*! That‘s how this works, right? The Maine midcoast is just full of lovely bookshops and libraries. Arctic Tern Books of Rockland and Left Bank Books of Belfast both helped feed the need for 📚. 😁 #vacation #indiebookstores #Maine #bookhaul
In a week of vacation, I have read all of three chapters. But today is off to a rainy start so getting a few chapters in now. 📖 🙂
Didn‘t do so great with #bookspin last month. My book spin pick fell flat and #doublespin is taking me forever to read. Hopefully it‘ll work out better with my August list!
pickAgnes and Polly‘s Maine comes to life, providing a setting rife with memories for the pair of octogenarians to reflect upon. I loved the unique perspective of women who refuse to be pushed aside, even though everyone is trying to minimize them as they age. Unveiling Agnes‘s secrets provides momentum, but the highlight here is the thoughtful depiction of a lifelong friendship between women who know each other better than they know themselves.
pickMy #doublespin for June was this short homage by Calvin Trillin to his late wife Alice. Theirs is a sweet literary love story in which Alice starred as both critic and muse for Trillin‘s writing. In a few short essays Trillin brings to life his larger than life wife, an optimist, a cancer survivor, a woman who cared deeply about those around her and who never stopped believing that the hand she was dealt was a lucky one.
pickFinally read a Kate Quinn and I‘m glad I did. This duel timeline story of a female World War I spy with a grudge to settle and a pregnant girl searching for her cousin after World War II with a surprising pair of travel companions was unputdownable. It‘s got danger, revenge, romance, and redemption. I loved these characters and how well Quinn depicts the scars of the World Wars that left their mark on all of them.
so-soThis was a sweet, quick read but I found it a little unsatisfying. Smith tries to manufacture the bittersweet drama of Clare and Aidan‘s last night together before they part ways to colleges on either coast. Instead of being involved in their story and the feelings it should have produced, I felt distracted by how hard Smith seemed to be trying to generate those feelings. My May #bookspin
so-soMunroe‘s serious answers to insane questions are interesting and amusing but started to drag for me after the halfway point. Turns out I can hold out through only so many complex mathematical explanations before my eyes begin to glaze over a bit. That said, Wil Wheaton‘s wry narration in combination with Munroe‘s sarcastic edge kept me coming back despite all the math. Glad I went with the audio for this one!
pickOrphaned Rachel craved the love of a mother but got the x-ray experiments of ambitious Dr. Mildred Solomon instead, experiments that caused her to lose both hair and health. At the end of her life, Dr. Solomon craves mercy but finds herself in the conflicted care of an adult Rachel. Orphan #8 is a richly told dual timeline historical fiction that brings to life historical NYC and the tangled history of two women with the power to hurt each other.
pickThe inspirational story of Kamila Sidiqi whose bravery and entrepreneurial spirit supported her Afghani community under the Taliban, employing many of her desperate female neighbors with a dress making business run out of her home. Sidiqi cuts an impressive figure but Lemmon‘s writing is a little simplistic and she surely must have cut out at least some of the difficulties Kamila faced as it all seems to come just a little too easy. Good on audio.
pickIt took me 2ish years but I finally finished this book of short stories. It didn‘t deserve to have taken me so long. I‘m just terrible at short stories. 🤷🏻♀️I enjoyed every story but one, and all are memorable. My favorites? Faun (big game hunting…mythical creatures?), Dark Carousel (animate carousel horses, anyone?), Late Returns (time traveling book mobile!), and You Are Released (in flight at the likely end of the world…so eerie).
pickTold in the voices of Sarah Grimke and Handful, the slave girl she was gifted by her family on her eleventh birthday, this book gives perspectives of reluctant owner and slave. Grimke is a real historical figure, an advocate for abolition and women‘s rights. Kidd‘s efforts to faithfully tell Sarah‘s story from history alternated with Handful‘s richer more readable fictional story makes the first person narratives unevenly matched, but still good.
pickI‘m not in the habit of reading too many thrillers lately but maybe I should be. Told in flashbacks from the vantage point of Rainy Ives, who has returned to the doorstep of the setting of her greatest trauma to enjoy a girls‘ weekend with friends in Vegas, An Honest Lie is a twisted thriller full of grown-up mean girls and charismatic cult leaders, all of which Rainy has to learn to face down to survive. Really enjoyed this unputdownable book!
pickBelieve the hype - this book is great. I listened to the audio and actually continued listening without multitasking a few times because Brown was so great at creating suspense behind races that…I already knew the outcome of. 🤷🏻♀️ A vividly told story of a team of underdogs weathering the Great Depression and surprising the world with their grit and determination. Loved it.
pickMeet the book that finally wrestled me out of my January reading slump. An apocalypse story that takes place in a United States plagued by natural disasters and brainwashed by a capitalism-obsessed Christian nationalist church headed by a kooky “prophet,” it certainly didn‘t remind me of anything that could ever happen in real life. Hahaha…haha…ha… Ahem. Anyway, I loved Vivian who learned and grew and managed to come of age in a world gone mad.
pickPublished in the wake of 9/11, these essays remain startlingly relevant. I felt a bit preached at on some topics but more often, as Kingsolver chronicles the small wonders that keep hope alive in a darkening world, the circuitous route her life takes to helping her understand motherly love, and the way stories can be and are woven into the fabric of our lives, I was cut to the heart and brought to tears.
Belated #AuthorAMonth
#BookSpin list for February. I DNFed both my #bookspin and my #doublespin this month. 😬 I guess that‘s one way to reduce the size of your TBR, but here‘s hoping this month‘s picks treat me better (or I treat them better?) 🤷🏻♀️
bailedI‘m slumping hard this January. Nothing I am picking up is hitting the spot. This was supposed to be the quick read to shake me loose from the reading doldrums but despite a promising beginning, halfway through, I find that I‘m just….bored. Hopefully I find something to love soon - this has been a very disappointing start to my reading year. 😔
