Tag: Southern USA

History, Non-Fiction, STEM

Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson

Sarah

After a few years of being without a book club to lead (I still participate in my former club), I felt the nagging urge to start one that better suited my current tastes, nonfiction! Below is my review for the inaugural book, Isaac’s Storm!

Nonfiction Book Club (2)

Synopsis

From the back cover:
September 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau, failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange deep-sea swells and peculiar winds that greeted the city that morning. Mere hours later, Galveston found itself submerged by a monster hurricane that completely destroyed the town and killed over 6,000 people in what remains the greatest natural disaster in American history – and Isaac Cline found himself the victim of a devastating personal tragedy.

Using Cline’s own telegrams, letters, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our understanding of the science of hurricanes, Erik Larson builds a chronicle of one man’s heroic struggle and fatal miscalculation in the face of a storm of unimaginable magnitude. Isaac’s Storm is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets the uncontrollable force of nature.

Review

So, I missed the first book club meeting of my own book club. I had to go to the Hudson Valley in New York for a book buyer’s retreat (which was a lot of fun) and so my coworker, Su, filled in for me. Three ladies showed up, a strong presence for a brand new club, and apparently they had a lively discussion. I absolutely cannot wait to join in for the next meeting – if you want to follow along with our reading from afar, check out our book club page here!

I have now read three works by Erik Larson, Dead Wake (my favorite), In the Garden of Beasts (my least favorite) and now Isaac’s Storm (my middle choice). Unlike the first two works I read, Isaac’s Storm focuses on one main storyline, that of Isaac and the town of Galveston before, during, and after the storm. Other people and places make brief appearances, but the primary narrative sticks to the Texan Gulf coast.

As one of Erik’s earliest works, it is not surprising that what we think of as his trademark storytelling style, epitomized in Devil in the White City according to my coworkers, is not present in Isaac’s Storm. It is still an enjoyable book and a fascinating portrait of the early days of the American weather service. It is also difficult to fathom that Erik wrote this book before Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf coast. The bureaucracy involved in getting word out to the area that a storm was coming is laughable, but still in place today.

Unfortunately, I walked away from Isaac’s Storm without much more than a “I’m glad I didn’t live in turn of the century Galveston.” I didn’t particularly care for Isaac and I couldn’t tell you the names of any of the townspeople mentioned throughout, they just didn’t stick with me the way the people in his other books did. It wasn’t a bad read, just not Erik’s strongest (also not surprising, at it is one of his earliest works).

Rating: 7 out of 10

Edition: Paperback • $16.95 • 9780375708275 • 336 pages • originally published August 1999, this edition published July 2000 by Vintage • average Goodreads rating 4.06 out of 5 stars • read in March 2019

Isaac's Storm

Essays, Non-Fiction, Psychology

Girl Logic by Iliza Shlesinger

Sarah

Self-Help January continues! This book originally came out in November 2017 and I still have an advance reader copy… I’ve been sitting on it for almost 2 years and decided now was finally the time to read it. I love Iliza, so much so that I decided to use her book for my first “bookface” picture!

Synopsis

From the Back Cover:
Have you ever been pissed because you’re not pretty enough, and then gotten even more pissed that someone didn’t find you as pretty as you think you are? Have you ever obsessed over the size of your thighs while eating dessert, all the while saying you’ll work out extra tomorrow? Or spent endless hours wondering why you have to bear the brunt of other people’s insecurities? I mean, after all, I’m pretty great. Why cope with insecurities I don’t already have?

That last one’s just me? All right, then.

But if the rest sounds familiar, you are experiencing girl Logic: a characteristically female way of thinking that appears contradictory and circuitous but is actually a complicated and highly evolved way of looking at the world. You end up considering every repercussion of every choice (about dating, career, clothes, lunch) before making a move toward what you really want. And why do we attempt these mental hurdles? Well, that’s what this book is all about.

