so-soMurder on her resort vacation leaves Ellery and her new found friends (or are they) becoming detectives before it‘s too late. An “ok and average”, but with little reading time lately I may have gone on to something else if it weren‘t our book club read. I still feel like Reese may be steering us off the path 🤣
so-so⭐️⭐️ Having read a few of Didion‘s journalistic pieces, and the recent title “Didion & Babitz,” I wanted to try one from the latter. Oh, the pretension and ego! Lord. Grapes, baseball, married men, sex, drugs. 1960s California is one of my favorite things to read about, but this will not go down as a favorite. It‘s a one and done for me and Didion‘s frenemy.
He had an urge to return to Bogota. It was fascinating to him, the idea that all the things his parents had escaped were now here, and all the things they wanted for their kids were now there. Random gun violence, political unrest, supply chain issues--those were now America, Marriage equality, socialized medicine, and reproductive choice--those were all Colombian.
Everyone was on the same ticking clock. They might fool themselves into thinking that more time affords them opportunities to do more things, that the future is open-ended. But the world is simply too big. We weren't meant to see everything, we weren't built to do everything, we aren't capable of knowing everything. At a certain point, peace has to be found with the choices we've made.
pickRead in 2024. There‘s a lot going on in this story: parent abandonment, drug abuse/DV/emotional abuse, jealousy. The story spans over many years. It was a decent story. I really liked Benjamin‘s research that she did about the history of surfing (which I found more interesting & found more books to read).
pickI enjoyed this book about a “Rosie the Riveter” who is trying to find her path after the war ends & women aren‘t needed at the airplane factory. I‘ve always been interested in this topic — where did these women go if they didn‘t want to go back home? This one is a bit more soapy as it involves artists, a little scandal, and a hotel. Hazel was a little naive at times but I was rooting for her to find her way. This was my #BookSpin & #AuldLangSpine
pickJuniper Berry has grown up deep in the wilderness and knows almost nothing of modern conveniences. Instead she knows how to hunt and forage to survive with her family. Then, her brother becomes acutely ill, and the whole family travels to the city. Suddenly, she has to learn a whole new set of rules while living with an uncle she didn‘t even know existed and cousins who don‘t want her there.
#MiddleGrade #TRS2024
#12Booksof2024 @Andrew65
Jan: Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
Feb: War Music: An Account of Homer's Iliad - Christopher Logue
Mar: Hollywood Behind the Lens - Marc Wannamaker & Stephen Bingen - ARC read
Apr: Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
May: Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath - Heather Clark
Jun: We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
Jul: Vincent: a Graphic Biography - Simon Elliott - ARC read
Aug: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
so-soI agree with a lot of the reviews on this one. What started out strong and interesting turned into a drawn out story that lost my interest quickly. The ending just wasn‘t what I hoped it would be and there was too much other stuff going on and really was unnecessary. It wasn‘t a long book, but felt a lot longer than what it was. Just okay for me.
pickA surprisingly enjoyable thriller/mystery set in a remote resort on the California coast. A high school teacher finds her solo trip on what would have been her 20th wedding anniversary interrupted by murder and disaster. A familiar story but with more depth of character than usual.
