After a traumatic pregnancy, Kristine and Michael Barnett considered their son, Jake, to be a miracle. However, their giggling, lovable baby boy went After a traumatic pregnancy, Kristine and Michael Barnett considered their son, Jake, to be a miracle. However, their giggling, lovable baby boy went from a sweetheart to a shadow as he slowly retreated into himself and stopped responding to them as a toddler. Unsure of what to do, the couple called specialist after specialist and pushed their son through all sorts of therapies only to get a diagnosis of Autism, with the expectation that their son would never speak again.
A few years later, Jake is now enrolled in a Bachelor’s degree program at Purdue University and completing on groundbreaking astrophysicist work that will one day earn him a Nobel prize. How? Faith and excellent parenting.
In The Spark, Kristine Barnett shares the story of her family: how she grew up in an Amish lifestyle, how her grandfather and mother nurtured her passions and creativity, how her sister was an art prodigy, how she met her soulmate, the rough parts of her marriage, her health problems and difficult pregnancies, and, most of all, her work with children. Though Kristine is quick to say there is nothing special about her, she has a real gift with nurturing and raising children, which she started out doing with her daycare and eventually went on to do with Little Lights, a children’s learning group she created for local autistic children where they could go from unfunctioning mutes to socially-engaged children. Kristine’s story is truly incredible, not only for the peeks she gave into her genius son’s mind and experience, but also for the gift with children she shares with the reader.
Instead of training her son like a race horse to engage socially, like all the therapists suggested, Kristine saved her son by focusing and nurturing his passion: space. From showing him the local observatory to taking him to physics classes at the local college, Kristine found a common ground with Jake so that he could express himself over the things he is truly passionate about.
I’m not sure if I ever want to have children one day, but this book definitely gave me hope that one day I could. The challenges Kristine faces and her creative ways of solving them are truly inspirational, and this book was a quick, absorbing read that left me absolutely amazed at what our human brains can accomplish. ...more
So I bought this book without a summary on the back cover telling me what it was about. Instead, the front cover offered a few blurbs stating that it So I bought this book without a summary on the back cover telling me what it was about. Instead, the front cover offered a few blurbs stating that it was a book about a journalist who tracked down her childhood best friend's murderer in a real-life mystery. That's actually not really what this book is about, so I'm here to set the record straight so no one else is lured to this book under false pretenses.
This book was a memoir, not a mystery. That's not to say it wasn't divinely interesting, but it wasn't what I expected.
Growing up in the 1950's, Mary-Ann's childhood is very different from what I experienced a few decades later. Her mother was emotionally-distant, her grandfather couldn't speak English, and her socioeconomic status left a lot to be desired. Her older brother, autistic in a time when no one knew what autism was, made life at home even more difficult. Despite the inclusion she felt amongst her cousins in her extended family, and despite the close-knit community she was raised in, Mary-Ann struggled to find her voice in a town with so many characters.
In between the chapters about her childhood, Smith includes accounts about the transgressions of a pedophile: a man who eventually goes on to murder her classmate, Irene. While Girls of Tender Age is a memoir about Smith's early years, the death of her neighbor was an interesting event in her formative years, and after decades of not thinking about Irene, Mary-Ann returns to the murder while writing her book to share what really happened that night in her memoir.
There really was no great mystery. The killer was caught shortly after the murder took place, and from the start, Smith shares exactly who he was. I was expecting some great investigation on the part of Smith, maybe as an adult pouring through evidence on a cold case that happened when she was a child and getting a lucky break and being able to catch the killer, but I ended up with a book that was largely about her life with a little piece tacked in at the end describing the trial of Irene's murderer. Basically, I felt like the murder was a tactic to sell more books by luring people in to a false story line. That's not to say I didn't enjoy my read, I just felt a little gypped.
I enjoyed this book as a memoir, and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in autism in particular, as it gave a really fascinating look at the disorder before it was fully understood. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend it for lovers of mystery as it fell pretty flat. ...more
Delia Hopkins is a young mom in a small New Hampshire town, running a search-and-rescue business with her dog, Greta. She’s used to her small-town lifDelia Hopkins is a young mom in a small New Hampshire town, running a search-and-rescue business with her dog, Greta. She’s used to her small-town life, getting engaged to one of her childhood best friends and still living next door to the other. Her father, a beloved community figure, is supportive enough for two parents, a role he’s fulfilled since Delia’s mother’s death when she was just a child. With a wedding to plan, a sweet little girl to raise, and missing people to find every day, Delia’s under a lot of stress, which could explain the strange flashbacks she starts to get about places and things she’s never seen before. When a police officer arrives at her house out of the blue, she realizes that these flashbacks might not be as strange as she originally thought, and she soon finds herself on the other side of the country, searching for people and things that even Greta can’t help her find.
