I Do Love

these audible originals.  Second Skin was QUITE good!  It was sad and surprising and smart and keep me wanting to keep on listening.  It most certainly was an original as far as a story goes, too.  And I was surprised by the ending! 

Back in Seminary School....

I am so surprised by the number of times I get to write that!
Anyway, back then, in another life, I read Elaine Pagels.  So I was very interested when I saw that her new book was on hoopla and then I saw that she was on Fresh Air and I listened and then I listened to the book and it was excellent.  Why Religion?:  A Personal Story is, indeed, a personal one.  She writes about her husband, Heinz, who was killed in a hiking accident shortly after the death of there son. 
We have some similarities in our spiritual journy!  I mean, not exactly, her parents were scientists and she became famous and all, but we both were Evangelical Christians and were "born again" at a Billy Graham revival!  I went to the 1993 revival in Pittsburgh.  And although I had known Christ prior to my coming forward at this event, this was impactful for me.  This is a book that will evoke a lot of feelings, I believe.  For Christians who are more of the black and white kind, it will be disturbing, I think.  But for others and for even those who do not know Christ it is a must read.  It is also a must read for those who have suffered great loss.  Yes, for sure. 

To Pass the Time

Everything I Never Told you seemed like a lot of books I have read before, some of them even this year.  I didn't have anything to listen to and this was available and I didn't hate it.  I didn't even dislike it.  It was just there.  A solid 3 stars if you haven't read anything like it before, but a 2.5 if you have.  It was just a little too laid out for the reader.  Kinda like Mr. Obvious as to why the husband and wife acted as they did.  I mean, if I could get it, I bet everyone else did, but the author spelled it all out too much, the connections.  I don't think I am saying this right! 
It was kind of like this:
Husband wants daughter to be popular.  Says or does something to her to convey that.
Next scene in book is a flashback to when he was her age and was not popular.
Wife wants daughter to be a doctor.  Says or does something to her to convey that.
Next scene in book is a flashback to when her dreams of being a doctor were alive and then crushed.
It was just a little too...yeah, I guess spelled out?

Wondering how I missed this?

Except for the fact that I am the fool who didn't read Hatchet until I was 44.  Mockingbird was a wonderful book.  One of the best I have ever read.  Sadly timely, compassionate, lovely. 

Keep Wanting to Add an "is"

To Everything, Everything.  I keep thinking it's called Everything is Everything.  Nocola Yoon wrote one of my favorite books from last year, The Sun is Also a Star.  And I really enjoyed this one as well.  Everything, Everything became a movie!  I didn't see the end coming, I really didn't!  And I loved it!

Subjects Matter

I probably would have given Revival one star had I not enjoyed the subject matter.  Matters of faith always appeal to me.  But the ending was just so ridiculous and it was SO drawn out and typical wordy "I am too rich to need an editor" King that had it not handled the "terrible sermon" so very well, I would have given it one star.  Lots to think about and talk about here...if there was an abridged version. 

Well, well, well done

The Goldfish Boy was a fantastic book from start to finish.  It is a mystery but more than a mystery.  A heart-breaking, heart-squeezing excellent story of a middle school with ODC.  Just really, really, really excellent.

Have You Ever

This is a really, really good song...because I like it so much, I was thinking that is why I kept thinking that Have You Ever Had a Family was the name of the book Did You Ever Have a Family.  It is not.
My sweet friend, Julie, recommended this book to me, knowing that it wasn't too long, even though it is an adult book and I am usually very picky about my adult books.
It was something.  It was unlike anything I had read before, because I don't read much literary fiction.  Okay, I NEVER read literary fiction.  But I really did like this book.
It is sorrowful and hard and painful, but not like watching an accident, rubber-necking at the gore kind of thing.  It was...like an ache.   Yes, it made my heart ache to read it.  But it wasn't overwhelmingly horrible, even though the story of all of this loss is horrible.  It was just told so well and was so mournful.  Hard, but good.  Good.

See You...

In September of 2005 my best friend went home to be with the Lord after a long battle with cancer.  She was diagnosed with it fifteen years prior and given four months to live.
When my dear friend Nancy was transitioning from labor to Reward, I drove to Dallas to say goodbye for now.  It was hard, oh so hard, but Nancy had lived a long life and worked hard and played hard and was ready to meet her God.
Today I attended the funeral of a young girl who met her God much too soon.
Last year I wept and still weep for the loss of a girl who went from her mother's womb to Christ's arms and spread more joy in the nine months prior to her birth than I will if I live to be 100.  This was the hardest loss of all.
When I left Nancy in Dallas I said to her, "See you soon.," and she said, "Yes, I will see you." and we knew we wouldn't see each other in this life, but we knew we will see each other again.
See You at Harry's is about a tragic loss of life, told from the POV of a Fern, a middle school girl whose brother dies in an accident.  He is also the face and voice of his family's little local restaurant, Harry's and his tagline/catch phrase is "See you at Harry's."  Fern points out that now that he is gone, this is a lie.
A very, very, very well done book.  My dear friend Rebekah said that she felt that the author, Jo Knowles just BOOM, LANDED the girl's voice, the and she really, really did.

