December Minireviews // Part 3

A Will and Way by Nora Roberts – 4*

So I had set aside this book with two Roberts stories in it, assuming that with a title like First Snow they were probably Christmasy.  Well, they weren’t haha  However, I did enjoy this one – classic trope where two people who don’t like each other have to live together in a giant mansion for six months in order to inherit the money.  Along with (naturally) falling in love, there’s a suspense element as well.  Nothing groundbreaking, but a fun read.

Local Hero by Nora Roberts – 3.5*

I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much.  A single mom moves into a new apartment.  Her son hits it off with one of their neighbors, Mitch, who ends up also being the author/illustrator of her son’s favorite comic book series.  While overall this was a fun read, I did find Mitch to be kind of pushy, and it also felt a little weird that the mom was so immediately willing to trust him with babysitting her kid.  Not a bad one-off, but it definitely had the 1980s vibe going on.

Loves Music, Loves to Dance by Mary Higgins Clark – 4*

//published 1991//

Another not-Christmas read, this one was to fill in my 1991 slow for the 1982-2022 challenge on Litsy.  The entire premise centers on the idea of people placing and answering personal ads for potential dates, so that was kind of a fun throw-back.  A serial killer leaves behind just one shoe of each of his victims, which is really the only way the police have of connecting his crimes.  This one was quite suspenseful, and since we get some scenes from the killer’s perspective, pretty creepy, too.  A solid installment in Clark’s long list of writing.

Christmas With Anne by L.M. Montgomery – 4*

A little collection of Christmas-themed short stories by Montgomery.  Like most of the short story collections featuring her work, some of these were stronger than others.  A few were a bit on the saccharine side, but many were quite enjoyable.  It did feel odd to include two random chapters from Anne books in this collection – as someone who has read and is very familiar with the original novels, I enjoyed the revisit of these scenes, but if I had never read the Anne books, I think they would have felt a little out of place.  Enjoyable, but nothing that really stood out.

Raising the Horseman by Serena Valentina – 1*

//published 2022//

Not remotely Christmasy, I read this one for the traveling book club.  A retelling of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, sort of, this one had loads of potential but instead decided to spend most of its time telling readers how terrible men are.  I ranted about this one at length over on GoodReads, and am actually going to link you there instead of copying it all over here.  In short, though, this one was just genuinely boring, the characters weren’t remotely believable or interesting, there were a lot of instances where character decisions/dialogue didn’t match up with earlier character decisions/dialogue, and the whole thing just felt jumbled and directionless.  This book just didn’t deliver. The writing was lackluster, the characters terrible, the plot nonexistent, the story repetitive and dull, and not a single moment of Halloween creepiness to make up for it.  Just.  Ugh.  No.

A Wedding in December by Sarah Morgan – 4*

//published 2019//

This is typical Morgan-fare.  Rosie is getting married in Colorado, so her family comes from England to Aspen.  They’re somewhat concerned because it’s been a rather whirlwind relationship – especially Rosie’s older sister, Katie, who is determined to breakup or at least postpone the wedding.  Rosie’s parents have been together a long time, but have secretly been separated for a few months and are planning to divorce – they just haven’t figured out how to tell their children yet.  As with all of Morgan’s novels, my only complaint is that it could have been longer and more detailed.  We have Rosie dealing with wedding complications, meeting her soon-to-be-husband’s family, and fending off the doubts Katie is planting.  We have Katie, who is so blinded by her assumptions that Rosie must be doing the wrong thing that she can’t actually see what their relationship looks like – despite the help of the best man, Jordan, who happens to be hot and single.  And then the parents, who feel like their marriage has just hit a dead end, but since their daughters don’t know that, have decided to pretend to be as happy as ever for the next few weeks, and then tell them the truth about their upcoming divorce after the wedding – but in the meantime, they’re sharing a cabin and Rosie keeps setting them up on romantic dates, determined that they should be enjoying a “second honeymoon.”  There’s some drama, some good conversations, and some fun scenarios.  Not my favorite book of hers, but still very enjoyable.

Running Total: Books that I’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet: 87!!!  High/Low: 97/87

November Minireviews // Part 4

Towards the end of November, I decided it was probably close enough to Christmas to start reading Christmas books haha

The Wailing Wind by Tony Hillerman – 3.5*

//published 2002//

This one was a decent mystery, but I was somewhat aggravated by how much trouble Bernie got in, considering she had no reason to suspect that the body she found had been murdered.  Still, it was nice to see the Chee/Bernie relationship finally getting some traction!

25 Days Til Christmas by Poppy Alexander –  3.5*

//published 2019//

My first Christmas read of the season was a bit of a mixed bag.  I liked the characters and even the overall story, but Kate’s life started bad and kept getting worse and worse!  Every time there was a chance for something to go wrong, it did, so the majority of the book was kind of depressing.  Then, everything gets magically resolved in about five pages towards the end.  I don’t always need my Christmas romances to feel super realistic, but after so many pages of unrelenting things-going-wrong, it would have been nice to have more reassurances that the turn for the better was actually permanent and not a fluke!

Christmas Ever After by Karen Schaler 3.5*

//published 2020//

Schaler’s books are always a mixed bag for me, mainly because she is always a little obnoxious about herself and how popular her own books are, something she somehow manages to work into these stories in a meta fashion.  My original review says that “this one was pretty terrible, but that’s kind of what I’m into when I’m reading Christmas romances,” and I have to say that still stands haha  The drama meter was at max here, but it was still an okay read.