This was not my favorite book of Picoult’s, partly for its subject matter and partly for its unbelievable ending. Picoult is a fabulous researcher, and every one of her books provides a very in-depth look at a community or field that I ordinarily would have never thought about. This book contained a lot of information about Native American culture and folklore, which isn’t really my cup of tea. Picoult’s research did seem very inclusive of the subject, though. Picoult’s books are very feelings-heavy, and they really make you think about how you’d respond to different situations if you were in the position of the characters, which ordinarily is a very good thing, but unfortunately, it just made Vanishing Acts’ conclusion very unbelievable.
This was not a bad book by any means, just not my favorite. If you’re looking for a good Picoult book, I’d recommend The Tenth Circle or My Sister’s Keeper first....more
So if you remember, at the end of Insurgent, everyone heard from Tris’ ancestor, Edith Prior, who informed the factions that they were actually split So if you remember, at the end of Insurgent, everyone heard from Tris’ ancestor, Edith Prior, who informed the factions that they were actually split from a larger society who had lost their moral compass. When the Divergent rise in number, they are meant to go back into the “real world” and transform society into something perfect.
Tris and Four, as divergents, leave the city and stumble upon a history bigger than anything they imagined. Uncovering their families’ histories, learning about the bigger world, and discovering the science behind what makes them special, the couple has a lot of new information to grapple with. Society, however, is still flawed, and in addition to wrapping their minds around life outside the compound, the two have to choose to throw their allegiance between rival sides who both think that what they’re doing can save humanity.
I wasn’t a huge fan of a lot of things about this book. For the first time in the series, Roth decided to tell the story from both Tris and Four’s perspective, which felt kind of awkward to me. I also wasn’t a huge fan of how much gushy romance Roth inserted into the book, or the petty middle-school drama, or some of the unresolved answers about the larger society that still lingered after the book ended. The characters, too, seemed to have changed a lot in a very illogical way from the last few books. The pace was rather slow, a lot of conclusions were jumped to, and I couldn’t really follow what was going on very well. A lot of people were upset by the dramatic ending of Allegiant, but at that point, I was so freaking done with the book, I welcomed it.
I really liked the other books in the series, which is what made this read even more disappointing. I don’t think anyone who has been a fan of the first two books could avoid not reading the third, but might I recommend you save your money and borrow it from the library or a friend instead?...more
I was a Harry Potter kid, and one of the many things that made Hogwarts so captivating was Rowling’s enchanting descriptions. It was hard for me to imI was a Harry Potter kid, and one of the many things that made Hogwarts so captivating was Rowling’s enchanting descriptions. It was hard for me to imagine, at first, how Rowling could write a more gritty mystery novel, but I was pleased to find that the same sorts of descriptions, the ones that enabled me to feel the snow crunch beneath my feet on a trip to Hogsmeade, taste the butterbeer on my tongue, hear the wind whip past my ears and the distant roar of the crowds below me in a game of Quidditch, were just as present in The Cuckoo’s Calling as they were in the Harry Potter series.
In short, I picked the book up and couldn’t put it down. I felt invested in the characters from the get-go, the mystery was intriguing enough that I wanted to race toward the end, and even with 455 pages, any time when I sat back and said, “This book seems to be going on for a lot longer than I was expecting…” I caught sight of another one of Rowling’s incredible descriptions and felt sucked right back in.
As much as I try, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of private eye books. I enjoy my mysteries, but I didn’t think a book about a veteran-turned-private-detective with a missing leg and a ton of emotional baggage from his crazy ex would appeal to me. But J.K. Rowling made me love him as much as the little orphan boy who lived in a cupboard under the stairs. I also didn’t think a story about a supermodel’s apparent suicide would appeal to me very much, but Rowling made it intriguing.
So I guess I’m saying don’t accept this book at face value. At first glance, it wasn’t my cup of tea, but Rowling’s a gifted story teller who made it appeal to me. If you’re a long-time fan of the Harry Potter books who was attracted to the series for the magical world Rowling could take you to through her descriptions alone, I think you’d enjoy it. Even though it takes place in current-day London and doesn’t include magic, her fantastic writing alone will make you enjoy reading about the otherwise mundane. If you were more of a fan of the action and adventure of the books, The Cuckoo’s Calling might not appeal to you as much, as it’s light on action and heavy on words, but to me, it was perfect. ...more
I loved this title, and I couldn’t wait to read a humorous collection of biographical short stories that I thought would be just like something Celia I loved this title, and I couldn’t wait to read a humorous collection of biographical short stories that I thought would be just like something Celia Rivenbark could produce.
I was sorrily disappointed.