The fact is, whether you’re obsessing over his last text or the most important meeting of your career, your Girl Logic serves a purpose: It helps push you, question what you want, and clarify what will make you a happier, better person. Girl Logic can be every confident woman’s secret weapon, and this book shows you how to wield it.

Review

Last week I wrote about what I call “Self-Help January” and my doubts about how helpful self-help books written by middle class female white millennials can be. And I came away without a clear answer to my question. And now I’m back with another white female middle class (elder) millennial written self-help book. As this is my primary demographic, it is the subset I am most drawn to for self-help, but I also want to find books to review and recommend that are applicable to those outside this narrow subset as well. And Iliza, how I love you, seems a bit more helpful than last week’s Adulting.

If you haven’t seen or heard of Iliza, allow me to introduce her to you. She is a stand-up comic (but so much more!) and she won Last Comic Standing – the youngest and first woman to ever do so. She has a handful of Netflix specials, two (short-lived) television shows, Forever 31 on ABC and Truth and Iliza on Freeform. Her most recent Netflix special, Elder Millennial, is her best thus far.

Her honest and confident approach to life make her a role model for all young women, as well as her peers. And she freely admits that she doesn’t have everything sorted out – that her life is still a work in progress and her success is not a measuring stick for others’. The topics she covers in Girl Logic stem from the female-centered topics of her stand-up and focuses on three primary relationships: the relationship with have with ourselves, with other women, and with men.

The relationship with men section entertained me, but as someone who’s been in a relationship for the entirety of my twenties, I didn’t find much to relate to there but I know a lot of my friends who have also read Girl Logic found her advice here to be most helpful. For me, I have had a crappy on-off relationship with my body it feels like. I hate it, I love it, I’ve starved it, coddled it, over-fed it, under-exercised it, etc. It is always helpful to hear about other women’s similar struggles, if only for a reminder that it’s something we all do and our inner-monologue (aka Girl Logic) is both helpful and harmful in this relationship.

Iliza’s last point starts with a bit of an apology in regards to her previous acts – acts where she hasn’t always been as kind to other women as she would like. And that particular section is tremendously helpful. Women should support other women, but not blindly follow them just because they are women. But lead with kindness and respect – that’s really all that matters. You don’t have to be friends, but with mutual kindness and respect, life will be a lot happier all around.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $15.99 • 9781602863347 • 256 pages • first published November 2017, this edition published November 2018 by Hachette Books • average Goodreads rating 3.90 out of 5 • read January 2019

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Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction, New Adult

My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares

Sarah

I picked this book up a few years ago at my favorite local bookstore (where I now work). It was shortly after I moved to the southeastern part of Pennsylvania and I was really lonely, trying to make friends and I was drawn to the story (and admittedly the cover – I’m a sucker for starry nights). I overlooked all the comparisons to the Twilight saga because I knew Ann Brashares writing – she brought the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants into my life so clearly it couldn’t be that similar to Twilight…

Synopsis

Lucy is an ordinary girl growing up in the Virginia suburbs, soon to head off to college. On the night of her last high school dance, she hopes her elusive crush, Daniel Grey, will finally notice her. But as the night unfolds, Lucy discovers that Daniel is more complicated than she imagined. Why does he call her Sophia? And why does it make her feel so strange?

The secret is that Daniel has “the memory,” the ability to recall past lives and recognize the souls of those he’s previously known. And he has spent centuries falling in love with the same girl. Life after reincarnated life, spanning continents and dynasties, he and Sophie have been drawn together, and then torn painfully, fatally apart – a love always too short. And he remembers it all. Ultimately the two of them must come to understand what stands in the way of their love if they are to reach their happy ending.

Review

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Spoiler Alert! I loved the first 90% of this book – I love the idea of Daniel following Sophia through the ages, I love the flashbacks and how Ann Brashares did not pick the popular parts of history for Daniel’s past lives but gave him wholly ordinary and typical life experiences every time he came back. She also manages to tell the entire story without any sort of religious slant, a massive achievement for a book that pretty much revolves around the idea of reincarnation. I listened to the audiobook with great interest and wonder, always hoping that all would work out well for the characters in the end. At the back of my mind, however, a feeling of dread kept circling through my thoughts, “This is the woman who killed Tibby, nothing can be ruled out.” And unfortunately, that nagging feeling followed me straight through ‘til its realization in the last few pages.

