April Minireviews – Part 1

I didn’t read as many books in April so I’m sure that means I’m going to get caught up, right?  LOL

Sometimes I don’t feel like writing a full review for whatever reason, either because life is busy and I don’t have time, or because a book didn’t stir me enough.  Sometimes, it’s because a book was so good that I just don’t have anything to say beyond that I loved it!  Frequently, I’m just wayyy behind on reviews and am trying to catch up.  For whatever reason, these are books that only have a few paragraphs of thoughts from me.

A Dance With the Fae Prince by Elise Kova – 4*

//published 2021//

I read the first book in the Married to Magic series, A Deal With the Elf King, for the traveling book club and found it surprisingly enjoyable.  The books are set in the same world but don’t really overlap very much, so they can be read independently.  I liked this one even better, actually, because I found the main characters more likable.  While not my new all-time favorites, these books were really enjoyable romantic fantasy.

The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers – 3*

//published 1903//

This is one of those classics that is considered so because of the way that it created a new subgenre.  A sort of spy-thriller, when it was published this book was a bit controversial because of the way it pointed out weaknesses in Britain’s naval defense.  However, I really struggled with this book because I was reading it as an ebook, which did NOT include the original story’s charts and maps!  These were referred to regularly throughout the text, and half the story is the main characters exploring these complicated channels, bays, inlets, rivers, etc. so not being able to visually reference the charts made the story confusing and also someone boring.  This wasn’t a book that was big on the action anyway, but I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if, when the text told me to refer to a chart, I could have actually done so.

Kilmeny of the Orchard by L.M. Montgomery – 4*

//published 1910//

This was a buddy read with the Kindred Spirits group on Litsy, and a reread for me, as most Montgomery books are.  This has never been a particular favorite of mine.  It’s perfectly pleasant but not magical, and I’ve never been completely comfortable with the romance, because Kilmeny has been so incredibly isolated her entire life and then just falls in love with the first decent guy she meets and it feels a little weird.  One of the other members of the group said this story seemed like something Anne and her friends would have written for their Story Club, and that cracked me up because it’s SO true.  This one is just a little too melodramatic.

The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow – 3.5*

//published 2020//

There are some books that I read a chapter-a-day and that keeps me plugging away at them when I honestly may have not finished them if I had just been reading them straight through, and this was one of them.  This story focuses on the “forgotten” sister in P&P, Mary.  There was a LOT of time spent on Mary being miserable and sad and people being mean to her and her feeling rejected – it just went on and on and on.  While Mary’s character growth seemed natural and good, some of the other characters were uneven, especially Charlotte.  The concluding drama also dragged out way longer than it needed to.  So, basically, a pretty good read that needed about a hundred pages edited out haha

I’ll Take Forever by Barbara McMahon – 2*

//published 1988//

This one was pretty bad, although I’ll admit I somewhat softened my attitude when I realized it was published in 1988.  This was a free Kindle book from back in the day, and the entire story is about an undercover federal agent trying to find out where illegal marijuana is being grown and he has to stay with a civilian – literally NONE of it felt remotely realistic haha  There are several instances where Kyle just assumes Jenny is going to be doing this cooking/cleaning/laundry that felt really awkward because he’s literally just mooching off of her.  Jenny herself was honestly kind of stupid and always did stupid things that miraculously would turn out to be the right thing.  For some reason, McMahon decided Jenny should be a widow at the age of 25 (her husband died in a car wreck a year earlier) – I have no idea why she needed to be a widow, I guess so the agent could be “her husband’s cousin” but it just felt awkward, especially since we are told a lot that they had a really lovely marriage but Jenny is totally over it!  After a year!  Woohoo!  Like I realize everyone has a different grieving process, but I’m still not over my grandma dying in 2009 so I didn’t find it particularly convincing that Jenny is basically like, “Oh yeah, I was married, I remember that guy!  He was cool!”  The attitude towards marijuana in this story is definitely very 80s.  I’m not here to advocate marijuana usage, but I also truly don’t think smoking a joint will immediately lead you down the path of hard drugs for life.  This was a super short book so I skimmed a lot of it just so I could be amazed at how it made no sense.  Sometimes it’s fun to get a little hate-reading in!

