Secrets She Left Behind by Diane Chamberlain

I finished this one, Secrets She Left Behind, tonight.  It was a great follow-up to Before the Storm, and I actually liked it a bit more.  There was enough backstory given to the reader that this book could stand alone, but I am glad that I read both.  The unfinished business from the first book really came together in this one as another mystery was told.  I'm becoming a very big fan of this author. 
Prior to this book, I read Wishin' and Hopin' by Wally Lamb.  As always, I love his books.  This was an enjoyable holiday book though, not the heavy themes he usually deals with. 


I'm looking through my list and see that I've only read a little over 70 books so far this year.  Kind of a slow year for me I guess.  My favorites for the year (unless something grabs me in the next few weeks) have been The Reader by Bernard Schlink, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, and The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  Of course there were other wonderful books, but those stick in my mind tonight.  These touched me in an individual way.  I'm looking forward to what I find in 2010.

Just finished Before the Storm by Diane Chamberlain

After reading The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes I remember picking this book up immediately hoping that it would be just as good.  Then somehow it got lost in my constantly growing TBR pile.  I was encouraged to get it out and read it after a friend raved about it's sequel.  I'm so glad that I did.  This was a quick read for me because the mystery moved at a great pace.  It brought out interesting questions about the mistakes that we make and how it is possible to move on, even when those mistakes seem too big to do so.  I really enjoyed this book, and now I'm ready to gobble up the sequel.

Just finished these, and still working on A Suitable Boy

Since my football teams cannot win a game, I may have time to read some books again...

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Q & A by Vikas Swarup (which is the novel that Slumdog Millionaire was based on)
I give this a 4.5/5.  I'm so glad that I read it before seeing the movie (on my "to do" list).

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
I would give this a 3/5.  Although his early experiences with food and beginnings as a chef were interesting, there was too much focus on the drugs, drinking, etc. for me. 

Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls
I enjoyed this one, but it wasn't nearly as good as The Glass Castle.  It was interesting to know more about Rosemary and Rex, but other parts of the book dragged a bit.  I would rate it a 4/5, but may have rated it lower if I hadn't read The Glass Castle. I don't think I would have been as curious about these characters if I didn't know more about their futures.

A Suitable Boy

I haven't been posting because I chose the world's largest book last week, and I am making no progress on it even though I do seem to be reading quite a lot.  So I admit that I am intimidated by my book, but feel an absolute need to finish this one no matter what.  I wonder if any of my friends have actually read this...?  It's defintely interesting, but has about a few extra hundred characters that I haven't built the skills for keeping track of yet.  It's gonna' be a long November.  Currently on page 364 out of over 15,000...yikes.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I finished The Help last night, and I loved it.  I wasn't sure what to expect when I started it because I avoided the reviews and book description prior to reading it.  I know there is a lot of talk about this book, and I did not want to set myself up for disappointment.  The characters are beautifully developed, you're going to love them.  It is so hard for me to believe that this is the way our country was such a short time ago though.  However, don't avoid the book because it seems like it may be a downer.  The story is both sad and funny with characters that the reader really cares about.  I rate it a 5/5.

Currently reading two

I am starting two new ones, A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif , and The Help by Kathryn Stockett.   The Help is the selection for my new face-to-face bookclub.  The book by Mohammed Hanif just caught my eye.

The Best of Times by Penny Vincenzi

This was my first book by Penny Vincenzi.  I believe that I downloaded it based on a blurb that I read in Bookmarks magazine.  After I finished, I decided to look the author up and read some reviews of her other books.  It seems like her fans found this book to be less impressive than her other work.  For this reason, I think I will try her again.  I liked this storyline and the characters that she created, but it definitely dragged for me.  I think I would have liked it a lot more if she had cut about 300 pages (and I think she could have easily done so).  It was good, not great...3/5 stars for me.

Just finished The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

I just started reading The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.  I was impressed with his other book, Between the Assassinations, so I've been looking forward to this one.  It has me hooked already.  The style reminds me of The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid.  I just know already that I'll feel torn about this character.

I finished this last night, and I was a little let down by the ending.  I'm not sure why, but I just expected something more.  I ended up feeling indifferent to Balram, the main character, when I was done.  I loved the letter writing style of the book, however, and I really enjoyed it overall.  I will definitely read more by this author.  My rating: 4/5

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

This was a beautiful sad story about innocence lost and a family falling apart.  The writing style gives you both the beauty of the world around the characters and the suspense of the story.  I can't say much without spoiling things for other readers, but I do give this one a 5/5.

