Despite how it looks, we aren't traveling and having fun everyday. There is lots of "trailer time" for relaxing, reading, watching tv and making jewelry. Here's what I've read in the last few months:
Title: The Year of Fog
Author: Michelle Richmond
Notes: A very suspenseful story about a little girl that disappears in a matter of moments. The stress it puts on the couple, and the woman's guilt for letting go of her hand is really well described and you can really empathize with the characters.
Recommend: Yes
Title: The Language of Flowers
Author: Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Notes: Victoria spent her life in the foster care system, her only real connection to the world is through flowers and their meaning. Confronting her painful past, she finds she's not as unloveable and flawed as she thinks she is. Exceptionally well written.
Recommend: Yes, I loved this book!
Title: Swim Back to Me
Author: Ann Packer
Notes: A collection of short stories, I tended to lose interest.
Recommend: No
Title: The Guest Book
Author: Marybeth Whalen
Notes: When the main character was a child, her family rented a home every year on the beach. Starting when she was too young to write in the guest book, she always left a picture she had drawn in the book. For 10 years, she and a boy "communicated" through these pictures. After her father died, they stopped going to the beach house. Now as an adult and single mother, she goes back to find the mysterious artist.
Recommend: Sure, a light read.
Title: The Cove
Author: Ron Rash
Notes: Well written, an interesting story that spans time, back to the early 1900s and into WW I. A woman that had a hard life growing up in the shadows of a large stone outcropping, a cove that many say is cursed.
Recommend: Yes, I really enjoyed it
Title: Orphan Train
Author: Christina Baker Kline
Notes: Based on real accounts, I loved this book! Beautifully written, it jumps between the early 1900s and now, as a 95 year old woman recounts her experience as an orphan.
Recommend: YES!
Title: Zelah Green
Author: Vanessa Curtis
Notes: With her mother dead and her father missing, Zelah, a teenager with OCD, is placed in a residential program by her stepmother.
Recommend: Lukewarm on this one.
Title: The Good Father
Author: Diane Chamberlain
Notes: A nicely woven story with good character development. Travis is a single father, down on his luck and gets tangled up with drug dealers out of desperation to feed his young daughter. In the meantime, the child's mother is a back story, as well as a third character, named Erin. Well woven.
Recommend: Yes
Title: In the Bag
Author: Kate Klise
Notes: "A tale of two suitcases, 3 cities, 4 people and a big mix up".
Recommend: No - predictable and juvenile. Maybe a good read for a young teen.
I would love to hear your thoughts and book recommendations!
4 comments:
Hi Anna,
I am enjoying your blog. I am in a book club and we read The Language of Flowers and Orphan Train and really enjoyed them. Last month we read The Goldfinch by Donna Tart and liked it a lot. We are reading the Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin right now and I can't put it down. Also, The Good House by Ann Leary was fun to read.
Thanks for the great book reviews! I just finished The Rosie Project on my sister's recommendation. Great, short romantic (but not a "romance") story about an awkward guy trying to find a wife. (I think the author's name is Graeme Simpson, or something similar.)
Amy - I took your suggestions and already read The Good House. Loved it! Thanks!
I am so happy you enjoyed it!
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