Never in my life have I wanted to physically tear apart a book as much as I did when reading the last 37 pages of this one. I listened to it in the car up until then and decided to just read the last few pages – I had to know how it ended and what a terrible way it went! I should not have overlooked the Twilight comparison – my blood boiled and I’ve only felt such immense hatred toward a book once – while attempting to read the book to which this one is compared: Twilight. I think it has been well established at this point that I detest books with female characters that I deem to be weak and pathetic and overly-womanly. I loathe plotlines that play out the stereotypical path that a woman’s life can take – love, sex, babies and then that’s it, you’ve completed your mission on this earth, pack up and you’re done – your story is no longer an interesting one to tell.

I was incredibly excited for this story because it is one of few books that I could see myself classifying as “New Adult” – new adult literature (at least for the first 300 pages). It’s a well relayed story and an enjoyable one to read. And I really hoped it ended with Lucy and Daniel finally getting to spend some time together getting to know each other. Lucy and Daniel spend 5 minutes in high school and one car ride in Mexico 5 years later talking to each other before jumping in to bed together. I have no problem with this, I was thrilled when Lucy slept with her best friend’s little brother – that’s normal. It’s a way of life for more than a few people in their 20s. But do Lucy and Daniel really love each other? I don’t see how you can really love someone without getting to know them, not some perceived former version of their soul. Sophia and Daniel loved each other, Constance and Daniel loved each other, and even though Lucy makes a point of differentiating herself from her two former lives, it doesn’t answer the question of how she can love someone she barely knows.

I got the distinct impression that Ann Brashares wasn’t sure how she wanted to end Lucy and Daniel’s story. The last section, the “resolution” of the climax, just spins wildly out of control (Spoiler Alert!) – they survive an ocean storm for hours off the coast of Mexico, their rescue is unbelievable, they had sex once and Lucy’s pregnant after Daniel couldn’t have children for 1500 years, and then he abandons her in Bhutan and she doesn’t think she can even tell him about the baby. Just WHAT??? When did the tone of the story change so completely? Why? Just why does this have to be the direction of Lucy’s life? Not every ending needs to be a happy one, but it would be nice if it made at least a little sense and didn’t sound like it was hobbled together from random odds and ends.

Rating: 4 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $17.00 • 9781594485183 • 336 pages • first published in June 2010, this edition published June 2011 by Riverhead Books • average Goodreads rating 3.7 out of 5 • read in May 2015

Ann Brashares’ Website

My Name is Memory on Goodreads

Get a Copy of My Name is Memory

My Name is Memory

Contemporary, Fiction

The Ex-Debutante by Linda Francis Lee

Sarah

This was one of the first “adult” fiction books I read after graduating high school and deciding I needed to branch out from the young adult section. And while I’m a northern at heart, when presented with the opportunity to read about southern debutantes, I usually do so in order to mock them later. But in this book, there is so much heart and character development that I simply cannot mock. And the main character is named Carlisle, as is my beloved hometown.

Synopsis

When Carlisle Wainwright Cushing, of the old-moneyed Texas Wainwrights, moved to Boston three years ago to work at one of the city’s most prestigious divorce law firms, she thought she had escaped the high society she’d grown up in – after all, no one in Boston, not even her fiancé, knew she was an heiress. But now Carlisle has been lured back to Texas to deal with her mother’s latest divorce and the family-sponsored hundredth annual debutante ball, which is on the verge of collapse. She’s afraid she’ll never get back to Boston, at least with her reputation intact, especially when good ole’ Southern boy Jack Blair shows up on the opposite side of the divorce court, making her wonder if he’s going after her mother in the proceedings – or her. Carlisle’s trip home challenges her sense of who she really is and forces her to face her family’s secrets.