Rearview Mirror // March 2022

Well, it took me seven weeks to get from February’s Rearview Mirror to March’s so… not a good trend LOL

Favorite March Read

Ironically my favorite March read was one I haven’t reviewed yet, because I’m going to post about the trilogy as a whole – Scythe by Neal Shusterman – that book was a total brain-trip and I couldn’t believe how hard it hooked me!

Most Disappointing March Read

Toss-up between The Priory of the Orange Tree and Pride, both of which I thought were overrated.

Other March Reads

• 3*
  • Sensible Kate by Doris Gates
  • Winter Garden by Kristen Hannah
•  3.5*
  • Illusions of Fate by Kiersten White
  • The Inn at Eagle Point by Sherryl Woods
  • Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
  • The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
  • Self-Sufficiency for the 21st Century by Dick and James Strawbridge
  • The White Cottage Mystery by Margery Allingham
• 4*
  • Blue Smoke by Nora Roberts
  • Coffin Road by Peter May
• 4.5*
  • Into the Forest by Rebecca Frankel
•  5*
  • Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

March Stats

• Total Number of Books Read:  16
• Total Pages Read:  5569
• Average Star Rating for March:  3.63
• Longest Book: The Priory of the Orange Tree (806 pages)
• Shortest Book:  Of Mice and Men (107 pages)
• Oldest Book:  Ivanhoe (published 1819)
• Newest Book: Into the Forest (published 2021)
• Top Genre:  Fantasy, Romance, and Fiction (for me that includes books that generally say “A Novel” on the front haha) all tied at 3 each

March Challenge Updates

• New states visited: Alaska, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, and Missouri
• Chunksters read (800+pgs): 1
• Almost-a-chunksters read (450-799pgs): 2
• Classics read: 3
• Nonfiction read: 2

TBR Update

This is current as of today, not the end of March.

• Standalones:  482 (down six!!!)
• Nonfiction:  130 (holding steady)
• Personal (which includes all books I own (fiction and nonfiction), but lists any series I own as only one entry…):  626 (down two!)
• Series (each series counted separately, not each book within a series):  252 (holding steady)
• Mystery Series (each series counted separately, not each book within a series): 111 (holding steady)
• New Arrivals – (I have a lot of books that I have been gifted or that I pick up somewhere and they get put on my “oh I’m so excited about this shiny new book” shelf… and then of course don’t actually get read.): 166 (up TWELVE?!!)

Current Reads

I’m in a bit of a lull right now – several chapter-a-day reads starting July 1, though.  Right now, I’m just reading Kasie West’s By Your Side, which is okay, but seriously, the main character gets locked IN A LIBRARY and spends the whole time complaining she’s bored and then watching TV in the staff lounge?!?! It’s been a while since I read a YA book that made me feel so old!

Last Time on “Up Next”

Did I actually read my probable next five reads from last time?

• Scarlet by Marissa Meyer – Yes!! I ended up absolutely LOVING the entire Lunar series.  So fabulous.
• Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith – Nope – I never got to this one during the month it was “assigned” so I sent it back to the library unread.  However, it’s still on my TBR as I really do want to read it sometime.
• Harbor Lights by Sherryl Woods – Nope – this one is still on the shelf, though, as it’s the next book in the Chesapeake Shores series.  I just haven’t gotten around to it yet!!
• The Lies We Told by Camilla Way – Oh man, another no! This one is also still on my imminent-TBR shelf – soon!!!