Finished Day After Night by Anita Diamant

I finished this book last night, and I would definitely suggest it to anyone who enjoys novels based on WWII or those that are rich in history.  The story was told from the perspective of survivors who are now in a detention center for illegal immigrants, which I found to be a unique way to look at the time period.  It was a gripping character story, as well as a good history lesson.  The only thing that bothered me was the way that one of the women did not seem to behave consistently with her original characterization. 
My Rating: 4.5/5 

September books...what a slow month!

I will have to blame the beginning of the school year for the amount of reading that I've done in September.  However, they have all been good ones.
 
First Darling of the Morning by Thrity Umrigar (memoir)
The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman
The Hindi-Bindi Club by Monica Prahdan
102 Minutes by Jim Dwyer
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
The Promised World by Lisa Tucker
Day After Night by Anita Diamant (almost done with this one)

Hunting for Used Book Stores

Anyone who knows me also knows that I am crazed when the public libraries have their book sales.  However, those seem so few and far between.  This past weekend we had a chance to wander through several used bookstores in Wisconsin.  I love the idea, but there wasn't much for someone in search of a book other than a thriller or a classic.  I was hoping when I got home that I would be able to do a quick search and find some local used bookstores.  No such luck, at least not close to me.  So I guess until I hit the big time and have the money to open my own shop, online used bookstores are the way to go.  Which ones are the best?  If anyone knows, please drop me a comment.

The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman

Finished, My Rating: 4.5/5
I had to let my mind go a little bit at first and accept the jumps between fantasy and reality.  Once I did that, I really enjoyed the twists and turns of this dark story. I would have liked to see a little less focus on Elv and more on the other sisters, especially Meg.
Overall it was a very good read, and impossible to put down once I got into it.

Starting The Story Sisters

I have already heard some mixed reviews on this one, so I stopped reading reviews until I try it for myself.  The book description grabbed me.  I'll let you know.


Back of the book description:
The Story Sisters, charts the lives of three sisters–Elv, Claire, and Meg. Each has a fate she must meet alone: one on a country road, one in the streets of Paris, and one in the corridors of her own imagination. Inhabiting their world are a charismatic man who cannot tell the truth, a neighbor who is not who he appears to be, a clumsy boy in Paris who falls in love and stays there, a detective who finds his heart’s desire, and a demon who will not let go. What does a mother do when one of her children goes astray? How does she save one daughter without sacrificing the others? How deep can love go, and how far can it take you? These are the questions this luminous novel asks.

Finished 102 Minutes

Thanks to my husband for understanding that I haven't been great about my pledge to stop downloading books (sorry!), I am covering my head with a paper bag now.  I'll try harder from now until Christimas.  However, the book that I am starting is on paper, and I have had it forever.  It seems like the right time to finally read it,102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn

Finished on September 12
My Rating: 5/5
Yes, it was emotionally disturbing to read the accounts of the survivors, but I felt like it was important to finally read this.  The ways that some of these people escaped is unbelievable.  The stories of what people did for strangers were amazing.  So last night as I finished the last few chapters, a special came on television about the 9/11 survivors.  Several of the people that were highlighted in the book were also on this special.  I am so glad that I caught that and took the time to watch it.  When you are in the right frame of mind to read this, please do.

The Promised World

Tonight I am starting this Lisa Tucker book based on what I read from a friend's blog.  I have spent way too much time in India lately so this seems like a nice change of pace for me.
With that said, Thrity Umrigar's memoir was really very good!  All lovers of India based stories should grab her stuff up.
My Rating for The Promised World: 4/5
This was a very gripping story with lots of suspense.  I did have difficulty liking the individual characters, especially Billy.  It was an emotional read for me, but I would suggest it to others...it was worth it.

Monday babble

I am excited to be starting my first face-to-face bookclub.  I chose The Hindi-Bindi Club by Monica Pradhan as the first book. I welcome any advice on how to run this since I am a newbie.  Other than that, I am starting First Darling of the Morning: Selected Memories of an Indian Childhood by Thrity Umrigar.  This is the only one of her's that I haven't read yet, and she never disappoints me.

August Ratings

Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea  5/5...loved it!
Under the Lemon Trees by Bhira Backhaus 3.5/5
While I'm Falling by Laura Moriarty 4/5
Saturday by Ian McEwan 3.5/5
Columbine by Dave Cullen 5/5 (superior)
The Island by Victoria Hislop 4/5
Between the Assassinations by Aravind Adiga 5/5
I'm Down by Mishna Wolff 3.5/5
Bombay Time by Thrity Umrigar 4/5

Fish

Thanks go out to Gail for keeping my fish from death by starvation.

finished The Island

I was able to finish The Island last night. This story was rich with history, and I think that those who are interested in what happened with the leper colonies won't want to miss it. The story jumped from past to present, but focused mainly on the past, both in the leper colony on the island and in the Greek town just off of the island. Some parts were really pretty slow, but it all tied together well at the end.
I would rate it a 4/5 simply due to the parts that dragged. Now I am off to choose another one...

