Rescue

I began this book early Christmas Eve morning.  I woke up and just oculdn't sleep and I was mad about this because I had worked so hard to get everything done ahead of time -- and sleeping in would have been ever so nice.  But I started this book and was completely sucked in.  It was good, but I rolled my eyes a couple of times at certain events -- highly unlikely, especially considering that the novel is set in a small Vermont community.  I read it throughout the day, between popping in a pork loin roast and making beds and lighting candles -- you know, the traditional Christmas Eve drib drab that needs to be accomplished.  I was exactly 95 percent finished with the book (kindle) when Jame popped in to surprise us all.  I finished it after I went to bed.  I recommend it!

Shantaram

LISA: This was one hell of a long book at almost 1,000 pages, but I enjoyed every one of them. I did get a little crazed at the fact that weeks were passing and I was still reading the SAME book -- but it held my interest the entire time. What is so interesting is that it is based (loosely, but if you do some research on the author you realize he might just have to say that because everything he does in it is illegal!) on his own life, which is downright crazy. I would highly recommend it if you want to delve into a book that will bring you to another world (India) and give you insight on a different culture of people.

HALLIE: I absolutely loved loved loved this book. It was incredible being able to live the story of this man, forced to leave behind his complete first life and begin a new one in a new country while still learning to deal with the kind of person he is himself. There were some parts where I did get semi stuck and think wow this book is LONG but overall I loved every minute of it and would reccommend this to any person who enjoys reading about a culture that can't truly be understood until you live it. He was a great writer adn it actually made me want to go visit India!

Outliers

I loved this book -- it really has some interesting information about what success is and how it is achieved.  Being in the right place at the right time (luck, fate?) time of birth ... really have much more to do with it than outright determination.  Which makes sense.  I recommend this book to everyone.  You will totally enjoy it.

I read this over a year ago and the part that really stuck with me was the hockey players. SO much plays into what becomes of our lives and although we all have choices along the way...this was a great book to make you think!!

Freedom

LISA: I really liked this book, though it was just about characters. There is no story, really, and from time to time Franzen gets on a soap box about various and sundry things. I must say he has me a little freaked out about population! It is about a family, though they are never actually really a family in the story. More individual characters tied together by blood. But they have little interaction with each other. It's hard to explain, but I would definitely recommend it.

HALLIE: I went from strongly disliking the "autobiographer" of this book to really enjoying it and back and forth for the entire story! As said above there really is no storyline and it jumps around but it has this way of keeping you sucked in and wanting to continue to see what happens. And yet then there are some passages where it was all I could do to keep myself reading. I wanted to throw my kindle against the wall at some of the actions of the main female character, Patty. I wanted to slap her son Joey at most points in the book and then he ends up being an actual decent guy! Overall every character, story, and thought in the book is a contradiction and you go can't decide between wanting the book to last forever or finishing as soon as possible! And it's very long already!

Oh yea, I also feel very strongly about only having two kids now and that's just because at some point i'd like to have kids! haha, the population scare is strong in it!

Guns Will Keep Us Together

 

Hmmmm, I am not really sure why I downloaded this book -- I mean the name and the cover should have tipped me off~!  But it actually turned out to be quite cute -- it is about a family of assassins and the lead character Dakota finds out he has a son and then he falls in love for the first time (with another assassin of course!)  Oh, and he is supposed to kill the woman he loves.  Typical book fare!!!

Night

Maddie needed (needs!) to read this book for her Holocaust class, but I attended the class with her on Friday and was intrigued enough by the discussion of the book to read it myself.  It is a quick read -- and there is no new information if you know quite a bit about the Holocaust (unlike the book Sarah's Key, where I learned new information altogether).  But I am not entirely sure if I have read a text on a survivor's account of what happened to him.  Have I?  I really don't know.  But Elie was torn from his life when he was 15 and placed into a concentration camp with his father.  His mother and younger sister were in the wrong line and were gassed immediately.  It did highlight many of the same questions that I have always had ... they had a clue, they really did.  But they chose NOT to do anything but wait and see.  They put their faith in God.  When they actually went into the camps, it was well into the game, and some of the people who had been in the camp for a year or longer were HORRIFIED to see them come in.  Their response was IT IS 1944 and YOU ARE HERE?  They were SO ANGRY that despite their friends and family disappearing altogether and never being heard from again, that they still waited to get carted away themselves.