A Treason of Thorns by Laura Wemouth – 3*

//published 2019//

Sometimes a standalone fantasy definitely feels like it should have been more than one book, and this was the case here.  I wanted more of everything – more character development, more worldbuilding, more conversations – the concept here was SO intriguing and interesting, and I felt like we barely got the surface of what was happening.  There were also a lot of weird jumps in characters – someone is a bad guy, oh no wait actually a good guy after all! Without a lot of in between to explain why we suddenly trust this person when we didn’t trust them at all a few pages ago.  I really wanted to like this one because I found the concept so interesting, but in the end it just didn’t work for me.

The Blythes are Quoted by L.M. Montgomery – 4*

Somehow, I had never heard of this book until it was picked for our Kindred Spirits Buddy Read in November!  Apparently, shortly before her death, Montgomery gathered together some short stories and poetry and put them together, although it wasn’t published this way until just recently.  The poetry is presented as though written by Anne or Walter, with usually a few lines of commentary afterwards by whichever family members were gathered to hear it read out loud.  The majority of the book is set during the era of Rainbow Valley, with a shorter section (maybe a third of the book) set after WWI, as WWII is looming on the horizon.  If you come to this book hoping to get a lot of post-Rilla of Ingleside information about the lives of the Blythes, you won’t find it here.  We get hints that everyone married the “right” person (Rilla/Ken, Jerry/Nan, etc), and you did see some of the emotional difficulties that the family faced after the war was over, adjusting to the fact of Walter’s death.

My biggest issue with this book is that the Blythes are SERIOUSLY quoted.  Like, constantly.  Usually 3-5 times per page.  I almost wonder if Montgomery was purposefully trying to be obnoxious since everyone wanted her to keep writing Anne books long after she had lost interest in the characters.  Most of the mentions of the Blythe family (and Susan Baker) are tangential – along the lines of, “he knew it to be true, because he had heard Dr. Blythe tell the story last week” or “she reminded him of Dr. Blythe’s wife – not exactly beautiful, but still captivating.”  I recognized some of these short stories from other collections, except with a generous sampling of Blythes sprinkled in!  I was reading these just one or two stories a day for the entire month, so it worked for me.  However, I think the Blythe-references would have gotten pretty aggravating if I had tried to read this entire book in one go.  I’m not sure this is one I’ll pick up again, and I definitely don’t think that it adds anything to the Anne series as a whole, but it was still very interesting to read once.

Running Total:  I’m going to try something new and keep a running total of how many reviews I have left to write at the bottom of each of these posts! I’m curious to see if I’m gaining any ground at all, or if I will always be five months behind!!  Current number of books read but not reviewed: 86!

October Minireviews // Part 3

Despite being super busy at the orchard in October, I weirdly got in a lot of reading.  So here is another batch of reviews!!

Our House by Louise Candlish – 3.5*

//published 2018//

This one had such an engaging premise.  Bram and Fi are taking the “mature” course by following a modern co-parenting technique instead of a traditional divorce – they’ve kept their house and also rented a small apartment, and they take turns staying one place or the other, while their son is able to stay in his house all the time – the “bird’s nest” method.  Except one day Fi comes to her house after a few days not there to find total strangers moving in.  Bram is missing, and now no one seems to know what is going on.

This one kept me engaged and reading, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending, so it brought my overall enjoyment down a bit.  Still, a solid thriller with some fun twists.

The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd – 3.5*

//published 2022//

Sometimes I read a book and wish it were a lot better, and this was one of them.  The concept here is absolutely fabulous, but the inconsistency in the world/magic-building was just dreadful.  There were so many things that didn’t match up, so many people whose motivations were never remotely explained, and just – it was close to being this big win but ended up being flat, despite me wanting to love it, because I LOVE MAPS and the idea of magic maps was just completely intriguing to me.  I don’t have to have every single thing about a magical system explained to me line-by-line, but there needs to be consistency and in-world logic, and that was totally lacking in this book.  Still, I would be willing to give another of Shepherd’s books a try… probably.

Among the Shadows by L.M. Montgomery – 3*

This collection just wasn’t what I was expecting.  I was anticipating a book of ghosty stories, but instead these were all just sad.  Apparently the “darker side” is really just stories with sad endings and sad characters.  Lots of adultery, drunkenness, and death.  Some of the stories weren’t bad, but I didn’t love any of them.

Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting by Mary Higgins Clark – 3.5*

//published 2013//

I’m still working through the pile of Clark’s mysteries I’ve accumulated at random book sales.  However, I didn’t take notes on this one and can’t remember it very well, other than feeling rather meh towards it in the end, since it went into the giveaway pile!

Appointment With Death by Agatha Christie – 3.5*

//published 1938//

While I’m always going to enjoy a Christie mystery, this isn’t one of my favorites.  I just felt so bad for this whole family who has been abused their entire lives by their horrid mother!  It was hard for me to get past that.  The actual mystery is good as always, and I do love Poirot, but this one is just really sad.

Pat of Silver Bush // by L.M. Montgomery

//published 1933//

I didn’t really think I was going to read a Montgomery book that I liked less than Emily’s Quest, but Pat was a complete bust for me.  This was another of Montgomery’s books that Mom told me, back when I was a kid, not to bother reading, and, as usual, Mom was right!

Note: This review WILL contain spoilers both for this book and its sequel, which I didn’t read (but had Mom summarize haha), Mistress Pat.  