Currently reading

The Island by Victoria Hislop

Description:

The Petrakis family lives in the small Greek seaside village of Plaka. Just off the coast is the tiny island of Spinalonga, where the nation's leper colony once was located--a place that has haunted four generations of Petrakis women. There's Eleni, ripped from her husband and two young daughters and sent to Spinalonga in 1939, and her daughters Maria, finding joy in the everyday as she dutifully cares for her father, and Anna, a wild child hungry for passion and a life anywhere but Plaka. And finally there's Alexis, Eleni's great-granddaughter, visiting modern-day Greece to unlock her family's past.

finished Columbine

Columbine by Dave Cullen

Description:

When we think of Columbine, we think of the Trench Coat Mafia; we think of Cassie Bernall, the girl we thought professed her faith before she was shot; and we think of the boy pulling himself out of a school window -- the whole world was watching him. Now, in a riveting piece of journalism nearly ten years in the making, comes the story none of us knew. In this revelatory book, Dave Cullen has delivered a profile of teenage killers that goes to the heart of psychopathology. He lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris, and the quavering, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who went to prom three days earlier and obsessed about love in his journal. The result is an astonishing account of two good students with lots of friends, who came to stockpile a basement cache of weapons, to record their raging hatred, and to manipulate every adult who got in their way. They left signs everywhere, described by Cullen with a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of police files, FBI psychologists, and the boy's tapes and diaries, he gives the first complete account of the Columbine tragedy.

My rating: 5/5

Although it wasn't easy to read some of this content, I thought that this was an amazing book. The author not only handled the details well, but he also broke the events down into chunks that were easier to digest. There was a lot of information about the survivors that I had never heard. I couldn't put it down once I started it, and I'm glad that I decided to read it.

finished Saturday

I finished Ian McEwan's Saturday last night. I have mixed feelings on this one. There was definitely the keep-you-reading suspense throughout the story. I had a hard time walking away from the book because I knew something big was going to happen to bring the events of this one day together. At the same time, the stream-of-consciousness writing style had its ups and downs. Yes, his moral dilemmas were very interesting, but reading 20 pages before the next comment in the actual conversation that was happening was a bit much for me at times too.
How to rate it? For my own taste, I'd say 3.5/5. I'm sure that others I know would rate it much higher.

Not much time for reading...

I'm looking forward to Benjamin's 11th birthday (can't believe it!), and having family and friends here. Although my current book is hard to put down, I have to put it down anyway (maybe Emma can hide it from me). Happy Birthday BJ!

Currently Reading

Saturday by Ian McEwan

Description:

This story follows an ordinary man through a Saturday whose high promise gradually turns nightmarish. Henry Perowne–a neurosurgeon, urbane, privileged, deeply in love with his wife and grown-up children–plans to play a game of squash, visit his elderly mother, and cook dinner for his family. But after a minor traffic accident leads to an unsettling confrontation, Perowne must set aside his plans and summon a strength greater than he knew he had in order to preserve the life that is dear to him.

Just finished Under the Lemon Trees by Bhira Backhaus

This is a story about a traditional Indian family living in California, and the conflicts that the daughters face as they try to follow their family traditions, includng arranged marriages, while they desire to live more American lifestyles. I tend to gravitate to this type of story as the differences in the cultures fascinate me. I enjoyed the characters in this story, but at times it was a slow read for me. Although it doesn't stand out as one of my favorites in the genre, I still enjoyed it. My rating: 3.5/5

While I'm Falling by Laura Moriarty

According to Amazon, I should have this book by tomorrow. So I think I'll stick to magazines for the night and wait it out.


I am wondering if anyone is feeding my fish over there....

My Rating: 4/5

Although I am always impressed with the characters that Laura Moriarty creates, the plot of this novel just didn't grab me as her two previous books did. It felt like a story that I have read several times before. I thought it was good, not great.

Working my way through Girls of Riyadh

I'm at the point with this book where I will probably gobble it up in every spare moment until I am finished. The format is very unique. It's written as postings to a yahoo group, which is near and dear to my heart, about the lives of her personal friends. It's definitely an interesting look at the culture of Saudi Arabia. Back to reading....

Finished on Sunday morning, my rating: 5/5
Loved this book! It was both sad and funny, and I adored every character. I would suggest this book to anyone who enjoys reading about other cultures.