Who is pumped for another year of great books and talking about them once a month with this awesome self-made reading community of Show Us Your Books people? This girl.
This link up happens the second Tuesday of every month.
The next regular monthly one is Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - celebrate your love of books
1. Please visit and comment with both of your hosts, Jana & me2. Please display the button (need it? let me know) or link back to us on your blog post
2. Please visit a few other blogs who've linked up and get some book talk going!
Here's what I've read from the last linkup.
Engrossing Reads
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood - A compelling tale that makes your hair stand on end a little if you've been raised in a normal family with normal parents instead of the fucked up situations these kids were in. Greenwood does a good job of making you examine a way of getting by that feels not normal but that is actually the most normal some people can hope for - a good lesson in judging situations and people too. library hardback
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen - This 500+ page monster was started on December 27. I sort of thought it would take me into the new year, but then I started rolling with it and finished it after midnight the next day. Honestly, I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. reading it not because the end was any more compelling than the rest of it, but because I could not haul this monster on the train again the next day. I cried at some parts, laughed at some parts, and really felt like everything I've thought about listening to The Boss my whole life was spot on. I don't know if it's a good one if you're not a fan, but if you are, it's awesome. hardback, owned
I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh - This one was on a few of the Best of 2016 lists in the last linkup. For good reason! Twisty and glorious. Few things in the reading world excite me more than a twist that leaves me thinking did I miss something? Did I read that wrong? because I was so utterly convinced it was another way. Read it! paperback, owned
The Lauras by Sara Taylor - I flew through this book. It was like sinking into something foreign but delicious. There were a lot of dots not connected for me - a lot of why was this included and why wasn't this - but I loved it anyway. Free copy from netgalley for an honest review.
Passed the Time Just Fine
Burn Baby Burn by Meg Medina - I absolutely loved the cover of this. I liked the characters too, and the story told against the backdrops of music and an infamous summer in New York City. Poor timing on my part, MFD looked at this cover with second degree burns on his hands for the 24 hours I was reading it. Hardback, owned
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine - I'm trying to be a little more inclusive in my reading habits this year. For a while I thought this book was about nothing, but I enjoyed the way the story was told, so I kept with it. A little heavy on literary references and depressive episodes, the end was worth it. library hardback
You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott - Good lord some people are fucking insane...like, every person in this book. Really slow and tedious for a good portion of the book, it sped up when everything started to click towards the end. free e-copy from Netgalley
All the Pretty Girls (Taylor Jackson #1) by J.T. Ellison - This was a little rough in spots, but I did like the characters and I'd give a second one a chance. $2 Amazon e-book
The Invisibles by Cecilia Galante - The best parts of the novel are the ones looking back on the past. I thought the secret at the heart of all this and the tiny twist with it was contrived. I wish Galante would have built more of the background story and less of the present. $2 Amazon e-book
Rosarito Beach (Agent Kay Hamilton #1) by M.A. Lawson - This book was really well prepared for entree into a series...not like I'm a crime expert or anything but I have put in 10+ years watching Criminal Minds and CSI and L&O SVU and reading countless crime thrillers. hahahah. Seriously though, sometimes it was TOO detailed and thorough. I liked Kay Hamilton and another main character though, so I think I'll go back for the second. $2 Amazon e-book
The Drowning Game by L.S. Hawker - So what I thought was going on for most of this book was actually not going on and it turned out to be absolutely nothing that I thought it was about. That in itself was engrossing but not enough for the whole thing to wind up there. $1 Amazon e-book
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - The first book I read in 2017. I did not love this book like the world at large loved this book. There was a lot of thought provoking commentary on race and immigration and America, and I was engaged with all of that. But it felt like it read more like nonfiction and less like a novel to me, like the characters and their lives were vignettes followed by commentary on an issues examined therein. It was not what I thought I was getting and I was having trouble reading it as a novel. Adichie also writes nonfiction, and I wonder if that's what I was picking up on...I'm sort of of the school that you do one or the other really well. paperback, owned
