The Lace Reader

This was a different type of book, focused mainly on a family of women who are known around town as "crazy!" It is set in Salem so not only do you have the unique abilities of this family in lace reading, but you have the witch background and a religous zealot group called the Calvanists. As you read the story I found myself to be very confused as to what was happening most of the time, but the story does a good job in wrapping itself up at the end so that you're left with all answers instead of all the questions that filter throughout the book. Whether you will like those answers or not I am not so sure. I was not a huge fan of how they twisted around, but it did make sense when I went back and thought through the different events. I also thought it was very cool that Barry outlined the general guidelines as to how to read lace and also how lace was made. Nothing too technical of course but it did keep me interested to get to a new chapter.

While I'm Falling

This book is about a college age girl who is a RA in the dorms as well as trying to get the grades to achieve med school and failing horribly. While all this goes on her family is falling apart, her mother becomes homeless, a few additional unfrotunate occurences happen and basically you just think wow this girl has a shit life. But above the slightly feeling sorry for the girl and her homeless mom you just kind of think wow this girl isn't standing up for herself or doing anything specific to change the circumstances. Over all I guess I just read it and ended reading it feeling very blah. Moriarty has much better books out there.

The Glass Room

Welcome to my Sunday! I found this book in the suggestion list while downloading another book and decided to check it out. As soon as I began the sample, I knew I was going to read it. I downloaded it at 8:00 this morning and finished it at 8:00 tonight! I didn't do much else today other than eat. GOOD read! Don't you just love a book that can suck you up for an entire day? It is based in Czhechoslovakia before World War II, when Victor and Liesl, young and newly married, want to have a modern house. An up and rising architect, somewhat taken with the beautiful Liesl, designs a crazy modern house that has a glass room. This becomes the backdrop of the novel, as Victor and their family are forced to leave as he is a Jew, and we all know how they fared in those Hitleresque times -- and then the story continues with what happens to the house, and also what happens to them. It is good! Good Good Good!

The Things We do for Love

 


 This was good -- about a woman who thought she was going to be a mother but just couldn't make it happen.  Not able to get pregnant and running into troubles with adoption, she and her husband divorce.  She returns home to help run the family restaurant, where she encounters a young pregnant girl who needs help.  Hmmmm, maybe not what you are thinking!  Good read!

The Lake of Dreams

This is an excellent book.  Written by the same author as The Memory Keeper's Daughter (when the doctor father decides that when one of his twin daughters is born a mongoloid, he tells his wife that she died and then he tells his nurse to dispose of her in an institution.)  It is another wonderful story and I HIGHLY recommend it!!

The Husband Trap

LISA: Okay, as you can see by the schmaltzy cover, this is a bit out of my usual line of reading. But Amazon was offering discounts on romance novels, and well, I am always a sucker for a discounted romance! The premise is that there are twins -- and it is set in the late 1800's when being a woman basically sucked and you got bupkus. The twins are completely opposite; one is selfish and vain and the other is nerdish and wears glasses (so therefore despite being the spitting image of the beautiful one, she is considered not so much.) Anyway, the pretty twin Janette is going to marry some duke or earl, handsome as all get out, of course, but she has also been screwing around, which as we all know was JUST NOT DONE! She wants to travel and her husband to be drops a bomb the night before the wedding that they will not be able to travel abroad for their honeymoon right away because he has some troubles on one of his estates. She pouts, she gets pissy, then she convinces her twin Violet to take her place. And so Violet, who is not outgoing at all, has to pretend to be the social vixen her sister is. Except her husband really doesn't want that either -- so in the end, it all works out, as these things will. These things being discounted romances!!!

HALLIE: Pretty much summed up above. I think i read this is about 4 hours but definitely enjoyed it! Wish the whiny I'm sooo horrible cause I duped this wonderful man and now my life is ruined since he found out part was shorter but overall it was a nice beach read! Totally romance story!

The Kept Man

This is about a woman whose husband has been in a coma for six years.  He was an artist and he fell off a ladder on top of having a brain anueyrism.  Anyway, she has plenty of money and just kind of hangs out in her apartment all day.  On Wednesdays she takes a cab out to the nursing home where her husband is, and spends the day in bed with him.  Remember, he is comatose, and has been for six years.  Then her washing machine breaks, and so one day she has to venture out to a laundromat.  There she meets three men who are stay-at-home husbands (only one has a baby) and they become her new link to life.  Keep in mind they are pretty much losers (with the exception of the father) who are just leeching off their wives money.  And one of them actually has her in his sights ... wealthy kinda widow.  But it is the jumpstart to her realization that it is time to pull the plug.  I quite enjoyed it, I must say.  And so I will.  Say!

Sliver of Truth

LISA: Okay, so I started reading this and was confused, because it started with saying basically you have either read about me before, or you haven't. Had I? This is the continuation of Beautiful Lies, which was a good book, but I must have breezed through it quickly, because I ended up re-reading it before I read this one, because well, I don't know. I had the time!!! Anyway, both are good reads and now I am done with Lisa Unger for a while, because she is a bit formulaic.

HALLIE: I agree with Lisa that Unger can be very formulaic but I do have to say if you want to choose just a few this and the Beautiful Lies before it are definetly worth the wkend you will spend reading them nonstop. I will say that the ending of the thrilling part in this story made me slightly frustrated only because Unger played up the annoying attributes of the main character, Ridley. The overall ending though is very nice and wraps everything up with a great bow. awesome awesome read!

Die For You

LISA: Isabel's husband disappears one day. There are bad guys left and right and lots of people dying -- but she needs to know WHY did her husband leave her? He's really just a schmuck loser who came from a Prague orphanage and managed to find his way with his brother to the U.S. There his brother hooks up with the Albanian mafia and he decides to go to college. And he marries Isabel and they live happily ever after. Right? Not so much! It is a good read though, if not a little bit of the are you serious, type, because she even goes to Prague, after the FBI and the CIA have gotten involved, to find this wonderful hubby of hers. And then he tries to kill her. Oh, but he did love her, that was true, he just had to disappear, all that murder and mayhem. Ahem!!!

HALLIE: Ugh, this book didn't do much for me. I knew how it was going to end basically as soon as it began and the entire story was this woman goign to these insane and dangerous situations. So much so that you just sit there thinking really? I definetly liked the other Unger books better, but overall she has the same story over and over again.