First off, this book is somewhat boring compared to other Montgomery stories. It should have been titled “Judy of Silver Bush” because huge chunks of the book are just Judy – the housekeeper/cook/etc. – telling telling random stories about random people we don’t know and never will know, all in a somewhat annoying Irish brogue (delightful to hear in real life, annoying to read). Judy heads up the “let’s enable Pat in her unhealthy aversion to change” club, constantly sheltering her and scolding the family if they don’t treat Pat with the reverence she “deserves.” Don’t get me wrong – I liked Judy just fine, I just felt like a lot of this book focused just as much on her as the titular character.

Generally, Montgomery does a good job sketching characters and making me feel as though I know them, but that was completely lacking here. Even Pat herself can basically be summed up with “hates change and is obsessed with Silver Bush” and that’s pretty much her entire character. It took me several chapters to even know which names belonged to actual siblings because Montgomery (weirdly) doesn’t particularly introduce them. We’re told repeatedly that Pat and Sid are best friends (Sid is a brother), but absolutely never see that actually happening on the page – in fact, we mostly see the opposite, times when he lets Pat down or doesn’t understand her or keeps going out with the one girl Pat can’t stand at school. I absolutely never bought Pat and Sid being BFFs and was persistently puzzled as to why Pat would for one second depend on Sid for her future happiness, i.e. being so convinced that he really wasn’t ever going to get married and that they could just live at Silver Bush together forever.  (Spoilers:  Did Montgomery already know what she was going to write in Mistress Pat?  It felt like a lot of arbitrary things that happened in this book were just to set up all the absolutely horrific things she planned to do to these characters in the sequel.  I definitely felt like she killed off Bets just so Sid could marry the dreadful Binnie girl in the second book.  Knowing that was what was going to happen definitely made me enjoy this book a lot less, and it also contributed to my “why in the heck does Pat think so highly of Sid” feelings.)

Nothing happens in this book. Many of Montgomery’s books are somewhat episodic, but perhaps because she was covering so many years (10+) this one just felt rather scattered, with no consistent storyline to further what was happening. It’s just “here’s a random thing that happened. Here’s Judy telling some irrelevant stories. Oh, that Judy, so funny! Hey, here are some descriptive paragraphs about nature!” This book just wasn’t actually GOING anywhere.

I think what really got me about this book is that Pat has ZERO character growth. Other Montgomery heroines actually change – Anne, Emily, Jane, Valancy, even Marigold – but Pat is completely stagnant as a person and as a character. At the beginning of the book, she has completely meltdowns any time there is even a POSSIBILITY of something changing (her pouting around and refusing to eat because her sister MIGHT stay with family in a nearby town to go to a better school? I almost stopped reading after that because she annoyed me so much. What an absolute brat), and at the end of the book – she still does! She consistently doesn’t care about what is best for the people she supposedly loves, because what is best for people is for them to change and grow and go on to live their own lives and Pat doesn’t want that to happen. She’s so petty about everything – people going to school, people pursuing other careers, people getting married, freaking people deciding to shave off their own moustache – because it messes up HER little perfect life that she can’t BEAR to see changed. And instead of her family gently helping her learn that CHANGE IS PART OF LIFE, they all just handle her with kid gloves and go out of their way to avoid upsetting her. (And hey, here’s a tip, maybe part of the reason Pat doesn’t like leaving home is because you all freaking wait until she’s gone and then go on with some major change you know she’s going to hate and haven’t bothered to remotely prepare her for, like cut down trees! And then act all surprised when she doesn’t want to leave anymore! Maybe absolutely blindsiding someone with huge changes isn’t actually the best way to help them learn to deal with change in a health manner!)

At the beginning of the book, Pat is literally obsessed with Silver Bush and it being the perfect place and her never leaving there and always living there, and basically she worships Silver Bush. In the end – it’s the same. She doesn’t actually try anything new, beyond one year of school in a nearby town, and instead just comes back home to Silver Bush. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a homemaker, I love it, I love my home and I love my family and I love caring for them. I think being a homemaker is a noble and beautiful thing, and just as important, valid, and useful as a “career.” HOWEVER Pat’s situation is simply NOT HEALTHY. She only wants to care for Silver Bush because it means she can keep everything the same as it has always been.

I found Pat annoying as a small child at the beginning of the story, and found myself genuinely worried about her when she was a young woman at the end. She had learned nothing, had not grown or developed, and her obsession with keeping things the same had, I think, reached the point of mental illness by the end of the book. By the time you’re 19 you should be old enough to realize that change is part of life, and while it can be sad or upsetting, you can’t stop it, and pouting and crying and making everyone around you feel bad doesn’t actually solve the problem or prevent the change.

2* because there were some brief moments of storytelling that were engaging, but in the end – Mom, you were right. The Pat books really aren’t worth my time.

July Minireviews // Part 3

I’ve long decided that the idea of me ever being caught up on reviews is kind of hopeless.  But now I find myself wondering the opposite – is it possible that I will eventually become so far behind on reviews that readers won’t even know which July I am referring to without further explanation??  Only time will tell.

At any rate, Happy New Year!! And here are some books I read back when it was a million degrees out and super muggy.

Nightwork by Nora Roberts – 4*

//published 2022//

Continuing my July Roberts binge, I also picked up her latest novel.  I’ve seen a lot of mixed reviews for this one, and even though I, personally, enjoyed it, I can understand why a lot of people didn’t.  It’s really more of a story about the main character, Harry Booth, than it is about romance or suspense – which is a bit of a departure from most of the Roberts books I’ve read.  The story starts with Harry as a small boy.  His single mother has cancer and can only work irregularly so they struggle to make ends meet.  Harry starts stealing, and, as he grows into adulthood, becomes a con artist and a professional thief.  Despite Harry’s job, this story was slow, and the heists never felt particularly pulse-pounding.  Personally, I liked Harry as a character, and I enjoyed the descriptions of the various places he lived and worked (especially New Orleans), so I enjoyed the book.  But both the romance and the suspense are on the slow side, so this one probably isn’t for everyone.

