Following the lives of a whole cast of characters touched by a singular tragedy, this book is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. The night before/morning of Lolly Reid’s wedding the unthinkable happens, a gas leak causes an explosion killing the bride, groom, bride’s father, and the boyfriend of the bride’s mother. The only survivor in the family is June Reid, the mother of the bride. Who is to blame for this explosion is up for speculation, and everyone in the small town has their own theories, the favorite being June’s much younger boyfriend, Luke.
The “whodunnit” is almost a non-aspect of the story. Someone is to blame, but it doesn’t really matter, because everyone and no one is to blame.
This is a beautiful novel that explores the idea of responsibility, family, and belonging. Despite the short narrative of each character, the author was able to develop almost all of the characters into three-dimensional beings that are both flawed and relatable.
Anyway, I have had this one on my TBR pile for two years. I think someone recommended it to me, since (as my previous blog posts have stated so very clearly) this is not my favorite genre of book, it’s not one I would necessarily choose on my own. I can’t remember who recommended it, but I’m glad that they did.
I think the author writes how she speaks (which I totally get, I write how I speak… I don’t know how to do otherwise), but it seemed a little disingenuous, a little contrived… like she was trying to be something she isn’t. But, she is engaging. She’s vulnerable. She’s relatable. She’s funny.
The author lays out 20 “Lies” that we tell ourselves; and they are lies that keep us from living up to our full potential. The 20 lies are as follows:
1. Something Else Will Make Me Happy 2. I’ll Start Tomorrow [we’ve all been here, right?] 3. I’m Not Good Enough 4. I’m Better Than You 5. Loving Him is Enough for Me 6. No is the Final Answer 7. I’m Bad at Sex 8. I Don’t Know How to be a Good Mom 9. I’m Not a Good Mom 10. I Should be Further Along by Now 11. Other People’s Kids are so Much Cleaner/Better Organized/More Polite 12. I Need to Make Myself Smaller 13. I’m Going to Marry Matt Damon 14. I’m a Terrible Writer 15. I Will Never Get Past This 16. I Can’t Tell the Truth 17. I Am Defined by My Weight 18. I Need a Drink 19. There’s Only One Right Way to Be 20. I Need a Hero
Usually I’m bored by self-help type books, they’re just warmed-over cliches. And yes, you will find some cliches in this book, but they’re told in such a relatable way that they’re less grating. And she has some unexpected lessons. Things that make sense, things that hit close to home. I definitely recommend this book. I’m not a mom, so there are many chapters that aren’t geared directly toward those that are childless, but there are still lessons to be gleaned from them.
This book is a sweeping tale of two generations of two families deeply intertwined. Kind and steady Francis Gleeson (an Irish immigrant) joins the NYPD and marries Lena (a New Yorker born and bred) and moves to the suburbs. Brian Stanhope, another NYPD cop moves in next door with his beautiful and troubled wife, Anne (also an Irish immigrant). These two couples start their families side by side, but their lives become inextricably combined, while simultaneously blowing apart.
Okay, when I say sweeping, I mean sweeping; and not just because it takes place over a 30-year span, this novel explores so many themes I’m still processing what I heard several days later. It tackles themes of family, abuse, mental illness, addiction, resilience, home, forgiveness, love, and redemption.
And even though the themes are heavy, it was written with such deftness that you don’t feel weighed down by the weight. Because, at the heart of it all, there is hope.
The characters are complicated, and flawed, and even in their brokenness, you love them. I grieved with them, I rejoiced with them, and I hoped with them.
Clearly I loved this book… I was late for work twice last week (Okay, I make my own schedule, but I was late for when I wanted to start work) because I got lost in the narration of this book, I didn’t want to stop listening.
I liked this story. I liked the characters. The story follows two families: the mothers grew up together, but ended up leading drastically different lives. One of unhappy wealth and privilege, the other stressful, but overall happy in the grips of poverty… not living on the streets poverty, but working hard but still being on the brink poverty.
These two drastically different families come together to share a vacation for one week, when tragedy strikes, and someone dies. The description of the book would have you believe that the novel is about the aftermath of this tragedy and how each member copes, but that’s not really true. 85% of the book is spent on the vacation; the remaining 15% deals with the aftermath. And it doesn’t do it justice.
This novel had such promise. I wanted to know more about the killer. I wanted more on how the families coped after the murder. I wanted to hear their inner dialogue. I wanted to know how they processed through everything, but the author just glides through it so quickly.
