Today it’s time for one of my favorite posts each month: book review day!
I’m reviewing three books this month even though only two are pictured because the third book I read while on vacation in Florida. Overall, I enjoyed all three books so I’m excited to dive on in to the reviews!
The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle
You know the game “if you could have dinner with any five people, dead or alive, who would you choose?” Well this book is a story of that actually happening. Sabrina thinks she is going to her birthday dinner with her longtime friend but when she shows up, it turns out the rest of her “list” of people are there too even though some of them are dead (oh hi, Audrey Hepburn). The plot jumps between the actual dinner and various times in Sabrina’s past that explain her connections to each person and why they are on her list. I was pretty intrigued by the premise and since this is the book I took on vacation to Florida, I flew through it in the hotel during LJ’s naps. There were sweet parts, surprising parts, sad parts, and downright shocking parts. While I did enjoy this book, to be honest, I got frustrated a few times due to some of the dynamics between the main characters. The more I thought about it though, I think that’s pretty indicative of life, right? Sometimes people are amazing, sometimes they are jerks. We all have our moments of triumph and weakness. This book gave me a lot to think about – it’s one that I can’t discuss too much more here for fear of spoilers, but I would love to discuss in person with someone who has read it because I have a lot of thoughts I’d like to work through!
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Since I finished The Dinner List so quickly and still had a lot of vacation downtime left, I borrowed this book from my friend Kaitlin’s bookshelf to read poolside while in Florida. Christopher is a bright 15-year-old boy and though the book never explicitly states this, it’s pretty obvious that he has autism. One night he is walking through his neighborhood and discovers that his neighbor’s dog Wellington has been killed in her yard. He decides to become a detective and figure out who killed Wellington and his search leads him to a trail of discoveries and adventures. I loved that the whole story was told through Christopher’s point of view, which I felt the author did very well, particularly with his experiences of sensory overload. I enjoyed getting to know Christopher and all his quirks and preferences. I also enjoyed the little touches the author gave, like numbering the chapters in prime numbers, because this was very much something Christopher would have done. That being said, I did find the book to be fairly predictable. There are a couple “twists” in the story but I saw them coming, though this is because I can read between the lines where Christopher takes things literally. (Perhaps the author meant for it to be this way, showing the difference between the way the mind of the reader works and the way Christopher’s logical train of thought works? Hmm…) I also got a little tired of all the unimportant/irrelevant details that Christopher gives and started to skim a lot in the second half of the book. Overall, I thought this was a good choice for an interesting, quirky, pretty easy read on vacation.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Oh my gosh. This book! I had been on the library wait list for months and finally got my hands on a copy and it was worth the wait! Kya, known by locals as “The Marsh Girl,” has lived most of her life in solitude in the North Carolina marsh. She is remarkably in tune with nature and rarely interacts with the locals in the nearby town. One day, a murder occurs and suspicion is thrown to Kya. I don’t want to give away more of the plot so I’ll just say that while it took me a chapter or two to really get into the story, once I did I was absolutely swept away. This book is just beautiful and incredibly well written, a captivating tale of love, heartbreak, prejudice, and survival. The descriptions of the marsh life are vivid and enchanting. And the characters are expertly crafted and human, with flaws, mistakes, regrets. And Kya’s strength and resiliency despite the rejections of her life is remarkable and makes her endearing to the reader. As the book works its way towards solving the murder, my heart was pounding and I was just flying through chapters. I highly recommend this one!
I’ve got a lot of other books that just came off the library wait list so I’m extra excited for what’s coming up in March. What have you been loving reading lately?
Tara Westover was raised in rural Idaho by an extremely religious, survivalist family. She received no formal education and had little contact with the outside world during her childhood because her father distrusted the government and constantly prepared his family for the End Days. Her childhood was often dangerous and reading about it was both frustrating and straight up distressing. It’s just mind-boggling to me that someone would actually experience a childhood like hers. It was absolutely heartbreaking to read about at times. That being said, I was blown away by how she rose above her circumstances and got herself into college and beyond with the little education she received as a child. Her resilience is commendable, but I appreciated how she also shared the inner conflicts she felt with trying to reconcile what the outside world is actually like with the way that she had been raised to believe the world worked, as well as the struggle she felt in still wanting to connect with her family even though they did not see eye to eye. She doesn’t sugarcoat things, she is honest with possible faults in her memories, and she is fair in her descriptions of relationships. I think this memoir would make for an awesome book club discussion and definitely recommend it.
I don’t remember how this book landed on my list but I’d been waiting for it at the library for a quite a while and was excited when it finally was my turn to check it out! While the book is a work of nonfiction, it reads very much like a novel and I really enjoyed it. Henrietta was a poor black woman with cancer in the 1950s; a scraping of cancer cells from her cervix was used in scientific research without her knowledge or consent. Even after she passed away, her cells became “immortal” and are still living today. They have been instrumental in developing various vaccines, medications, and other medical discoveries. The book researches both Henrietta’s life and the life of her family, who didn’t know about her cells being used for decades. The author details not only what happened throughout her own journey to research Henrietta but also lots of information about Henrietta’s life, what was happening in the field of science at various times, what life has been like for Henrietta’s family, etc. This story could have easily become a dense, scientific read but the author did an amazing job of bringing each character to life on the page. The books brings up some thought-provoking questions about ethics in scientific research and was truly an interesting read that I wholeheartedly recommend.
This book has been on my “to be read” list for a really long time and I finally got around to reading it. It was well worth the wait! It is categorized as a Young Adult novel but I honestly think it appeals just as much to older adults as well. The plot is unique: it set in Nazi Germany during World War II and is narrated by Death. Death is recalling a story of a young girl who has been sent away to a small town in Germany and his encounters with her life. I don’t want to give away too much so I’ll just say this book was fantastic. It was long but the short chapters make it seem like a quicker read and it kept my attention the whole time – I kept thinking “okay just one more chapter and then I’ll go get other work done” but just kept going! I have read a ton of WWII historical fiction but this may be the first book I’ve read about what life may have been like for small-town Germans, particularly those who didn’t whole-heartedly agree with Hitler. It was a fascinating read and I highly recommend it!
simplify the chaos 