Fiction

Arabella

2015, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

Sassymonkey mentioned some guy who I can’t remember was the reader of some of the Georgette Heyer books and I was interested in this. So, when we needed a new audiobook, I pulled up Heyer’s books in Hoopla and realized I couldn’t remember which titles she’d mentioned or even the dude’s name who read them so I shrugged and just borrowed the first one I saw that I didn’t think I’d read before… and that’s how I got Arabella.

TW says she had read it before but she still seemed to enjoy it on audio. It was amusing, as most Georgette Heyer novels are. I think we should just listen to them all on audio because it was so amusing to listen to this one.

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Two Awesome Middle-Grade Fiction Books

2015, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction /

I’m making a lot of progress on my Cybils shortlist and am feeling really happy about all of the really good books that made the list.

I didn’t expect to love Ice Dogs but I did. Victoria is a great character and I loved her strength and I loved her dogs.

I also didn’t expect to love Nickel Bay Nick, either. Totally loved the characters and the story. Even better, I didn’t see the end coming! (That almost never happens and really never happens with children’s books.)

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The Meaning of Maggie

2015, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Fiction /

From the Cybils shortlist, a middle grade fiction… The Meaning of Maggi. I really liked Maggie and I especially liked her family. These were real people… dad worked at Hartsfield and worked his way up from a baggage handler to ticketing. Mom got a job at a fancy Atlanta hotel, cleaning rooms and doing laundry. They ate some junk food.

What I didn’t like was the way they kept Maggie in the dark about her father’s health. I get it but… I didn’t like that aspect of the story. I also cannot picture any of my kids as 6th graders grokking this at all. Maggie was so young, in so many ways — for someone especially bright. Infantile, even. This… was troubling, particularly when Maggie had the breakdown at the end. She was completely unprepared and that was messed up.

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2 (Southern) Fiction

2015, Books in Bed, Daily Dose, Day to Day, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Women /

I couldn’t resist the cover of Mama Does Time and I was happy to hear TW chuckle through it. I chuckled through it, too. It was a lot of fun and I’d definitely read more Mace Bauer mysteries, (this was the first book in the series.)

Next, I read Karen White’s The Sound of Glass. Hoo boy. There’s no such thing as coincidence. Having said that, I could have hated this book because really???? These people were all tied together this way? Really???? But I didn’t. Every single character was likeable and I cared about them way more than I expected.

What’s extra interesting about me reading these two books, back to back, over a 2 1/2 day period is… I didn’t really feel enticed to move to the Okeechobee. I did, however, feel really drawn to moving to Beaufort. Which is interesting since I’ve spent more time thinking about moving back to Florida than I have thinking about moving back to SC. So here I am, looking at houses in Beaufort again. I think I need to lay off the southern literature until after we buy a house. This flip-flopping around is nuts. We need to just pick a spot and stick with it. Or something lol.

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The Boy Who Killed Demons

2015, Books in Bed, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

The Boy Who Killed Demons is a creepy book. I found Henry to be maybe even creepier than the demons. But maybe you have to be kind of creepy in order to survive seeing demons… and then killing demons.

What I don’t understand is why the demons didn’t take this kid out when they realized he could see them. I don’t get that. It seemed… odd. And, the whole way through the book, I puzzled over this and found it difficult to really believe in the story, lol.

I liked the book, stayed up late to finish it, but I didn’t love it because that part just didn’t fly for me.

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Go Set a Watchman

2015, Books in Bed, Fiction /

I did it. I read Go Set a Watchman. I figured what the hell, TKAM is not one of my favorite books and I always found Atticus Finch to be a bit… too much and I certainly wasn’t going to be upset to find out he wasn’t who we were led to believe he was. That seemed obvious to me the first time around.

So… yea, I read it. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it. The writing was not always great. The story was clunky in places. There were some chapters that I loved. There were some that I hated. In the end… we just traded Atticus Finch for Scout… a color-blind southern woman surrounded by small town Alabama citizens struggling with race.

No shock here for me. No revelations, either.

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Housewitch

2015, Books in Bed, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

I wasn’t sure what to read but remembered TW said Housewitch was surprisingly good. So, that seemed like a good choice.

A few chapters in and I thought I’d made a bad choice and that TW had gotten this book confused with something else. It was fine but not “surprisingly good” — turns out, I just needed to wait a tiny bit longer because before I knew it, I’d stayed up until after midnight to finish it. Couldn’t put it down.

I’m not even really sure why I couldn’t put it down. It was just surprisingly good. Maybe it was a spell on the book or something…

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2 Cybils YA Fiction

2015, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Young Adult /

I’ll Give You the Sun started slowly and the chapters are really long but I got hooked really quickly and could not put it down. I love both twins and the other kids and adults in the book. Great characters. Well done, well done.

We listened to Noggin on audio and enjoyed this one, too. Poor kid. Seriously. I cannot imagine. I even mostly liked the ending, though for awhile there I was afraid it was going to be stupid. I should have known better, obviously. That whole Travis and Cate thing… gah. Also, I’ve decided I wouldn’t opt for having my head cryogenically frozen. Nope. Not doing it.

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