The Paris Wife

The Paris Wife, Paula McLain

I wrote a research paper on Ernest Hemingway sometime in high school.  I had just read the Sun Also Rises and he was one of the people on a list we could choose from and he was a great American writer and that appealed to me.

After I wrote my research paper, I never really liked him all that much.

The Paris Wife is a work of fiction focusing on Hem's early life in Chicago and Paris, with his first wife, Hadley Richardson.  The story is told from Hadley's point of view.  She was a good strong, midwesterner, and she was a level, even soul for the tumultuous, manic depressive Hemingway (manic depressive is my diagnosis).  He clung to her after, because she made him feel better and safer after his war years, and his jilting by Agnes, the nurse who healed him.

I mean seriously you could look at all his issues and just talk about how he was looking for a mother figure, and what that means about his mom, but this story is about Hadley.

Anyway.  So Hadley and Hem take off for Paris on next to nothing, live on next to nothing, and he's a reporter working on writing and they meet all sorts of fabulous people in Paris (Gertrude Stein, Scott Fitzgerald) and it's all fun and games and then Hadley gets pregnant on accident.

Things start falling off (at least in the books interpretation) right about then.  Hem was not ready to be a dad and Hadley just weeks before the baby announcement had lost his entire lifes work on a train.  These two events were near each other, and in the book Hemingway blames his loss of trust in Hadley on the loss of the work ... but I'm thinking the baby cramping his style didn't help much either.

Everyone knows Hemingway's story is not a happy one, so this book is not very cheerful.  There are pockets of happiness but after Bumby is born it's all down hill.  He had multiple wives (5) so their marriage was going to end, and it did, with Hemingway's affair with Pauline.  I don't believe that Pauline was his first affair (she certainly wasn't his last) but that's sort of what the book eludes to, at least from Hadley's perspective.

This was difficult to get through because the beginning is so very dry and not much happens as Hem is looking for friends to help him get noticed in the literary community, and as he tries to write his great novel.  After the baby is born it got more interesting for me, and I was able to finish quickly.

Hemingway is one of my favorite writers (probably because I know more about him than the others) but I say that with a caveat; he really was a terrible human being.  This book, though a work of fiction, didn't do anything to change that impression.  Worth reading.

Spells

Spells, Aprilynne Pike

The sequal to Wings starts 6 months after we left Laurel and David and Tam.  Laurel has been summoned to Avalon for faerie training for the summer, and she goes.  She sees Tam a lot during this time, and David not at all.

Insert appropriate love triangle conversations / events here.

After her summer in Avalon, Laurel goes home and starts her normal school year with David.  She has been given new warnings about staying away from trolls, who are out for revenge after they were out manuevered for the property in the last book.  She ignores this, of course, gets in trouble, has to be saved, and then gets in trouble again, and is saved again.

All leaving room for the final installment that's due out in the fall.

This was as good as Wings.  The relationships are better than in some other YA.  But again, I grow tired of love triangles and young girl characters that everyone just seems to fall all over because they are oh so beautiful.  The foundation, I think, has been laid for Laurel to end up with Tam and David to end up with their friend who's name escapes me.  But, who knows.

If the third one is at the library I'll read it.  There is more sexuality in this book.  So not for tweens, in my mind.

The Scent of Rain and Lightning

The Scent of Rain and Lightning, by Nancy Pickard

Jody Linder is famous in small town Rose, KS because when she was three years old, during a bad Kansas storm, her father was murdered, and her mother mysteriously disappeared.  But then 23 years after the incident, the main arrested and sent to prison is released, raising a whole bunch of new questions about what really happened that night.

There was a lot I liked about this.  Thunderstorms in Kansas kind of have their own special magic.  Maybe it's that way in all of the Midwest?  I don't know.  I am familiar with Kansas storms, so I liked that part of this book.

The ranch parts were interesting, which I know a little bit about (very, very little) just because of a friend of mine who's father does that sort of thing.

The original story was great.  After we got through the back story into the "present" it sort of got hard.  Jody was not likeable.  The entire Linder families single minded obsession with Billy being the murderer just made them all appear stupid and ... not racist (cause race isn't a factor) but elitest?  The author wanted us to think they were good people because "oh look they hired troubled youth out at their ranch but poor Billy couldn't be saved," but I just didn't buy it.  The author also took it a bit far.  Billy was such a bad seed he was almost a cartoon character.

