I honestly picked this up for a reading challenge, not expecting to enjoy it. I do love fantasy but science fiction isn't really my thing, with only a few exceptions. I read Fahrenheit 451 back in 8th grade and didn't care for it, but there was very little reading that I had to do for school that I did like. Imagine my surprise [...]
4 Stars. Oh my gosh, Russian novels, even when they aren't written by Russians, defeat me with the names. Everyone has at least two or three wildly different (to me, anyway) names! I can't keep them straight! This one wasn't too bad but I would still draw the occasional blank. I just had to keep reading and hope that I eventually got that [...]
2.5 Stars. When I have daydreams about packing up and moving to a new country, Spain is always the one that comes to mind. We visited in 2010 and just loved it. We felt welcome everywhere we went, the people seemed happy, and it just fit. Plus, my husband’s bilingual. At least one of us could speak the language. When I saw this as a free [...]
Fereiba lived a lonely childhood in Afghanistan. Her mother died in childbirth and her stepmother never treated her like a real member of the family. Her stepmother does eventually arrange a marriage for her and it becomes a love match. Three children later, the Taliban are in power, Fereiba has had to give up the teaching job she loves, and their lives are shattered when the authorities knock on the door late one night, taking her husband Mahmood with them. Suddenly Fereiba finds herself alone with her children, fleeing Afghanistan and trying to reach family in England. I like books like this. They always make me more thankful for the things I take for granted every day. It's easy to forget that not everyone is as fortunate as I am. I'm free to wear what I want, worship as please, marry whomever I want, work at any job I'm qualified for, and get an education. I have access to healthcare, a nice home, clean water, electricity, indoor plumbing...the list goes on. Not everyone has even the most basic of these. I particularly enjoyed that the book starts before the Taliban were in power. Fereiba is a teacher, wearing stylish clothes and meeting her friends in public. The change to the Taliban regime is pretty abrupt in the book, I guess in the interest of time, but suddenly she can't teach and she can barely leave the house. When she does she has to wear a burqa and be accompanied by her husband. I've read widely enough to know that these changes have happened within my lifetime but it's good to remind those of us who are aware of it and to open the eyes of those who don't. I felt so bad for the family as they traveled. They fought…
Jean Perdu is a broken man, not really living his life but only existing. His one great love left him twenty years ago and he's never moved on. He puts together gigantic puzzles in his spartan apartment and sells books on his book barge, The Literary Apothecary. He knows exactly the right book to sell to the lovelorn when they enter his shop, but he doesn't know how to fix his own life. When Catherine, fresh out of a devastating marriage, moves in across the hall, they both sense that they could have a real, lasting relationship, a relationship that neither of them is ready for. In an act of desperation, Jean casts his barge off into the Seine, bestselling author Max in tow, and heads off into the sunset, or at least the south of France, to seek peace and healing. I truly wanted to like this more than I did. I read a couple of reviews, thought it sounded like the perfect book for me, and went to request it on Netgalley. It was good, not great, and in the month or so since I finished it, I've largely forgotten it. My biggest problem was the title. I estimate that 2/3 of the book takes place outside of Paris. So now it's The Little France Bookshop. That's misleading but still, no real complaints here. I haven't been to France but it's high on my wishlist. And while quite a bit of the story does take place in the bookshop or around books, it wasn't quite as much as I expected. Instead of a love story to books, or a love story revolving around books, I felt like it was more of a love story with a few books thrown in. That's not quite fair because there were a…
Ceony Twill has put herself through magic school in only a year when most people take two. She's a smart girl and she's hoping that her magic will be based on metal. She wants to design weapons and machines and things that matter. Instead, she gets paper. Boring old, get-it-wet-and-it-falls-apart paper. She's crushed. She hopes there's been a mistake. But the powers-that-be say that a balance must be kept so they assign a certain number of students to paper because, let's face it, no one is volunteering for it. Ceony resignedly sets out for her apprenticeship with Magician Emery Thane. Once she gets there, she settles in well enough. Thane is a kind teacher and a talented magician. So when his ex-wife shows up and literally steals the beating heart from his chest, Ceony decides she has to save him. She sets out with her few learned paper magic skills to face the ex-wife, an Excisioner whose magic is based on manipulating flesh. This sounded promising but it also sounded like it could go very wrong. One of my friends loaned it to me, saying, "You'll love it, I promise." For two people who are confirmed bibliophiles, our tastes don't overlap very much so I was still a tad worried. I should have had more faith. I enjoyed this immensely. I was a little unsure of Ceony at first. She seemed to think that she was just too good to be a paper magician. But honestly, I would feel the same way. What can you do with paper? Fold it into an airplane and hope to poke someone in the eye? It turns out there's much more to humble paper than I thought. Once Ceony settled in and set out on her quest, she slowly grew on me and I…
