What are you Reading (Part 2)?

[Elvis Presby]

I just finished Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.  Right now it is all I can do not to ugly cry.  Her very last entry on 8/1/1944 was so profound and really spoke to me (of course, I didn't know that was her last entry while listening to it on Audible).  Her birthday was 2 days before mine, making her a Gemini.  She struggled with the duality of her very nature in that last entry (and many others, but that one in particular).  She was only 15 years old!  

Anyway, my heart is so heavy.  I would say that I process things internally 65% of the time (through training!) and externally 35% of the time.  

 

[AlwaysExcited]

The Earth is Singing by Vanessa Curtis. YA, but very much for adults too. Historical fiction, set in Latvia during WWII, follows three generations of Jewish women from the beginning of Nazi occupation till the very end. 
Speaks to me on so many different levels. 

[PennySycamore]

I bought three books at Target this week.  I haven't started The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher yet, but I have started All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda and Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley.  Neither of them is written linearly, but I'm not bothered by that in Lily.  It's about a gay man in LA and his best friend who happens to be his dachshund, Lily who is 12.  In Missing Girls, right now, Nicholette is in some missing girl's garage apartment in the middle of the night for no good reason that I can think of.  It seems totally unmotivated.  There had better be a damn good explanation of why the hell she was in Annaliese's place later on.

[MarblesMom]

@PennySycamore I am ready Lily, too.  Great book for anyone who has had a love affair with a dog

[Marly]

I'm currently reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. Science fiction novel, super awesome. Very much attention to detail. Would most definitely recommend!

[PennySycamore]

I finished reading all of All the Missing Girls yesterday.  I said all that I'm going to read because I read the end of it to figure out what the hell was going, had meant to go back and then found I'd read as much as I wanted of the book.  As I'd mentioned previously, it's not written linearly, but backwards.  I think that the author is not skilled enough with plotting to write the book in a linear fashion the way most mystery authors do.  Ot maybe she was inspired by the Discovery ID show REDRUM  which approached murders from the arrest and maybe conviction of a suspect to the beginning.  The device worked better on the ID show, but maybe not well enough because I haven't seen new episodes of Redrum recently.

I just checked the amazon reviews.  It got a fair number of one and two star reviews.  Others were as unimpressed as I was.

Now that I'm as finished with that piece of crap as I want to be,  I'm on to reading Lily and the Octopus.  Yay!  It's already much better than the missing girls dreck.

[MarblesMom]

Someone donated the Scumble River mystery series to the library - author is Denise Swanson.  These are easy reads, one a day kinda books.  I like them because of the setting (rural, small town) and the constant romantic awkwardness.  

But seriously, in a very small town, if you have a murder a year and the same players are ALWAYS involved, how long til the Feds get involved.....?!

[clueliss]

I started The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh on audio yesterday.  I'm really liking it so far.  

And I find more accurate reviews if I click the 3 stars than if I look at 5 stars.  I'm stingy with 5 stars myself and don't trust most people who seem to give 5 star reviews out all over the place.  

[PennySycamore]

I finished reading Lily and the Octopus this evening.  It is an absolutely marvelous, wonderful book and it will make you cry.  I'd wondered about reading it partly because of my sister's brain cancer and partly because I've been saying to my Shih tzu for the past couple of weeks "You do NOT have an octopus on your head!"  I don't think she does though and her antibiotics are working.

Now on to The Princess Diarist.

 

[MarblesMom]

@PennySycamore it took me 4 tries to finish the book, I had to go mop up a few times.  As hard as it was for us to read, how much harder was it for the author to write, if that was his dog?  I really felt for him, thinking about the book, once done.

It is life numbing to have someone close so sick.  Prayers for your sister and dog.

[PennySycamore]

13 hours ago, MarblesMom said:

@PennySycamore it took me 4 tries to finish the book, I had to go mop up a few times.  As hard as it was for us to read, how much harder was it for the author to write, if that was his dog?  I really felt for him, thinking about the book, once done.

It is life numbing to have someone close so sick.  Prayers for your sister and dog.

Lily was indeed his dog.  Steven wrote Lily and the Octopus as a way to deal with his profound grief after losing her.  

[clueliss]

I finally finished reading A Dance With Dragons.  only took me a year off and on while rereading A Feast of Crows.    Thanks to someone here at FJ for telling me about the alternative reading list.

[MarblesMom]

I am about halfway into Truth or Beard.  Great love/hate/sexual tension so far between the main characters, but probably too explicit for those YA readers.

[clueliss]

oh and I also recently read (audio) The Weight of Blood.  So good.  

[Carm_88]

I just finished both Radio Girls by Sarah-Jane Stratford and The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. Both were decent, The Forgotten Garden more than Radio Girls but it scratched my historical fiction itch. I'm about to start Two by Two by Nicholas Sparks because I'm a sap. Happy Reading! 

[clueliss]

Currently, I  have Changes by Jim Butcher going on audio.

Also, I started Friday night and finished last night Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight.  It has been ages since I've fallen into a book that kept my attention for a whole weekend like that.  

[Marly]

I'm currently reading the Handmaid's Tale. I like it a lot, but it is also very sad, and considering everything that's happening now in the States regarding women's rights it's also very scary. I would say a must read for both men and women.

[Elvis Presby]

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

[manda b]

Listening to the Amityville Horror. Reading A Mother's Reckoning. Just finished The Chosen (Black Dagger Brotherhood).

[onekidanddone]

Biography of John Adams.

[PennySycamore]

I just finished 1984  by George Orwell two days ago.  I'd gotten Hidden Figures same time that I bought 1984 and have started it, but Democracy for America had a deal where you could get Elizabeth Warren's latest book This Fight is Our Fight:  The Battle to Save America's Middle Class so I'm reading that now.  I'm just up to the part about the repeal of Glass-Steagall.  In between the heaviness of Warren's book, I've started Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy {A Funny Book About Horrible Things}.  It's that book with the crazed-looking stuffed raccoon on the cover.  Rory makes me think of Rufus or that stuffed fox that is my daughter's Jaycess chapter's mascot.

[onekidanddone]

4 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

I just finished 1984  by George Orwell two days ago.  I'd gotten Hidden Figures same time that I bought 1984 and have started it, but Democracy for America had a deal where you could get Elizabeth Warren's latest book This Fight is Our Fight:  The Battle to Save America's Middle Class so I'm reading that now.  I'm just up to the part about the repeal of Glass-Steagall.  In between the heaviness of Warren's book, I've started Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy {A Funny Book About Horrible Things}.  It's that book with the crazed-looking stuffed raccoon on the cover.  Rory makes me think of Rufus or that stuffed fox that is my daughter's Jaycess chapter's mascot.

Thanks for the suggestion.  i just put Warren's book on my public library's hold list.  The book is listed as "on order" so it might be a while.

[Elvis Presby]

Jane Eyre is boring the shit out of me.

[PennySycamore]

@onekidanddone,  is that the bio of John Adams written by David McCullough?  I love his work!  I really need to read his newest book as well as the biography of John Adams.  I read a biography of Abigail Adams when I was pregnant with Katherine 30 years ago.  My youngest get her middle name, Louisa, from one of their daughters-in-law and I had a very sweet little dog named Abigail.

[onekidanddone]

10 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

@onekidanddone,  is that the bio of John Adams written by David McCullough?  I love his work!  I really need to read his newest book as well as the biography of John Adams.  I read a biography of Abigail Adams when I was pregnant with Katherine 30 years ago.  My youngest get her middle name, Louisa, from one of their daughters-in-law and I had a very sweet little dog named Abigail.

Yup it is the Mcullough book  I read Truman eons ago.