It did not help that the reader knew Billy hadn't done it from very early on.

I think my public defender (in Kansas courts no less) friends should read this book.  They'd be appalled. Actually maybe they shouldn't read it, as it is sort of appalling how the rich family in the small town railroaded the poor, lower class guy with no family and he spent 23 years in jail because they were CERTAIN he was guilty.

The ending wasn't satisfactory.  I wanted some sort of vindication for Billy, but again, the cartoon character comes into play and he was just really guilty, just not of the particular crime he was accused of.

I gave this three stars on good reads, because it was interesting.  But not four because there were problems.

Fallen

Fallen, by Lauren Kate

Lucinda Price is sent to a reformatory school after a suspicious fire kills a boy in her class.  Here she meets a bunch of crazy people, including two boys, Cam and Daniel.  Cam is instantly nice to her and Daniel is a jerk.  Of course she likes Daniel best.

But the school kids are all dysfunctional and have wierd secrets.  And Luce has dreams about wings and flying and bright lights and sees scary shadows during the day, coming to get her.  Come to find out the secrets involve fallen angels, a 100 years battle between good and evil, and an old rule that angels can't fall in love with humans; ever.  Lest the powers that be get mad and the human dies.

So, as with all things YA lately, this is a triology (mayhap a series?  I think there are four?).  And that always makes the first book feel like a preface chapter, versuses a stand alone book.  Word to publishers: please quit taking books that only need one and turning them into three.  You artificially lengthen them and we, the readers, know it.

That being said, Fallen was good.  Not Harry Potter good, or even Twilight good, but good.  I didn't care for the way the author spelled the peoples names (how would you pronounce Arriane? Or even Luce?  Is that Luc-y?  Or Luce as in Loose?).  But the plot was inventive.  The common criticism I've read is that nothing happens until the final two chapters.  Sort of true.  Nothing is resolved.  In fact, I have more questions at the end of the book than I did in the middle.  Is Cam a good guy?  Or a bad guy?

But, like I said, it's a triology.  Torment is already out, and Passion comes out in June.  If I can get them from the library (how I read Fallen) I'll continue.  If not ...

Matched

Matched, by Ally Condie

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.  - From GoodReads

This is probably the best book I've read in a while.  At least since November.  The society was fascinating but also, scarily realistic.  I could easily see how some of the things we're even doing today evolve into the programs talked about in this book.  (Which is of course, I think, how the author gets there herself).

Cassia was really likeable, and I grew with her.  From her blind acceptance of this is how things her, to the point in which she goes, "hey this isn't fair," to her desire to resist.  It all flowed beautifully.  The relationships were just very well written.

And best of those, the love story was believable and I saw it develop organically.  It made SENSE given the scenarios the teenagers were in.  That was so refreshing.  Most YA novels these days, girl sees guy and WHAM - instantly just loves him.

This book was not like that.

Also, I know the summary sort of eludes to a love triangle.  But it was not like that.  Cassia did not start out loving Ky, she knew she was Matched with Xander.  She wanted to start her life with Xander, she was excited about that.  But as her friendship with Ky grows, she starts to realize that Xander was never HER choice, someone had choosen him for her, from the very beginning.  She doesn't really have a "I love him, no I love him" dialogue (which I appreciated).  The only conflict (I thought) is between her desire to maintain the status quo, and find her independence.

My other favorite part ... that learning to write is the turning point.  Throughout history, it seems to me that writing, books, learning are the first things that people start to demand when they want to be free.  It was cool.  I don't even know how to explain what I'm thinking here.

This book makes me think about banning books and burning books.  Governments that control people are always burning books, keeping people ignorant.  You can not be free and keep people from books.  Any books.  I also found it intriguing that the Society picked 100 books, 100 poems, 100 paintings, 100 songs ... and that was all there was.  So sad.

As with all books these days, this is part of a trilogy (why make money on one when you can make money on three - rolls eyes).  The second one comes out in the Fall.  I don't know how I'm going to stand it.

Because I HAVE to find out what happens next.  Seriously.

The Matchmakers

The Matchmakers, Jennifer Colgan

This was free via Amazon for the Kindle, which is super fun.  It got good reviews so I said sure, why not.  Something to read while rocking Grady.

