Hope Town

Hope Town
by Brendan P Myers

This isn't a book I would normally be drawn to.  Indeed, the only reason I had it was because I had gone through a period of downloading free ebooks for my Nook.  Recently I needed a book I could read in the dark, so Hope Town it was.

The action/adventure/mystery-thriller genre is not one I venture into on a regular basis, but it was a good time to read this book.  A great diversion from the "real world" with problems and issues that were completely not something I could relate to.  Great escapism!

Parker and Jessica meet in a bar one evening just after he's been fired and she's had a horrible day. Sometime later they leave the bar together and thus begins their romance.  Unfortunately, they were a couple of innocent people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Other activities at the bar that evening eventually lead to a murder.  Parker and Jessica find themselves in danger yet are unsure why.  In a small town where murder is rare, people seem to be dropping like flies.  Before Parker realizes the danger, Jessica has been kidnapped and he's got to find her before it's too late.

Part of my enjoyment of this genre is wondering if the "solution" I have arrived at is the correct one for the final outcome.  In my case, it was. 

I have searched for this book again on barnesandnoble.com and cannot find it.  But that is another mystery. 

I gave this book three of five shots. I was fun and enjoyable, just not my usual read.   

The Dinner

The Dinner
by Hermann Koch

I found this to be an interesting novel translated from Dutch to English.  The characters could easily have been American as the story felt very relatable in American culture. 

Two couples meet for dinner at an upscale restaurant.  One of the couples is a politician and his wife.  He is running for president or prime minister (don't remember which) of the country. The other couple is the brother to the politician and his wife. The story is told through the voice of the brother.

The couples are meeting to discuss a terrible event their sons were involved in together.  Not immediately disclosed, the background and event are revealed slowly to the reader as the dinner moves along and each person remains unsure what the others know.Ultimately, they must decide what they will do in regard to their sons' actions.

Upon finishing this book my initial reaction was that I hated it.  It was very disturbing and not at all what I was expecting.  The author is very clever at taking you along, introducing you to his characters and making you believe them.  But in the end, is what you thought you believed real and are the people you felt empathy with worthy of it? 

I share a similar response to this book with many whose reviews I read (after the book) on Goodreads.com.  That is that I want to give the book only 2 or 3 shots (stars), but since it keeps staying with me and I keep thinking about it, maybe it deserves more?

Nowhere But Home

Nowhere But Home
by Liza Palmer

My daughter picked out this book for me from work.  My copy was an ARC (advance reader copy) which bookstores are privileged to receive.  I do miss working at the book store.

Nowhere But Home is chic lit and I am a fan of a good chic book.  Starting with oddly named characters, we are introduced to a woman who felt she was always an outcast due to her low social status in the town she grew up in. Despite attending and graduating from college, she felt the need to redefine herself and moved around the country with little success of finding happiness.  She eventually returns home with her tail tucked between her legs, and a chip on her shoulder.

The story is one of finding one's own self worth rather than running from a past that cannot be changed.  Nowhere But Home is a feel-good book, although I have to admit there were times I wanted to grab Queenie and just yell at her.  It seems the good stuff can be right in front of you if you just open your eyes and stop listening to the voices. 

Four of five shots.

What I've Already Read & Reviewed (2013 through 2016)

This is simply the list of books by title that I have read and reviewed through this blog site. If you wish to see what I had to say, including any comments of my followers, just click on the book title.

Books read prior to 2013 are listed here.