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym – 4*

//published 1952//

I read this one as a buddy read with a group on Litsy.  It definitely wasn’t a book that I would have picked up on my own, but I ended up enjoying it, especially at the chapter-a-day pace.  It’s not a particularly fast-paced read, a story of an older spinster just after WWII.  It’s an interesting look at a specific layer of British society, one of a generation of women whose potential husbands were slaughtered on the battlefields.  I ended up liking Mildred and sympathizing with her quiet, industrious life, where most of her work was taken for granted.  I was a little let down by the ending, which felt rather sitcom-like, where everyone just ends up exactly where they started, but overall while this wasn’t a new favorite that I see myself reading time and again, I found to be an engaging, quiet novel.

A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery – 4*

//published 1931//

It had been probably 15-20 years since my last reread of this one.  It was never one of my favorite Mongomery’s growing up, but I appreciated it a lot more now than I did when I was in my early 20s, finding several of the storylines a bit more sympathetic.  There are a lot of characters here and a lot of threads (hence the title), so there are definitely stories within this one that I prefer to others.  The Sams were never my favorites before or now, and it does make me sad that their weird racism bit is the what comprises the final pages of this book, considering that the rest of the novel is old-fashioned but pleasantly so.  This isn’t where I would start with Montgomery’s books, and it’s definitely more adult than many of her other novels, but there are plenty of enjoyable characters and interesting motivations here.  This was an especially fun one to read with the Kindred Spirits group on Litsy as there is a lot to discuss!!

Lost Lake by Phillip Margolin – 3.5*

//published 2005//

I really enjoy Margolin’s legal thrillers.  This one wasn’t my favorite, but it still kept me turning the pages.  Ami is a single mother and struggling attorney.  She rents out the apartment above her garage for extra income, and her latest tenant seems like a regular, kind man a little older than herself.  But when he goes berserk at her son’s baseball game and almost kills someone with his bare hands, Ami sees an entirely different side of him.  Now in prison, he shares an almost unbelievable story with her, about a secret group of trained killers, hired by the government entirely off the books and headed up by a famous general who is now running for president.  His story is corroborated by the General’s own daughter, Vanessa – who had a mental breakdown in her past and spent time in a mental hospital, meaning that now no one takes her accusations very seriously.  Margolin does a great job of presenting information against the General that makes you think Carl and Vanessa are right, followed by the General explaining away everything in a perfectly reasonable manner, leaving you convinced that Carl (a Vietnam vet) and Vanessa are actually just paranoid and delusional, pitiable individuals who need help.  However, this did mean that book was slightly repetitive at times, especially when we would hear about something from Carl’s view, than Vanessa’s, then the General’s.  And towards the end of the book there is a big courtroom scene where everything is summed up in far too much detail – like, I literally just read the book?? I don’t need an entire chapter-long synopsis!  However, I genuinely didn’t know who to believe up until the ending, so, a good one-time read, but not my new favorite by this author.

The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan – 4*

The final book in the Percy Jackson series wrapped everything up nicely.  On the whole, while I enjoyed the series just fine, it didn’t really reach out and grab me.  There are various spinoff and other related series, but I don’t see myself picking up any of the others.

June Minireviews // Part 1

Woohoo!! June reviews!!

NB: All links in this post go to my personal reviews of the books mentioned.

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.

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff – 3.5*

//published 2016//

This one was a traveling book club book that I was intrigued to read because Kristoff is the coauthor of the Aurora Cycle, which I loved.  While I found this one to be really interesting with some creative world-building, it was ultimately a bit too dark for my personal tastes, so even though it’s the first book in a series, I didn’t particularly feel engaged enough to read the next book.  Part 1 was really slow – if I hadn’t been reading this with the group, I would have DNFd.  Kristoff uses copious footnotes to explain various things, so loads of small print and a lot of infodumping.  The pace definitely picked up as the book progressed, though, and I could barely put it down during the final section.  There were some interesting characters and some terrifying creatures (sand krakens! Brilliant!) but while I did enjoy this one, the series just wasn’t for me.

Book Lovers by Emily Henry – 4*

//published 2022//

I really enjoyed Henry’s book Beach Read, but felt quite meh about People We Meet on Vacation (still not over how annoying the main character of that one was), so I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up Book Lovers.  However, even though it wasn’t my new most favoritest read ever, I did really enjoy this one and snorted with laughter on multiple occasions.  I feel like I have to add the caveat that literally I don’t understand city people, or people who think cities are amazing, or people who want to hang out in cities for more than like, an hour, much less live in them.  These people literally make zero sense to me – just… why???  So I did have trouble getting over the way Nora just literally LOVES the city and LOVES living in the city and can’t imagine anything else.  What a weirdo haha But I could appreciate her genuine love for her home nonetheless.

What I absolutely loved were the upside-down tropes – they were just written so perfectly, Nora’s self-awareness of them made everything work, and it was fantastic.  The snark between Nora and Charlie is perfect.  Out of all the romances I’ve read this year, they may be the couple I shipped the hardest.  I just really did genuinely feel that they brought out the best in each other, and that they could see each other’s real selves and appreciated each other for who they truly were.  (Wow, my tenses got really tangled up there, but you all know what I mean haha)  I could have done without the steamy scenes because that isn’t my thing, but I definitely didn’t feel like that was the only thing these two had going.

