Chosen Ones

Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's been a week and a half since I finished this book, and I still am at a bit of a loss for what to think. Chosen Ones is Roth's first foray into writing for adults. However, besides some profanity and the acknowledgment of sex, it did not seem more profound or stretching than her wildly popular Divergent series. For an author so desperate to insert Christian symbolism into the Divergent series, this one seemed almost the antithesis with the inability to see a true hero or light to follow. The premise is intriguing and the main characters are interesting, but the story is so odd and the futuristic elements sometimes hard to grasp or believe. I don't know if my ambivalence is that this book strayed too far from my usual type of book or that we're seemingly living in a dystopian novel right now, so reading about another messed up world wasn't as engaging as it has been in the past.

The short version is that I didn't love it, but I am fascinated enough by the story and the characters to read the next one. Also I really liked the creative element of news captions to open each chapter - it added a depth and reality to Roth's fictional setting.

How's that for a mixed review? Still, happy reading and good luck navigating our crazy world right now.

I'd Give Anything

I'd Give Anything by Marisa de los Santos
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I usually love Marisa de los Santos, but I just didn't love this book. I still would 100% recommend all her others, but this one fell a little flat for me. I've been dying to talk to someone else about it because I felt like this one just was too far reaching in terms of the plot and how juvenile some of the adults are. I'm also confused because the book is sold as being a part of the "Love Walked In" set, but I couldn't find the tie. I LOVE "Love Walked in", and so maybe I was disappointed too early on since the relationship with the previous stories wasn't clear. I think I also just didn't buy some of the main characters' choices and relationships because they're supposed to be my age...and I just can't handle story lines where high school experiences and effects are still the defining element of someone's life. It's not that I don't think high school effects us going forward, but what have the last twenty years been? It has to be more nuanced.

I don't know. Someone in my reading circle tell me what your thoughts are. Maybe I'm missing something???

Happy reading and happy truth telling--

ps. The best character in the book is the main character's daughter, Avery....though reading her name over and over again convinced me that I like other girls' names better for my future daughter. Always updating that baby name list...even when I'm currently pregnant with a boy. :)

Clap When You Land

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am SO impressed with Acevedo's writing and her narration. There is a such a rhythm and a sense of conscious choice behind her word choice and phrasing as she tells her stories. In another writer's hands or even if I had read the print version, this is probably a four star read, but I was so engaged and entangled in her characters as I listened to her tell a fictional story that is based on a real tragedy that happened years ago. I love Acevedo's ability to give voice to characters we don't have often see in literature. She tells stories of people of color - in this case, Dominican teenage girls whose hopes and dreams are both universal and unique. Acevedo is good at showing flaws, but also creating inherent worth in the men and women who populate her stories. She doesn't write "important issue books", and yet her stories are replete with powerful messages. I love her, and I really appreciated this book.

Happy reading and happy honest living--

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this book - yes, it's another update of Pride & Prejudice, but it stands so well on its own. Dev has included clever allusions to the original story, but so much of it is just a well crafted story. It doesn't hurt that I love Pride & Prejudice and that the story takes place in the Bay Area. It also seemed like the Raje family could have very well been an older version of one of my Dougherty student's families. I loved the vivid imagery and the way Dev describes food. I appreciated that the Jane and Lizzie bond still existed in Trisha and her sister...and I am so excited that Dev has just come out with a Persuasion update. Can't wait to read it--

Happy reading, and as always the question remains, who can help but love Darcy?

The Yellow Bird Sings

The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is very still and very deliberate - though it is filled with intense, pressure filled moments, Rosner doesn't sensationalize or increase the tension with superfluous words or inauthentic dialogue. The book is not a unique story, but the focus on five-year-old Shira and her musical gift adds a powerful human element. This is more of a 3.5 star read for me, but the story was compelling and concise. As a mother, it was gut-wrenching at times. And in this current era of turmoil and rage, it unfortunately made me feel like we haven't come as far as we'd like to think.

Happy reading and hopefully, better living--

Recipe for a Perfect Wife

Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book caught me totally off guard - all I knew about it was that it was a dual narrative about two women living in the same house in different decades connected by an old cookbook. As someone setting up our new house and feeling more domestic than usual, the idea was appealing. As it turns out, this book is dark and the characters highly dysfunctional. The title, while totally intriguing, is more apt to be something along the lines of "recipe for an unhappy marriage." So I can't say it's uplifting or a fun, quirky romance, but I was hooked all the way through....and maybe, just maybe, I was wishing to be eating the things being cooked in the book. For others, this might be more of a two or three star read because if looked at more critically, the gender portrayal is pretty one sided. I was too caught up in the plot to think too critically as I read....

This is not a good choice for people who carry their book feelings (if that's a thing) into real life. Mistrust and frustration with a spouse or partner are never good.

Happy reading and delicious eating....and hopefully happier living with your sweetheart--

I Am, I Am, I Am

I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have been meaning to read Maggie O'Farrell forever. All I knew going into this book was that it was a memoir. I should have read the subtitle: Seventeen Brushes with Death. I had no idea the topic matter or the candor that O'Farrell would use as she told of her seventeen brushes with death throughout her life. These brushes include the delivery of a child and miscarriages - topics that are on my mind all the time just six weeks before the birth of my second son.

O'Farrell's summation of these experiences is poignant, compelling, and both relatable to the reader and unique to her experiences. I'm still shaking my head a few weeks after reading her book - blown away by her honesty and the reality that our survival truly is a miracle. For if we stopped and thought about it, isn't amazing that we're alive and well? After all, I nearly drowned at eighteen months. As a grade school kid, a prompting led me to swerve my bike right before an unexpected car came around the bend. I was given incorrect medication which caused me to fall asleep at the wheel when I was in my first year of teaching. I woke up seconds before impact, but amazingly with enough time to wrench the steering wheel to the side. A few years later, I was less lucky and in an even worse car accident. And that's just the beginning....we all have stories like this - near misses, and yet we are blessed enough to live. O'Farrell helps capture that blessing while also covering the unsettling fear that can accompany the reality of our own mortality. I am deeply impressed by her writing and looking forward to reading more of O'Farrell's backlist.

Happy reading and happy living--

Waiting for Tom Hanks

Waiting for Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Oh man - this book was not for me. The concept of a rom-com in book form is totally appealing, but the characters are so one dimensional and the main character is so immature. I love Tom Hanks. Who doesn't? But skip this and watch a Nora Ephron movie. It will be time better spent.

Wunderland

Wunderland by Jennifer Cody Epstein
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ummmm - great potential with some unfulfilling follow through. I liked the ties between the different eras, but I needed more character development or less predictable portions to make the plot push forward. Like I've said before, the German WWII perspective is popular in fiction lately, and I think this book was fine, but not great....there are others I would read first....

Still, as always, happy reading--