Lost Lake

Lost Lake
by Sarah Addison Allen

Let me start by saying that Sarah Addison Allen is one of my favorite authors.  I discovered her while working at Barnes & Noble in Utah and since reading her first book have always looked forward to everything she's published.

What draws me back to S.A.A. time and again?  Her magic.  Everything she writes has a hint of magic in it.  Not slap you in the face magic, but a subtle magic that I always look forward to.

What will you find at Lost Lake?  An alligator, Cypress knees, a mute French cook, a floozy, a nightly lakeside barbecue, an odd assortment of guests, a lost soul redeemed, a new love sparked, a past love reignited, vengeance, an unexpected opportunity, a new life and second chance.  Or just maybe your own sanity.

Never a major resort, Lost Lake has been run for many years by a couple who's own love story was magical.  But only Eby Prim, one half of that couple, still lives and the resort has been overshadowed by water parks and theme parks. The resort is tired and a bit neglected and the time has come to sell.  The few faithful guests who return to Lost Lake each year decide to make this last summer their best.

Kate Pheris finds herself agreeing to move into her mother-in-law's home a year after her husband has died.  While packing for the move she discovers a letter from her great aunt Eby that was never delivered to her years before. Impulsively she makes the long drive to Lost Lake with her daughter and she decides to stay a while, remembering fondly the summer weeks she spent there when 12 years old.

Sarah Addison Allen reveals the truths and secrets of each guest and employee staying at the resort, intertwining their pasts with their present.  The residents of the small nearby town have their own stories that tie them to Lost Lake and the land it occupies.  And with a little magic Sarah brings all the stories together in a completely engaging way.  Some secrets revealed are heartbreaking and turn out to have been not so secret at all.  But this small town community watches after it's own in the best way it can and makes Kate's impulsive trip her fate, the act that ultimately decides her future.

I give Lost Lake five of five shots.  I continue to adore Sarah and her characters.

A Nantucket Christmas

A Nantucket Christmas
By Nancy Thayer

I received A Nantucket Christmas as a Goodreads win.  It was an enjoyable story and I usually like to read at least one Christmas story during the holidays.  This was my choice.

The story centers around an older couple retired and living in Nantucket.  It's Christmas time, the off season in island terms, when tourists are nowhere to be seen and the town belongs once again to the locals.

It's their first Christmas together and Nicole finds herself "competing" with her new husband's past brought about by his daughter's vision of her parent's once "perfect" marriage, "perfect" life, and her efforts to bring them back together.  I'm not entirely sure I wanted to buy into this premise as the daughter was an adult herself with a husband, child and another baby on the way.  Was it really plausible that she would want to break up her father and his new wife?

As in most romance novels, the story plays out with some drama and  touch & go moments but comes to an expected happy ending.  It was a satisfying holiday tale meeting my need for wintry romance.  I only hope all the trickery by the daughter was due to pregnancy hormones and she is more reasonable in "real life."

I give A Nantucket Christmas four of five shots.  A sweet story.

Me Before You

Me Before You
by Jojo Moyes

This novel is one my daughter insisted I read.  I am happy she did. I actually finished it back on December 8th, but you know how the holiday seasons are...

The story starts with an ordinary girl needing a new job when her steady job comes to an end with the closing of a cafe.  She takes a temporary job as a companion to a quadriplegic man.  A job that she finds distasteful, not because of his disability but because of his nasty attitude toward everything.

While I just referred to Louisa as "ordinary" I found her to be even "less" than ordinary.  She seemed to be a girl with no dreams, no ambition and existing as part of a relationship that seemed to have no foundation or affection.  I felt she wanted to just blend into the background and not be noticed.

Will, on the other hand, may be forgiven, or perhaps understood, for his nasty attitude because the accident that caused him to become a quadriplegic took so much from him.  Having grown up as a rich and privileged child he was used to living his life in the fast lane. Being confined to a mechanical chair was hardly how he viewed his future.

The mixture of Louisa and Will is difficult. Will has a male nurse who appears to be the only person he tolerates in his life, making his disdain for Louisa even more apparent. She reconsiders her position as his companion and she wants to quit. But she stays on, often against her better judgement, torn between avoiding Will or trying to engage him in his own life.

As the story develops so do the characters as we begin to peel away the layers they have wrapped protectively around themselves.  Louisa looks for ways to help Will enjoy life, while Will is determined that life is not worth living.  Louisa becomes desperate to prove Will wrong any way she can.