Our story is, Calliope is a Faerie who's been punished for ... something.  Anyway, her punishment is that she has to match three people in true love before the Oak Moon or she will lose love forever.  Freya, the Faerie Queen, tells her she has to have Nick (human) help her or he will lose love forever too.  Why, I never quite worked out.  But, there it is.

Parts of the writing were a bit rough and elementary.  And I'm noticing that these freebies or (independent works) are not as well edited as the glossier, main stream tomes.  Which is okay, I can move past most of them.  And this book by far was better edited than some I've skimmed through.

It was a sweet story and, aside from one scene, surprisingly chaste.  Which I appreciated.  You never know what you're going to get.  I'd look for other work by this lady.  At the moment she's not my favorite ... but the price is right and it was entertaining and it didn't hurt to get through it.

Shiver

Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater

the cold. 
Grace has spent years watching the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf—her wolf—watches back. He feels deeply familiar to her, but she doesn't know why. 

the heat. 
Sam has lived two lives. As a wolf, he keeps the silent company of the girl he loves. And then, for a short time each year, he is human, never daring to talk to Grace...until now. 

the shiver. 
For Grace and Sam, love has always been kept at a distance. But once it's spoken, it cannot be denied. Sam must fight to stay human—and Grace must fight to keep him—even if it means taking on the scars of the past, the fragility of the present, and the impossibility of the future  From Good Reads 

I don't remember how I found this book.  But I saw it and wanted to read it.  Of course, in a post-Twilight world there are lots of comparables.  But Maggie Stiefvater says she wrote this before Twilight was written (who knows) and I didn't see enough similarities to think anything.  Vampire and werewolf stories have been around for a really, really long time.  I think it's funny how Stephenie Meyer gets credit for the current craze of paranormal romances when Dracula was written in 1897 and Anne Rice has been making money off this stuff for decades too.

Anyway.

I listened to this book on audio.  It was read by two actors, which irritated the heck out of me.  The book is told from two perspectives, Grace and Sams, so I guess that's why they did that.  But oh my the reader for Sam ... his inflection was not good.  So that made it difficult for me to like him as a character.  Eventually I had to focus on the words and less on the person saying them.  And I was able to get passed it and enjoy the story.

To that end, I really like the middle and end sections, the beginning was wicked slow.  And it seemed like there were a ton of story lines introduced with very little explained.  I think that will be rectified some in the later books (it's a triology).

By the end of the book I really liked Grace and Sam.  But my favorite character would have to be Isabelle.  She's hillarious.  I'll probably read Linger.  When it's available at the library.

Fans of Twilight will really like this book, I think.  But I'd stay away from the audio version.  The readers' distract from the story.

Sundays at Tiffany's

Sundays at Tiffany's, James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet

Jane is the daughter of the beautiful and uber successful Vivianne Margeaux.  They live in New York City where Jane is neglected, but privileged.  She also has an imaginary friend named Michael, who helps her cope with her loneliness and insecurity.

But imaginary friends can only stay with children until their 9th birthday, and on Jane's 9th birthday Michael says goodbye, promising that she won't remember anything about him the next morning.

23 years later and Jane is working for her mother's production company, and producing a movie about her imaginary friend Michael; whom she never forgot.  Michael finds himself back in New York on sabbatical while he's between charges (kids) and runs into Jane.

This book was really sweet.  It was just a simple fairy tale.  There was an unnecessary love scene that kind of threw me, and the resolution with the mother fell flat to me.  But I liked the magic of it all, and there were some cute scenes.  I'm glad I read it at Christmas because I'm a little more accepting of saccharine sweet this time of year.

All in, I'm glad I read it.  Though, on a side note, what the heck is up with the cover art?  Makes no sense, dark haired woman hugging a kid?  Who looks like a little boy?  What?  The women in the story (Jane and her mother) are blond.

Also, this is a James Patterson and book.  Which, when I see those, I always think the second person wrote most of it, but put the bigger novelists name on it to sell more books.

The Almost Moon

The Almost Moon, by Alice Sebold

Helen Knightley has killed her mother, and she's not sure how she feels about it.  The next 300 pages attempt to tell us how abused(?) Helen is at the hands of her mother, Clair, who was agoraphobic, and how traumatized she is after her father killed himself.