I really didn’t know what to expect from this book. I don’t read a lot of political books, and it’s been awhile since I’ve been into history books. But I’m attempting to expand my horizons. The title led me to believe it would be more dynamic than it was.
The title of the book really should be 11 Presidents that Screwed Up America, since one chapter, that I thought was supposed to be on Barrack Obama, also included George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.
But I digress. The author claims that adherence to the Constitution of the United States should be the ultimate metric we use to judge the success of a President. If a President enacts policy (even a truly moral policy) but does so in a way that circumvents the Constitution, then he has harmed the United States as a Republic. Basically, the ends do not justify the means.
So all kinds of Presidents end up on his bad list. This isn’t a Republican vs. Democrat argument. This is a constitutional vs. non-constitutional argument: Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Barrack Obama (with a shout-out to Clinton, and both Bushes) all, in the authors estimation, trampled on the constitution. It doesn’t matter if they also did good things, they hurt the office of the Presidency by expanding it’s powers beyond what is given in the Constitution.
The book is BORING! I was so bored. But, there was tidbits of interesting information. The author does a good job of explaining exactly what each President did to violate the constitution, and how it laid the groundwork for further abuses by the office of the president. I think it helped me better understand how the founders intended for the three branches of the government to work together.
I’d give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. The writing is adequate. The information is good. The subject matter is so boring.
When I checked this book out at the library, I did not realize that it was a sequel. It can, more or less, stand alone, but there is definite character development that you miss out on by skipping that first installment. All that said, I liked it enough to want to go back and read the first one.
Highbrow literature this is not, but if you like a good melodrama/soap opera-y romp; this is definitely the book for you.
The story is engaging. The writing is sufficient; the dialogue flows well; the characters are lively. There is romance, but thankfully it stops short of being salacious.
So, about the story. The novel follows the story of Rebecca “Bex” and her prince of England husband, “Nick.” The novel starts with Nick and Bex hiding out in Scotland shortly after their wedding. Why are they hiding out? If you had read the first novel you likely would have known why, but you find out later in this novel that they are hiding out from a scandal that broke during their wedding. It follows them through several years as they navigate their roles as royals and as husband and wife.
I’m a sucker for melodrama, so I really enjoyed this book. I look forward to reading the first installment… and if there are ever any more installments, I look forward to those as well.
4/5 stars because I enjoyed it, and I would read additional installments.
I just finished this book like five minutes ago, and I’m still processing. Seriously… what did I just read?
First, I really liked this book. It was well written; the story is compelling, the characters are interesting, and it’s faced-paced.
I love a good mystery. And I was interested in reading this because it had an art-deco feel. Nothing in the description mentions the early 1900’s, but that’s the feeling I got from the cover and the description. And I’m not an aficionado of murder mystery novels, but in my mind the early 1900’s (up until the 1930’s) is the golden-age of mysteries.
And this is a good mystery. Be forewarned that this book is surprisingly bloody. The author doesn’t dwell on it; and he’s not terribly descriptive of the gore, but body count is shockingly high. If you’re particularly sensitive to suspense (I’m not), maybe don’t read this just before bed.
This book follows Aiden Bishop as he seeks to find the killer of Evelyn Hardcastle. The mechanics of why and how he is doing this is part of the mystery, all you know at the outset is that Aiden is stuck in a loop of a single day from the perspective different people witnessing the same events unfold.
The amount of detail the author is able to weave into this story from so many different perspectives is truly impressive; I can’t imagine the amount of outlining he had to do to keep all the storylines straight.
One of the things I love about a good mystery novel is trying to figure out the answer, and usually figuring it out before the end; it makes me feel smart. This one made me feel like an idiot. I had no idea where any of this was going and where it finally wound up. That’s partly because there are really three mysteries in this story: who killed Evelyn? Who killed her brother all those years ago? Why is Aiden stuck in this loop?
And I never figured out any of them. Not a one.
The only thing I would change about this book is I would have liked a bit more explanation regarding what happens if Aiden ever escapes this loop. Where does he go? Who is he? What does he do? Unfortunately you never find that out.
Why do I enter giveaways for this genre? I think it’s because I want to like self-help books. I want to gain wisdom. I want to be taught something that will make my life better… but man, they make it so hard. So. Hard.
And this book is no different.
I mean, this book really isn’t terrible… the writing is sufficient, I suppose. But really, it’s just a bunch of cliches wrapped up in secular humanism with a few personal anecdotes. Put good thoughts out into the universe and you’ll get good things back. You have ancient wisdom within you, just listen to it.
