Monday, April 12, 2021
Review - Me Before You
AUTHOR: Jojo Moyes
RATING: ★★★★
Summary (from Goodreads): They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose . . .
Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has barely been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.
Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.
A Love Story for this generation and perfect for fans of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?
REVIEW: Such a great story! I knew what I was in for before I started reading this book because I had overheard through the grapevine what it was about. But...WOW...talk about an emotional roller coaster! What I wasn’t prepared for was the actual amount of crying I went through while reading the last couple of chapters. Don’t get me wrong...it was a beautiful story throughout, but those last two chapters just kind of sneak up on you and hit you in the feels when you least expect it. I look forward to reading the other books in this series, and I would highly recommend it to everyone.
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Review - Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
AUTHOR: Gail Honeyman
RATING: ★★★★
Summary (from Goodreads): No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.
But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.
Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .
The only way to survive is to open your heart.
REVIEW: Wow...where to begin? First off, let me just say that knowing this book is Gail Honeyman’s debut novel really blows me away. Although the story lagged a little in the beginning, it didn’t take long before I was completely sucked in and anxious to learn more about Eleanor’s life. I will admit it was quite a struggle for me to like this character in the first few chapters. (She reminded me a lot of Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory television series, with her very blunt and unapologetic remarks.) But my attitude softened toward her as the author began unraveling the details of her horrific childhood. I should point out there were many times when Miss Honeyman’s grammar threw me, and I’m not ashamed to admit I had to keep a dictionary on hand to look up a few words I’d never seen before. LOL. Also, and I’m not including any spoilers, but I have to say I was very surprised with the ending. Overall, I’m glad I got to know Eleanor Oliphant, and I would happily recommend this book to everyone I know.
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Review - Greenlights
AUTHOR: Matthew McConaughey
RATING: ★★★★
Summary (from Goodreads): From the Academy Award–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.
I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.
Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges - how to get relative with the inevitable - you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”
So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.
Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.
It’s a love letter. To life.
It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights - and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.
Good luck.
REVIEW: It’s been a long time since I read an autobiography because I normally gravitate towards fiction. I will gladly admit the handsome face on the cover is the initial reason I was so drawn to this book. Plus, Matthew McConaughey is one of my favorite actors. I knew if his talent for writing was anything like his acting talent that he would be an awesome storyteller, and I was right. Matthew is very straightforward in his autobiography, and I appreciated that. He doesn’t beat around the bush. When you read about his highs and lows, you can tell it’s genuine. I don't picture him as overly concerned about the reader being shocked or appalled at his life story, and I like that. My opinion is, if you’re going to take a leap of faith and write your autobiography then lay all the cards on the table. Don’t hold anything back, and Matthew did exactly that. I learned so many new things about him while reading this book, and his honesty and transparency was refreshing. I would recommend it.
Saturday, February 13, 2021
Review - Almost Home
AUTHOR: Valerie Fraser Luesse
RATING: ★★★★
Summary (from Goodreads): With America's entrance into the Second World War, the town of Blackberry Springs, Alabama, has exploded virtually overnight. Workers from all over are coming south for jobs in Uncle Sam's munitions plants--and they're bringing their pasts with them, right into Dolly Chandler's grand but fading family home turned boardinghouse.
An estranged young couple from the Midwest, unemployed professors from Chicago, a widower from Mississippi, a shattered young veteran struggling to heal from the war--they're all hoping Dolly's house will help them find their way back to the lives they left behind. But the house has a past of its own.
When tragedy strikes, Dolly's only hope will be the circle of friends under her roof and their ability to discover the truth about what happened to a young bride who lived there a century before.
Award-winning and bestselling author Valerie Fraser Luesse breathes life into a cast of unforgettable characters in this complex and compassionate story of hurt and healing.
REVIEW: Almost Home is a very endearing story, but I want to be completely honest right from the start and admit that I didn’t think I would enjoy it because the story kind of got off to a slow start. But when I finished reading it, I was SO thankful I didn’t give up on it. The close friendships and sweet romance are the heart and soul of this book, and there were several couples at the focal point, which I enjoyed. (It was like getting several love stories in one book.) I’m also a born and bred southern girl, so of course I loved the many references to living in the south. I would like to give a special shout-out to the author for her heartfelt depiction of a young soldier named Reed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. (It was as much inspiring as it was heartbreaking.) If you enjoy sweet, inspirational fiction, then you should definitely add this one to your TBR list. I look forward to reading more of this author’s work in the future.
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Review - Where the Lost Wander
AUTHOR: Amy Harmon
RATING: ★★★★
Summary (from Goodreads): In this epic and haunting love story set on the Oregon Trail, a family and their unlikely protector find their way through peril, uncertainty, and loss.
The Overland Trail, 1853: Naomi May never expected to be widowed at twenty. Eager to leave her grief behind, she sets off with her family for a life out West. On the trail, she forms an instant connection with John Lowry, a half-Pawnee man straddling two worlds and a stranger in both.
But life in a wagon train is fraught with hardship, fear, and death. Even as John and Naomi are drawn to each other, the trials of the journey and their disparate pasts work to keep them apart. John’s heritage gains them safe passage through hostile territory only to come between them as they seek to build a life together.
When a horrific tragedy strikes, decimating Naomi’s family and separating her from John, the promises they made are all they have left. Ripped apart, they can’t turn back, they can’t go on, and they can’t let go. Both will have to make terrible sacrifices to find each other, save each other, and eventually…make peace with who they are.
REVIEW: What a wonderful story! Packed with everything you look for in a book that will keep you hooked - joy, heartbreak, love, loss, etc. Amy Harmon did a superb job detailing the hardships of the 1850’s wagon trains as they sought a better life in the west. You’ll find yourself smiling through your tears as you read about their admirable strength and determination. You also get Naomi and John Lowry’s beautiful love story within these pages. (*happy sigh*) So much to love in this book. READ IT!
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