Sebold is a traumatized person herself, clearly, because statments made throughout the book - all children want to kill their parents, all girls fantasize about cutting up their mothers, etc - just sort of point to someone who has a disconnect from reality.  All children do not want to kill their parents.  I would say for most, that thought never enters their mind.  In fact, I would probably say one of my worst fears as a child was that one or both of my parents would not come home.

Sebold wrote "The Lovely Bones" and I read that and it was good.  I can't say I enjoyed it because it's dark and twisted and parts of it are dumb.  But it was infinitely perferable to this.  Not a single character in this novel is worth knowing or reading about.  They are all bad people.

And I grew weary of the way Sebold writes things.  She writes sentences that probably make perfect sense to her, but absolutely none to anyone else.  Probably because none of us fantasize about killing our parents, it's like an inside joke for the sociopathic.

In short, this book was awful.  It was sad, it was wierd, it was dark, and it didn't even end, really.  I'm assuming Helen decided not to kill herself and to do her stint in jail.  And I never appareciate authors that use the F word so often.  It's brash and harsh and feels mean and jarring.  I don't like it.  I'm glad I got this from the library and didn't pay good money for it.

There was not one good take away from this book.  Other than it ended, under 300 pages, thankfully.

PS - it's called The Almost Moon because her father tells her once that even if you can almost all of the moon, the rest of it is still there.  So you have to deal with what you have, the almost part, and keep remembering that the whole moon is there.  This is in reference to his mentally ill wife.  They can see almost all of her, but they keep going because she's whole somewhere.

Happy Ever After

Happy Ever After by Nora Roberts

Fourth one in the series.  Parker's story.  Probably my least favorite of the bunch.  Got so tired of all the wedding details.  Redundant.  BORING.  And, the book is over, and we don't get to see them all married off?  I mean really what was the point?

I'm glad this series is over.  I'm wondering if she's going to continue to do series books in the publisher's edition size or if she'll go back to mass market paperback.  I'm a little irritated with how expensive these were.  Especially considering how forumulaic they are.

But, I mean, come on.  What was I expecting?

House Rules

House Rules, by Jodi Picoult

I read this for a book club that I was recently invited to join (yea!).  Otherwise, based on my review of My Sister's Keeper, I don't think I would have picked up another Picoult book.

Jacob Hunt has Asbergers, and acts out in ways that are different and hard to understand.  His mother has been a single parent since her second son, Theo, was just a few months old and her husband walked out on them.  Jacob loves the show Crimebusters (read: CSI) and forensics.  He sets up crime scenes for his mom to solve and religiously watches the show.

But Jacob's social skills therapists turns up missing, and is found dead.  And Jacob admits to moving her and setting up the crime scene.  He's charged with her murder and the book really is on how the justice system fails people that don't communicate the way "normal" people do, and how they can't really get a fair trial.

My issues:
1. This is so much like My Sisters Keeper it made my eyes hurt.  Jacob needs 100% of mom's attention, Theo the younger son acts out by breaking into houses and stealing things.  (MSK - Kate needs 100% of mom's attention, older brother acts out by setting fires around the city).  Even the writing was the same - different chapters from each persons perspective.

2.  The different perspectives - I don't need to see how EVERY conversation is viewed by EVERY character.  I mean the book could have been 300 pages shorter if she would have stopped doing that.

3.  I get that Jacob has to do the same things every day.  I get that he eats colored foods on certain days.  I get it.  I get that he got in trouble in school for hurting that one girl.  I get it.  Quit telling me.  Quit hitting me over the head with it.  This was just bad editing.

4. I don't think she understands Asberger's or Autism very well.  I know she researched it.  BUt like one reviewer said on Amazon, it's like she took EVERY symptom and put them in Jacob, which doesn't really make sense.  I have a relative that has Asberger's and he has some of the symptoms she describes, but if he had the others, well he'd have Autism and not Asbergers.  They are not the same.  They are actually on two different ends.  I just don't think there are people that have both.  But maybe I'm wrong.