Instead of a book filled with witty retellings of humorous experiences from an intelligent and strong female, this is what I got: tons and tons and tons of stories of lactation, Susan’s comments about how dumb her daughter is and how women can’t seem to figure out dishwashers or camping (but men certainly know how to do all that hard thinking!), an awkwardly sad story about her grandmother’s death, and a lot of mean-spiritedness. This book was on the verge of vulgar, but not in a funny way. I don’t want to hear about lactating dogs or the time you flashed your crusty, saggy old boob to a creepy Mexican pervert while on the back of a mule on vacation. I don’t want to hear you talk about your “grumpy vagina”. What made the grossness of this book even worse was the fact Reinhardt was still calling herself a Southern gentlewoman throughout it.
"Bless her heart!" in one sentence and, when describing breastfeeding her daughter (which she did for over two years, seemingly as a justification for getting a boob job, which she also talks about frequently in this book) in another chapter: "I’m in a stinking doodytarium where the odors from rumps like yours are not adding to the ambiance of my daughter’s dining pleasure."
I also felt like her writing was sort of an insult against mothers, too. Her book was almost entirely focused on motherhood and how sucky she is at it. Stories about how giving birth caused her to become stupid, incapable of figuring out a carseat or diaper genie (because it’s the children’s fault that you’ve lost your marbles?). She also shared stories about how she shirked her Boy Scout chaperone duties because little boys are gross and farty and how embarrassing her dirty, ill-mannered children are when she runs into her glamorous old sorority sisters at the grocery store (also not something I think one should blame their children for). The way Susan writes about her children made me feel so incredibly sorry for them, and as this book really was not marketed as a funny book about motherhood, I hate how dominant the theme of motherhood was in the book, as though once you have children you have nothing else of value to add to the world and nothing else worthy of talking about. She isn’t even telling humorously endearing stories about her children; she’s using them to talk about how being a mom sucks in every other chapter.
In addition to the stories where she’s attempting to be funny, Reinhardt also tells us about how she had a miscarriage and lost her grandmother. In fact, when one Amazon reviewer criticized her writing, Reinhardt wrote back: “My feelings are so hurt... Not sure if you read about my grandmother or losing a baby.” Losing people you love is a horrible thing to go through, and losing an unborn child must be absolutely awful. And while I sympathize for the woman, I do not think it’s appropriate to include them in a book intended to make people laugh…. or to use them as a defense when someone says they do not appreciate your book.
I know this post probably came off as super harsh, and other people might not have been as offended by what Reinhardt was saying, but I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone. I felt it was a slap in the face of Southern propriety and a sorry insult to female comedic writers. I would stick with Celia Rivenbark’s books if you’re looking for humor from a Southern lady. ...more
Justin Halpern’s debut book started out as a series of tweets about crazy things he heard from his father after moving back in with his 73-year-old paJustin Halpern’s debut book started out as a series of tweets about crazy things he heard from his father after moving back in with his 73-year-old parents following a traumatic breakup. After amassing a huge number of followers on Twitter, Justin decided to compile his father’s unconventional wisdom in a book and include some longer stories of funny things his dad did while Justin was growing up.
At only 159 pages long, I don’t really feel I have to say much about this book. I liked it well enough, it made me smile at times, but it wasn’t anything to make me laugh out loud. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t great. I feel like this would make a good gift for my guy friends who I’m not very close with who appreciate a bit of stupid humor. ...more
Deborah Rodriguez is a hairdresser caught in a bad marriage when she finds a dangerous way to escape her husband’s fists: by volunteering in AfghanistDeborah Rodriguez is a hairdresser caught in a bad marriage when she finds a dangerous way to escape her husband’s fists: by volunteering in Afghanistan. Arriving in 2001 after the fall of the Taliban, Deborah feels useless with nothing to offer amongst doctors and nurses, but when she strikes up a friendship with one of the local women, Deborah realizes that she has a lot more to offer than she originally thought. With experience in running a salon and being a beautician, Deborah decides to create a beauty school in Kabul to empower Afghan women.
In the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman, Deborah defies convention and tradition. In a culture where women are expected to acquiesce to their father’s and husband’s desires, Deborah teaches these courageous women how to earn their own income and challenge the status quo.
Deborah is a beautician, not a writer. Her book was well-written, but it was a memoir and lacking some of the finer qualities of literature. There were a lot of parts of this book that were hard to hear, too. Deborah shares a lot of stories about the pain and suffering the Afghan women have had to experience as a result of their gender, and all the rape and abuse stories of her friends and students wore me down after awhile. Deborah’s mission was inspiring, but the challenges she had to face were unbelievably hard, and a lot of times it felt as though she was taking one step forward and two steps back. I think she best summarizes her experience with this quotation:
"There are many of us Westerners who want to help Afghan women, but our efforts don’t always help them in the ways that we hope they will. There are so many ties that bind these women and hold them back, and many of the ties aren’t even visible to the Western eye. It takes a long time to understand how the complexities of these women’s lives differ from the complexities of ours. Sometimes we can’t help, even when we understand these complexities. The culture is changing so much more slowly than our dreams are."