Review

I picked this book up as a quick read the summer after my sophomore year at the University of Pittsburgh, one of many books that I figured might be enjoyable if I read it, but wasn’t super into starting. Once I did, though, I could hardly put it down! It’s not news that I’m driven towards books that are more character-driven than plot-driven and that I appreciate strong and independent female characters that think and speak for themselves and never turn down an opportunity for deliciously witty banter with a romantic interest. The Ex-Debutante fulfilled my expectations of Carlisle. Come to think of it, after I read it I was fairly certain that if I ever had a daughter, I would totally name her Carlisle.

There were many things that drew me towards the book – I’d been on a She’s the Man kick (which features debs), I’d entertained the idea of becoming a lawyer (at the time I still didn’t want to teach), and I was infatuated with a guy name Jack that’d just broken my heart. Connections abounded and reading about Carlisle and how she handled her life gave me the confidence to take a greater interest in shaping my own life to be what I wanted, not just what was expected of me as a 19-year-old-almost-college-junior.

The end of your sophomore year of college is when you’re supposed to have your mind made up (if you didn’t when you started) about what you want to be when you “grow up” and who you are as a person. Your days of finding yourself are supposed to be done – you were either supposed to take a year off to traipse through Europe before enrolling or have it all sorted by the time you’re done your first semester so that you can settle in and start working towards some nonexistent goal that is supposed to define the rest of your life.

But, as with many other things in life, we don’t all follow the same path, our development as human beings really isn’t mappable as some psychologists would try to lead us to believe. And in a time of great personal confusion, Carlisle personified that twisting, knotting, ineffable desire to be unique and individualistic to a tee. I’d spent the four months before reading The Ex-Debutante caring for family and supporting those around me. While I’m beyond glad that I took time off from college to do so, reading The Ex-Debutante was the first time I took a break that was just for me, that I took time out of the day to do something I enjoyed, even if it was just reading. So my review is less about the book, but more about what the book, and the protagonist, made me realize about myself.

Rating: 8 stars

Edition: Paperback • $22.99 • 9780312354985 • 341 pages • first published April 2008, this edition published March 2009 by Griffin • average rating 3.67 out of 5 • read in May 2009

Linda Francis Lee’s Website

The Ex-Debutante on Goodreads

Get a Copy of The Ex-Debutante

Ex-Debutante

Memoir/Autobiography, Non-Fiction

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

Sarah

It is not often that I get the idea in my head that I absolutely must read a book at a particular time, but I decided this year before Christmas that I absolutely had to read Furiously Happy. My coworker, Jennifer, who loves Jenny Lawson, said “No, no. You have to read Let’s Pretend This Never Happened first.” And boy was she right.

Synopsis

When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father and a morbidly eccentric childhood. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the strange shame-spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for it.

In the irreverent Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson’s long-suffering husband and sweet daughter help her uncover the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments – the ones we want to pretend never happened – are the very same moments that make us the people we are today.

Review

I don’t often shove a book in my husband’s face and say, “Here! You MUST read this chapter right now!” Any time I have attempted this before, he groans and shoves said book out of my face. There aren’t many books that I’ve read that strike me as books he would particularly enjoy. But, while reading Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, I did this no less than 10 times. 10! And each time, he laughed too (which was very reassuring) and agreed with my declaration that Jenny, the author, and Victor, her husband, represent the two of us in five to ten years.

There have been a few books, fiction mostly, where I have identified with the main character to the point where I declare, “me too!” (not in the present #metoo sense, but in an I-can-thoroughly-relate-to-what-you’re-saying sense). But this definitely falls into the same category of Hyperbole and a Half where I feel like I’m reading a slightly altered account of my own life. My father was a builder, not a taxidermist, I grew up in Pennsyltucky (rural PA), not rural Texas, but I also am the messy one in my marriage, met my husband in college, say things out loud at social gatherings that I really shouldn’t, and have generalized anxiety disorder, though my panic attacks are mostly triggered by driving.