Up Next…

The probable next five(ish) reads –

• The Color of Dragons by R.A. Salvatore – This one is for the traveling book club, so I’m going into it pretty blind.  It looks like the rest of the group really enjoyed, though – I’m the last person to read this one!!
• The Hidden Hand by E.D.E.N. Southworth – Originally published in 1859, I have an edition that was released by Lamplighter press.  I read it a long time ago (back in high school) and it’s been on my reread list for a while.  I’m planning to delve into this one chapter-a-day to start.
• Excellent Women by Barbara Pym – This is the next buddy read for the PemberLittens group, and will also be a chapter-a-day.  I don’t know much about this one, but I’m enjoying trying some different books by classic women writers.
• A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery – This will be a reread for me, although it’s been quite a long time since I read it.  The Kindred Spirits on Litsy are still reading/discussing one Montgomery book a month, and this is July’s pick.  I’m looking forward to this one.
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde – The next round of traveling book club starts in July, and I joined two groups for contrast – one is vintage classics, and this one is my pick for the group.  I’ve never read it before, so I’m actually quite intrigued to see how it goes.  The other group is “happy” fiction – we have two Heyers, a Wodehouse, and another Regency romance fluff read, so I think that group will be a lot of fun as well.

Well, that’s (finally) a wrap for March – we’ll see how long it takes me to get through April reviews!!!

The Sweet Life // by Suzanne Woods Fisher

//published 2022//

We take a break from reviewing books I read months ago to review one that I read much more recently, and, as it was a gift from the publisher in exchange for a review, is being bumped to the front of the reviewing line!!

Workaholic Dawn gets jilted by her fiancee just before the wedding, and goes on the already-paid-for-honeymoon with her mom instead of her husband. Dawn and her mom have always had a slightly rocky relationship because Marnie tends to be spontaneous and free-spirited vs Dawn’s obsessive Type-A planning tendencies. Widowed almost a year, Marnie has also had a recent bout of breast cancer that has left her more shaken than she likes to admit. Marnie falls in love with the small town on the Cape where she and Dawn are “honeymooning“ and spontaneously purchases a rundown ice cream parlor, determined to follow her husband’s dream of owning one. Dawn, of course, sees only the problems and setbacks, and ends up staying to “fix“ her mom’s situation.

There was a lot about this book that I really enjoyed.  Although it has a romcom vibe to it, it’s way more about Dawn and her mom.  The love interest is more of a background thing.  I kind of wish that it had either been nonexistent or a little more out there, though, because since the story focuses so much on Dawn and Marnie, it left me feeling like Dawn was the only person who had things to “fix” in her relationship with Kevin, since we only hear about the things that she is learning/ways she is growing, nothing about what is going on with him and what’s in his head.

However, I really enjoyed Marnie a lot.  She felt like a believable older (comparatively) character.  I appreciated the honest way she was trying to mesh her faith with her cancer and how difficult it was for her to move forward.  There were times that her ditziness did annoy me, but overall I was really rooting for her and her new life.

I got more annoyed with Dawn, who kept wanting to micromanage every detail of her mom’s life, acting like her mom, a full-grown, adult woman, was incapable of making decisions or living her own life.  I got that Dawn was coming from a place of love and wanting her mom to be safe and secure, but her condescending attitude did get on my nerves a lot.  Maybe it’s because I’m a lot more like Dawn and have had to work hard (and am still working hard) to be accepting of the fact that not everyone works off of lists, schedules, and budgets!

The only other thing that really low-key bugged me?  Marnie and Dawn are only two hours away from home, yet never go back to just… get a change of clothes?? They came only planning to stay week, decide to stay for months, but never go back to get any extra supplies??  This seemed so ridiculous to me that it was hard to get past sometimes!

I did like the Christian/faith part of this story.  Lately, I’ve been a bit surprised to receive books from Revell that don’t even mention Christianity, so it was a nice change of pace to have characters whose faith was an integral part of their character.  It was good to see Dawn slowly coming back to her roots, and to see Marnie coming to peace with the difficult parts of her life through the lens of her beliefs.  There is another character as well who I really liked, his maturity and insight was always thoughtful and kind, never pushy or condescending.

While the business aspect of this entire venture seemed wildly impractical, the characters were likable and I was totally rooting for their success.  I really liked both Marnie and Dawn and felt like their relationship was realistic.  I think this book could have used a little more romance or no romance, though, because that part just kind of felt obligatory – I think this book would have read better focused completely on Marnie and Dawn as they both overcome their grief from the unexpected death of Dawn’s dad.  Still, a relaxing read and I definitely see myself picking up book two!!