In short, this book was super inspiring, and I would recommend it to others who are passionate about humanitarianism, learning about new cultures, and expanding their awareness of the world around them. At the same time, however, I would caution readers to prepare themselves for some pretty tough stories and feelings of helplessness when things just don’t work out for some of the women in the book....more
After spending a few years slaving away at a desk job like the normal 20-something, Conor Grennan decides to blow his savings to spend a year travelinAfter spending a few years slaving away at a desk job like the normal 20-something, Conor Grennan decides to blow his savings to spend a year traveling the world because, really, it’s a great conversation starter. For three months of his journey, he decides to go to war-torn Nepal to work for an orphanage known as the Little Princes Children’s Home, which he hopes will make him sound better to the ladies he will chat up in bars when he returns home after his trip.
He expects a short immersion into the Nepali culture and something interesting to add to his resume, but what he gets is an experience that transforms his life. Each of the children at Little Princes has their own unique, lovable personality, and their brutal experiences of being sent away from their families and begging on the streets captivates Conor. His three month long immersion turns into a life-long dedication to reunite these children with their families.
Facing danger, opposition, and extreme financial, cultural, and logistical challenges, Conor beats the odds to start his own non-profit and bring some of the Little Princes home.
This was a really amazing book, and I felt unbelievably inspired. Conor’s outlook at the start of the text is that of your typical American post-grad just looking for an interesting story to tell his friends. However, the children Conor met in Nepal melted his heart as well as mine, and from his daring treks in the Nepali mountains to meeting the love of his life through his nonprofit work, I was captivated by his story.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed Half the Sky, Stones into Schools, and Three Cups of Tea. I didn’t think this book would suck me in as much as it did, but I found it hard to put down and finished it in under a day, which is a pretty good testament to how well it was written....more
Three women who have sort of failed at life show back up on their parents’ doorstep after finding out their mother has cancer. Eldest sister, Roselyn,Three women who have sort of failed at life show back up on their parents’ doorstep after finding out their mother has cancer. Eldest sister, Roselyn, is a control freak who uses her mother’s illness as an excuse to stay in her hometown while her fiance teaches in Oxford for a year. Middle sister, Bianca, ditched her small town to live the big city life in New York, embezzled lots of money from her company for designer clothing, skipped out on rent, and charged up her credit cards. Her return to home is a result of being broke with the threat of legal action hanging over her. Cordelia, the youngest, is a wanderer who spent several years after dropping out of school hitchhiking across the country and is now home because she’s pregnant with a child whose father she’s not really sure about.
If those names rang a bell to you, it might be because they’re all based on Shakespearean characters, as their father is a Shakespeare professor at the small college in their hometown. The kids, growing up with Shakespeare in their blood, quote the Bard regularly throughout the book, and the father speaks almost exclusively in prose. This is kind of the one thing that makes the family unique: all they seem to care about is Shakespeare and themselves.
I hated this book. Diana hated it before me, but by the time I found out her opinion on the book, I’d already bought it, and that cover is just too darn pretty to resist. The first few chapters are interesting enough, but then things just get painful. The characters are undeniably flat and seem to be cast from cookie cutter shapes of how sibling rivalries are supposed to play out. Oldest sister - control freak - shocker! Middle sister - desperate for attention - how novel! Youngest sister - the baby of the family who gets away with everything - you don’t say! Their personalities aren’t endearing at all, either. They’re undeniably stupid, despite all their Shakespeare-quoting, and it’s hard to sit down and read them whining over the mistakes they made over and over again.
The plot was boring and kind of propelled by Cordelia’s pregnancy, which was a rather uninspired way to move things along. The author tries to make up for the crappy plot by long, flowery descriptions, which to me, mean very little when nothing is really happening. The voice that this is written in, too, is weird - first person plural. As in “our mother has cancer,” “we love to read,” etc, etc. Speaking of the sisters’ love of reading, that’s what the author tries to use to make the sisters unique. I’m sorry - tons of people love reading, and with a host of mean, slutty, and selfish characteristics, you can’t make your characters more likeable by giving them one good one that people can relate to. Also, like Diana said, they never really mention the titles of the books they’re reading. Just “she picked up a book,” “she brought along a book,” “she was reading a book” - overwhelmingly lame.
