Fiction

The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard St

2014, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Women /

I really liked The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard St, the book and the character. TW liked the book but not the character. I guess that makes sense. Lillian could be a little unlikeable. Maybe. I just saw her as a flawed human being — flawed in so many ways because of her childhood. I loved the businesswoman Lil — she was awesome. No she wasn’t a nice boss, or a nice woman — so what, sue her (lol), she wasn’t any worse than her male counterparts was she?

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The Daring Ladies of Lowell

2014, Books in Bed, Feminism, Fiction, Women /

I hadn’t planned on reading The Daring Ladies of Lowell — too much on my TBR list and not nearly enough time. But, I kept seeing it mentioned on blogs and on reading lists and it’s in high demand at our library so I figured what the heck — if everyone wants to read it, maybe I should make time.

And, since my attention span is crap right now and I can’t seem to get much of anything except work (and housework) done, this seemed look a good read. Something light and easy but not middle grade fiction.

It was pretty darn good. Surprisngly so. I liked Lovey and I liked Alice. I even liked most of the Fiskes.

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Charm & Strange

2014, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Young Adult /

Charm & Strange should be called Dark & Twisted because it totally is. It’s also very good, though very dark & twisted.

It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on, though I suppose for teens who read a lot of fantasy/paranormal it could have been confusing… it’s not really about werewolves. It’s about horrible horrible things people can do to kids and how kids find ways of coping with those horrible things.

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Dollface

2014, Books in Bed, Fiction, Women /

Dollface wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. Chicago during prohibition. Mob madness, etc. etc. I didn’t like Vera enough to really love this book. I’m not sure why, but I just didn’t. I liked her best when she was bootlegging but the rest of the time, I just kind of found her annoying.

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The Princess Bride

2013, Books in Bed, Fiction /

TW picked up The Princess Bride a couple of weeks ago and I was perplexed. Turns out, it was a good impulse selection since it was the 2013 version with the beginning of Buttercup’s Baby included. Of course, this just means I want to read the entire Buttercup’s Baby, sigh.

Another note… good lord this book is heavy. They’ve used nice, heavy paper and while it was a joy to turn the pages — it was like reading a 1300 page chunkster because it was so heavy!

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The Supreme Macaroni Company

2014, Books in Bed, Fiction, Women /

Since I’ve read all of the other Valentine books, I figured I should go ahead and read The Supreme Macaroni Company, too. I hate leaving series unfinished (and since one of my goals is to catch up/keep up with series, it seemed extra important to go ahead and read it.)

It was fine. Not my favorite Valentine book but not my least favorite, either. I used to love Valentine and her weird family but now I just love her weird family and she gets on my nerves. Also, the ending was predictable. At least I predicted it a lot earlier than it came about. Both what happened to Giancarlo and what happened to the house.

I didn’t predict either would happen exactly as they happened but it was obvious. Giancarlo did THAT with the house (duh) without telling Valentine (duh) and then… yea. Predictable.

Also very typical of Trigiani, so if you like her books — you’ll like this one.

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