My biggest complaint about this book is the tension between Nora and her sister.  The whole reason Nora is spending her vacation in a small town is because her sister wants them to hang out together.  It’s obvious that Libby has something big on her mind, but we spend the entire book not knowing what it is.  Is Libby’s husband cheating on her?  Is Libby unhappy with the way her life is going?  Is she mad at Nora about something?  Does she have cancer?  Not knowing what was going on with her actually drove me somewhat crazy and detracted from my overall enjoyment because it low-key stressed me out for the entire book.  This is a book I would enjoy more the second time around, already knowing what’s going on with Libby.

Magic for Marigold by L.M. Montgomery – 4*

//published 1929//

This was June’s book for Kindred Spirits group on Litsy, and was another Montgomery that I hadn’t read in absolute years.  My reread reminded me why – this is a perfectly pleasant book, but for some reason it just doesn’t stand out to me.  Part of it is because it’s very episodic in nature – it reminds me a lot of my least favorite Anne book, Rainbow Valley, where each chapter is just sort of its own little stand-alone adventure.  They aren’t bad, it just never really felt like there was an overarching story driving the book.  The only real common theme is Marigold wishing she had a friend, and several of the stories center on adventures wherein she meets someone and either they turn out to be not at all what she expected/an actual person who could be a friend, or something else prevents them becoming very close, usually distance.  Considering that this seems to sort of be the main point of the book, the ending felt especially odd, with Marigold becoming friends with a new neighbor, who is a boy.  She puts up with a lot of adventures she doesn’t want to participate in, like chasing frogs, to keep him happy.  Another new kid moves into the neighborhood, also a boy.  Boy A immediately drops Marigold and becomes best buddies with Boy B.  Eventually, Boy A comes back to Marigold and they restart their friendship, with Marigold realizing that it’s better to be friends in a situation where she can be herself instead of having to pretend like she likes all that “boy stuff” (not that Boy B is around to take care of that part of Boy A’s friendship needs) and the final line is something basically about her always being willing to wait for whenever Boy A needs her, or something kind of weird and dumb like that.  There are a couple of Montgomery books that I think always end up rated lower in mind because of the way they end, and this is one of them. (A Tangled Web, which was July’s book, is another.)  Anyway, all in all a perfectly pleasant read, but if I was rating all the books Montgomery has written, this one wouldn’t be particularly near the top.

The Randolphs by Isabella Alden – 3*

Alden was an aunt to Grace Livingston Hill, and an influence on Hill’s writing.  She mostly wrote under the pen name of Pansy, books similar to what Hill would write during the next generation – gentle romances and stories with Christian faith at the center.  I own a few collections of GLH that have three of her books plus one of Alden’s included.  What I didn’t realize is that The Randolphs is actually a sequel – the first book centered on the oldest (adult) son of the family, Tom, who apparently became saved during the first book.  Here, Tom is trying to live out his faith, but the main character is his sister Maria, who is skeptical of faith and how it can actually be useful for her life.  This was a perfectly pleasant story for the most part, but I did feel like Alden 100% copped out by having Maria’s actual transformation take place off-page!  It’s the old “she gets sick/injured and is bedridden and it makes her reassess her life” trick, and then Alden skips a couple of YEARS and suddenly Maria is a paragon and inspiration to everyone.  What a cheat!  Still, this was a nice little story, and honestly just a fun look at its time – this one was originally published in 1876 – I especially loved how one character they went on and on about how he came from “the west”… which turns out to be Michigan!

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson – 4*

//published 1883//

This was my classic that I started in May, but what with being out of town for a week in May and such, I didn’t finish it until June.  Although I’ve seen the amazing Muppets version of this story more than once, I had never read the original.  While this was a fun story – and I can definitely see how it appealed to young lads when it was published in 1883 – honestly, I liked the Muppets better!!  It’s still a fun and creative yarn, although things did get a little muddled when they got to the island, I thought, and the book was sadly devoid of angry natives and musical numbers.  A week or two ago my whole family sat down for the Muppet version, and I just can’t believe how they managed to capture the spirit and essence of the story and its characters so very well.  The original book is definitely worth a read – I’m quite enjoying working through Stevenson’s works.

May Minireviews – Part 2

Part 2 and final for May!!  Also, after I published Part 1 I realized that I had literally labeled it April Minireviews.  Losing my mind 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.

Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery – 5*

//published 1937//

This is one of my favorite Montgomery books, and I couldn’t believe it had been so long since I had reread it!  Victoria Jane lives with her mother, grandmother, and aunt in a large and gloomy house.  Grandmother is incredibly overbearing and jealous of Jane’s mother’s attention.  Jane assumes that her father is dead, but when she is 11 learns that actually her parents are just separated, and her father lives on Prince Edward Island – and he wants Jane to come visit him so that he can have a chance to get to know her as well.  Jane doesn’t want to go, convinced that her father must be a terrible person since her mother is so sweet – but she falls in love with her dad, the Island, and her life of freedom and industry there.

This is a typical Montgomery story of a sturdy young heroine finding her independence.  My only complaint is that Jane definitely seems older than 11 a lot of the time.  I love all the many side characters and adventures, although I would like the ending to be a little less rushed.  Still, this is overall just a delightful story that always reminds me of a younger version of The Blue Castle.