This book got some positive reviews on Goodreads, which boggles my mind entirely. I mean, if you enjoy flowery descriptions with a boring plot or are really really really into Shakespeare, maybe you might find some redeeming qualities in it, but for me, I only finished this book so I could write a long review bitching about it for all you lovely followers. <3...more
Izzy Spellman is a woman who followed in her parents’ footsteps to join the family business: private investigations. With a mother who tails her and pIzzy Spellman is a woman who followed in her parents’ footsteps to join the family business: private investigations. With a mother who tails her and performs background checks on her boyfriends to a father who bugs her room, Izzy does not grow up in the most conventional of households, and by the time she’s reached 28 years old, she’s just about had it with her chosen career path. When she tries to quit, though, and her parents give her one last job to complete before she can get out of the biz, Izzy finds herself sucked into a strange mystery where things just don’t add up. Will she be able to solve the case and keep her sanity? Or will this last job have her questioning her decision to leave after all?
The characters in this book are fantastically engaging, from a 14 year old sister with a sugar addiction who likes to loiter around the local bar drinking gingerale on the rocks to an Uncle Ray who’s become infamous for his “lost weekends,” the characters really kept me reading… which was a good thing, as the first half of this book really had no plot. My attention began to wander just as the mystery was introduced, and then I couldn’t stop reading it again. The ending was a bit lackluster, but I enjoyed reading about the family so much that I’m definitely looking forward to reading the next book in the series. I’m giving Lisa Lutz the benefit of the doubt and assuming the slow start of The Spellman Files was just to give all the background information about the family dynamics that will be pretty much skipped over in the subsequent books as the plot takes off. At least, that’s what I’ll be telling myself as I pick up The Curse of the Spellmans.
Altogether, though, this had a lot of the elements of a great story: fantastic characters that lept off the page, an interesting mystery, a unique plot… Even though the beginning and ending were a bit uninspired, the meat of the book was enough for me to recommend it to quirky readers looking for an engaging read. ...more
This non-fiction book details the experiences of Lindsay Moran, a former CIA agent who spent her childhood dreaming of being a spy and finally got to This non-fiction book details the experiences of Lindsay Moran, a former CIA agent who spent her childhood dreaming of being a spy and finally got to see her dreams fulfilled when she was hired shortly after graduating college. However, after a grueling training and the crippling toll the Agency put on her personal life, Moran learns that sometimes achieving your childhood dreams isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, and the sexed-up portrayal of spies in popular culture is a far cry from reality.
While this book was pretty interesting, Moran herself was really aggravating. From her openness about her recreational drug use and her intimate relationships with several Bulgarian men during the aftermath of the Cold War, it’s hard to see why the CIA would have thought she’d make a good candidate to begin with. As someone who has been applying for jobs in the public sector myself (not for jobs at the Agency, mind you), it was really annoying reading that the Agency went very far out of their way to get her to join them. In this economy, after two years of applying – along with tens and thousands of others – for just a couple of low-level openings in the US government that were quickly filled by transitioning military members, to read that at one point in time, these recruiters were bending over backward for fresh young blood in their organizations is really disheartening.
Moran, despite her years of idolizing spies as a child, had a definite change of heart when she got older. She applied – and was invited to join – the Agency a few times before she finally did, deciding at one point to cancel her application altogether to climb mountains in Bulgaria for a year. When she finally did join, Moran had serious misgivings about the Agency culture and mission. Her book is basically one giant bitch-fest complaining about how awful the Agency is. And honestly, I get it. The experiences she shares are definitely enough to make anyone hate their job, but it made me wonder, “Why stick around?” Especially for a job of this nature, it would personally make me, as an American, feel much safer not having someone of Moran’s questionable ethics tasked with gathering and keeping our intelligence reports.
Overall, though, this book was kind of depressing. We Americans like to think our government knows just about everything, and we like to think that’s what’s going to protect us from unknown threats. Moran insists that the American government is spending millions of dollars on wining and dining useless “contacts” who are simply taking advantage of our desperation for information, our American intelligence had no idea that 9/11 was going to happen, top officials are more interested in carrying own extramarital affairs than the daily operations of the Agency, and basically the whole CIA is a useless waste of government resources. After the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Moran felt “useless and desperate,” which is kind of what I fear most people will feel after reading this book.
It might be a useful read for those interested in pursuing a career in the Agency, as it gives a lot of details about recruitment, hiring, and training, but for me, it left a lot to be desired. The next time I’m looking for a book on espionage, I’ll be picking up Argo...more
June Parker is in a serious state of depression after killing a woman (on accident; this is not a feel-good book about cold-blooded murderers). StumblJune Parker is in a serious state of depression after killing a woman (on accident; this is not a feel-good book about cold-blooded murderers). Stumbling upon her victim’s list entitled “20 Things to Do By My 25th Birthday,” June is compelled by guilt to complete the list before the late Marissa’s 25th, and over the course of the year, June finds friends, happiness, love, success, and herself.