The other thing that struck me was how random it all was.  It was all about surviving -- and while their humanity was stripped away altogether, the will to live was pretty darn strong.  Children would look away while their fathers were beaten and then steal the crust of bread from them.  It was pretty horrible and it's amazing to think that this man could continue to live amongst humankind knowing what he does and seeing what he has seen.  It can't have been easy.  As the Russians are getting closer and closer and beginning to liberate the prison camps, the Nazi's take the prisoners and send them on death marches.  They make them run, without food or water, for days.  When someone falls, they are shot.  When they die, they are left behind.  That is the point, after all.  What is SO sad is that at the second to last camp, Eli has some kind of foot problem, and he is in the infirmary having it fixed.  There was definitely some compassion amongst the brutality, and while it was dangerous to be in the infirmary (why would they try to keep a Jew alive, when really all they cared about was killing them?) Elie trusts the doctor.  When the Russians are about to "invade," he has to make a choice.  He is told that all patients in the infirmary will be left behind (and then ultimately saved).  But he can't believe that ... how could he?  His father would have been allowed to stay with him too.  But he stands up on his injured foot, and runs for days and days and days.  This does his father in -- and at the final camp, his father dies.  Not too long after, Elie is liberated. (And then later he finds out that if they had stayed, then ...) but that was what it was all about -- just pure dumb luck, timing, getting out of the gas chamber line before the SS saw you -- crazy. 

My only complaint is that the book ends when he is freed -- but I have so many more questions about him.  How did he survive knowing what he did?  I mean, he is still alive and lectures, etc. but still.

Tomasen: An amazing read and yet such a small book. Both of my kids have now read this in school...truly moving.

Compromising Positions

So I was playing around in the Kindle section at Amazon, and noticed there was free content ... so I checked it out. This book was actually free, so I figured, what the heck. At first I was a little put off by the cliche-type commentary, obviously not a polished writer. And yet, and yet! I couldn't put the dumb book down. It was a cute little love story and I thoroughly ate it up.

And it was free!

HALLIE: I agree with Lisa, very cute little love story! I loved this book and wished it had been longer!

The Melting Season

I read a short story in the in-flight magazine on the flight to Chicago and really enjoyed the voice of the writer.  When it said at the end that she had written several novels, I downloaded them to trust Kindle.  I did enjoy this book, though it was a bit odd -- it was basically about a young girl who married a man with a small penis and that sort of created such a huge problem that she decided she needed to run away.  Well, obviously not so simple, but she also had unhappy parents and a sister who was rebelling at home.  She meets a woman in Las Vegas that becomes, I would say, her new crutch, and she builds a new life.  I would suggest that it be read, you will enjoy it!

Black Out

LISA: As with many writers, I am noticing the formula that Lisa Unger uses in her body of work. But despite that (I am currently listening to Jodi Picoult's House Rules in the car, and am finding myself groaning at the predictability of where her story (the only story she writes) is going!) I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed this as much as the first one. I have downloaded the rest of her books and will continue to read her as long as she sucks me in with her suspenseful story lines!

HALLIE: I think it's funny that you liked this one Mom cause I seriously could not wait for it to finish! The main woman annoyed the shit out of me cause it was like she knew what she needed to do but would rather stay in this bubble of ignorance which would have been fine if she was happy but she WASN'T! she was waiting there having these horrible visions and headaches and so many other things and yet wouldn't just step up and deal with it! I know that she was mentally ill and had a few close to her people lying and setting her up but seriously I would never not stand by my ground enough to believe that I had completely made something up in my mind that seemed SO real. This is actually funny that i'm writing this now after reading Mom's personal blog post today where she did in fact make something up and confuse reality with her fictional stories. BUT she's a writer and I can understand that cause when she gets into a book you really couldn't tear her away from the computer. Overall the story kept me reading which is what you want but only because I just needed to know the ending as it wasn't a hugely obvious one but more one of those really effed up occurrences that you don't want to believe is possible of happening. Ultimately it ends up happy!