March Minireviews – Part 3

Hmm.  In June.  Checks out.

Sometimes I don’t feel like writing a full review for whatever reason, either because life is busy and I don’t have time, or because a book didn’t stir me enough.  Sometimes, it’s because a book was so good that I just don’t have anything to say beyond that I loved it!  Frequently, I’m just wayyy behind on reviews and am trying to catch up.  For whatever reason, these are books that only have a few paragraphs of thoughts from me.

Illusions of Fate by Kiersten White – 3.5*

//published 2014//

One of those books that I really wanted to like more than I did.  It’s an intriguing concept/world and that cover is GORGEOUS, but it was just really light on some plot points.  It was only 275pgs long and should have been longer as some parts of the story felt more like an outline than the actual story.  The main character was also a little too “independent and sassy” at times – like girl, I get it, you’re independent, but that doesn’t mean you just do the opposite of what everyone thinks you should do??  This was a fun one as a one-off, but I just wanted more!

The Inn at Eagle Point by Sherryl Woods – 3.5*

//published 2009//

Woods is one of those romance authors whose books I see everywhere but somehow haven’t gotten around to reading yet.  I had a few of the books from her Chesapeake Shores series so thought I would start there.  This was a perfectly nice and regular romance and a good set up for the series, which follows the romances and adventures of a sibling group, one of my favorite ways to do a series.  I didn’t fall in love with this one, but it was good enough to get me to pick up the second book.

The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan – 3.5*

//published 2006//

The second book in the Percy Jackson series was perfectly enjoyable, even if it did follow the same basic outline as the first story.  There were a lot of fun capers here and it’s an engaging way to meet some of ye olde gods in a new context.  Percy himself is likable, especially as a middle grade hero, and the book does a decent job of being its own thing while still building towards a series finale.

Sensible Kate by Doris Gates – 3*

//published 1943//

I have another of Gates’s books on my shelves that I’ve read several times and weirdly enjoyed, The Cat and Mrs. Cary, so when I came across this one I thought I would give it a try.  However, this one just didn’t quite strike the right tone with me.  It was an odd little book about an orphan named Kate who has decided that since she can’t be beautiful, she can at least be sensible, a word that was used about 500 times too many in 189pgs.  This book had a lot of potential with some interesting side characters, especially the grumpy old lady next door who doesn’t like children, but Gates never really went anywhere with it.  She also ruthlessly killed off another side character for literally no reason – I kept expecting him to come back, not dead, but he never did!  I was genuinely upset by it.  Everything came together okay in the end, but this definitely wasn’t a book I’ll be rereading.

Self-Sufficiency for the 21st Century by Dick and James Strawbridge – 3.5*

//published 2020//

I’m always on the lookout for new books to add to my nonfiction collection of practical literature, but while this was a decent one to check out of the library, it didn’t have enough new information for me to want to keep it forever.  This is the 2020 update to the original 2010 book by the same title. This father/son duo own and operate their own homestead in the UK, and this book is full of concepts and ideas for becoming (as the title implies) more self-sufficient. While there were a lot of things about this book that I really liked, the organization and direction felt muddled to me. For instance, the entire first section of the book just jumps directly into getting off the grid – generating your own electricity, dealing with your own waste water, running plumbing that works from collecting rain water, building a water wheel, building a windmill, etc. It felt strange to start the book with these huge, expensive, complicated, advanced projects. There also isn’t really any kind of progression – nothing like “the top five goals you should set“ or anything along those lines. It’s just page after page of somewhat haphazardly organized projects and ideas.

It’s definitely not a book I would recommend to a beginner, but if you have already been gardening and that sort of thing for a few years and are looking to “level up“, this book may be good for inspiration and ideas. It’s not detailed enough to be an actual handbook, but for instance, while if you wanted to build a windmill you’d need to do some more research, there is enough info here to help you decide if a windmill would even work for you at all.