5.  The ending.  Oh mylanta how ridiculous.  It just ends.  Done.  No resolution.  No answer to any question at all.  Not even one of the strings are tied up.  Does Emma have a relationship with Oliver?  Does Jacob's Dad remain in the picture?  DOES JACOB GET CONVICTED OF MURDER?  Does he go to jail?  Does Theo get in trouble for breaking into houses?  What happens?  Seriously.  Maybe don't tie it all up, but you can't write nearly 600 pages (I mean dude, that took me a long time to read, I have a small baby - finding time to read is hard) and then NOT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS.  I feel cheated.

6.  It was really hard for me to read this book.  I don't like anything that's about bad things happening to children.  I don't like thinking about Autism and the spectrum.  I kept looking at Grady ... and it just makes my heart constrict and breath stop.

7. And vaccines.  Experts and doctors can tell parents all day long that getting your children vaccinated is the best thing and that there is no link between vaccines and autism, and people don't listen.  Pop culture books like this one and the one written by Jenny McCarthy come out and people rave and want to stop getting their kids vaccinated.  I almost returned it when I got to the parts where she blamed Jacobs condition on his vaccinations.  She says it over and over again.  Even in my book club, where most of us have kids under a year old, there were moms that said they were scared of getting their kids vaccinated.  I had to shake my head and point out that illnesses that are perfectly preventable are coming back and KILLING kids because people aren't getting vaccinated.

I don't like putting chemicals in G's body either.  But if they keep him safe?  Babies that get the flu can die.  Babies are dying all over from Whooping Cough because parents aren't getting boosters.

Those were my issues.  I kept reading because I wanted to see the train wreck.  And there wasn't a crash.  We came slowly up to the top and then it never went down.  It's like the train is still stopped at the top of the hill.

Some in the book club think that we'll hear what happened to Jacob in another book.  But I don't think I'll be buying another Picoult book.

The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

It's been a year since we last left Kalle Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander after their investigation into the Vanger family and the Werrenstrom affair (The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo).  Lisbeth, nursing a wounded heart has fled the country and is running around the world.

Blomkvist is still helping manage Millenium, and has taken on a new book to publish and new expose that will reveal how bad the sex trafficking trade is in Sweden, and how much government officials are involved.

When the writer of the new book and his girlfriend are murdered, and Lisbeth's fingerprints are found on the gun, she is the immediate suspect due to her convoluted and disasterous past.  She has very few friends but Blomkvist believes her to be innocent.

Thus starts his research into who the real murder is, and his hunt for both Salander and the killer.

This book is much faster paced then the first one.  Mostly because all the characters involved in the Vanger family just confused me.  There were a lot of needless characters in this book too (lots of police offers and investigators that had no purpose) but the action moved things along.  Salander is nonexistent in part three of the book which is drives you on because you really want to know her side.  But she doesn't just come out and tell us, she never does.

I'm interested to see how the third book wraps this all up.  The sex trafficking has been a theme in both the first two and I suspect it will all be revealed in the final chapter.  At least, I hope so.  Lots of what's written in these books is based on real crime statistics for Sweden.  Who knew they had such a human trafficking problem?  Or a domestic abuse problem?

Will read the next one.  Too bad Larsson is dead.  His books have already been made into films in Sweden and Hollywood is making their own versions too.  I hope the members of his estate are putting the money to good use.

Savor the Moment

Savor the Moment, Nora Roberts

The third in the Brides Quartet series.  This is Laurel's story, the cake maker of the four, and it follows the method of all of Roberts books.  Couple banters, realizes they like each other, fall in love, have some sort of falling out, make amends, get married.  If there were later books, we'd see them all getting pregnant.

I will pick up the fourth one, because I'm addicted to series'.  And I like all the characters.

However.

The conflict in these is just so lame.  And frankly, I'm tired of hearing all about how great these women are at their jobs.  I'd like to see Laurel drop a cake, or Emma clip the bloom off a rose accidentally or Mac miss the groom kiss the bride or SOMETHING normal.  These women are all supposedly super perfect, never fight, even in high stress situations and they talk about each other funny.  I have friends, but I don't sit around with them talking about how much I love them.

Mac's mom as the only bad guy is just old.  I hope the 4th one gets away from that but I don't see that happening.