The Heart’s Victory by Nora Roberts – 3*

//Heart’s Victory – published 1982// Rules of the Game – published 1984//

This story and the next one I read because they were republished together – a lot of Roberts’s 80s romances seem to be republished this way as they are shorter stories (~200pgs).  These were both pretty dreadful if I’m honest haha  In this one, the heroine was raised by her older brother, a racecar driver, so she grew up on “the circuit“ and always had a crush on her brother’s friend. Now she’s back on the circuit on assignment as a photographer and sparks fly. This one had a little too much of the “grabbing and kissing until she gives in“ routine that was so popular in the early 80s and made a really weird jump in the middle of the story where they suddenly decide to get married and now all their issues are about her settling in with his rich family?? It felt like two stories in one and was a bit confusing.  There was basically no character development and I never really believed in the success of these two as a couple.

Rules of the Game by Nora Roberts – 3*

Here, the protagonist directs commercials and her new client is an up and coming baseball star. This one wasn’t too bad, it just didn’t really go anywhere. There wasn’t really any reason that the two of them couldn’t be together, other than the female MC being all “I don’t do commitments,” which felt underdeveloped and kind of pointless because she didn’t really have a reason not to other than just… not wanting to?  Which is totally a fine choice to make, obviously, but here just felt like filler/trying to cause drama.  Once again – no confidence in the long-term success of this relationship!

Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson – 3.5*

//published 2022//

This one was a decent read but not a book I loved or want to reread.  Savannah works for a small publishing house that focuses on serious, nonfiction topics.  The owner despises “fluff” books, especially romcoms.  However, Savannah loves them and has secretly been writing one of her own.  Through a series of events, someone else finds her manuscript and leaves her editorial notes that turn out to be helpful, and soon they are passing the manuscript back and forth – except Savannah doesn’t know who her secret editor is.  Of course, it’s a romcom, so the reader knows who it is, but still.  This book was just kind of boring, and I found pretty much nothing about Savannah’s job to be realistic, especially the ending.  (No one’s getting laid off??  For real??)  I was hoping for more notes between the two of them, but we get almost none of those.  It was a perfectly fine story, but not one that I really loved.

Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter – 3.5*

//published 2021//

Liz is starting her senior year of high school, and her childhood crush, Michael, has just moved back to town.  She really wants to reconnect with him but isn’t sure how, and ends up enlisting the help of her neighbor (who was also good friends with Michael back in the day), Wes.  Liz has always considered Wes to be her nemesis as he has teased and played tricks on her through the years, so she is surprised by how well they get along as they start to hang out.  Liz’s mom died when Liz was little, and the way that she stays connected is through the movies and music that her mom loved.  All of the movie and music references made sense within the story, but they made this story kind of feel like it was actually for adults, despite being a YA story, since I’m not sure that current YA readers watch a lot of 90s romcoms or listen to Radiohead and Beastie Boys (although maybe they do, I don’t know a lot of teens right now lol).  This was another pretty forgettable story for me.  All the drama with Wes just felt like it went on way too long.  There is also a scene where Liz is at a party and someone throws up on her, and there were literal PAGES of clean up that involved describing texture, color, scent, etc. of this vomit – just why.  It felt so unnecessary and gross.

All in all, another perfectly fine read, but one I was glad I had checked out of the library instead of buying.

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!

February Minireviews – Part 3

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 Deal With the Elf King by Elisa Kova – 4*

//published 2020//

Sometimes I think I enjoy a book more when I have kind of low expectations going in lol  This one was for the traveling book club, which can be hit or miss reads for me, but I actually ended up really enjoying this one (although it did get a bit too sexy for my tastes towards the end).  The world-building was done really well, and when the main character goes to the magical land, she asks questions and people actually answer them, almost like it’s important for her to have useful information so she can accomplish the things they need her to do.  (I’m looking at you For the Wolf and From Blood & Ash.)  I think part of the reason this book worked for me was that it wasn’t trying too hard to be clever.  It was just a fun, enjoyable story with a dash of magic, instead of trying to create this involved and complicated and mysterious system that no one ever really explains.  There’s a second book out in this series, and it is on my ereader, waiting for me to get to it!

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood – 4*

//published 2021//

I struggled a little with rating this one.  There was SO much that I really enjoyed.  I absolutely loved the two main characters together.  There was so much fun banter and snark and several ridiculous situations that felt at least moderately plausible.  I actually liked Olive a lot, and even though she works in STEM, Hazelwood for the most part managed to not get all preachy about how men suck, which was nice.  I realized while I was reading this that some of my book issues are actually culture issues with the way our current society approaches sex.  I just really hate that dating = sex in modern vernacular.  Keeping in mind that this is a fake relationship book, so Olive and Adam aren’t actually dating, but Olive’s friends think they are – at one point, pretty early in the “relationship” her friends say something along the lines of, “Yeah, it’s nice that you have a boyfriend, but it’s just SO GOOD that you’re finally get LAID” as though Olive’s lack of sex in her life was this horrific situation that no one would have to suffer.  Throughout, even at the beginning when Olive and Adam have only (supposedly) been dating for a week or two, Olive feels obliged to kiss/have physical contact with Adam in order to “sell” the relationship – I just don’t feel like you should have to full-body kiss someone after you’ve been dating them for a couple of days because otherwise no one will believe you’ve really been on a few dates???  The general attitude towards sex has, in general, greatly reduced my enjoyment of contemporary romances, because more and more it’s just literally portrayed as an obligatory part of, if not a first date, definitely a second, and I honestly think that’s kind of gross.

BUT ANYWAY I digress.  The actual story had a lot of fun points, and people who aren’t as old-fashioned as I am have given this book many rave reviews because the characters really are great fun.  All in all, I did enjoy this one, but I already have chucked it in the giveaway box because I won’t be reading it again.