Beautiful Lies

Do not read this book if you want to DO anything else for a few days! Wow. It is 11:30 now, I started reading at about 7:00. I never moved the ENTIRE time ... I started it a few days ago, but it got really, really hot and heavy in the middle and there was no way I was putting it down until I figured it out.

Absolute MUST read!

TOMESAN: I too LOVED this book! It was a great recommendation! FIRST book ever on my kindle!!!

HALLIE: This book was an awesome, captivating read. Once I started it I never wanted to stop. From the actual story to the characters to good writing and a knack for truly describing the situations I enjoyed every bit of it. Currently reading the next one. Go Ridley!

Bird In Hand

Wow, I am not sure how I feel about this book. It is an odd twist in that it is kind of sort of about two couples, and yet, not really. One woman is in a car accident where a small boy is killed. It's not really her fault, but it gets in the way (for a short time) of her husband and her best friend getting together and declaring their true love. It skips back and forth between when they were all younger and to the present, and the ending is sort of ... oh well, you marry and then all this shit happens and all along he really loved her and she really loved him and so it is.

Okay.

Charlie St. Cloud

I always like to read the book first when a movie is based off of it. I feel like it's typically soooo much better. This was no disappointment. Very sweet love story with a happy ending. I flew through the book, prob took me 4 hours if that. I will be seeing the movie and can see it being fairly similar to the book. THere weren't too many crazy parts that i would think they'd cut out which is nice.

Dismantled

Very very odd book. I randomly picked it up for cheap at borders and it was a decent read but basically just a very predictable murder mystery. And the end is SO random. Didn't really fall in love with any of the characters or anything. Overall just rather so so....

You Had Me At Goodbye

Yet another quick beach read for the Vineyard. This one takes place in Oak Bluffs and two people end up having to share the same teeny cottage due to unforeseen circumstances (aren't they always!) Of course they hate each other ... why do they always have to HATE each other? I mean, seriously. But I enjoyed it, a quick read and while predictable, still not awful!

Fragile: A Novel

Lisa

I enjoyed this book very much ... it was well written and suspenseful and I really liked the characters. It has small town living going on, a teenage son who doesn't like his mother, a marriage with secrets and when a girl disappears -- all these things come together to a boiling point ... I highly recommend it! In fact, I am going to look up more Lisa Unger books!

Hallie

I did not particularly enjoy this book. I wasn't able to relate to any of the characters other than one and though I liked when it was in her point of view I just didn't feel as if I had real concern for anybody in the story. Even the girl who disappeared didn't make me feel much, though I was very happy that she got found and her kidnapper caught. Overall just wasn't a great read.

Trust Fund Babies

I read this one before I read that stupid other one (Third Time's a Charm) and this one was fine. A perfect beach read, and it was partially set on the Vineyard, so since I was on the Vineyard, that was even better! It was about three relatives, I think two are sisters and one is a cousin, or maybe they are all cousins -- anyway, they get this enormous trust fund from their grandfather, and then they all go about using it in different ways. One woman just spends it, another hordes it and the middle on spends it on AIDS children! Obviously a diverse group; but then their money manager loses all the money and disappears and they are all left penniless (of course except for the one who has horded it all these years and kept it a big bad secret from her struggling vineyard owning Italian husband!) Ahh, the intrigue!

The Stuff That Never Happened

This was a FABULOUS read! I enjoyed it start to finish. The title refers to a history that is built within the minds of people (as in he said, she said) that actually even affects the rests of their lives. I don't want to give too much away, because I could tell you the whole story ... really a MUST read, so get your kindle fixed Hallie!!!

Three Times A Charm

This was kind of a silly book that I decided to read because I was still on the Vineyard and wanted beach reads. It is completely predictable following the story line of woman hates man and man is cute, charming, etc. BLECH! Stupid. Don't waste your time!

Committed, by Elizabeth Gilbert

This is written by the same author of Eat, Pray, Love and all of the reviews I read on it were "do not read this book if you expect it to be anything like Eat, Pray, Love." Well personally, I think it sucks when you read another book by the same author and it is the same! I am thinking Jodi Picoult here! So I went into reading this with no expectations on way or another.