Still ... fans of Nora Roberts will pick it up and read it quickly because it's easy and fun.  The next one comes out in November and is Parker's story.  So far, Malcolm is the most intriguing of all the male leads.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon

The Girl Who Chased the Moon, by Sarah Addison Allen

17-year-old Emily comes to the small town her mother was raised in shortly after her mother's death.  She will be living with her grandfather in the room where her mother grew up, with wallpaper that changes with the inhabitants moods!  What she finds when she gets to the small town is that her mother wasn't the same person in her childhood as she was as her mother, and the townspeople don't have very fond memories of her.  She becomes friends with her neighbor Julia, and the teenage son of the family that her mother allegedly wronged.

I love Sarah Addison Allen's books.  They are so fun and whimsical.  If you read Garden Spells or the Sugar Queen, you have to read this.  It's really excellent, light summer fare with a little fairy tale touch.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Steig Larson

From Good Reads:
An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.



Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pieced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.

I read this book on my kindle.  It was not until I was about 50% in that I got really into it.  There was just so much back story.  So much build up.  So much character explanation (I still don't have all the Vanger family members straight).  Lisbeth Salander is fascinating and my favorite character.  I pretty much knew who-dun-it (or had a good suspicion) by about 50% in.  There were loops that were thrown and clues that were followed and I flew through the last few chapters.

The side story of Blomkvist's libel case and his magazine made for long chapters at the end.  I did not agree with Salander's method of justice, but for her character I do believe it fit and I think more details and more information are going to be introduced in the second and third books.  I wish there had been some closure for the families involved, it's alluded that there is, but I wanted to read it and see it.

I am very interested in the second novel, with the way the first one ended.  Lisbeth's story is very good.  This started off slow but was very, very good at the end.  Dark, twisted and a little scary at times, but very good.

Shadowland

Shadowland, by Alyson Noel

This is the third book in the Immortals series by Alyson Noel, the first being Evermore, the second Blue Moon.  We last left our heroine, Ever, wondering how she was going to explain to her Immortal boyfriend Damen, how she had changed the course of their relationship forever when she tried to save him.

Within the first few pages she confesses, and they determine that they will try and find the solution, the antidote, that fixes their problem and they can be together after 300 plus years.

This book bothered me.  Please read no further if you are fearful of spoilers.  Light spoilers coming next ...

The entire book is Ever trying to find a way to ... consumate her relationship with Damen.  Ever is 16.  This book is for YA.  I felt like Noel was trying to justify the lust by saying, oh they've been together for 300 years, they are destined, so yeah they should be together intimately.  And Ever goes on and on about how she missed a physical relationship with Damen, and it just felt ... wrong.

The added twist of Jude, the surfer dude who makes her uncomfortable who's apparently an old interest from a former life, just felt hollow.  Contrived?  And Damen disappearing for the last 12 chapters irritated me.  In fact, the book felt oddly written.  Maybe it was me.  But it took me a long time to get through and usually I fly through these YAs.

I'll read the next one, it's a series and I'm a sucker to see how this ends.  But definitely this is my least favorite so far.  It was confusing, convoluted, contrived and a whole bunch of other C words I'm sure that I just can't think of at the moment.

And please, editors, somewhere, teach Ms. Noel how to close up a book?  Even a series that already has 3 more books planned should have more of an ending than these do.  It's like they just pick a chapter to end at and hit done.  It's making me less of a fan.  What the heck happened to Haven?  Where did Damen come from?  Did I miss something?  Did my Kindle mess something up?

Because right now I'm thinking the editors are just letting Miss Noel get away with murder with these endings.

Evermore's the best one.  So far the sequals are just Eh.

The Lady Elizabeth

The Lady Elizabeth, By Alison Weir

Elizabeth's mother, Ann Boleyn has just been executed.  Mary, her half sister, has come to visit to tell the toddler the news.  At 3 years old, Elizabeth is surprisingly (and somewhat unbelievable) aware of what's going on, and understands what she's being told.  And thus opens the story of Elizabeth's childhood.

We go from the time that Ann dies to Mary's death and Elizabeth's famous quote, "This is the Lord's doing, it is marvelous in our eyes" when she is proclaimed Queen of England.

There is so much information out there about this woman, that I find all the different opinions of her muddle in my brain and I get confused about what is fact and what is fiction.  Weir, quite obviously, is a fan of Elizabeth.  And does not portray her to have many, if any, flaws at all.

Which is ridiculous.

