Fiction

The Memory of Water

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

After reading The Beach Trees for the BlogHer Book Club, I decided I needed to read some more books by Karen White – The Memory of Water was the only one I had a chance to read before TW took the others back and it was excellent.

I’m normally a little skittish about books set in Charleston or even around Charleston but this one, set in McClellenville was just right.  It made me homesick, as any book about the Lowcountry should. The ending made me a little sad but I think it was the right ending for such a traumatic story.  

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Cleaning Nabokov’s House

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction, Women /

TW said Cleaning Nabokov’s House wasn’t very good. I ignored her and started reading it anyway and immediately liked it – depressing though it was in the beginning.  I’d like a sequel but I guess that won’t happen. I’d like to know what happens to the kids – and the dogs.

I would also like to read a book about Babe Ruth written by Nabokov. What WOULD that be like?

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The Eve Tree

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge /

It’s really hard to talk about The Eve Tree without talking about Journey Mama – even though they are not the same thing.

The book is not the blog. Molly is not Rae. The Eve Tree is not the albino tree, though I have to say when The Eve Tree first appeared in the book, I was confused – I remembered an albino tree from Rae’s blog – an albino redwood, not a black oak and I had to stop what I was doing and go look on the blog to make sure I hadn’t just misremembered.  And then I got distracted by reading some of the old posts on Journey Mama, which is really just what I needed right then because Molly had stressed me out. That wasn’t a bad thing. I think it was a good thing.

I want to read a book where the characters get under my skin – and Molly did. Oh boy, Molly did.

And then there was the fire.

I have fire issues.

I often smell fire just before I fall asleep – which means I have to get up and make sure there is no fire. (There isn’t.)

And I wake in the middle of the night from a dream where the bed is on fire. (It isn’t.)

Even with all of that anxiety, caused by Molly and the fire, underneath it all was that thing that has caused me to read Journey Mama – life, and peace, and spirit and love.

The Eve Tree is exactly the kind of novel you would expect Rae to write. Her characters are exactly right – honest and real but not perfect. They’re struggling with that imperfection and struggling with love and faith.

I breathed a sigh at the end – one of those sighs of relief and happiness and sadness all rolled up into one. You know the kind I mean, right – something like this?

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Little Bee

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

Way back at the very beginning of the year, Sassymonkey asked what everyone was reading. Someone mentioned Little Bee and since I’d been seeing a lot of buzz (hah!) about the book, I decided to go ahead and add it to my reserve list. 

The book arrived and I didn’t read it and I didn’t read it and I didn’t read it. It’s due back soon so I figured what the heck, I’d give it a try.

And I could not put it down.

It’s a hard book to talk about because I don’t want to give it away. You just need to read it for yourself.

A woman and a girl meet on a beach in Nigeria… and this is their story. Dual narrators – done beautifully.

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The Little Women Letters

2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Feminism, Fiction, Women /

Sigh.

I didn’t hate it. Really, I didn’t.

The problem is that I didn’t love it. And I really, really wanted to love it.

The Little Women Letters had so many things going for it – I should have loved it. A feminist mom who does a good bit of patriarchy blaming. Interesting sisters. The “March girls’” letters.  I could go on, you get the point.

So many things I should have loved but I just didn’t.

Yes, I did chuckle in places – which TW took as a good sign.

I did smile on numerous occasions. And I did even sigh at the end, cheesy as it was.

But no, I did not love it. Something was missing. I don’t know what it was but something. Something important.

Have you read it? Did you love it or did it let you down?

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The Summer Without Men

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Women /

Earlier in the week, I was looking for something to read that was either short, funny, or a quick read because nothing on the library stack was really screaming “Read ME Next!”. The Summer Without Men looked like it might work. Short book, interesting title, interesting cover, interesting paper, and the author has an interesting name.

Two pages later I realized that while this book is short, it’s not really funny or a quick read. It was downright serious and, gasp, literary! So a book I thought would take me a day – took a week. Now that’s not a bad thing, it just wasn’t what I was interested in at that moment. With no significant time to read and fried brain cells when I did have time to read, this book would have been better read on the weekend because it wouldn’t have taken me nearly as long.

50 something woman (who happens to be a poet and a Colombia professor) has a bit of a breakdown after her husband tells her he’s having an affair (with a younger woman, obviously.) She spends the summer in a small town, teaching a poetry class to pre-teen girls (with all of the mean girl madness that goes with something like that), in the house next door is a young mom of two whose husband is an ass, and her mom is in a retirement facility nearby where we also meet some wonderfully interesting “swans”.

The book is just plain brilliant. I think it’s miss-titled but I can overlook that.  I’d like to own it. In fact, I think I’ll put it on my “this is what I want for my birthday list”.

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One of Our Thursdays is Missing

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

I really like the Text Thursday, well this Text Thursday. I liked her so much that I almost hoped she was the REAL Thursday. Which is probably a spoiler right there but I’m pretty sure if you were reading the book before reading this that you knew that wasn’t going to happen. Fforde is crazy but he’s not that kind of crazy because One of Our Thursdays is Missing would really means that one is missing, not that one is no longer in existence or that he pulled a “Bobby Ewing” or anything like that.

I also loved theat NaNoWriMo has a place in BookWorld. And I loved the clown problem(s). Hell I loved the whole book, which is good because I didn’t particularly love, love, love the last Thursday Next novel.

Jasper Fford is a crazy, evil genius – or he does a lot of drugs.

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The Love Goddess’ Cooking School

2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, cookbooks, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

TW asked me why I was reading The Love Goddess’ Cooking School, like it wasn’t a book I’d like, or something. Weird because there was nothing about it that I didn’t like. I like food stories. I like a nice piece of chick lit. I like stories with good teen characters. I like stories with a little bit of magic tossed in.

TW said this book was like Sarah Addison Allen – she’s right. But I think it might be more like a cross between Sarah Addison Allen and Adriana Trigiani which means – you should read this one.

I wonder what happens next… sequel, please.

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Four Nancy Drews

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction, Nancy Drew Challenge /

We spent all day Saturday laying in bed with books. My book(s) of choice were Nancy Drews because they’re the perfect books to read when you’re exhausted. Of The Spider Sapphire, The Invisible Intruder, The Mysterious Mannequin and The Crooked Banister – I liked The Crooked Banister and the Invisible Intruder the best. Lots of robot-y mechanical mysterious making it feel almost steampunk. (Someone should write steampunked Nancy Drews… Cherie Priest maybe?)

The Spider Sapphire was tough to read – Nancy and pals go to Africa… and The Mysterious Mannequin wasn’t a whole lot better because they went off to Turkey. The descriptions of those who are non-white can be tough to read and in these two, there were a lot of them.

I’m running out of Nancy Drews so it’s almost time to start tracking down the Yellow Covers that are missing from my collection. This is going to cost me a lot of money, isn’t it?

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