As Jenny writes, these things make me human, and they make me, me. And now I  know that there are far more people like me than I previously thought. If you’re looking for a book that will make you laugh out loud and that you can thoroughly relate to, look no further than Let’s Pretend This Never Happened.

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $16.00 • 9780425261019 • 363 pages • first published April 2012, this edition published March 2013 by Berkley Books • average Goodreads rating 3.9 out of 5 • read in January 2018

Jenny Lawson’s Website

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened on Goodreads

Get a Copy of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened

Let's Pretend This Never Happened

Contemporary, Fiction, Young Adult

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Sarah

This book came very highly reviewed on GoodReads and seemed like a fun quick in-between book to read while I was student teaching. I figured it wouldn’t require much thought and could help me related to students. But I have since discovered that “young adult” consists of two subcategories – young adult for tweens and teens and young adult for actual young adults (those in their twenties). This, alas, is the former rather than the latter.

Synopsis

Anna is happy in Atlanta. She has a loyal best friend and a crush on her co-worker at the movie theater, who is just starting to return her affection. So she’s not too pleased when her father decides to send her to boarding school in Paris for her senior year. But despite not speaking a word of French, Anna meets some cool new friends, including the handsome Étienne St. Clair, who quickly becomes her best friend. Unfortunately, he’s taken – and Anna might be, too. Will a year of romantic near misses end with the French kiss she’s been waiting for?

Review

According to multiple reviews, Anna and the French Kiss is fabulous. “St. Clair is so dreamy,” and “Anna so relatable.” No one seemed to mention how messed up these two are when it comes to their supposed “friendship.” I did not find the incredibly brilliant characters that I expected to find within the pages. In fact, the secondary characters are much more vivid and our protagonist and her love interest tend to fall flat. But first, a bit more on the synopsis.

Anna is sent off to Paris for her senior year and she is not happy about it. Personally, I would jump at the chance to spend a year exploring a new culture while still in high school but Anna feels like she’s being punished, so this is the first point on which Anna and I don’t see eye-to-eye. Admittedly, Anna does manage to embrace the situation (eventually) and make some pretty cool new friends. But as soon as she starts to feel comfortable, she does what every other girl (at least her roommate) in the school seems to do – fall for the “ever so handsome and dreamy” Etienne St. Clair.

Now I think the physical description of every romantic dreamboat in a novel should be left purposefully vague so that the reader can thoroughly imagine them in a way that suits their own tastes. Therefore, the reader falls in love with the character along with the protagonist. As a fairly tall young woman, I tend to find men taller than me to be most attractive. One of the first descriptors of Etienne? Short. Second, Etienne is supposed to be this caring and cool friend and have a good relationship with his girlfriend. But in reality, Etienne is a moody jerk and a coward. Yes, he is a teenage boy, yes his hormones are running rampant, no he doesn’t have to be perfect, but he should at least be likeable and have some redeeming qualities but the more one reads, the harder they are to find.

Most books with a stereotypical romantic trope for a plot usually make up for it by creating spectacular characters and it was difficult to find Anna or St. Clair likeable, they were both too annoying. And who knows (aside from my mom) if I was just as obnoxious, insufferable and annoying as the two of them when I was in high school. Maybe I was. That’s not a part of my life I care to return to (so why did I read this book?). But I have to say, Stephanie Perkins has a charming way with words and I would thoroughly consider reading some of her other works, so long as I can relate a bit more to the characters.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $10.99 • 9780142419403 • 400 pages • first published December 2010, this edition published August 2011 by Speak • average Goodreads rating 4.06 out of 5 • read in October 2013

Stephanie Perkins’ Website

Anna and the French Kiss on Goodreads

Get a Copy of Anna and the French Kiss

Anna and the French Kiss

Contemporary, Fiction

Waiting for Prince Harry by Aven Ellis

Laura

Well, darn, guess my futile, yet long-cherished, dream of marrying Prince Harry is down the drain. My sincerest congratulations to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on their engagement! Any wedding, and especially a royal one, is always a marvelous affair, and it’s wonderful they have found each other. Even if it means my last shred of hope at becoming a princess has evaporated.