In this modern-day retelling of Jane Eyre, Jane Moore is a penniless student who's just had to drop out of college and take a job as a nanny working for rock star Nico Rathburn. I love Jane Eyre. I love Mr. Rochester. The idea of this book intrigued me. How exactly would all that Gothic deliciousness translate to the modern age? Reasonably well. But first, what didn't work. For me, anyway. For my taste, this book was actually a little too faithful to the original. It was like there was a list of the major events and they were dutifully checked off. Jane as an orphan? Check. Older brother figure locking her in a room overnight? Check. A dog named (Co)Pilot? Check. A chance meeting where Mr. Rochester/Rathburn almost plows over Jane and they argue because she doesn't know who he is? Check. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I somehow would have preferred the story to veer off in its own direction more. I know Jane Eyre. I want to read Jane Moore's story. And then there's the whole...does it even count as a spoiler if you're talking about a well-known twist from a classic? I'll be safe. If you know the story of Jane Eyre, read on. (Highlight below to see what you're missing) Begin possible spoiler: The wife in the attic. There's no reason for that to happen now. Back in Jane Eyre's day, once married, always married. You didn't have many options to get rid of a crazy wife. Nowadays, not so much. The author did what she could, which is definitely more creative than anything I would have thought of, but I still didn't buy it. I couldn't even quite decide exactly why Nico kept her locked up. He said it was because he…
Violet Turner owns a vintage clothing shop in Madison, Wisconsin. She's on her own after her rocky marriage ended and she likes it that way. She's always dreamed of owning a shop like this and she's happy enough. Then she finds out that she's being evicted from her building, a good friend asks her to hire a pregnant teenager, and several of her customers' lives are falling apart at the seams as well. Will this circle of friends get each other through these tough times? I did enjoy this a lot, I just had a good idea where it was going from the beginning. I did like all of the characters and the strong stances they took. They've made mistakes in the past but they've learned from them. They're going to live life on their terms now. I think women need to be reminded to do that from time to time. April, the pregnant teen, has had a pretty tough life but she's doing the best she can. Amithi's marriage is disintegrating and she's questioning her whole life. Betsy is a do-gooder who's trying to get them all straightened out. Violet is the main character and I liked her a lot. She's caring, pretty spunky, and trying to keep her business afloat. I especially liked her taste in clothes! I wanted so badly to visit this shop, it was ridiculous! I do actually have a taste for vintage clothes but you would never know it to look at my usual uniform of jeans and tees. I just don't have the patience to dig through all the junk to find the treasure. I need to find a store like this where someone like Violet has done the digging for me! I loved reading the descriptions of the items in the store.…
Elisa is a Bearer of the Godstone. Born to the royal family, a bright light engulfed her on her Name Day and left her with a Godstone in her navel. Bearers are marked to carry out a special act of service and they're only born about every hundred years. Unfortunately, they don't tend to live long enough to complete their service. Elisa doesn't really fit into her own home. Her sister is the one being groomed to rule. Elisa just likes to study her books and, honestly, eat her sorrows. When she finds herself suddenly married off to a neighboring king, she has no idea what to expect. She sets off to be Queen of a country she's never seen. A mutual enemy is threatening their borders, her new husband doesn't seem to know what to do, and since he's decided to keep their marriage a secret, she has no idea what she's supposed to do here either. I really liked this. Elisa was by no means a perfect heroine. She struggles with her weight and with her own emotional insecurities. But she's an intelligent woman and she's always willing to try her best. She might not be the most charismatic princess but she has an honesty about her that tends to resonate with people once they stop judging her by her weight. I knew there would have to be more to her than what she appeared to be at first glance but the amount of her growth was astonishing. I was incredibly proud of her as she came into her own. Her story took many twists and turns that kept surprising me. Just when I thought she would settle into one place/story, everything would suddenly change and I would read along anxiously to see how she would handle this…
Professor Gary Fuller sets out to fill in the gaps in your geography knowledge. I would guess that I know a little more geography than the average American but I'll be the first to admit that I'm still woefully lacking. I downloaded this book on a nook Free Friday (I believe), thinking that I might learn a thing or two. I sure did! I wish more of it had stuck with me, but I now know that camels originated in North America, the first country you come to if you go directly south of Detroit is Canada (I'm ashamed that I didn't know that one) and if you go directly south of Chicago, you'll run into the Pacific ocean, not South America (again, I'm ashamed that I didn't know that). There were lots more facts packed into this little book, all presented in a fun, entertaining way. I actually had a hard time putting the book down! The format of the book worked really well for me. The chapters were short and began with a series of questions. That's the one thing I didn't like. By the time I got to the answer, I'd forgotten what the question was and there often wasn't much of a contextual clue. I would have had an easier time with a physical copy, just marking the question page, but I wasn't willing to go clicking back through the pages on my nook. Trivia lovers should really enjoy this book, and I highly recommend it! Read an excerpt. Buy The Trivia Lover's Guide to the World: Geography for the Lost and Found at Malaprop’s | Better World Books I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop's, my local independent bookstore located in beautiful downtown Asheville, NC; and Better World Books. I will receive a small commission…