This weekend has been a wonderful, and much needed, break. Even with all the rain, we’ve found time to enjoy the outdoors and spend a little extra time with friends and family. My parents are currently out on the road, RVenturing across the country, but they were lucky enough to welcome an unexpected guest in Colorado!

I think he should be the new camp mascot, just remember to hide the bird seed! 🙂

This weekend is just what I needed to beat my reading slump – I’ve just been too busy and too tired at the end of the day to read. I know I’ve said this before, but thank goodness for audiobooks! I’ve been choosing shorter books that are simpler to finish during a work day or two, and I really lucked out this week with available titles on Overdrive.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Cadence Sinclair Eastman is recovering from a traumatic brain injury, covered in golden retrievers and reading books, she lives the life of luxury. But she longs to return to the island, and to her friends, the liars. She tries her best to recount the last summer she spent with the liars, hoping to finally remember her accident, or at least uncover why her family finds it so necessary to hide it from her. Behind the secrecy, behind the liars, she’ll discover a truth more a haunting than anything she could have imagined.

“We are liars. We are beautiful and privileged. We are cracked and broken.”

We Were Liars was THE summer read a couple years back, but I totally missed it. It just didn’t hit my radar a the time, and I’m kind of glad for it. While I enjoyed the novel, I was left wanting more from the story and from the characters. Of course, there’s a huge reveal at the end, a plot twist you may or may not see coming (I, surprisingly didn’t). While some answers are given, I was still left wanting more of an explanation, or at least more resolve between Cadence and her family – a group of characters given little motivation or growth during the course of the novel. As for the liars, why are they called the liars? It’s really explained, and they’re just presented as the liars from the very beginning, but perhaps that is part of the overall mystery. My biggest peeve with the novel is with Gat. His troubled relationship with Cadence, his moodiness, his role in the family…it all plays into his being a “Heathcliff” but to what end? There’s no need for this in the story. Overall, the story is an emotional journey of a confused teen who misses her friends, an entertaining and heartfelt story – an excellent summer read, in my opinion.

Rating: 3 Stars

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

When we first meet A.J. Fikry, he is a mess. Having lost his wife to a tragic car accident, he subsists on frozen meals and cheap booze while by day he maintains a failing bookshop, pushing anyone and everyone away, until one day, he discovers his most prized possession, a rare collection of poems by Edgar Allen Poe, has been stolen. He had been treasuring the idea of one day selling the collection, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and leaving his small island once and for all, but with that dream now gone, he must once again join the living and make his little shop profitable once again. Then, one day, a mysterious package is found hidden in the back corner of the store. No one expects the curmudgeonly bookseller to care for the abandoned child, let alone adopt her, but that’s just what he does, and by doing so, discovering a new spark for life he never imagined he’d find, putting new meaning to the sign hanging over his doors, “No man is an island; every book is a world.”

“You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?”

“We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on”

There is much, much more to this story, but I’d rather not give too much away. I absolutley loved this novel, and wish I could read it over again and again, but as the first time every time. It had me tearing up and then laughing, then crying, then crying tears of joy…it is an emotional roller coaster to say the least. I instantly fell in love with Fikry – while crabby and a pessimist at the novel’s start, you can’t help but feel for his loss, over and over again. Each character feels like family, and apart of your soul, and each page a new lesson, a remembrance for loved ones who’ve helped us each step along the way in our own lives. A beautiful and touching novel for all readers.

Rating: 5 Stars

A Blessing On the Moon by Joseph Skibell

In A Blessing On the Moon, Chaim Skibelski is sent on a journey in the afterlife. He awakes, as if from a dream, to find himself covered in bodies, having been shot by the Nazis and thrown into a mass grave. Terror stricken and running for his life, he discovers he, too, has suffered tremendous wounds and is bleeding out. He is dead, now caught between the world of the living and the world to come, in a never-ending state of limbo. He walks the countryside, seeking for his fellow men and stumbles upon his rabbi, now in the shape of a crow, but he takes flight too soon, before Chaim can seek any of his answers. Why is he still here? Where is his family? Where is the moon?

“…when you killed me, you took everything. My home, my wife, my children. Must you have my forgiveness as well.”

The novel is an entirely new perspective to World War II. While Chaim explores the countryside, the war is always hanging over, an omnipresent dark cloud in every image described. Each character encountered along his journey stand for an entire group of sufferers, each with a unique ailment and purpose, from the dying peasant girl, to the German soldier, to his Jewish family, mysteriously disappearing after their appointed “steam”, each presents a piece of the Holocaust with an allegorical message of endurance and forgiveness. His journey is a poignant and heartfelt story unlike any I’ve ever read, igniting an intense emotional connection to the characters and the tragedies that follow.

Rating: 5 Stars

What have you been reading lately?

I’m so glad last week is over – what a drainer!  Between work, getting my car back, dealing with the rental company, and still catching up on last week’s chores….. man, I’m tired. But, thanks to some good planning, I’ve had an amazing selection of reads for the week. There’s nothing like coming home to a good book or zoning out on your lunch hour – just completely disappearing in the pages of a great story! Perhaps that’s why I’ve been gravitating toward thrillers so much lately – I can completely escape reality, just let myself get swept away by the mystery and pure adrenaline of the characters.

I already have a great batch of books lined up for this week too. Book haul coming soon!