What I do believe is that the Universe was speaking to these two in a big way. It was telling them to wake up, stop being such babies, and get legally married and get over yourself. But the universe is sneaky, and really pulled a good one! I mean, seriously, Eat, Pray, Love was a great book, but if we were all as selfish as Elizabeth Gilbert, there would be no children in the world, there would be no families and we'd be wandering third world countries looking for ourselves.

Now, why would I call her selfish? Doesn't she have the same right as anyone else to find herself? I guess my problem with her is that it is almost borderline whining ... I mean, she wrote an entire book quaking at the thought of getting married to the man she loved most in the world. Because she got ONE divorce, she could not fathom entering into the institution ever again. She blamed how DIFFICULT her divorce was on her inability to be happy -- and yet, she wasn't happy inside the marriage either. What we have here is not a situation of MARRIAGE being the problem, but HER being the problem! She never actually figures this out either!

Anyway, I enjoyed it because she does a lot of research about marriage, and like anything, it's not what you perceive it to be. It does not have roots in christianity ... in fact, the powers that be would have liked to eradicate it altogether because it allows two people to be intimate, therefore rendering them free from the powers that be. Interesting stuff.

I would totally recommend reading it.

Commencement

I thought this was a very very cute book and I flew through it! absolutely idd not want to put it down. it chronicled the college years of 4 girls who met freshman year in college, all lived on the same floor, at Smith, the known all girl lesbian college in the northeast. These are 4 very different girls and yet they strike up unlikely life-long friendships. I thought that Sullivan did a very good job portraying the real characters and feelings of everyone in the book and I totally didn't want it to end! And there is a happy ending! always nice. A great beach read I would say.

One Day

Read this on the reccommendation of my mom and i'm not so sure how I feel about it. I know it was supposed to be one of those cute love stories but really it just kind of frustrated me and made me very annoyed with both of the characters most of the time. They never seemed to be very happy in the lives they were in and yet they never actually tried to fix it until things just happened to them. Then the ending! ugh, very not cool but I can't tell you that part....

The Lies We Told

This is a really beautiful story about two sisters, Maya and Rebecca, who witness their parents murder during their teen years. They both grow up to become talented and respected doctors, Rebecca working for a disastor relief organization and Maya working with children. Rebecca never has time for men and Maya marries a great guy Adam. They all reach a rough spot when Maya has one too many miscarriages and the way Chamberlain shows the underlying feelings and thoughts of the two sisters is heart-wrenching and truthfully portrayed.

Through all this they are helping out at a hurricane in North Carolina, dealing with a missing sister, and interior fears. Very good read and the only complaint I have with it was the ending. I kind of felt like Chamberlain just wrapped it up because she got sick of writing the story.

On Mystic Lake

This was a delightful way to spend a day when you are so tired you can hardly keep your eyes open! Definitely a good read, though I am finding, as with so many authors, that they just keep writing the same book. But I enjoyed it. Definitely.

Sarah's Key

Absolutely heartbreaking story, this poor jewish family gets taken away and because she doesn't understand locks her brother in a hidden closet they had in their apt. Of course she isn't aloud to come back... The story is very good beyond all the sadness adn I never really knew about the Vel d'Hiv (sp?) that occurred in France.... SO sad.

Great read though.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

So I am totally behind the boat on reading this book but I really really enjoyed reading it. I loved how Kingsolver talked about growing and tending to a garden and it was fun to see how her kids were so enthusiastic about joining in on this quest to eat localy for an entire year! Pretty much every page either made me want to cook the provided recipe or go and bake bread or make cheese! (something I will totally do in my life!) It was also fun to read now because my mom has been gardening for the past couple of years and so I had a better idea of what growing a garden actually entails adn I was able to relate more. not that I do any of the hard work of a garden. I definetly can't wait until I have the space to grow some fresh vegetables!

Tomasen: It would be so amazing to be able to do this for a year. I admire her and the tenacity it took to stick with such a process!