Elizabeth got in so much trouble throughout her youth I find it hard to believe that she wasn't actively guilty in some of it.  The affair with Thomas Seymour, the Dowager Queen Catherine's husband, is shown as to be entirely his fault and she the innocent victim.  Save for the fact that the author admits Elizabeth was more than likely infatuated with him.

At 13, of marriageable age by the times standards, Elizabeth would have, and should have, known better.  Was Thomas Seymour scheming to have more influence in the realm?  Sure.  Definitely.  He was  clearly at fault.  But Elizabeth was not blameless, and her later fame for flirtation would indicate that she was partly culpable, and deserved the stricture that she was given when the affair came to light.

The next ... all the protestant plots to put her on the throne during her sister's reign.  Weir writes that Elizabeth had nothing to do with any of them, and was just the rallying point for the rebels and she had no part in planning.  I. Don't. Know.  I just don't believe it.  Even in the novel she is actively planning her government should Mary die (when Mary died, for they start talking of it as a foregone conclusion).

So here's my big problem with the book ... the author wrote Elizabeth sort of as a hypocrit.  Which I have no doubt that she was.  She attended Mass to keep her sister appeased even though she pretty openly reviled the Catholic faith.  She feigned illness when called to court to keep from being punished, and she openly manipulated pretty much any man that came into her path.  Any person, for that matter.

But the part that bugs me, is that Elizabeth (in the novel) reads as a hypocrit but still believes herself to be  innocent of all wrong doing.  "I love the Queen!"  but "She is a dreadful Queen, I hope one day to be Queen!" but "I would never threaten the Queen's reign!" but "I love and cultivate the love of the people I  hope to one day rule!" but "I'm so shocked that they rally to me! I had no idea!"

What poppycock.

This was probably the other side of Philippa Gregory's version (Virgin Queen) which is sort of an ironic title since Gregory pretty openly thinks that Elizabeth was ... um ... loose with her morals.  Weir on the other hand believes Elizabeth to have been a true virgin, dispite the escapades with Thomas Seymour.  Wier thinks she's good and just, Gregory thinks she was petty and fickle.

The truth is probably somewhere closer to the middle.

The book, as fiction, was good up until the last 150 or so pages.  It has never taken me so long to finish a book.  It was as if all action ceased.  And primarily that's because - it did.  She was in the tower and under house arrest for the better part of Mary's reign, so there wasn't much of a story to tell except, "Woe is me, I love the Queen, but I hate the way she rules, and the people love me, but I did not act traiterously! No not me!  Never!  Hurry Cecil, devout protestant and known enemy of the throne, tell me what to do!"  Over and over and over again.

On the whole, glad I read it, enjoyed the different point of view up until Elizabeth was in her 20s.  Then, the virtuous act just got old.  I can love Elizabeth I and still believe that she was flawed.  And for all the animosity that Mary had toward Elizabeth, it stands to reason that Elizabeth harbored some herself.  But not Weir's Elizabeth.  But, to each his own.

If you like historical fiction on the Tudors, you should read this.  It's well done.  Despite my bickering with the author.

The Weight of Silence

The Weight of Silence, by Heather Gudenkauf

Calli Clark is 7 years old.  She has not spoken a word since she was four.  Petra Gregory is her best friend, who has taken to speaking for her, and protecting her.

Early one morning, Petra's parents wake up to discover her missing.  Looking for her at Calli's, they discover that Calli is missing too.

The novel is told from different narrators points of view.  And I can't really put my finger on it, but I think that it changes from 3rd person to 1st quite a bit?  A little bit distracting, mostly in Calli's chapters, but I think this was done because Calli doesn't talk?  I don't know.

Spoilers below ... minor ones.

The bulk of the story is the investigation, and looking into the parents.  Primarily Griff Clark, who has a history of alcholism and being a bully.  But even, albeit briefly, Calli's older brother Ben.  Antonia doesn't really come to the conclusion that her abusive husband is, in fact, abusive, until the very end of the novel.  Which was a little disheartening to me.  At the end she grieves over the choice she has made to stay with him through it all when looking at what it has done to her children.  This seemed dense to me.  Lady, he threw you down the stairs in front of your 4 year old daughter.  You just now put it together that that may have scarred your daughter (who doesn't talk, mind you - sheesh) for life?