Synopsis

Twenty-four-year-old Kylie Reed has always been a rule follower. Organized and cautious to a fault, her dreams for life are often filed away for future use – when she has a house, when she meets her future husband, when she has been at her visual display job at a chic Dallas boutique longer… Kylie always has a reason for living her life in the future, not in the present, and not living her life to the fullest and reaching her dream of becoming a fashion designer.

The only exception to rules, of course, would be running away with Prince Harry – Kylie’s ideal man. A hot, fun ginger boy would be worth breaking all the rules for, of course. And Kylie is sure Harry just needs the right, centering woman to settle him down. But living in Dallas and not knowing Prince Harry makes this a non-option. Or does it?

Because when Kylie accidently falls into the lap of a gorgeous ginger boy – yes, even more gorgeous than the real Prince Harry – all bets are off. Could this stranger be the one to show Kylie how to take a chance, to face her fears, and life in the present? And could this stranger be the Prince Harry she has been waiting for? Kylie’s life takes some unexpected twists and turns thanks to this chance encounter, and she knows her life will never be the same because of it.

Review

Laura’s Review

What better day to post a review of Waiting for Prince Harry then on the day when the actual Prince Harry announced his engagement, to an American…that isn’t me. I’m fine, totally fine :). Aven Ellis’ Waiting for Prince Harry does not actually feature an appearance by the beloved soon-to-be-sixth-in-line for the throne, but rather a ‘Harry’ that is a gorgeous ginger who captains the fictional Dallas Demons hockey team.

While Kylie Reed is waiting for Prince Harry (and yes, she knows it’s not a realistic possibility) she ends up meeting her own ‘Prince Harry’ by chance when she literally stumbles into the lap of hockey player Harrison. What follows are some fun ups and downs as Kylie and Harrison (who is only actually referred to as Harry once throughout the entire book) get to know each other and navigate the beginnings of their relationship. Overall, in this story there were a few too many misunderstandings and instances of a lack of communication between the two to seem wholly believable. As I was reading it, I was thinking quite often that if they just had a rational conversation (such as about Harrison’s role is in the public eye and the effect it has on their relationship) much of the messes they deal with could have easily been avoided.

Waiting for Prince Harry is the first in the Dallas Demons series which now includes 5 books. While Waiting for Prince Harry was not my favorite, I have read the subsequent 4 books, and have enjoyed them immensely. The series is a pleasant distraction from the real world and each book builds from the previous one, so Harrison and Kylie have actually appeared in all 5 books. So, despite the trials they face in their own novel, in the world of the Dallas Demons they are now happily married and have a baby boy.

Sarah’s Review

Waiting for Prince Harry is a fun and cheery PG13 romantic comedy in book form. For a romance novel, it is very tame and clean which, for the most part, I enjoyed. There was one huge opportunity involving a penalty box that I would have enjoyed seeing Aven Ellis capitalize on, but overall, an enjoyable read.

Kylie is a competent protagonist and falls into the trap of saying stupid things when speaking to a very attractive man that all young women do which was a refreshing breath of fresh air in the romance department. For the most part, though, Kylie is quite a push over – she lets her boss take advantage of her and holds off on following her own dreams, always waiting for the ambiguous future. I have the habit of letting the same mentality consume me, always hoping that things will get better without me having to do anything to make them so. However, when Kylie finally stands up for herself and her relationship, it’s an incredible moment. She becomes the eloquent and passionate protagonist I hoped she’d be.

While I did enjoy the literary palate cleanser that is Waiting for Prince Harry, I would have liked to have seen a great deal of evidence for why, after only one week, Kylie is convinced she’s going to spend the rest of her life with her Prince Harry. Many of the elements of the romance, in this sense, felt wildly unrealistic. I think I’m just too much of a cynic to throw myself fully into the idealistic soul mate romance.