So I have to take a second to call out a recent blog crush of mine, Caity, who has two awesome Tumblr blogs and a Blogspot one (as well as some super cool Vlogs) where she discusses her progress on her own 25 project. Partly inspired by Caity’s project and partly influenced by a great Audible reviewer, I decided to try this book.
While I LOVED the premise of this book, I have to say it was rather poorly written. The protagonist becomes really spineless in the face of adversity, the supporting characters are flat, and the plot itself is just… awkward. Like, chick lit. I get it. Things are pretty predictable, and a lot of people hate that (personally, I find it rather comforting, but that’s just me). Smolinski seems to have anticipated the reader’s train of thought, however, and at the very last minute, she throws a wrench in the anticipated storyline. I appreciate a good plot twist, but Smolinski’s make no sense. After reading an entire book where a character is working towards one goal, you expect that character to achieve it, not suddenly decide, “Just kidding, this was stupid, I’m going in a completely different direction.” In all honesty, it made me feel a bit cheated.
The book was light-hearted and fun (save for the times when the protagonist is being an idiot and you just want to throw it across the room), and despite its shortcomings, it’s a pretty easy summer read that would probably be best enjoyed on the beach. I enjoyed my time reading it, but the ending was still really lame. ...more
Quinn Cummings is a former child star living a quiet life in Los Angeles. Mother to a pre-teen daughter, lover of pets, and witness to the crazy lifesQuinn Cummings is a former child star living a quiet life in Los Angeles. Mother to a pre-teen daughter, lover of pets, and witness to the crazy lifestyles of La La Land, Quinn shares humorous stories about her experience as a former child actor, her family life, and the unexpected surprises her pets bring her.
If you could tell from my lackluster description of the book above, I wasn’t very jazzed about this memoir. I read a lot of books like this, and to be honest, they all sort of blend together. Quinn Cummings, like Laurie Notario, Jen Lancaster, and Celia Rivenbark, has a pretty much run-of-the-mill sense of humor, but Quinn Cummings was a bit less humorous than the rest. She talked a lot about Los Angeles, but I feel like Ali Wentworth’s book, Ali in Wonderland, offered a much more interesting take on LA life. She’s married with a run-down house and a kid with no boundaries who she writes about a lot, and I’m a 22 year old singleton moving into my first all-on-my-own apartment in a couple of days. While I found myself chuckling at times, I found a lot of her stories hard to relate to and for that reason, they didn’t really make me laugh too much.
Maybe if you have children in that pre-teen age group, you’d find this book more interesting, but to me, it was a rather forgettable read. Apparently she’s just released a new book, The Year of Living Dangerously: Adventures in Homeschooling which appears to focus entirely on her daughter and the lengths Quinn goes to for her education (which actually makes me feel really bad for her poor kid), which might be a better choice for mothers looking for a book to read about another woman’s problems raising a teenage girl....more
Cassie Shaw is a woman in her 30’s who feels like she’s missed out on life. A car accident a few years ago claimed her no-good husband, and now that sCassie Shaw is a woman in her 30’s who feels like she’s missed out on life. A car accident a few years ago claimed her no-good husband, and now that she’s living with her mom and unemployed again, she’s looking for a new lease on life. With no degree, no serious job history, and nothing really going for her, Cassie decides to lie on her resume about her educational background and lands a job as an administrative assistant at the local university, helping out in the psych department. Making friends with the professors and sparking a few romances, Cassie starts to change from a meek woman with questions about her intelligence to someone sophisticated and smart who can hold her own in an intellectual discussion. Will a slip of the tongue bring her new life to a screeching halt or will she be able to convince her new friends that a college degree isn’t everything?
To be completely honest, I hated this book. Cassie is obsessed with birds and nature, and while her descriptions of wildlife may interest some readers, they really turned me off. The plot was predictable, the characters were flat, and I felt as though too many bad things happened to Cassie throughout the book to be redeemed by the happy ending (and I don’t feel like that’s a spoiler - does chick lit ever have a sad ending?).
The transformation Cassie goes through, from becoming a woman who barely scraped by with her GED, married a tow truck driver, and was never able to grow out of her awkward, mousy appearance to college sophisticate attending art galas and the symphony was really hard for me to believe.
This was just a cheesy, lackluster attempt at the genre I love. If you’re a nature lover, you might find some enjoyment out of it, but for all others, I’d recommend you pass this book by. ...more
Augusten is a young boy whose parents are often violently fighting over things he cannot understand. His mother, an unhinged poet, begins seeing an eqAugusten is a young boy whose parents are often violently fighting over things he cannot understand. His mother, an unhinged poet, begins seeing an equally crazy psychiatrist daily, and soon Augusten finds himself living with other riff-raff kids in the psychiatrist’s run-down house. With a new mother who eats dog food and a new father who has a secret room at the back of his psychiatry office called the “Masturbatorium," Augusten finds the world around him too colorful to miss out on by going to school, and instead, he drops out and falls prey to a pedophile who strangely helps Augusten come into his own as a gay man.
