May: What are you reading?

[mellenhead]

Read The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel. It was decent. Wouldn't necessarily recommend it. Too much of the book was the author trying to weave hermit folklore into the story which just didn't work.

[Sílvia]

Finished The Upside of Unrequited. It was cute, and not much more than that. Chubby insecure 17-year-old girls will always have a place in my heart, but this book just didn't have enough of a plot.

Then I started Luckiest Girl Alive. It had such harsh reviews, because the main character is a shallow bitch, but so far I like it. She's a well-written shallow bitch.

Still reading Voices from Chernobyl, which is horrifying and fascinating, but non-fiction is always slower going than fiction for me, so it'll be a while.

[Sílvia]

Finished Luckiest Girl Alive. It was much better than I expected, I can't believe all the harsh reviews.

Still slogging through Voices from Cernobyl. I'm finding the second half repetitive. I think the author should have guided the testimonials, sometimes the people digress too much.

I have The Sun is Also a Star now.

[Spudd]

I read "The Start-Up" which I think was a novella that later got combined with other novellas into a novel. It was truly awful. The writing was sophomoric with typos (he peddled his bike, UGH). And it didn't have an ending, presumably because the author planned additional novellas. Maybe if you read the whole final novel, it would be good, but I doubt it. I don't know where I got it from, maybe it was an impulse library withdrawal.

Next up is "The Silent Sister" by Diane Chamberlain. I hope it'll be good.

[Sílvia]

Spudd, I'm afraid Diane Chamberlain might be too cheesy for you. I mean, I loved The Silent Sister. In a guilty pleasure kind of way.

Edited because I missed Blush's comment before: see, that's the kind of thing I'd rather read about. The book is pretty much the people's unedited monologues. Which gets tiring and confusing sometimes. This amazon reviewer put it well: "The monologues themselves were fabulous, but (and this is the only time I have ever said this about a book) -- it needs more of an editorial voice. Some stories would have made a lot more sense if we'd been given a date. An age. There were terms sprinkled throughout that I had to Google and still couldn't find a good explanation for. Some chapters included discrete monologues from lots of people, but they don't clearly separate them from each other - so you'd be confused as to whether this was a new story or just a single disjointed story. It was poorly organized in that respect." But most people have given it 5 stars I think people feel like jerks for giving fewer stars to a book that talks about one of humankind's worst tragedies. Because of course you feel awful for those people. But that alone is not making this compelling reading material for me.

[Spudd]

I like the occasional cheese! Like Nicholas Sparks etc. I'm glad to hear it's cheesy, actually, from the cover it looked very serious and literary.

[Sílvia]

I think it's less cheesy than some of her other books, but still Anyway, I was entertained and surprised. I actually still remember how it turned out, which is more than I can say about most books. Soap-opera-ish. That's how I'd describe her. Like Kristin Hannah.

I've never read Nicholas Sparks. But I'm tempted to try some Nora Roberts one of these days. My mom read a few of her books and was hooked

[Sílvia]

Finished Voices from Chernobyl.

Ugh. Couldn't get into The Sun is Also a Star. Then I tried 3 or 4 more books before I committed to one. I don't know if it's old age, but these days if I'm not totally hooked until page 10 at the most, the book's history. So that happened with Shtum by Jem Lester. On Blush's recommendation Loved the sample, hope I continue to love it

[Sílvia]

Finished Shtum. Loved it, thanks for the recommendation, Blush. It was a lot more depressing than I was expecting, but so good.

Now I want to read all the books about autistic kids out there. Apparently I'm one of the few who haven't read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and has anyone read this Marcelo in the Real World?

[Rowan]

I"m reading the latest J Courtney Sullivan...Saints for All Occasions. I'm loving it. I love her writing.

I finished The Marriage Lie on Friday but while I liked the story, I felt the writing was a bit of a slog. Not sure why but now reading Saints it's really apparent how easy it is to read a good writer.

[Sílvia]

Couldn't get into The Curious Incident... would someone be kind enough to pm me and tell me who killed the dog? Thanks!

Then I started the Widow by Fiona Barton. It's decent so far.

[mellenhead]

Finished Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition by Paul Watson. It was excellent if you are in to these type of books.

I started Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki last night. I really liked her last book, California, hoping this one is just as good.

[Rowan]

mellen, I have that requested at the library. You'll have to let me know what you think.

[Sílvia]

Finished The Widow. Eh, it was readable. I liked it until about the 40% mark, then it got repetitive, and the ending held no surprises. Plus I read it in Portuguese because it was less than half the price of the English edition, and the translation SUCKED. So much that I had to write to the publisher to complain.

Not sure what's next. Contenders are I Let You Go, which thankfully is cheaper in English, The Shining (not so sure because I've seen the movie and I like to be surprised by books), The Shadow of the Wind (which would be a third reread, but I loved it so much the first 2 times.) We'll see.

[mellenhead]

I loved Woman No. 17. In all fairness, all of the characters were fairly screwed up and unlikable but I loved the writing and the story.

Just started Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's doomed campaign. It's a long book - I'm on Chapter 8 and it's already getting a bit repetitive so I have a feeling I'll be skimming some of the chapters.

[Spudd]

I finished The Silent Sister and enjoyed it. It was a good beach novel.

Then I thought I should read something more literary so I started The Book Thief. It's weird, but I'm getting into it.

LOL, the ratings from my friends on it are hilarious:

Blush: 5 stars
Bugsy: 3 stars
Silvia: 1 star

Apparently opinions vary!

And my fourth non-TH friend who's read it gave it 4 stars.

[Sílvia]

I finished The Silent Sister and enjoyed it. It was a good beach novel.

I told you she was fun! I started another one by her, The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes. Sucked me right in. And I could not be happier to find out that, while this title was US$13 on kindle, it had also been released as The Lost Daughter and cost only US$6!

My problem with The Book Thief was more the style than the story, if I remember it correctly. But never mind me. I clearly have no taste, since I prefer cheesy soap operas to award-winning novels

[Rowan]

I finished This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel last night. I really liked it. Apparently it is fiction but the author did have a son who started wearing dresses in first grade because that's what she wanted to wear (there was a write up in NYT).

I have The Boy by Tracy Chevalier up next.

I also read some teen sex book with M yesterday. It became apparent this weekend that dad didn't do a great job when they had the talk earlier and to be fair this should be an ongoing discussion. Really good talk. At the end, he hesitated and asked me what 69 was because he's heard it in the locker room. I only paused for a second before telling him.

[Rowan]

It was a really good talk. I thought it might be a little embarrassing for him because I'm a "girl" but it wasn't at all. I had a few things that I really wanted to cover that he will likely experience soon and he took it all well. I hope that he always feels comfortable asking us questions. Plus he's going to hear things from friends with older siblings, I don't want him to not know what's going on and feel dumb.

Haven't started reading my next book yet. Hopefully I have a bunch of time for reading this weekend between games.

[mellenhead]

Finished Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's doomed campaign - it was good but repetitive. Overall theme is that Hillary is in a bubble with little self awareness.

Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America by Michael Ruhlman - it was really good and pretty interesting to learn about how grocery stores run and how they are trying to stay afloat with competition from Amazon, etc.

Blew through The Moth Presents: All These Wonders: True Stories about Facing the Unknown - love love loved this book and the stories. Big fan of The Moth podcast as well.

Just started The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone last night. It's a mystery/horror type book about ancient spiders eating people. Not far in but it's decent.