Rating: Laura: 7 out of 10 stars; Sarah: 6 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $12.99 • 9781619357426 • 260 pages • published January 2015 by Soul Mate Publishing • average Goodreads rating 4.07 out of 5 • read summer 2015

Aven Ellis’ Website

Waiting for Prince Harry on Goodreads

Get a Copy of Waiting for Prince Harry

20171109_111359-1

Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction

The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen

Sarah

I’m a sucker for a book with a starry night on the cover. And when I read the synopsis of The Girl Who Chased the Moon, I was drawn in. It sounded sweet and enjoyable, the perfect read for a rainy fall day.

Synopsis

Emily Benedict has come to Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her mother’s life. But the moment Emily enters the house where her mother grew up and meets the grandfather she never knew, she realizes that mysteries aren’t solved in Mullaby, they’re a way of life: Here are rooms where the wallpaper changes to suit your mood. Unexplained lights skip across the yard at midnight. And a neighbor, Julia Winterson, bakes hope in the form of cakes, not only wishing to satisfy the town’s sweet tooth but also dreaming of rekindling the love she fears might be lost forever. Can a hummingbird cake really bring back a lost love? Is there really a ghost dancing in Emily’s backyard? The answers are never what you expect. But in this town of lovable misfits, the unexpected fits right in.

Review

I’m a newbie to Sarah Addison Allen’s work, but for the most part, her books strike me as prose that depicts ordinary life with a twist of the fantastical and a generally happy ending – perfect for a quick “in between” read. I’ve discovered that chick lit fills an interesting void in the literary community that I hadn’t realized existed, the “in-betweener.”

Reading and discovering a new favorite book (NFB) is emotionally overwhelming and when you finish said NFB, it’s hard to pick up anything new because you’re not sure it will live up to the awesomeness that you just experienced with your NFB. One needs a palate cleanser – something that you know won’t live up to the ridiculously high standard set by the NFB, but still has a solid plot and decent characters. Enter the “in between” chick lit novel that lets you come down easy from the NFB high and back into the real world before you dive into the quest for the next NFB.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon, is a solid read with an intriguing plot and characters and is downright adorable in the most realistic way possible. The characters are flawed, and the setting is ordinary in the best possible way. It’s hard to describe fully, but Sarah Addison Allen seems to have perfected the art of making the ordinary extraordinary – of telling a story that could be anyone’s story but has magnificent details that make it unique. The ability to transform our “ordinary daily life” into something spectacular in a natural way is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Interesting things happen to regular people (who may not be altogether “normal”) and Sarah Addison Allen crafts her stories around those moments, the ones that seem straightforward, but moments when our decisions shape our lives for years to come. And that’s how the ordinary becomes magnificently, extraordinarily ordinary, and relatable.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $16.00 • 9780553385595 • 292 pages • originally published March 2010, this edition published February 2011 by Bantam • average Goodreads rating 3.97 out of 5 • read in October 2011

Sarah Addison Allen’s Website

The Girl Who Chased the Moon on Goodreads

Get a Copy of The Girl Who Chased the Moon

Girl Who Chased the Moon

Contemporary, Fiction, Young Adult

Paper Towns by John Green

Sarah

When I was student teaching, my sixth grade students raved about John Green. Around that time, The Fault in Our Stars was blowing up and the movie was expected to do well as well. Given how much they raved about him, I figured I might as well read one of his books, especially given how many webisodes of Crash Course I’d been watching. 

Synopsis

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So, when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life – dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge – he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues – and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew.

Review

*I originally wrote the review below in April 2014, and the more I think about this book over the years, the more I dislike it. But these are my thoughts from immediately after reading Paper Towns.*

Paper Towns is a book full of adventure and follows the theme of overcoming personal fears to do something “heroic” and selfless for someone else. I put “heroic” in quotations because the main character, Q (Quentin), has no idea that he is acting heroic, nor does he know that he is, in fact, a hero.