There were other odds and ends about the Gregory's family, told from the Dad's point of view, but it didn't resonate and I skimmed a bunch.  Thought it was useful in moving the plot, looking back.

The story was fast paced and engaging.  I literally read the final 200 pages in one sitting.  Antonia and Louis were the most interesting characters, even though I think the author wanted me to think that Martin was really interesting, he wasn't.  He felt like a literary tool for moving action forward.

I was surprised by the ending, which is always fun because usually you can spot where they are taking you.  I recommend this for people that like mysteries, or small town stories.  The subject matter is disturbing, and honestly I don't usually read stuff that involves hurting children because I just can't stomach it.  There is enough hardship in the world I don't need to read about it in my recreation time. 

Kindle Books

Okay there is so much out there I want to read.  But between buying maternity clothes and planning for baby, I haven't bought a book in a while.  I'm struggling!  So much on this list I want to read ...

Books I want to buy on the Kindle:

Shiver, Maggie Stiefvater
Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
Wings, Aprilyne Pike
Shadowlands, Alyson Noel
The Queen's Mistake, Diane Haeger
The White Queen, Phillippa Gregory
Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffeneger
City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass (Mortal Instrument Series)
Sarah's Key, Tatiana de Rosney
Same kind of Different as Me, Ron Hall
Those who Save us, Jenna Blum
Knit Two, Kate Jacobs
Knit the Season, Kate Jacobs
Nanny Returns, Emma McLaughlin


To read before I start buying these:

Weight of Silence - reading now
The Lady Elizabeth, Alison Weir
A Great and Terrible Beauty

If I get through those three ... I'll be pleased.

The 19th Wife

The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff

Excerpt from GoodReads:

It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife.

Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death.

And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith.

I received this book through the giveaways section over at GoodReads. I had no idea what it was about and then one day my mom said she was reading it and I was surprised so I picked it up and plowed through it.

We start off in present day Utah, a member of the reculsive "Firsts" has been shot through the chest at close range with a shot gun. His 19th wife, has been charged with his murder. Jordan Scott reads this at the online paper (he is in California) and recognizes his mother as the woman charged. Jordan Scott was excommunicated from the compound when he was young (12? 13?) and has not seen either his mother or his father (the deceased) since.

He's compelled to help her, drives out to Utah to see what's what. Intertwined within that, is the store of Elilzabeth Webb and her daughter Ann Eliza Young, Brigham Young's 19th wife, taking place in the mid-1800s and into the 1809s, when the LDS church banned polygamy.

Parts of this back history were dry and meandering so I skimmed, but towards the middle and end it was very compelling. You could fill a lot of bathtubs with what I do not know about early Mormonism and it's early leaders, and this book did not paint them in a very favorable light. At one point I turned to my husband and said, "There's a major university in this country named after this guy?" But I imagine there is probably more to his story than this one books fictional account.

The present day story was full of bad language that just seemed gratutious. But I think what the author was trying to do, was show how the early adults entered into polygamy willingly, for their faith, and then how that decision shaped the children that were affected. Several times the main character says adults should do what they want but when children are involved they can't.

The resolution of the murder in the present day arc ended rather ubruptly, but it was kind of like, "oh I see," when it did. The clue that led the police to BeckyLynn was an online chat her husband was having, someone was knocking on the door and the other individual asked "who?" and he replied "#19". BeckyLynn was his 19th wife. The clues that led up to the ending were kind of pointless, and didn't really help tie anything up, as it all happens quickly when Jordan finally finds the one important piece of information.

It's galling to me that polygamy and child brides still exists today. It amazes me that still, to do this day, we have no idea how many "wives" Brigham Young or Joseph Smith had. And it amazes me further that these groups claim religious peity and that it has nothing to do with their baser urges, and yet they excommunicate the young boys from their compounds.

The clue that solves the murder for Jordan, it sort of helped me figure out how we have no idea how many wives these men had. Or other men like them for that matter. They don't count them all. They don't count the ones they are not currently "visiting." So if they no longer visit a wife, she is no longer counted as a wife. Though she has no recourse, can't marry anyone else, and is stuck trying to scrap by a living through whatever means necessary.

I enjoyed the book as it's subject matter fascinates me the same way train wrecks hold an audience. If you are at all into religious history I would recommend this to you.