Denial: A Memoir of Terror

LISA: This book was suggested by Liz, whose sister had read it and said that she couldn't put it down. I wouldn't give it that kind of a recommendation -- but I did have no trouble reading it through. It just wasn't great. The writer, Jessica Stern, was raped when her sister and she were alone in their house. She was 15 and her sister was 14. It was in the small town of Concord, Mass. and such things didn't happen there. As a result, the police department did not really DO anything. And this was not the first trauma that Jessica had experienced. She had lost her mother to cancer when she was four, and then her father remarried a much younger woman. Who sort of became her mother, but she was young and didn't know how to be one. Later this woman divorced her father for a younger man -- and Jessica and her sister were sort of left in no-mommy-limbo once again. She never had a very strong relationship with her father's third wife, and was rebellious through her teen years. She believes now it was because of the rape. I believe it was because of a lot of things, combined.

As an adult, Jessica became an expert on terrorists. She believes that it is a result of her rape that she was drawn to this. Maybe so. The book is sort of a record of how she goes about dealing with the rape as an adult, and subsequently realizing she has post traumatic stress disorder. But there are no happy endings here. Not really. She sort of seems to deal with the idea of having been raped. But the reader is left with a a feeling that she is just kidding herself. She repeats things, and I presume it is on purpose. Part of her overall issue is that her father never really showed any love or feeling because he was a child who grew up in Nazi Germany and experienced things like the SS coming in and possibly raping his mother. But his philosophy is more of a buck up, move on, and stop contemplating your naval.

As I keep writing, I realize that I got more out of the book than I thought I did! Perhaps it was a worthwhile read!!!!

HALLIE: I really couldn't decide how I felt out about this book. The book kept me reading along but more so because I kept thinking there would be this big revelation or occurence that explained why Stern wrote the way she did. First off she wasn't a great writer and then as Lisa mentioned above she repeated large portions of the book a couple of times. I was never able to understand what these technical moves were meant to portray. I did appreciate how cleanly she described peoples emotions, thoughts, and actions. I was almost able to connect with everyone she described whether it was herself, family, her rapist, a terrorist and that is usually hard to do. She was able to almost avoid the emotion, which i guess is maybe what she was trying to get across. I ended it all with a somewhat eh feeling so this def wouldn't be my first suggestion for someone else, but maybe these things intrigue you.... if they do it's worth a read.

Nantucket Nights

LISA: While I have enjoyed her books, this one was quite silly. Short, not very well thought out and the characters were not believable. Very little emotion was portrayed for the big events that took place. I was disappointed in this book and wonder if this was one of her earlier ones.

TOMASEN: I too was disappointed as I have enjoyed her other novels so much!! Great beach reads...this one...not so much!

HALLIE: Agreed with above, the premise was weird, people were just making excuses and doing what they wanted and overall the ending was just silly and totally expected. bleagh read.

The Island, by Elin Hilderbrand

I have read nearly all of her beach read books, and The Island does not disappoint! I read it pretty much non-stop the past few days, and it is well written and extremely engaging. This author, as many do, writes the same story over and over, and yet, it is forgiveable because you never want any of the books to end!

Tomasen: This is one of my favorite Elin books!! I never thought of them as the same story, but of course they are. Still love them though!

One Day

This book was FABULOUS! I couldn't stop reading it -- it sucked me in and I could not put it down. I loved the way it was written -- it felt very realistic, not chick-lit (probably due to the fact it is written by a man!) and really really good. I hated the ending, absolutely HATED it, but that is because it's not a Happily Ever After story, not from the beginning, certainly not in the middle, and absolutely not in the end!

Loved it! MUST READ!

Hallie, this is on the kindle, I will send it to you!

Somewhere Towards the End

Which is where I wished I was the entire time I read this book! I am not sure why I was drawn to it, but it had received good reviews. Well. She is 95 I think, and while some of her observations are astute, for the most part the book is indulgent. She was in the publishing industry herself, an editor, but she was not a very forceful woman. She was always underpaid, never married and never had children. It is mostly meanderings about this and that, and sort of like, really, not sure she had a very GOOD life!

I would NOT recommend it, and I only read it through because that is the way I roll!!!

Speed Shrinking

When I first started reading this, I thought it wasn't going to be very good. The woman just seemed whiney and ridiculous. But then I realized that it is basically faction -- a book of fiction based on facts, a semi-autobiography of the author. And that made it more interesting, just because if someone is going to be that whiney and neurotic, they might as well be real!