Altogether, this book is intense, and the fact that it’s true makes it even more crazy. Throughout most of the book, I was disgusted by the things Augusten went through. From the fights his parents subjected him to to the odd sexual scenes he walked in on to the cockroaches that lived alongside him in the doctor’s home, it was just a gross book.
To someone interested in psychology and a stronger stomach, though, this story might be considered interesting. It kept my interest enough to finish the book, after all, and Burroughs is a talented writer. That being said, if I was in the mood to read about a dysfunctional family, I would have gone back to my old favorite, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. ...more
After the death of her beloved grandmother, Cassandra is grieving. With a wandering, irresponsible mother, Cassandra was raised mainly by Nell, a womaAfter the death of her beloved grandmother, Cassandra is grieving. With a wandering, irresponsible mother, Cassandra was raised mainly by Nell, a woman whose love for her granddaughter was only rivaled by her life-long love of antiques. When the family solicitor arrives to tell Cassandra she has inherited not only Nell’s house in Australia but a cottage in England, as well, Cassandra’s interest is piqued, and so begins Cassandra’s journey to find her roots, just as her grandmother did thirty years before.
As it turns out, Nell’s origins are nothing like she imagined, and as the two women venture across the oceans to England, thirty years apart, they uncover the great mystery surrounding an entitled family with terrible secrets.
This was my second audiobook by Kate Morton, and I have to say this one sucked me in a lot more quickly than The House at Riverton did. Kate Morton is fantastic with descriptions, and I felt like I could have been right there with the women as they explored the English shores. Unlike The House at Riverton, this book switched perspectives between the characters, and I found them very easy to understand. At times it felt like some characters were too generic, but as the book had a lot of fairy tale elements, and it actually worked for the story.
As someone who loves a good mystery, Kate Norton’s books seem to be a bit… slow for me. While reading her books, she gradually gives little clues that make the reader guess the mystery long before the climax of the book, which usually comes quite late in the game. Unlike in The House at Riverton, though, I felt this tendency was a lot less annoying in The Forgotten Garden.
I have to say, these audiobooks are entertaining. All Kate Morton’s audiobooks are narrated by Caroline Lee, who does a pretty fantastic job with voices and accents. Some other reviewers have stated they thought the book was boring, but this was entirely not the case for me. I listened to this book from start to finish, and perhaps I can attribute my My friend Randa and I both listen to audiobooks on our drives, and we both feel a bit gypped when we use an Audible credit on something less than 10 hours long, and thankfully, at over 20 hours, these books take awhile to get through and really give you a bang for your buck.
While I felt entertained, sucked in, and intrigued by the story, I have to say, the end result sat pretty heavy on my heart. This is not a feel-good book, but it’s also not a tear-jerker. The story just kind of left me with a bitter taste in my mouth, and so, once again, I’m left with mixed feelings about Kate Morton’s work. I enjoyed myself, but now that it’s over, I’m kind of afraid to recommend it.
Sorry this is such a disjointed review, but in short, I enjoyed reading the book, but I was left feeling disappointed at the end. ...more
As a young girl, Miranda Cheever is insulted at her best friend Olivia’s birthday party by a vicious girl who calls her ugly and poor. Olivia sticks uAs a young girl, Miranda Cheever is insulted at her best friend Olivia’s birthday party by a vicious girl who calls her ugly and poor. Olivia sticks up for her friend, but it isn’t until Olivia’s dreamy older brother, Turner, tells Miranda that one day she’ll grow into her looks and be a truly remarkable woman that Miranda feels better about herself. Though Turner is nine years Miranda’s senior, these kind words are enough to make her fall helplessly in love with him. A decade later, Turner is burying his vicious, cheating wife after a not-so-unfortunate accident. A widower before the age of 30 and jaded from years of abuse by his hateful wife, he vows to never marry again. Miranda, meanwhile, has blossomed into a Lizzie Bennet-esque heroine with wit, intelligence, and a plain sort of beauty that cannot compare to Olivia’s but isn’t anything to scoff at. It’s the girls’ first (and likely only) season in London, and while Olivia is surrounded by gaggles of smitten men, Miranda can’t help but swoon over her best friend’s older brother as her best friend gets all the attention.
Turner and Miranda are often in each other’s company and get along swimmingly, in a teasing, flirty way. With quick tempers and mood swings, though, it’s hard to tell if they’ll ever be able to open up to each other at the same time. Will Turner be able to put aside his bad feelings about marriage left over from his late wife and be the hero Miranda has always thought he was? Or will Miranda be able to put her girlish fantasies behind her and attract a decent member of the ton?
