Talk Healthy

I'm almost done Heat and Light. Need to get to the library tonight so I have books for the long weekend!

I'm a little over halfway done with Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler. It's a good story so far but some of the writing is soooooo pretentious.

I also started White Trash: The 400 year old untold story of class in America. It's good but a little heavy and repetitive.

I finished The Island by Elin Hildebrand. It was an enjoyable summer read.

Next I'm going to frighten myself with Data and Goliath: the hidden battles to collect your data and control your world by Bruce Schneier.

I'm in a rut. Anyone have any suggestions for a good summer beach-type read? Nothing heavy, non-fiction, or political. Just looking for something to suspend reality for a bit LOL. What's your favorite book like that?

Korie! You never play books with us!

Here's some suggestions:

The Mountain Story - Lori Lansens
The Husbands Secret - Liane Moriarty
Actually I've liked everything from both of these ladies

If you want a true beachy read: anything by Elin Hilderbrand who writes about the Cape, Nantucket, etc

Korie you should come hang out with us more often!

I'd recommend:

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (anything by her, really)
Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

Finished up Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler. It was decent but I don't understand the hype over it.

I just picked up We're All Damaged and United Airlines from the library.

I agree mellen, I don't think Sweetbitter is THE BOOK OF THE SUMMER. It was fine. The drug use was disconcerting but I guess I'm sheltered.

I'm reading the latest Elin Hilderbrand. I swear they all run together for me but they entertain I guess.

Yes, I should come around more often!

I read The Husbands Secret and enjoyed it. Maybe I'll start up with that author again with Big Little Lies. Thanks for the info about Sweetbitter. It's got alot of hype, for sure. I'll check out Elin Hilderbrand too

Thanks guys!

I second (third?) the recommendations for both Liane Moriarty and Lori Lansens. My two favorite by Ms. Moriarty are Big Little Lies and What Alice Forgot. And she has a new novel coming out on the 26th.

For some light mystery/family drama, I like Heather Gudenkauf.

For historical fiction with a touch of mystery too, I like Kate Morton, but her books can be a little slow to get going.

Ans yes, come play more often!

I finished Data and Goliath.

Now I'm a little way into The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach. I think it was first published under a different title and then changed when the movie came out. I've only seen the first 20 minutes of the movie but so far the book is good.

The movie was good, so if the normal rule applies (movie better than book) then the book should be good too!

Finished The Lake House, the latest Kate Morton. Loved it. I thought it was a liiittle slow in the beginning, and the ending had a RIDICULOUS soap-opera-ish twist, but I was expecting it from reading other people's reviews, so I wasn't too shocked (or too pissed). The fact that I still gave it 4 stars shows how much I loved everything else about it. Fabulous characters and a mystery that kept me going (though I figured it out at the 70% mark or so.) I just love her writing.

Now I have The Rose Petal Beach by Dorothy Koomson. It cost 1 dollar, so I bought it without even reading the sample. I hope it's worth my time

This weekend I read The Crown by Kiera Cass (YA series) - this one was pretty bad but I liked the others in the series....fluffy for sure.

I also read Modern Lovers by Emma Straub. It took a bit to get into and it was fine. Solid 3 stars but not AMAZING as everyone says.

Not sure what's next....

Finished "Sisterland" and did not love it. Once I got into the story it kept my attention, but there were many things that were just sooo unrealistic. Like her husband's reaction to her big news at the end? Ha! Seems unlikely. Anyway, I originally gave it 3 stars because at least it was interesting, but really it's 2 stars for me just due to the above.

Nothing new on the docket, so next is probably a reread of "The Stone Angel" by Margaret Laurence.

Finished up We're All Damaged by Matthew Norman. It was pretty good. Funny and light.

Next up is Underground Airlines. The book is set in present day America with only one difference - the Civil War never occurred.

That sounds like it could be quite interesting, Mellenhead!

Ooh, that does sound good. I'm going to put it on my list.

I finished The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It was pretty good. I'll look for more by her.

Next is The Brambles by Eliza Minot. From GoodReads:

This is the story of the Bramble family Margaret, Max, and Edie three adult siblings careening through wildly different byways of adult life. Margaret, mother of three, drowning in a sea of runny noses and lost mittens, is a nurturer with a sense of humor, a witty woman at wits end, about to take her ailing father into the tumult and chaos of her already overcrowded home. Edie, her younger sister, is a barely recognizable version of Margaret' s former self young, single, clicking smartly down city streets in good shoes, but struggling mightily beyond her sister's vision to anchor her desultory, and intensely solitary, life. Max, newly married, newly a father, is buckling under the weight of new responsibilities. Over the course of one critical season, a long hidden secret will be revealed, remaking each of them, and all they thought they knew about one another and about themselves.

Ugh. Gave up on The Rose Petal Beach. Holy boredom. Husband's arrested in the first few pages, but it takes her like 50 pages to tell the reader what the hell for (accused of attempted rape). Then accuser drops charges, couple argues about supposed infidelity for next 150 pages. INSANELY boring. Then accuser is murdered, but after 200 pages I'm so bored that I don't care who did it or why. I wish someone would kill them all so the book would be over. This book is 550 pages long, so no, thanks. I've already wasted too much time on it. Glad it cost 1 dollar, but I should have been paid 20 for wasting my time.

I started Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon. YA, cute enough. Super short, fast read, should be done soon.

Finished Everything, Everything. I liked it well enough. Not usually my kind of thing (YA, sick lit), but I picked it up on impulse because I saw it for sale and had a sudden craving for paper and Portuguese. It sort of recycled the formula of The Fault in Our Stars, but without the pretentious dialog. Plus this had a twist that I absolutely did not see coming. 3 stars.

Then I started a Brazilian by a singer who happens to be the mother of a (now) man born with Apert syndrome. https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/apert-syndrome. Funny, the guy's 35 but she only wrote the book now. She's a famous singer here and at least one of her other children's also famous (comedian and writer). She starts at her pregnancy at 22 in 1981, at how she was expecting a healthy, perfect little baby and ended up with this "thing" (her word), talks openly about her rejection of him at birth, but which quickly turned around. About how hard it was to parent him at first, etc, etc. I was sucked right in.