It just amazes me that there are so many people on this planet who spend so much time WORRYING about nothing. Not nothing to them, of course. But still. This poor woman loses not only her shrink, but her best friend in the same week (or so it seems) and her husband has to leave for six weeks for work. So she falls apart and eats cupcakes. Which I find ironic because I used to love cupcakes, but after reading how she was obsessed with them, and ate all the frosting off slowly, and then her teeth rotted out ....

Well anyway, a good read, definitely sucked me in. The name is because she had to replace her shrink, so she interviewed all these shrinks in like ten days.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

This was a book that was recommended via some magazine and I was quite drawn by the title. At first I thought it was little far out, but then I started to relate to it. Here is this poor girl who can feel the feelings of the person who has prepared the food. The title refers to the birthday cake her mother makes her for her 9th birthday when this particular "gift?" hits her, and she realizes how unhappy her mother is. So she starts to pay attention, not only to her mother but to everyone. The only food she can eat without experiencing the feelings of the cook is factory food, and she becomes very adept at recognizing which particular factory food comes from. To me, it was a good analogy for the way we eat today: Just eat it fast without any feelings because we've lost the art of enjoying our food.

Of course it would be difficult to actually FEEL the feelings of whomever prepares the food on a daily basis, and she actually doesn't much like it, and she is also afraid to cook for herself because she doesn't want to explore that idea either. But it was really good. She also has a brother that has his own special gift. As does her father, though his is just plain odd.

Check it out!

HALLIE: This book was very very different to read. It was cool for me to experience this strange power with the girl. My favorite part was that she was just so real and genuine with her feelings and emotions. The book ends though with a out of the blue twist that doesn't even really make sense. The whole powers thing seemed so impossible that for me it was hard to believe. The book itself is a great read and fun!

The Art of Racing in the Rain

This book was adorable...heartwarming...heartbreaking...frustrating. But through all of that it was a truly incredible story from the view point of a dog which just made it so much sweeter. Very easy read... the only thing that annoyed me was how effed up our legal system can be, and those horrible horrible grandparents! ARGH! I wanted to slap them... have to read to understand what I'm saying.

The Wolf and the Dove

HAHAHAHA! This is a true bodice ripper -- and I used to read her books when I was in high school. I bet I could find a torn copy or two (from re-reading) laying around. Anyway, Christiane Northrup suggested if you wanted to spice things up in the bedroom, you should read certain authors. And so ... I don't know about anything in the bedroom but I absolutely devoured this book! Such a perfect book to sit on the dock in the sun and read, read, read. It was long, but I finished it in bed last night. Now the only question is, do I get ANOTHER one?? LOL

Stori Telling

Of course once I listed to Mommywood I needed to listen to her other book. I know I should have gone in order but... This one was very short and easy to hear. It was interesting to hear how she and Dean had gotten together... I hadn't realized that they had both been married and that she was that unhappy. Her fear of confrontation really annoyed me in this story. Man the eff up and tell poor Charlie that you have never loved him! I mean come on.... no one likes doing things like that. And her relationship with her mother! ugh.... I mean I know i have one of the best relationships with my mom ever but seriously do be in the hospital having your baby and still managing to bitch about the fact that your mom has made it all about her! Your mom hasn't made it all about her you crazy... you giving her that power and thinking about her instead of your BRAND NEW baby made it all about her.

Her Fearful Symmetry

There isn't much I can say about this book without giving it all away but it is certainly similar to the Time Traveler's Wife where Niffenegger plays with the boundaries of time, space, death, life, ghosts, etc. I didn't dislike this book but what was happening during most of the story was rather frustrating becuase you never really understood the underlying reasons of certain characters. The whole premise of the book is based off one act that occurs at the end as well so you are reading for a long time before you start to understand why things are happening.

I'm just going to say the biggest thing that annoyed me is I believe in an afterlife and that a persons energy stays out there but I don't believe in ghosts hanging around and talking to us once a person has died. They are dead and they need to be unavailable to allow for people to move on!

Overall if you like Niffenegger read the book but don't expect anything amazing.

Mommywood

I listened to this book on audio because I could not bring myself to read it and I'm very happy I did becuase she is not a good writer. What she is, is a good storyteller and so listening to it I was able to focus more on the point of what she was trying to say versus what how she was saying it. Overall it was interesting...I also really enjoy listenign to a book during my commute. Much easier and lighter!

