Fiction

Love and Other Consolation Prizes

2018, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Fiction /

A few weeks ago, Jamie Ford was coming to our library so his books were sitting right at the top of the stairs. Love and Other Consolation Prizes caught my eye and I was surprised that not only had we not read it, I’d never even heard that he had another book out. Since I needed an audiobook at the moment, I grabbed the audio version and… it took us forever to finish it. I know I say this a lot but it wasn’t the fault of the book, sometimes shit happens in my life that cause me to not feel like listening to audiobooks. There was a good bit of that in May. Anyway, the book…

Pretty good! I don’t think it was as good as Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet but it was pretty darn good. I liked all three of the main characters. I liked the setting. The way the story wrapped up let me down a little. I’m not sure what I’d have rather had happen, it just felt like not quite the right ending.

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Caleb and Kit

2018, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Fiction /

Another middle grade fiction from the Cybils shortlist, Caleb and Kit wasn’t bad but it also wasn’t as good as I think it could have been. I wasn’t drawn to either Caleb or Kit, something was just missing. I think the CF information was good, certainly better than the other novels I’ve read with characters who have CF. I think the neglect and abuse issue was not well covered, and that was disappointing. This was really Caleb’s story and not Caleb’s and Kit’s together story, which was also disappointing.

Again, not a bad book but not great either.

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Armstrong and Charlie

2018, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction /

My first thought was “Oh look, another book about desegregating schools, but hey this one is in California and not the south, woot!” my next thought, 20 pages in, “Oh man, I love these kids!”

Armstrong and Charlie is a surprisingly good book. The characters are wonderful, the setting was spot on (being a child of the era, I found myself reminiscing about Clackers and Tootsie Pop Drops, and the SRA box, to mention just a few), and the book “told the truth.”

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Five Children’s Books

2018, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction /

While the boys were here for Grandma Camp, we read some books – obviously. Here’s what we read:

Hiding Phil — we bought this at the Wild Iris closing (sniff). It was cute, if you like elephants and hide-and-seek (which Squishy does.)

Circle Triangle Elephant is a board book (from the Cybils shortlist) and Squishy liked it because elephants and boats and BLUE (he likes blue!)

The Book of Mistakes is also a Cybils shortlist book and I LOVED IT. I’m not sure how the boys felt about it but this is about me and I LOVED IT. It’s all about how a “mistake” in a drawing can turn into something amazing. LOVED, LOVED, LOVED IT.

Another Cybils shortlist book, Peek-a-Moo was a hit. Turns out they own another book in the series, Peek-a-Who, and it’s a favorite. Also turns out Jenn didn’t know it was a series at all so Grandma had to buy them all. Had to!

And because they are moving, and Pippin is a bit sad about it, I had to pull out an old favorite from the days when my kids moved (and moved and moved), Mitchell is Moving. Pippin liked it and he was thrilled when I told him that I’d bought that for him and he could take it home with him.

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The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat

2018, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

Last week, the second book in this series was on the new arrivals shelf at the library and instead of grabbing it, I went back to the stacks to find the first one. I’m so glad I did. I absolutely loved The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat. I laughed and laughed and I might have maybe been close to tearing up there at the end. I really hope the second book is still on the shelf when we go back to the library — if not, I’ll be reserving it.

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The Library of Light and Shadow

2017, Books in Bed, Fiction, Women /

Huh. Y’all know how I feel about reading series out of order … so why did I read the second book in the Daughters of La Lune series and not come back and read the rest? So weird. And now I’ve done it again with book 3, The Library of Light and Shadow. (Oh, I see why. I liked it but didn’t love it and wasn’t in dire need of reading the first one. Whatever.)

I feel pretty much the same way about this book. I liked it. I didn’t love it. Part of my problem was trying to remember more about the earlier book (about the sister whose power is tied to stones.) I also always seem to find myself being more interested in the secondary characters than in the main characters. Let’s see if that happens when I read the others.

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