The Opposite of Everyone by Joshilyn Jackson

Paula Vauss is a high-power divorce attorney. Successful and cut throat, nothing can stop her, that is until her monthly check to her estranged mother is sent back…with a message. The first words she’s received from her free spirited mother in years, bringing news of her illness and a journey. Thrown in shock, Paula recounts her chaotic childhood spent on the road with her mother moving from town to town with each new boyfriend and filled with tales of Hindu mythology. With the help of her ex-boyfriend and in-house private eye, she’ll discover her mother’s deepest secrets and uncover a far greater debt than she ever imagined. Will she find her before it’s too late? Can you begin again?

“I had spent my whole life hungry for forgiveness. It had not come, so I didn’t know firsthand what he was feeling. But I had imagined it, over and over. I’d wanted it so bad. I’d wanted Kai—or anyone, anyone who knew the worst in me—to say that I was still dear, and good, and worthy.”

This novel took me by surprise. At first, I couldn’t figure Paula out – she’s tougher than dirt and yet so vulnerable, always looking for approval from anyone and everyone. But as her story is slowly unveiled, her nomadic years on the road, her time in foster care, her guilt… it all makes sense. She makes sense. That said, I did have a few issues with the novel. I’m still not comfortable with the fact that Paula felt entirely responsible for her mother’s imprisonment, she was a child and was not being cared for properly, and was their own fault for growing pot! Sure, she didn’t have to call the cops on her mom, but SHE WAS A CHILD! I understand it was a great plot device – her guilt was ultimately her saving grace after all those years in foster care, it’s what kept her humble and hungry for redemption, but she could have cut herself some more slack. Then there’s the ending. It feels rushed and unsure, taking things from it’s complicated to happily ever after in record time. Everything is resolved in a neat little box, but it’s resolved separately – each plot line summed up in it’s own way, while the weaving of all her stories could have been carried out to the end. How will Birdwine fit in with her new family? How is she suddenly fixed out of nowhere? I need to know!

Rating: 3 Stars

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

 In the midst of World War II, four teenagers are trapped in the wintery snares of East Prussia, desperate for a passage to safety. The way to the coast is long – they’ll have to brave extreme conditions, avoid their Russian “liberators” and cross treacherous ice-covered waters.  But as the number of refugees steadily increases to the thousands, a place aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, one of the few remaining ships, will prove just as difficult as the passage itself. Every inch of space filled to admit as many refugees and injured soldiers as possible, the ship is beyond it’s capacity by thousands, resulting in catastrophe when a Soviet submarine approaches. Each with a secret and a family to find, they’ll band together for survival, but who will live to tell the tale?

“Two warring nations gripped Poland like girls fighting over a doll. One held the leg, the other the arm. They pulled so hard that one day, the head popped off.”

 The novel highlights one of the greatest maritime tragedies in history. With the destruction of the Wilhelm Gustloff, an estimated 9,400 souls were lost to the icy waters of the Baltic. Constructed as a cruse ship for the Nazi party, it was meant to be a luxurious escape for it’s 1,500 passengers, but in the winter of 1945 it served as a hospital for the wounded before taking its last voyage carrying civilian refugees and the wounded. Sepetys’ characters were a few among the many aboard, fighting for a spot on one of the few life rafts available. Not only an amazing historical work, the novel is a thrilling adventure – a story unlike any other war-time novel I’ve read. The four characters, a Lithuanian nurse, a German soldier, a Polish girl, and a Prussian on a mysterious errand, alternate the telling of the story. Each chapter told by a different character and no more than 2 to 3 pages long. The effect is overwhelmingly personal and thrilling. I instantly felt an emotional connection with them all, hoping they’d make it to the end together. My mother’s family is from Poland and Western Europe, and while much of our family had already crossed to America by the war, many of our remaining family members were lost to us those years. I can’t help but wonder if they walked these same forests? Did they suffer the same way? Did they escape? For many, their fate will never be known to us, but I’m thankful they have a voice in Sepetys’ stories, a beautiful remembrance for all.

 Rating: 4 Stars

Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tuchoke

Wink is the quirky, mysterious girl next door with wild red hair and a bookshelf full of stories. Poppy is the golden hair beauty, ruling the school with her mischievousness. Midnight is the shy, thoughtful boy caught between the two. Who is the hero? Who is the villain? Who’s keeping secrets?

“Revenge. Justice. Love. They are the three stories that all other stories are made up of. It’s the trifecta.”

“For your sake I have braved the glen, and had to do with goblin merchant men. Eat me, drink me, love me. Hero, Wolf, make much of me. With clasping arms and cautioning lips, with tingling cheeks and fingertips, cooing all together.”

Tuchoke’s writing is beautiful and poetic, but lacks substance. The story follows the troubled woes of youth who have nothing better to do than stir up drama where there isn’t any, all the while believing themselves to be some grand character in a fairy tale. Of course, you’ll be pleasantly charmed by layers of mystery and prose before coming to this realization, but by that time, you might as well finish. Otherwise, you’ll miss the over the top, melodramatic séance as well as Poppy’s laughable self discovery (leading her to give up society to live in the woods, hoping her knight in shining tie-dye will return). The only one to learn something out of the whole debacle is Midnight, who finally finds his voice and a way to fix his family, from a rift about as wide as the Atlantic Ocean and no more. The real mystery is how they manage to have this much time unsupervised? Don’t they have dinner or curfew or something? And why is Poppy so obsessed with Leaf? I understand he’s the one person she can’t win over, but couldn’t she have at least had some grand epiphany at the end? Some kind of growth showing she can move past her superficial attraction for him in exchange for self respect? And poor Wink…she’s right back where we met her in the end. So much for strong leading ladies.

Rating: 2 Stars

What have you been reading lately?