This was a well told story with some serious tissue alerts.  My daughter asked me about the title when I finished it.  I hadn't noticed until she asked that it could be read two ways.  Me Before You, as in 'who I was before I met you' or Me Before You as in 'putting myself first before you.'  It became an interesting question and one I still ponder a little.  There is still the question, who is the 'Me' and who is the 'You?'

I give Me Before You five shots of five.  I look forward to reading more by Jojo Moyes.
 

The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini

I really had no expectations of this book as I hadn't taken the time to learn what it was about.  I knew it was a best seller and it's been on my 'to-read' for about four years now.  I did purchase the movie not too long ago and sat down to watch it with my mother-in-law who was living with us at the time.  She had suffered a stroke and was unable to read the subtitles so we turned it off very early in.

That's what I knew about the story before I started.

Basically nothing.

I was drawn into the story almost immediately upon starting the book.  I tried to analyze why I was.  The story was about Amir, a privileged little boy in Afghanistan who was very insecure about his father's love.  His best friend was the uneducated son of his father's servant. As he was raised playing with Hassan, the servant's son, his father was also raised playing with Ali, his now faithful servant. Although Hassan is a servant himself, he adores Amir and would do anything for him. Indeed, Amir's cowardice presents many opportunities for Hassan to prove his loyalty.  Even so, Amir's insecurities cause him to bully Hassan almost mercilessly.

I asked myself again, what is so riveting about this tale that calls me back to the book each time I set it down?  Obviously, it's the author's voice and how well he tells the story before he even reveals the very meat of it. 

The story starts prior to the time of Russia invading Afghanistan and spans to the early 2000s. Sadly,  I'm not a student of history and therefore wasn't very well informed regarding all the changes of the Russians being thrown out by the Taliban and the quick end of the Afghanistan jubilation as they realized the Taliban was as bad or worse than the Russians. Amir and his father are smuggled out of Afghanistan after the Russians arrive and eventually migrate to America.  Their lives are very different in America, no longer of the privileged class, but his father was a well known man in Afghanistan and still very respected in his new American/Afghanistan community.

Early in the 2000s Amir returns to Afghanistan and finds a world very different from the one he left 25 years earlier.  No spoilers, but he at once finds himself face to face with the past he has tried hard to forget and finally must make amends with.

The Kite Runner is an amazing story full of unexpected twists and turns.  Heroes die and villains live, but there is always a feeling of hope.

I give The Kite Runner 5 of 5 shots.

The Book Thief

The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak

Third on my 20 book challenge, this selection is exactly why I created my challenge.  I know I have added a lot of really fine books to my list and then proceeded to ignore them based on what I've come across or what's caught my eye since.  Who knows how long I may have continued to evade being captured by this book, or maybe miss it entirely. 

I love this book.  It should not be overlooked or missed.  If you also have it on your shelf, pull it out now and put where you can guarantee you will choose it to read next.  You won't be sorry. 

The Book Thief is a war story, centering around Liesel, who is the book thief, in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The narrator of the story is Death, which sounds pretty morbid, but actually was done very well.  Death had just the right amount of sensitivity and disdain and never overshadowed the story.  The author discusses his decision to write from Death's perspective and the challenge.  I think he did it very well.

The story begins when Liesel is about eight.  Her mother is taking her and her brother to stay with foster parents.  Her brother dies on the train and Liesel begins life with her foster family on her own. Although one foster parent is more nurturing than the other, they both clearly love and care for her. Times are bad in Germany and they are a poor family.

When Liesel comes to the family she has in her possession a book that she found/stole when burying her brother.  She does not know how to read and enters her new school far behind the other children her age. Eventually, her foster father helps her learn to read and together they read her stolen book, The Gravediggers Guide.

The story progresses over a few years.  Liesel's reading and love of books enables her to help people in ways she is not even aware of. Life in Nazi Germany is not easy, even for the Germans. To avoid any spoilers, I will end my recap of the actual story with that. 

I appreciated this story in part for the struggles it portrays for the German population at this time.  One did not have to be a Jew to find life difficult and dangerous in Germany.  Starting with a little girl who has lost her parents for reasons she doesn't know or understand and her brother's death.  She lives with a family who is poor and struggling day to day. And the utmost care must be taken at all times to stay on the 'right' side of the Nazi party or pay a price.  Just being the 'person you are' can put one in great danger.

I give The Book Thief five shots of five - and a Tissue Alert.