• "Songs Without Words" by Ann Packer (January 6, 2016)
• "Calling Me Home" by Julie Kibler (November 10, 2015)
• "11/22/63" by Stephen King (June 15, 2015) 
• "Body Double" by Tess Gerritsen (March 27, 2015)
• "The Husband's Secret" by Liane Moriarty (March 16, 2015)
• "A Family Affair: Truth in Lies" by Mary Campisi (March 12, 2015)
•  "The Light Between Oceans" by M.L. Stedman (February 20, 2015)
• "Lost in Shangri-La" by Mitchell Zuckoff (February 16, 2015)
• "The Last Days of Dogtown" by Anita Diamant (January 30, 2015)
• "Duma Key" by Stephen King (December 17, 2014)
• "Where There's Smoke" by Jodi Picoult (January 14, 2015)
• "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn (November 7, 2014) 
• "Saving Grace" by Jane Green (October 6, 2014)
• "A Sudden Light" by Garth Stein (September 28, 2014)
• "Leaving Time" by Jodi Picoult (September 18, 2014)
• "The Storyteller" by Jodi Picoult (September 10, 2014)
• "A Dog's Journey" by W. Bruce Cameron (September 5, 2014)
• "Brain on Fire" by Susannah Cahalan (August 25, 2014)
• "Tempting Fate" by Jane Green (June 6, 2014)
• "Half Broke Horses" by Jeannette Walls (May 22, 2014)
• "The Recipe Club" by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel (April 12, 2014)
• "The Hypnotist's Love Story" by Liane Moriarty (March 17, 2014)
• "The Beach Trees" by Karen White (March 8, 2014)
• "Maybe This Time" by Jennifer Crusie (February 15, 2014)
• "The Chaperone" by Laura Moriarty (January 31, 2014)
• "Lost Lake" by Sarah Addison Allen (January 13, 2014) 
• "A Nantucket Christmas" by Nancy Thayer (December 28, 2013)
• "Me Before You" by Jojo Moyes (December 8, 2013)
• "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini (August 17, 2013)
• "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak (August 11, 2013)
• "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson (August 4, 2013)
• "Twenty Wishes" by Debbie Macomber (July 2, 2013)
• "We Are Their Heaven" by Allison DuBois (June 17, 2013)
• "Hope Town" by Brendan P Myers (June 6, 2013)
• "The Dinner" by Hermann Koch (June 2, 2013)
• "Nowhere But Home" by Liza Palmer (May 25, 2013)
• "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" by Aimee Bender (March 2013)

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (a catch-up blog)

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
by Aimee Bender

Barnes & Noble synopsis:

• Discovering in childhood a supernatural ability to taste the emotions of others in their cooking, Rose Edelstein grows up to regard food as a curse when it reveals everyone's secret realities.

Yes, that's their entire synopsis.

I really didn't care for this book at all, although I really wanted to like it.  It's been a few months since I read it so I can't really write a good review decently expressing my own thoughts, but many of the reviews on Barnes and Noble accurately reflect my feelings.  The one good puzzling mystery kept me reading to the end only to discover there was never going to be an adequate explanation or solution.  Bleh.  Don't read it.

The Houserkeeper and the Professor (A catch-up blog)

The Housekeeper and the Professor
by Yoko Ogawa

Synopsis from Barnes and Noble:

• "He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problem - ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory." "She is an astute young Housekeeper, with a ten-year-old son, who is hired to care for him." "And every morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them. Though he cannot hold memories for long (his brain is like a tape that begins to erase itself every eighty minutes), the Professor's mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. And the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son. The Professor is capable of discovering connections between the simplest of quantities - like the Housekeeper's shoe size - and the universe at large, drawing their lives ever closer and more profoundly together, even as his memory slips away." The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family. 

I recall not being particularly taken with this book.  The "50 First Dates" aspect of the loss of long term memory intrigued me, but I really didn't find much of a story to bite into.

I gave it 3 of 5 shots.

Belated Posting and a Challenge

It's been several months since I've done a book review. I have been reading but the desire to write has been missing.

If you know me personally, you are probably aware that I have a lousy memory.  It's partially responsible for my blogging as a way to recall what I've read and what it was about.  With that in mind, I am going to do a few short blogs to catch up with the books I've read recently, but the reviews may be non-existent, as long as I can add the cover blurbs.  I apologize in advance. 

As to the my challenge.  This is a challenge to myself to catch up on my wish list of reading. That list grows longer almost daily with more books being added and few being read and removed.  I have a Goodreads.com account where I keep my complete list of books I've read and want to read.  Recently I discovered that Goodreads.com offers book giveaways and as I've entered to "win" books they have been added to my "want-to-read" list causing it to grow even more quickly.

Ack!!!

My new challenge to myself is to start at the oldest end of my list and read 20 books from it before allowing myself to read any other books already on the list or not.  I'm not going to require that I read them in any particular order, other than the first oldest 20.  So for the next period of time, the following list,in no particular order, is my-read-it-or-delete-it reading profile.

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore

As Always, Jack by Emma Sweeney

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise by Julia Stuart

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Civil War Wives by Carol Berkin

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy

A little update:  I've moved the books I've read (in the order I read them) to the bottom of my list.  It's an easy way for me to see that I am making progress.  In regard to that - I'm really enjoying this self made challenge and also enjoying the books that I've put off reading for so long! 

If you've stumbled upon this particular post and would like to read any of my reviews of the books I've completed and listed here, just click the photo. 

First book completed of 20 book challenge

Book 2 of 20

Book 3 of 20

Book 4 of 20