I always feel odd when rating guilty pleasures. Are they comparable to the great works of literature? No, and for that reason, I often feel like I can’t give them a 5-star rating. This book was thoroughly entertaining and absorbing, and at a time when I seem to be reading 4 books at once, I actually sat down to finish this in one sitting.
In terms of chick lit and comfort reading, this book was a definite 5/5. The blurb on the back of its cover reads: “Jane Austen meets Bridget Jones in Julia Quinn’s delightful Regency-set romantic comedies." I would agree with this statement, recommend it for anyone who enjoys a good Regency novel with humor, wit, and passion, and I look forward to picking up another of Quinn’s books in the future....more
The authors of this book, Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, run an advertising company that has proven that nice guys don’t finish last. Sharing thThe authors of this book, Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, run an advertising company that has proven that nice guys don’t finish last. Sharing the business practices they have adopted over the years, The Power of Nice is a book that insists that playing nice can get you to the top of the industry.
This was a super short book that shared some pretty basic principles: If you’re nice to everyone, eventually this niceness will pay off and great opportunities will become available to you. Listen before speaking. Empathy is the key to success. Say yes to every opportunity. With plenty of real-life examples of when kindness has paid off for people, little exercises at the end of each chapter to help you become a better person, and a wealth of good advice, the book contains a lot of information for its 144 pages, but unfortunately, it felt like all the information it provided was rather common knowledge.
The Power of Nice felt more like an ad for the company - “Apply for a job with us! We get along well! Hire us! We’re nice to people!" The book also felt weirdly obsessed with Jay Leno. He wrote the intro, he was used as an example in almost every chapter of the book, and his name is in big black letters on the front.
A lot of advice in this book seemed to mirror that in Lean In, but Lean In is a far superior book. Altogether, I wouldn’t really recommend this to much of anyone, but if you choose to read it, try a free copy from the library first! ...more
This is by far the best book I’ve read so far this year.
As a woman, I do sometimes feel like the fight for equality has been achieved. Feminism has dThis is by far the best book I’ve read so far this year.
As a woman, I do sometimes feel like the fight for equality has been achieved. Feminism has done its job - we have the right to vote, we now outnumber men when it comes to college attendance, and we have role models like Beyonce and Lady Gaga telling us that we can do anything.
But as Lean In tells us, the fight is far from over. Women are still underpaid and underrepresented in high-level positions and government, working mothers are still stereotyped as being frazzled, Type-A bitches, and women are still criticized for being “unlikeable" in the workplace simply because of their gender.
This book was a wake-up call to me, as a young woman finding my way in the business world. So many facts and figures really resonated with me, and I couldn’t help but share a few with my followers with hopes you’d be as inspired as I was: Unlike men, woman as a whole are unlikely to speak up and brag about their accomplishments, choosing instead to deflect praise and belittle their own contributions, sabotaging their own careers. When identical resumes are given to test subjects, one with a woman’s name at the top and one with a man’s, studies show that men are more likely to be chosen, with women coming across as someone that would be difficult to work with - just because they are women. Most women think about the problems having children will create for their career years before actually having them - and quite unnecessarily. When a big promotion comes up, many women say to themselves, “Will I be able to handle this when I have a baby?" and decline these promotions years before they even decide to start trying. Sheryl is an advocate for the power of the working mother and a true testament of how the ideal work-life balance can be. When childcare costs equal the amount a woman is bringing home with her weekly paycheck, most women decide to leave their career and stay home, thinking it’s not worth the time and effort of dragging themselves into work each day when the money is just going out the door to a babysitter. What many women fail to realize is that - just like a college degree, certification courses, etc - this is an investment in their future career. Instead of comparing childcare costs with their current salaries, women should compare it to their future salaries to get an accurate picture of how much childcare really costs in the grand scheme of things. Sheryl Sandberg shares advice from her careers at Google, Starbucks, and Facebook, describes the trade-offs many women make between motherhood and a career, and revitalizes the feminist movement for a new generation. She is intelligent, relatable, and such an inspiration.
Far from sounding preach-y and demanding that all women rise to the top of the food chain in their industries, Sandberg tells women its okay to be stay-at-home moms. It’s okay to be a teacher, it’s okay to be a volunteer - as long as it’s a choice you make and not one you’re forced to make by society or a husband who doesn’t want to split childcare duties. Working women shouldn’t criticize full-time mothers and vice versa. As long as we’re all given an equal opportunity to choose what we want to do with our lives, feminism is working.
I have already recommended this book to all of my friends, and I’d recommend it for any woman in the working world or even at home. Though the advice is more suited for women seeking careers outside the home, its support of homemakers is encouraging, as well. ...more
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