I didn't really like how much she repeated herself and said very obvious cliches about growing up famous. I get that she was trying to degrade herself and make us understand that even though she was rich she had what seemed like problems to her, but it just got old to me. I hadn't ever realized how self-conscious she was or how much of a self-image problem she had... it made me rather sad to listen to. I've had image problems but nothing to the extent she had.

Remember When

This was a fun, very easy read. It was a great murder, robbery, trickery story with a very hot romantic thread tied throughout. The weirdest part of it all was that it was two different stories tied together by one event but it tied through a number of years. But the writing style for each part was very different and I didn't like the second one nearly as much as the first one so it was rather sad when all of sudden only half the book was the story I really wanted to read!

But overall I def didn't want to put it down and I would totally suggest it for a great beach read.

Cutting For Stone

Well. I would never have chosen this book on my own -- but it was a book club selection. I knew it was long, but I kept putting it off because I was reading all sorts of exciting organic gardening books and the like. Suddenly I had three days to start and finish it -- and it was a bit of a chore, I must admit. It is set in Ethiopia -- or most of it is -- and the discussion of the country's politics left me a bit cold. In fact, I felt about 1/4 of the way into the book that absolutely nothing had happened of import other than the narrator being born, and he was just rambling ad nauseum about anything he could think of to convince me to STOP reading! LOL That is what it felt like.

The title comes from the fact that the twins father is a surgeon named Thomas Stone, and they are both ultimately doctors as well -- but the title, like much of the book, seemed like an afterthought.

There was never much in the way of action. I also figured out a few things, and lo and behold was right -- but by the time it was actually revealed amidst hundreds upon hundreds of words that could be edited out, I didn't really care. I guess that is really the bottom line. I never cared for the characters. They had little depth -- and perhaps that was a symptom of their childhood -- I don't know. But ultimately, I don't care.

It ended much as it started. It just did. And thankfully so!!!!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Well...this book had me going. It was recommended to me by so many different people that I bought it in the fall when I was in New Orleans...but could NOT for the life of me get into it. And so I carried it home on the plane thinking another time.
Then every time since then that I picked it up I still could NOT get into it. The book taunted me as people would ask, have you read....? Anyway, I finally put my nose to the grindstone and was determined to get through it and about half way into it I couldn't put it down.
What really messed with me was all the people and trying to figure out who was who and so many of the damned names started with H!! Anyway...I am glad to have conquered it and actually want to go out and get the sequel...so you can do whatever you want with this one, but I would be curious to know what you all thought!!! I am thinking it is me!!!

Blonde

This is a fiction, based on biography story about Marilyn Monroe. I have never really known much about her so was interested in learning more. My first problem was Joyce Carol Oates. I have read her before and absolutely hated it, but that was awhile ago and I thought why not give her one more chance. Well that was the worst decision... she writes so much and so repetetively that anything she is trying to say gets lost in the words and descriptions.

Beyond just her writing I am not too happy because I really don't know what she made up/exxagerated about Monroe because some things just seemed so insanely crazy that I had a hard time believing she was really that bad. Overall I did not like the book, but I am still interested in Marilyn Monroe and will be looking for another biography soon.

The Promised World

Don't bother ... I read it because I liked the other book I read by this same author, but this was the same story (I kept getting confused, wondering where the characters in the other book went!) only not as well thought out, nor did it even make sense at the end. It does make me wonder what type of horrible childhood this author had -- but don't read it.

BAD BOOK!

Little Bee by chris Cleave

Little Bee was one quick humming read. I picked it up at the airport on my flight home from Hilton Head and was half way through it before we even landed!! It is a great book...I could not put it down because I could identify with both of the characters who are from completely different backgrounds. I do have to say though that I was disappointed in the ending. Endings are critical, but I would still recommend it for sure!! I love the character of Little Bee and it makes you think about illegal refugees from her point of view. These people who get caught up in the larger politics that have nothing to do with them personally. Check it out!!