I did feel like this book’s emphasis on self-sufficiency sometimes meant that they skipped middle steps. Instead of going from “buying all your food at the big-box grocery store“ to “using a small electric food dryer to try preserving some of your own“ they dismiss a small dryer like the one I have (~$40) as “too expensive“ and give you a two-page spread on building a solar dryer, the materials for which had to be at least $40 in and of themselves. There were a lot of things like that, where middle steps that can help you decide if this is even something you want to do (for instance, do you even LIKE smoked meat? That would be good to know before investing in building an entire smokehouse) were basically dismissed as not self-sufficient ENOUGH – straight to the big guns.  I liked some of the ideas, but honestly in some ways this book felt overwhelming and discouraging because of its lack of progression, and the tone sometimes came across as a little condescending if you weren’t willing to go ALL IN.  For most people, it’s not practical or possible to go straight off-the-grid completely, based on how much time it takes up in your day alone, but the Strawbridges didn’t really seem to see it that way.

March Minireviews – Part 2

It’s gardening season again!!! So even less time for blogging than ever!! However, there is also less reading time, so maybe that will balance out as far as my attempt to catch up on reviews goes??

Sometimes I don’t feel like writing a full review for whatever reason, either because life is busy and I don’t have time, or because a book didn’t stir me enough.  Sometimes, it’s because a book was so good that I just don’t have anything to say beyond that I loved it!  Frequently, I’m just wayyy behind on reviews and am trying to catch up.  For whatever reason, these are books that only have a few paragraphs of thoughts from me.

Coffin Road by Peter May – 4*

//published 2016//

I really need to read more by Peter May.  I read the Lewis Trilogy back in 2015, and thoroughly enjoyed it, but somehow this is the first May book I’ve picked up since then.  The story opens with a man staggering onto the beach from the sea, wounded and borderline-hypothermic. He has no idea who he is or where he comes from, and as he begins to piece together this own story, he starts to realize that he may have been living a lie… The story is pacey and engaging, and while I couldn’t say that I was shocked by any of the twists, I still felt compelled to keep turning the pages.  Watching the main character struggle to piece together his life while not letting anyone know that he has lost his memory was completely engaging, especially as you (and he) begin to realize that things aren’t really as they seem.  This wasn’t the best thriller I’ve ever read, but I really enjoyed it and definitely will read some more by May in the future.

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott – 3.5*

//published 1819//

This one was actually my February classic read, but at a chapter-a-day pace I didn’t finish it until mid-March.  While it was okay, it didn’t become an instant favorite that I see myself rereading.  When I was growing up, one of my favorite books was The Velvet Room by Zilpha Keatley Snyder.  (I haven’t read that one in years and don’t know why – I NEED to read it again!!)  In that book, the main character and her friend are reading Ivanhoe, and I’ve always meant to read it ever since.  Almost 30 years later, here we are LOL  I’m not 100% sure it was worth the wait, but it was a perfectly fine story and can see why it was so popular when it was published.  I went into it completely blind and thus did not realize that this is actually a Robin Hood tale!  Many of the characters traditionally found in the band of Sherwood outlaws make an appearance, so it was also interesting to see how those myths have changed over time.  The story was quite long-winded – it’s rare that I read a book and think “I really should have gone with an abridged edition,” but I thought it a few times while reading this one.  It can be a bit repetitive and sometimes the conclusion of a scene feels obvious far too early.  There is also an astounding amount of anti-Semitism in this story, but I can’t really be mad about it being in the story as it’s an accurate portrayal of how the Jews were treated/viewed at the time.  It’s honestly so fascinating to trace back the roots of the Nazis and Jewish stereotypes literally a couple of centuries.  I also found myself doing research to learn more about why Jews became moneylenders and how many of the negative stereotypes came to be.  Ivanhoe is a worthwhile read and I think deserves its place on the classics list, but I doubt I’ll come back to this one again.