Star Sand by Roger Pulvers – 2*

//published 2015//

This was an odd book. I rolled with it in Part 1 because it’s translated from Japanese, so some of the odd sentence structuring and odd dialogue could be due to translation. The premise was interesting – a small Japanese island, a girl helping two AWOL soldiers – one Japanese and one American. The girl is somewhat obsessed with collecting star sand from the beach – which I had to look up because no one was actually telling me what star sand is. Fast forward to 2011. A college-aged girl, whose POV reads like a hyperactive 11-year-old, learns about the diary of the Japanese girl and the fact that three skeletons were found in the cave where the soldiers were hiding. Blah blah blah eventually she meets someone who tells her what “really“ happened in the cave and it just – didn’t make sense?? What didn’t make sense is someone going back and rearranging bodies after people were dead??  I was just so confused. Why go back a decade or more after the war, dig up the bodies, and move them around?! Also, I could be wrong here (I’m not known for being a sciency person), but if a body has disintegrated to the point that it’s just a skeleton, doesn’t it like… not stick together any more? Like if you want to rearrange a skeleton so the person is sitting instead of laying in a grave, wouldn’t you have to move each bone individually and put them back together in the new position!?! Literally nothing in the final section of this book made sense, and combined with the modern narrator, supposedly in her early 20s, whining about her brother putting games on her cell phone and saying things like “I just HATE my brother he’s SO AWFUL!!!!!!!!“ Her voice was NOT remotely believable.  The motivations of the Japanese girl’s actions were incomprehensible to me, and it made the whole story fall apart.  Interesting premise that went no where.

Family for Beginners by Sarah Morgan – 4*

//published 2020//

Sarah Morgan is turning into one of my favorite authors.  I just love the way that she writes relationships, and while there is always some romance in her stories, they are usually more about the connections between parents, spouses, children, and siblings, and Family for Beginners was no exception.  Flora is very happy with her life, but she’s an orphan with no siblings, and now that she’s older and most of her friends are married and starting families of their own, she’s lonely.  When she meets Jack, she’s immediately drawn to him.  But Jack has been widowed less than a year and has two children home.  Izzy, a teenager, is completely devastated that her dad has a girlfriend.  This all sounds like it should be ridiculously melodramatic, but somehow Morgan just makes it feel like a real story.  I genuinely felt so bad for Izzy, who is trying her best to keep her family together.  Flora was incredibly likable without being annoying, and even though Jack could be dense at times, I liked him as well and really did feel like he is trying to do the best he can for his family.

The deceased wife’s name was Becca, which I thought was an interesting choice as there were echoes of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca in this story – Flora hears a lot about how perfect and amazing Becca was and feels intimidated by the legacy Becca has left behind.  There was a bit of drama concerning Becca’s past that felt rather drawn out, but everything was resolved in a way I found very satisfactory.  Another win for Sarah Morgan, who is turning into an auto-buy author for me.

The Golden Road by L.M. Montgomery – 3.5*

//published 1913//

The sequel to The Story Girl is not as enjoyable of a read for me, as it tends to be a bit more bittersweet as the cousins are getting older and starting to look towards the future.  However, there are still some fun stories and adventures here.  This time around what really struck me is that Felicity, who is a bit bossy/snobby in The Story Girl is a LOT bossy/snobby in The Golden Road – there were multiple times where she was basically like “that’s the right thing to do, but it would make me look bad so I’m not doing it” and it really annoyed me.  I actually would have loved it if Montgomery had written one more book about this crew, as she left them at a very awkward age.  I would loved a story where they’ve all grown up and some of them have left the family farm – a book of letters and a reunion would have been great fun, and would have given some of these characters an opportunity to be more mature and likable than they are here.  A pleasant read, but not my favorite of Montgomery’s works.

January Minireviews – Part 3

Here is the last batch of January reads!!

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.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway – 4*

//published 1952//

One of my 2022 goals is to clear at least 12 books off my classics backlist, and this one was very satisfying because it was so short!  I didn’t exactly like this book, but Hemingway writes in such a way that I had trouble putting it down, despite the fact that it’s literally an old man going fishing.  There is a tautness to his writing that makes it work, and so many layers to what is, at surface-level, a simple story.  I personally wasn’t a huge fan of the way it ended, but you can’t make everyone happy.

The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery – 4*

//published 1911//

The Kindred Spirits Buddy Read group on Litsy is continuing their foray into Montgomery’s works through 2022, and this was our January pick.  It had been a very long time since I read this one, so it was fun to revisit.  It’s a rather episodic book, but I did overall enjoy it although it will never be one of my favorites.  While the characters here are fun, they somehow lack depth – each of the children seems to fit a role and not go much beyond it.  And despite the fact that the story is being told in first person, the narrator is probably the one we get to know the least, which is odd.  Perfectly pleasant, but it will probably be another decade or so before I bother to reread this one again.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte – 2*? 4*? No stars?