Once Upon A Day

This was a really good read. The can't put down until you're done type. It's about this girl and boy who are abducted by their father and taken to live in a "sanctuary" in New Mexico. Until they are in their 20's -- they never see anyone or leave the house. They are told their mother is dead, and one day the boy, Jimmy, leaves. He writes to his sister Dorothea and tells her all the things they have missed -- but then his letters stop. Then the father gets ill and Dorothea decides she must find her brother and bring him home. She only has the last address on an envelope, and she gets on a bus and heads there.

The way the story is written is great -- interweaving everyone's points of view, going from past to present ... EXCELLENT READ!

Stuart Brown says play is more than fun | Video on TED.com

Stuart Brown says play is more than fun | Video on TED.com

An Echo in The Bone

Hallie left this for me when she left last fall, and I kept staring at it, wondering when there would be a time I would have to devote to such a tome. Ahhh, the beach in Hilton Head Island! Excellent.

I started it there shortly after finishing Shutter Island on my kindle. First off, this is a heavy book with very small print. I missed my kindle immediately. I mourned it. I even considered, when this book would leave deep grooves in my legs, to download it to my kindle. As it turns out, when I was leaving I searched high and low for my kindle cord. Which was at home. So thankfully I DID bring this book. Because I just finished it yesterday, and I've been home for nearly a week!

It definitely kept me amused, but it was seriously about 3/4's of nothing going on but them living in various army camps and Claire keeping people alive as best as she could without any supplies, and then they would run away and then they were on a ship to go to Scotland but that was pirated and so on. Oh, and of course Jamie and Claire having sex. Sassenach sex as I call it!

THEN, the last 50 pages are just ridiculous. It goes from long, drawn out chapters of Rollo the dog sniffing around to eight different things happening at once in short chapters and then it ends in a triple cliff hanger. I WAS DISGUSTED!

For as you know, it takes the woman YEARS to write these books, and she is busy running around the country promoting this one! Geesh.

If you are a Gabaldon fan, then of course you have to read book 7 because there is going to be a book 8.

But next time it goes on my kindle!

Shutter Island

So even though I usually hate to use the book covers that were pretty much made for the movie while I was reading this book I could only see Leo as the main guy so it's kind of fitting for this situation. Anyway the book was a really easy read but also very enjoyable. I read it in probably two days but it definetly managed to suck me in. The writing is very simple and yet good and I felt for the characters soooo much! SO much so that the ending made me very sad and was completely unexpected! I had absolutely no expectations for what the book was but wow, caught me off gaurd. I had to actually put the book down and think about it cause I was so horrified. BUT that's all I will say becuase it would really give the story away to tell it.

Shutter Island

This is now a movie, and the previews of it (with Leonardo DiCaprio) did not appeal to me. It just seemed scary. But a woman in my book club said that it was a GREAT book, so I figured I would read it. IT WAS REALLY GOOD. I would highly recommend it. I am not sure what the movie will be like now, because I now know all the twists -- but at least I know it's not a horror movie. The ending was completely unexpected. I love books like that -- where you are like, wow, didn't see that coming. At all.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

After reading the first two reviews of this I of course had to go read it as soon as possible. I did this and ended up reading the entire thing sitting in Borders this weekend. Haha, it's a very quick read (prob took me 3 hours) but it was very good. The style of writing is not very common but it worked very very well for this situation. I liked how the guy portrayed his thoughts and opinions no matter how offensive they might have been. There are def some controversial issues that are mentioned but you don't end feeling angry or hurt. The ending is a trip as well... still not sure exactly what I think about it! lol

Talk Nerdy to Me

I had to read this book as soon as I saw it because of the title. I mean I am a huge nerd, spent four years at an incredibly nerdy college. I have actually participated in and love discussions with my friends based on machinery and math. So anyway I had to read this book and unfortunately it wasn't the best writing nor the greatest plot line. It was about this model who is inventing a hovercraft in her garage and she gets an engineer to start helping her and you can probably guess the rest. The talk nerdy parts are so incredibly nerdy it even made me cringe but it is a cute idea. Fun summer beach read.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

LOVED this book, as recommended by Tomasen. I downloaded it during the couple's figure skating at about 10:00 the other night and stayed up until Jimmy Kimmel was on (not sure what time, but it was late!) and I FORCED myself to stop reading. Then picked it up the next morning and finished it. I was very bummed about the ending. Loved the style in which it was written.

HALLIE AND EMMA YOU MUST READ!