The Great Alone | 
With the bushfires in NSW, Australia causing most of Sydney to be smothered in smoke the washing needs to be drying inside and all windows/doors need to be closed to prevent our home from being Smokey.
Days like this, weekends like this, are filled with reading in awkward positions that are weirdly comfortable 💁🏻♀️
I‘m not planning on moving until my NBA game starts in 15 minutes. I‘ve already been here 4 hours 🤷🏻♀️💕
Unfortunately my girlie doesn‘t understand my love of books and is currently looking over my shoulder waiting for me to finish reading so she can be fed 😂 can you sense the frustration?
so-soThis was a very well written book, but a very stressful reading experience.
#WinterGames TBR #elfies
What else would you want to do when your entire suburb and area is covered in smoke? 🔥
Thanks so much @StayCurious for this awesome package. I love Kristin Hannah and can't wait to read this one. Love love love the tote bag. I had almost bought it for myself but actually controlled myself. 😂 and love mackintosh candies. ❤ #winterswap
It‘s not like I don‘t have a huge stack of TBR‘s at home. But when one is passing time during a layover, sometimes things happen 🙃
Kindle daily deal today. Great book for a great deal by a fantastic author!! If you haven‘t read this, I highly recommend it. #kindledailydeal
so-soNot going to be a popular opinion but I didn‘t love this one.
Maybe it was because I could not personally connect with any characters.
Maybe it was (at times extremely) slow pace, though the ending picked up.
Maybe it was because I literally found myself rolling my eyes and saying “seriously?” more than once.
Or maybe because I can‘t see myself in Alaska!
I appreciate the detail of life in Alaska and character development. Just not the best.
pickSome books are meant to be devoured. Others should be savored. I devoured The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. With ever-increasing stakes and intense themes like survival, love, and abuse, you can‘t help but binge read it. Full review and discussion questions: https://pickingbooks.com/blog/the-great-alone-review
pickPick - glad I read it, and it kept my interest throughout
Pros: good pacing, interesting setting (1970s Alaskan wilderness), lots of cool survival info
Cons: a little repetitive and the ending stretched belief, but it‘s doable
(Photo thieved from Internet)
It‘s a #deweysreadathon miracle. My cats are still very suspicious of each other so any time I get both of them near me makes me want to weep with joy.
pickFirst book done for #24B4Monday! I loved this so much I stayed up to finish listening to it. A beautiful, sad and inspiring tale of one damaged family‘s life in Alaska in the late 70‘s. Great read! I have no idea the points for #TeamStoker here for #Scarathlon. Though not horror it definitely has thrilling moments. Let me know @TheReadingMermaid @Andrew65 @jb72
“He taught her something new about friendship: it picked right back up where you‘d left off, as if you hadn‘t been apart at all.”
Love this quote so much. How true.
Just because you have time or space apart, true friendships live on.
Just received my #greatalonebookclub packet! I love everything that this book stands for. I love @kristinhannahauthor !!
#bookmail #bookishmail #thegreatalone #kristinhannah #bookclub #read #reader #bookstagram #bookstagrammer
So who wants a Kristin Hannah bookmark?!?! Leave me yout favorite Kristin Hannah book in a comment and I will enter you in the raffle. I have 4 bookmarks to give away!!
Look at this gorgeous package I got from St. Martins! It's a book club package that has recipes, music lists, discussion guide, bookmarks and postcards! The Great Alone is one of my favorite books and Kristin Hannah is my favorite author so I was insanely excited about this!
... no one to hear you scream.
Nope. No thanks!
I need a neighbor that I can literally wave or yell to for help if I needed to!! I could never make it in Alaska or anywhere that remote!
pick⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ this is my favorite book of 2019. Something amazing is gonna have to top this one. I knew very little about this book going in. The way Kristin writes is so atmospheric and beautiful. You genuinely feel trapped alongside Cora and Leni in Alaska. This book honestly blew me away and legitimately made me cry towards the end. I‘m still putting my heart and soul together after I finished reading it. #botm #bookreview #historicalfiction
I spent some time on the beach reading today and got over 100 pages read. So far, I‘m really liking it.
pickTriggers;:Violence, domestic abuse
Beautiful, wild and dangerous, Alaska can be your heaven and your hell. It is also most about battling your own demons and your family's. But, having had several losses of my own lately, the losses moved me.
Idk what the point was in a few decisions but overall, I recommend it. I care about the characters, their lives and will think about several of them for awhile as they seem to have settled into my head.
pickI told my husband that this book was “teenage true love + doomsday prepping + Goodbye Earl in Alaska in the 70s“ and I stand by that text message summary.
pickThis book left me absolutely breathless. I spent 3 years enjoying this wild landscape myself so this was all the more real to me.
"this first kiss changed her, opened her up to a world she'd never imagined, a big, bright, shining universe full of unexpected possibilities."
This quote pretty much embodies Alaska and what it will do to you. I am undone by it's telling...
Back from Berlin and switching back to a library book thatsbdue next week!
pickUnputdownable!!!
PTSD, dysfunctional, young love, homesteading
What a fantastic read!
I met Kristin Hannah tonight! She is so awesome. Her answers to questions felt honest and genuine. She took time to sign each book, take pictures and talk to each person. It was a great night!
A bunch of library holds came in so I'm gonna shelve Call Your Daughter Home for a while to get started on some titles I've been waiting to read for a while!
"Alaska can be sleeping beauty on minute and a b*ch with a sawed off shot gun the next"
I am really digging this book!
Vacation reading. We flew out to Seattle on Friday & today we board a cruise ship bound for Alaska. This has been my dream trip for 17 years- we waited until we were empty nesters to take it. I‘m super excited to read about Alaska with a backdrop of Alaskan mountains and glaciers!
so-soA lot of people seemed to love this so I wish I liked it more! I think it was a good book but toward the end it felt like Lenny hadn‘t learned a thing! I wanted her to have her moment where she stands up does what‘s right for her! Maybe that moment was when she told her father she was pregnant. Somehow it didn‘t feel like it? I might be missing the point about how toxic love can be. But I left this one frustrated! I really loved the setting though
Almost done with this one...no good character can catch a break in this one!!
pickAfter seeing mixed reviews of this one around here, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this book. Once I got started, I could not stop. I had moments when I wanted to pitch it across the room, but I refrained because I‘m trying to be a better friend to books. 😂
Full review: http://sprainedbrain.blog/2019/08/29/i-finally-read-the-great-alone-by-kristin-h...
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Fangirling so hard at this reference! Only one of my favourite Shakespeare plays!! 💕
Started listening to this audiobook at work! Enjoying it so far!
‘His smile reawakened her in a way, reminded her that there was more to life than work. He taught her something new about friendship: it picked right back up where you‘d left off, as if you hadn‘t been apart at all.‘
pickWow! What a powerfully emotional story! I loved the setting of remote Alaska - the way it was written made it a fascinating character of its own. I‘d absolutely hand this to someone who read Where the Crawdads Sing.
“What‘s your story, missy?”
“I don‘t have a story.”
“Everyone has a story. Maybe yours just starts up here.”
“Maybe.”
My current #audiobook is also the first Kristin Hannah I‘ve read. I‘m wondering why I waited so long to pick her up because I‘m loving it.
so-soLeni's restless father takes her and her mom to homestead in Alaska, where the darkness inside her father builds as the days grow shorter.
I finished this novel wanting to spend a year in Alaska. I loved the descriptions of the challenges of homesteading and the beauty and danger of Alaska. The plot, however, was predictable and the ending unlikely.