//published 1847//

The Litsy group that read through all of Austen’s works last year (the PemberLittens) is continuing into 2022 by reading books about Austen and also other works from women from the Austen-ish era.  Wuthering Heights was January’s book, and since I had never read this one all the way through – I remember abandoning it halfway in high school with the general feeling that the only “happy” ending would be for everyone to die of the plague – I thought I would give it a try as an adult and see if it was more palatable.  In a word – yes, it was, but… it’s really hard for me to rate this one.  First off, it was just absolutely ridiculous.  I actually found myself snorting with (inappropriate) laughter in multiple spots because it was just so over-the-top.  On purpose?  Who knows.  I was also absolutely befuddled by the fact that some people consider this a romance, or consider Heathcliff and Catherine to be a romantic couple.  What?!  These two are both mentally ill, unstable, obsessive, selfish, and creepy.  At one point, Heathcliff digs up Catherine’s dead body.  This isn’t romantic!  What is happening?! But I weirdly did like the way the story ended, although some of my fellow-readers thought it was too tidy.  I felt like Cathy, unlike her mother, actually outgrew her selfish whims and gain some balance to her personality, and I liked that.  I can’t say I exactly enjoyed reading this, but it did keep me engaged.  I was so confused by multiple people having the same name/being related that I printed off a little cheat-sheet towards the beginning of reading it and thoroughly enjoyed X-ing out everyone as they died… which was pretty much everyone, so my high school desire to have everyone die off for a happy ending was very nearly fulfilled lol  All in all, it was a worthwhile read, I think, but not one I see myself revisiting.  I did use this buddy read as an excuse to buy this pretty copy, though, which I’m perfectly happy to keep on my shelf.

Nation of Enemies by H.A. Raynes – 3*

//published 2015//

This was another one that is a little hard to rate.  It was also kind of creepy because it was published in 2015 (i.e. pre-Covid and pre-“vaccine passport” insanity) but was all about a future where the entire world is using a chip-based medical system where every person has a MedID rating based on how healthy they are and various genetic features that extrapolate how likely they are to be sick in the future (i.e. cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc).  People with good Med numbers are able to get good jobs, housing, move from place to place, etc. while people with bad numbers are relegated to the outskirts of society.  Many people tout this as a positive as eliminating the low numbers means that we are on track to eliminate said diseases, but others are beginning to grow uneasy with how swiftly the system has been used to alienate huge sectors of the population into second-class citizens.  The MedID chips have now become a way to not only track medical history, but everything else, making it easy to decide “criminals” (both real and determined by people who don’t like people) are unable to purchase groceries, travel from state to state, or get a job.  The story opens on the cusp of a huge presidential election, with one candidate determined to build on the MedID system and other poised to begin removing it, restoring the freedoms everyone once knew.  In the decade since the MedID was instated, the country has descended into a state of constant terrorist attacks, many by frustrated low-MedID citizens, others by various anarchist groups, some by other political powers playing on the emotions of vulnerable individuals.

Rayes does a great job setting all of this up, introducing the reader to several people within the government and within society who are both benefitting and losing from the MedID system, and showing how various things are working behind the scenes of the big election.  It was really terrifying and amazing to see how this concept, basically where the vaccine passports are headed, had changed the society, and it was all very believable.  But about halfway through the story, things began to lose steam as Raynes slowly turned his story into a more typical political thriller instead of exploring a lot of the nuances presented by a society dominated by this system.  In the end, basically everyone was a bad guy, which was kind of weird, and a lot of ends were left loose.  This was also a really long book, clocking in at 528 pages, so it definitely felt like it could have used some editing to tighten things up.  In the end, a story with some strong potential that just frittered away.

The Magic of Ordinary Days by Ann Howard Creel – 2.5*

//published 2001//

Apparently this book is also a Hallmark movie, but I haven’t seen it.  It was chosen by a member of the traveling book club book, which is really the only reason I finished it as I found the main character, Livvy, to be insufferably selfish and bratty.  Set during WWII in Colorado, Livvy is from an upper-class family and has always lived a rather spoiled life. The author tries to make her a sympathetic character by giving her a dead mother and a distant father, but she never felt like a real person to me.  She gets pregnant from a one-night stand with a soldier with whom she’s gone on a few dates, and her father solves the “problem” by finding a farmer in eastern Colorado for her to marry, sight unseen.  Ray is stereotypically strong and silent, but the main things we have to know about him is that he’s uneducated by Livvy’s standards and thus rather dumb, he immediately begins to worship the ground Livvy walks on for literally no apparent reason, and Livvy’s so concerned about Ray’s “heart” because of his “innocence” around women – she goes on and on and on about this, about how she’s sooooo “experienced” and Ray isn’t, despite the fact that she went on like 3 dates and got pregnant, not sure how that makes her some kind of relationship/sex expert and it REALLY got on my nerves.  But Livvy’s that way about everything.  She’s from the city and she’s gone to college, so she’s soooo smart and clever and worldly and wise and all these other people are just sort of dumb hicks.  I kept think that she was going to recognize the fact that she’s just a blatant snob, but she never really does.  She and Ray have like two conversations and then from there forward Livvy’s always saying things like, “I could tell from the love in his eyes how much he yearned for us to be together” blah blah blah, which was both boring and unbelievable.  There’s this whole story about these Japanese women who are in a prison camp nearby and how the Japanese prisoners are working on the region’s farms, including Ray’s, but it’s really a sort of surface-level look at this because we never talk with Ray, we just get Livvy’s assumptions about how Ray feels about it.  What Livvy assumes is that he completely approves of interning the Japanese and thinks the Japanese are stupid and guilty, despite the fact that he treats them incredibly well and absolutely nothing in his actions support her theory.  Livvy also spends a bunch of time driving all over the countryside despite Ray specifically telling her that his gas rations are supposed to be being used for farm work, not pleasure.  Livvy justifies it by basically saying she’s bored.  I was also amazed at how a farm wife during World War II could be bored and have nothing to do, but here we are.  Everyone else in my traveling book club seemed to really like this one (I was the last to read it) so maybe I’m just being overly harsh, but I found Livvy to be painfully unlikable, which made the whole story drag for me a lot, since it’s literally all from Livvy’s perspective and literally all about her in every way, because to Livvy, Livvy is the most important person in the world.  I had absolutely zero confidence in her long-term happiness with Ray, because Livvy never actually changed as a person.