A Walk in the Woods

A Walk in the Woods
by Bill Bryson

This is the second selection on my 20 book challenge.  I have to say I am a tiny bit proud of myself for following through on this challenge, at least to have read 2 of the impending 20.  (Now "impending 18" - woot!)  To recall, my challenge is to read the 20 books that have been on my list the longest.  Correction, read or remove.  Let me tell you, removing books from my list is not an easy thing.  I'm pretty sure I'll read them before I'll remove them. 

I originally bought A Walk in the Woods for my mother.  She is the person who instilled in me a love for the outdoors.  She made sure we went hiking a few week ends every spring, summer and fall. And in the winter, too.  And she is the one responsible for me learning how to camp, cook over an open fire and back pack.  I owe her a great deal of appreciation for learning and loving those things. Not least of which, she also passed onto me her love of reading.  

Mom came to live with my family in her final years and I thought this book might be one she would enjoy.  I don't think she ever read it but it's been in my home for years now.  I'm pretty sure that's how it also made it's way to my list. 

I need to learn to have no expectations of books.  They are rarely what I am expecing of them, and usually that leaves me pleasantly surprised.  A Walk in the Woods was not what I was expcting to read.  However in this case, it fell short of the mark.  I feel a little sad writing that since so many friends told me how much they loved it and how laugh out loud funny it is.  I won't deny I had at least one laugh out loud moment, but not enough to say it set the tone of the book. 

Bill Bryson writes this book based on his experience walking the Appalachian Trail.  A hiking trail of over 2000 miles of east coast mountains.  I love the premise and often thought how cool it would be to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, the west coast version of the AT.  Sounds like a book made for me!

Bryson accepts his friend's, Steve Katz, offer to hike the trail with him. If Bill Bryson is not prepared for what this folly will involved, his friend Steve must then be absolutely clueless.  Nevertheless, they start off on their "adventure."

It's not long before they realize that walking the entire trail just isn't in the stars for them.  They are miserable and broken and decide to take a break and walk only portions of it.  Bryson analyzes this decision and rationalizes that even though they don't set a foot on every single mile of the trail, they have indeed "hiked the Appalachian Trail."  I don't disagree, but I did find it disappointing.  (In his defense, he hiked nearly 900 miles of it!)

The book is full of history of the AT itself and of the politics, economies, ecologies, communities and resorts surrounding it.  I found it interesting, but unexpected. 

What I didn't find in this book was a lot of hiking and camping stories.  The hiking stories were more of the sort of, "How soon can we find the next town and get a shower and a meal?"  There were times of hardship and worry, but no bears.  We find early in the book that Bryson has a great concern of meeting bears.  Bless his heart, he never ran into one. 

I give the book a 3 of 5 shots. It simply wasn't the story I was expecting to read.

Twenty Wishes by Debbie Macomber

Twenty Wishes
by Debbie Macomber

I've always liked Debbie Macomber's books.  Perhaps because so many of them are set in Seattle or across Elliot Bay on the peninsula.  She writes romance with hardship and she's not an all steamy-have-to-take-a-cold-shower type of author.  Her romances usually bloom realistically the way most do in real life.  She doesn't do the he-slapped-her-and-she-fell-into-his-bulging-with-muscles-arms-in-hot-desire romance, if that can be called romance.

However, I think my desire to read romances has dwindled.

Twenty Wishes is a story about a small group of widows who decide to make a list of twenty wishes that will encourage them to move on with their lives and help them fulfill some dreams. They are careful not to call them goals, which must be obtainable and for which you could write an action plan.  They are simply wishes that one may or may not have control over making come true. As they share the idea of their wish list, more friends and family take to the idea of creating wish lists of their own.  Powerful things can happen when you put positive energy into this kind of a list.

Of course in the manner of any good romance, everyone realizes their most important wishes.  What kind of a feel good book would this be if that weren't true?  But sometimes we don't see our wishes fulfilled in the way we expect them to be, but a wish fulfilled is a wish fulfilled.  And sometimes when one wish is granted, it simultaneously grants another's wish.  Of course there is plenty of heartache and trouble on the way to reclaiming happiness. 

Twenty Wishes takes place back on Blossom Street.  This might be important for those that have read a Good Yarn and some of the associated books. Blossom Street is a fictional Seattle city neighborhood that I know I would love to visit. 

I give Twenty Wishes 3 of 5 shots.  Not because it's not a good book, it is.  It's just not my genre any longer.