Tough Stuff

This School Library Journal article suggests that it has been a year of really tough books for middle grade readers.  They mention Nightingale's Nest as one such tough book.  I love the cover, it is beautiful, but as I was picking labels for this book I chose "Good for Dudes" and then I thought, there is no way a dude will read a book with this cover!  It's even worse than The Disenchantments!  No, actually, it is a tie.  I had just forgotten how girlie The Disenchantments' cover was!

Regardless, this is a beautiful book full of sorrow and pain and reality and magic.  Hard, hard book.  Any book in which the main character spends his young life feeling that he was responsible for the death of his sister is bound to be.  

Let me just be honest and say that while the reviewer in School Library Journal said that it took her thirty-nine pages to figure out that Nightingale's Nest is a middle-grade adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's The Nightingale, I never figured it out!  Actually, I have never read The Nightingale but I will now.  

Poignant, moving, all of those big, beautiful words, most of which I don't know.  Highly recommended.  If it isn't another 1954, this will get come Newbery love.  Still, my most favorite of the year so far is Brown Girl Dreaming.   

I'll Fly Away....

Another great song.  Bird was a pretty beautiful book.  I was listening to it at the same time that I was reading Nightingale's Nest though, and that was a pretty dumb thing to do for me.   Both books are beautiful and powerful and really should have been given their own time in my mind and imagination.  I gave four stars to Bird but now that I look back on it, I think I am going to change it.  There is a lot going on here.  Grief.  Culture.  Intergenerational stuff.  This was a heavy, beautiful book.  Yes, I am going to change it to five stars.
Jewel is of Mexican and Jamaican descent and that figures into the story.
One thing I just can't believe about Bird is that this is Crystal Chan's first book.  Unreal.  Now I know that she probably has been writing for a long time.  But man, a first time author putting out a beauty like this?  If 2015 isn't 1954, Bird will be named as an Honor for sure.  Oh, also, I have to say I loved, loved, loved, loved Jewel's dad and her grandfather.  Chan really knows how to paint a soul with words.  Excellent.

A Hard Summer

This One Summer is a graphic novel done by two cousins, Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki.  It is super well illustrated and super well written.  It's a coming-of-age story, maybe?  Rose and her mom and dad always go to the lake over the summer and usually it is a good old time.  Rose hangs with her friend Windy who is a little bit younger than she is.  Getting older is hard.  This book is so well done, you can feel the pain of innocence lost.  Good stuff.

So Many Songs

about trouble.  Here, here, here, and I am sure that there are more.   Those are all great songs, but non really compare to the greatness of the book Trouble by the incredible Gary D. Schmidt.
Incredible.  I know I seem to say that about a lot of books lately, but that's because I have just discovered some really incredible authors. These books are totally out of my usual go-to-i-like-this-kind-of-book box.  That's what reading and reading and reading did to me.  Before I started writing this blog, I never would have picked up a book like Here Lies the Librarian, Tiltawhirl John, Graceling, The Orange Houses and so many more.
In Trouble we meet the Smith family from Massachusetts, the very definition of WASPs.  But not in a stereotypical way.  Schmidt is an incredible author and I don't think he is capable of resorting to stereotyping in his writing.  I was sure that the family would be cold and heartless, but no, they really weren't.  They were real people.

I don't want to recap what happens, just read the goodreads summary, but right after that, read the book. Incredible.

Too Girly

Reconstructing Amelia was okay.  I am always hesitant to read an adult book by a woman author.  I know that is totally sexist, but as I have said before, so many adult women writers are way too whiney for me.  I also found the characters to be pretty unsympathetic.  Especially the mom, but not because of her mothering job, just because she was a whiney, whiney woman!  I also thought that she was a total jerk to Firth, big time!
There have been many comparisons between Reconstructing Amelia and Gone Girl.  I really disliked Gone Girl, big time, whereas, I didn't have as much of a distasteful hatred for this one.  Still, is it worth it?  It wasn't really worth my own time and I wish I hadn't spent my audible credit on it.