Into the Forest by Rebecca Frankel – 4*

//published 2021//

It was ironic that while I was reading the anti-Semitism in Ivanhoe, I was also reading a nonfiction book about Jews who escaped and survived in the woods of eastern Poland. Frankel weaves together the stories of several people from the region, discussing the hardships and horrors they suffered under both the Russians and the Germans. Despite the darkness, this book was inspiring and hopeful, as so many Holocaust stories somehow are. The determination, faith, and grit shown by people living under unlivable circumstances was beautiful to read. I do wish that Frankel’s afterword, explaining how she came to write the book and how she was connected to some of the people in it, had been a foreword, as it added a lot to the story for me. Many of the people in this story were related and I also found myself wishing that I had a family tree to reference. But all in all, I highly recommend this book. I was also intrigued when Frankel said that one of the people she wrote about had written his own book about his experiences, published in the 1950s – Faith and Destiny by Philip Lazowski. It appears to be out of print, but I am going to see if I can find a copy somewhere as I’m sure that is an amazing read as well.  That one seems like it would be especially engaging as Lazowski went on to become a rabbi, so it is obvious that his experiences strengthened his faith rather than weakened it, and I would love to read his story.  All in all, this was an excellent book that I definitely recommend.

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah – 3*

//published 2010//

I struggled to get through this one as I found all three of the main characters to be incredibly unlikable/frustrating, and in the end was just left feeling depressed by the way the mother had treated her daughters their entire lives.  The story is about Anya and her two adult daughters, Meredith and Nina.  Anya has always been distant and borderline emotionally abusive to the girls all their lives, and their dad was always the glue that kept the family together.  When he passes away unexpectedly towards the beginning of the book, he extracts a deathbed promise from the women that Anya will tell her story and the girls will listen.  The rest of the book is that story of Anya’s history escaping Russia and the daughters coming to grips with everything.  The main problems was that I didn’t like anyone.  Meredith is one of those people who huffs around like a martyr doing everything because “no one else will do it [right]” and ignoring everyone (like her amazing husband) who offers to help her in any way.  Nina has a job where she travels and acts like anyone who chose to be part of a committed relationship or (horror) raise a family needs to have their head examined because she’s soooo free and sooooo happy!  As for Anya – like, I get it, her backstory is tragic.  So why the heck did she ever have children if she was just going to ignore and belittle them their entire lives?!  Nothing in her story excused the way she treated her daughters like garbage.  Nothing.  It’s great that they were able to forgive her and start to move forward, but I was just mad the whole time at the way she had literally wasted her ENTIRE life and also emotionally crippled her daughters while she was at it, plus making her husband’s life a constant difficulty.  Just.  Like.  Whatever.  And if Anya really was “incapable” of being able to share this stuff – why didn’t their dad?!??!  When the girls were old enough to understand, why didn’t he tell them some of her story so that they could understand what was going on in her head??  He was supposedly this amazing kind, loving, sweet, compassionate person, but he let his daughters suffer needlessly, constantly thinking that the reason their mother didn’t love them was their fault, when he had all the information he needed to at least give them some closure about it.  The book still gets 3* for being a decent story and an interesting piece of historical fiction during those sections, but I couldn’t connect with any of these characters and spent most of the book feeling annoyed.

Pride by Ibi Zoboi – 2*

//published 2018//

This Pride & Prejudice variation is a modern retelling set in a mostly-black neighborhood in Brooklyn.  I found the Elizabeth-character, Zuri, to be completely obnoxious and bratty.  She was super judgy about everyone and everything, and then also offended if anyone dared judged her.  She literally never once considers even the POSSIBILITY that Darius might be, I don’t know, SHY?!  She also just immediately was against her (Jane) sister dating the Bingley character for literally no reason other than cause drama in the story.  The guy is funny, friendly, good-looking, and treating her sister great – and Zuri is just like “THIS GUY IS EVIL WHY ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT DATING HIM ARE YOU CRAZY?!!?!”  It made no sense and gave me a lot of negative feelings towards Zuri right off the bat.  There were some aspects of this that were fun and interesting, but for the most part Zuri kept this book at a big fat no for me, and I didn’t remotely buy her sudden and completely 180* turnaround at the end.