Margo Roth Spiegelman, whose full name is used to capture her complete Margo-ness, has been Q’s next-door neighbor for his entire life. As children, they were best mates until one morning when they discover the body of a man who committed suicide in their subdivision/development’s park. This affects them both on different levels for the next ten years as they go through school. And for much of that decade, Q and Margo barely speak. Until one night in May, when Margo shows up at Q’s window, and cue the synopsis above.

Quentin goes through the process of getting to know Margo without the benefit of having her around and the things he learns after she leaves frighten him a bit. His quest to find her is a hopeful one, though it is not a happy one. The story, first person in Q’s point of view, follows him and his friends, as well as one of Margo’s friends, as they encounter odd and seemingly meaningless clues about Margo’s possible location.

It is an interesting perspective as it is Margo who drives the plot despite only being physically present for a short period of time. Margo is an enigma wrapped in a mystery and Q and company’s attempts to solve that mystery are painstakingly realistic, their fear for Margo’s well being is their constant companion. And [spoiler alert!] when they do find her, things aren’t resolve in a nice neat way which I appreciated greatly.

It’s a relatable tale and many of Quentin’s thoughts on how well we can truly know a person are eerily like thoughts I had myself while going through high school and college and attempting to understand the motives behind others’ actions. Paper Towns is incredibly well written, and I want to read more of John Green’s works – it was hard to pick just one of the many intriguing stories by John Green. Overall, it is an intriguing tale and Quentin has a clear voice throughout.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $10.99 • 9780142414934 • 305 pages • first published October 2008, this edition published September 2009 by Speak • average Goodreads rating 3.88 out of 5 • read in April 2014

John Green’s Website

Paper Towns on Goodreads

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Paper Towns

Graphic Novel, Memoir/Autobiography, Non-Fiction

Honor Girl by Maggie Thrash

Sarah

Back in 2015, one of my coworkers went to a book conference and brought me back a signed copy of Honor Girl. At first, I didn’t really realized why she picked this particular book for me, until I started reading it. I love it.

Synopsis

Maggie is fifteen and has spent basically every summer of her life at the one-hundred-year old Camp Bellflower for Girls, set deep in the heart of Appalachia. She’s from Atlanta, she’s never kissed a guy, she’s into the Backstreet Boys in a really deep way, and her long summer days are full of a pleasant, peaceful sort of nothing.

Until one confounding moment. After a split second of innocent physical contact during a lice inspection, Maggie falls into gut-twisting love with Erin, an older, wiser, and, most surprising of all (at least to Maggie), female counselor. But Camp Bellflower is an impossible place for a girl to fall in love with another girl, and Maggie’s spontaneous expertise at the camp’s rifle range is the only thing that keeps her heart from exploding. When it seems as if Erin might feel the same way about Maggie, it’s too much for both Maggie and Camp Bellflower to endure, let alone understand.

Review

For the sake of honesty, I confess that I believed some stupid things before I started reading Honor Girl.

I started reading Honor Girl under the assumption that my experience reading it would help me understand what it felt like for some of my friends when they first realized they were lesbians or bisexual. But as I fell deeper and deeper into Maggie’s story, I realized that there is no difference between falling in love as a straight person and falling in love as a gay person. Love is love, regardless of who it is with and Maggie’s love story is beautiful and innocent and so reminiscent of many other first love stories, requited or unrequited, that absolutely anyone who has felt their heart swell to bursting with a crush can relate.

Later, after I had finished Honor Girl and come to this great conclusion, I asked Hadley why it was that she had picked it out for me, and while I don’t remember the answer, I do remember her surprise at the fact that I enjoyed it as much as I did and that I recommend it frequently to teenagers who come into the store looking for a compelling story that they can relate to; one of first love, heartache, and summer camp.

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

Edition: Paperback • $14.99 • 9780763687557 • 272 pages • originally published September 2015, this edition published May 2017 by Candlewick Press • average Goodreads rating 3.82 out of 5 • read in January 2016

Maggie Thrash’s Website

Honor Girl on Goodreads

Get a Copy of Honor Girl

Honor Girl