It’s just so… inane. And boring.
So, if you’re really lost in life you might find this book helpful. If you need to be told to take a chance it might be worthwhile. If you need to be told to stop being a doofus, maybe you do need to read this. Otherwise, I’m not sure it’s really worth the time.
I’m not a huge fan of non-fiction. I don’t mind history books or biographies (even then, I’d rather a good novel), but personal development books are the lowest on my list. But every now and then I come across a title that sounds interesting… usually I’m disappointed. This was not one of those times. I loved the anecdotal nature of this book; I appreciate story-telling on a personal level.
This is an easy and quick read. Filled with heart-warming stories, this book is a lovely reminder of little ways we can change the world. Some of the stories are personal to the author, recounting how people helped him and his wife during her cancer treatments. Other stories detail the history behind some incredible non-profit organizations, or how small acts of kindness spread much further than the single recipient.
My only quibble with the book was toward the end when the author mentions his decision to quit going to the synagogue when he was a teenager. It was weirdly placed in the book, and didn’t really have relevance to the overall story. It just seemed like an awkward jab at religion in general; when the book was clearly written from a secular perspective.
Overall I would recommend reading this book if you’re looking to be inspired or if you’re looking for new ways to serve others.
Where to start? This book sounded like a great YA lit book, and in many ways it was. It has the right elements: teenaged angst, a love triangle, gratuitous cursing, a coming out, and a prom. But honestly, this book is bad. I mean the story is fine: two best friends, having known each other since birth, struggle to navigate friendship and relationships as they have disparate interests and friend groups during their junior year; they have conflict, they sort of resolve their conflict, they grow as people, sort of.
Here is where I struggle with this book. First, the author comes very close to the two main characters growing as people, there are glimpses of Stella and Marie recognizing why they are struggle in their relationships, but they never quite get there; there’s almost and epiphany, but not quite. Secondly, and I’m not sure if the author isn’t a native English speaker or not, or she just had a really bad editor, but the grammar is terrible. The author switches between tenses (mixing present and past tense in the same sentence), she would often use the wrong form of the verb, and sometimes she would just use the wrong word altogether, for example, throughout the entire book she uses the word corporate when she meant cooperate. I’m not entirely unconvinced that this wasn’t written entirely by a bot.
If you don’t care about grammar or vocabulary, then this might be the book for you; otherwise, it’s really not worth the time; which is unfortunate, because the story has such promise.
The book follows the story of two young women, Khayyam (an American of French and Muslim-Indian parents) in modern day France (where she spends her summers) and Leila (a Muslim from the Ottoman Empire) crisscrossing from Turkey to England to France.
Khayyam is an aspiring art historian, the child of multi-cultural academics, she is an over-achiever, slightly quirky, and filled with self-doubt and angst. While not wanting to be defined by her relationships with men, she spends a lot of time (like many teenaged girls) obsessing over boys. Do they like her, why don’t they like her, how can she make them jealous, will she ever understand them? She’s also angry. Angry at men, angry at history, angry at white people. While she vacations in Paris and eats pastries.
Leila on the the other hand, is the concubine of the Pasha. Given literally no choice and no freedom, she makes the dangerous decision to take a lover (a Christian, her Giaour, an infidel). Both pay a hefty price for this betrayal. Unfortunately, there isn’t much more to reveal of Leila without spoilers, and what remains is rather scant anyway.
The author does an excellent job of revealing Leila’s story in bits, unfolding like a mystery through the discoveries that Khayyam makes in the modern day. Unfortunately, because of the belabored point that Ahmed is making with this novel, Leila’s story feels unfinished and I believe short-changed. Which brings me to my biggest complaint about this novel. The point that Ahmed wishes to get across is that there are marginalized people throughout history, and there is little doubt that women are the most marginalized, especially women of color.
I don’t dispute that there are marginalized groups of people, or that women often take the brunt of this silencing. What I do take umbrage with is the manner in which Ahmed makes this point. Belabored isn’t strong enough, hammered does slightly more justice, perhaps the two combined is the best way to describe it.
Ahmed is clearly a talented writer, but this novel lacks any subtlety or beauty in craft. The point that women have been marginalized can be made through story-telling, it can be made through the choices the characters have to make… does it need to be shouted at the reader over and over and over and over again? It’s as though the author doesn’t believe her audience is smart enough to understand the point she is trying to make. But, I get it.
We all get it.
I found it more of a distraction from what could have been a very effective and beautiful novel.
L & L Shenanigans 