Welcome to Litsy!

If you remember a day when your President appeared Presidential, then this is a book for you. Obama is a reader, a scholar, and an orator. He knows how to reach an audience, even through the written word. I admit, I can almost hear his voice in my head as I read. So, yeah, I‘m a fangirl.

I think the editors did an effective job of choosing speeches that illustrate his career and our world.

Full review www.TheBibliophage.com
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My four favorite books of 2018. Three with 2018 pub dates, and one backlist choice. I didn‘t have many 5-star books, but had a large list of four-star choices. As usual, I also divided my full “best of” list by my blog categories: Resist, Relax, and Learn. Check out the post for more stats, including my reading challenges. Whew! Now, I can proceed with 2019.

Full blog post at www.TheBibliophage.com
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As I started this book, all I could think about was Margaret Atwood‘s The Handmaid‘s Tale. Vox felt derivative, which did not enhance the reading experience. And then, all of a sudden, Dalcher stepped up her game. Jean became more fully formed, and less like Serena Joy. Plus, the plot intensified. By the book‘s end I was wanting more and wishing for an adaptation to the screen.

Full review www.TheBibliophage.com
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This is not a political memoir. It‘s the story of a woman who wasn‘t interested in politics marrying a fellow civic-minded lawyer who became a politician. But mostly it‘s about two people trying to do good things for their family, their country, and the world. She dishes plenty of scoop on her life‘s biggest moments. But it‘s the small things that will stick with me. Read it!

Full review www.TheBibliophage.com
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River Queens is about a voyage through America, and it‘s the story of Alexander Watson, Dale Harris, their dog Doris Faye, and their boat the Betty Jane. They‘re Dallas landlubbers who seize the opportunity to restore a vintage wooden boat. They‘ve restored houses, but this is entirely different. Escape into their often hilarious life on the water!

Full review www.TheBibliophage.com
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I‘ll never look in the mirror the same way. Naomi Wolf is a scholar, philosopher, and feminist. She analyzes the details of women‘s lives across the centuries, focusing on the 20th. She discusses how the expectations of “being beautiful” have changed through the eras. And Wolf explains why a patriarchal society develops a construct like the “beauty myth.”

Full review www.TheBibliophage.com
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Lydia‘s a bookseller trying to live an uneventful life. One of her customers takes his own life in the store, during her shift. And Lydia is pulled into his mysterious life. Which is ironic, because her own past is actually quite cumbersome also. The characters were well-developed, but the plot just wasn‘t as complex and twisty as I wish it had been.

Full review www.TheBibliophage.com
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What a disappointment! Good enough to stick with, but really nothing like Steig Larsson‘s original Millennium Trilogy. Lisbeth Salander is just a cardboard cutout. Mikael Blomkvist plays a bigger part, but there are so many other characters at play. We know none of them well by the end. The action is improbable and not especially captivating.

Full review www.TheBibliophage.com
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I almost bailed after the second story, which was wildly chauvinistic. So glad I didn‘t because the rest were charming, thought-provoking stories that play with time and place in unique ways. All published in the mid to late 20th century, Finney‘s tales are evocative of that era and some earlier ones. It felt very nostalgic to me!

Full review www.TheBibliophage.com (who knew I had so many watches!)
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Salt to the Sea is a story of refugees during World War II. It‘s part of the author‘s family history, and her research into real-life events is meticulous. And yet, this is a story of people, not just history. The history is the why and the how, but the people in the novel are its heart.

This is a YA book so grounded in history—and tragedy—that it feels like an adult book.

Full review www.TheBibliophage.com
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