Title: Everybody Rise
Author: Stephanie Clifford
Format: Audio book
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Summary: Evelyn comes from new money. Her social-climbing mom is constantly pushing her to connect with Evelyn's prep school alum and find a successful and wealthy man to marry. When Evelyn gets a job at "Facebook for the elite", she finally gets her in. The problem is that Evelyn makes up lie after lie to keep up appearances until she can't get out of her own way or climb over the huge mountain of debt she's gotten herself into.
Review: I was on the fence about giving this review three stars, but I couldn't do it. That being said, the book isn't terrible in the way you think it might be. I gave this book the rating I did because it was stressful to listen to Evelyn's attempts to horn her way into the world of the extremely wealthy. Listening to her get herself more and more into debt was tense. You also knew that it wasn't going to end well for her, so I was constantly waiting for that. I think there were funny parts to this book but I was so stressed out I didn't notice. Also, I listened to this book and many of the characters' voices were like nails on a chalkboard. I almost switched to a physical book format but I stayed with the audio version, which lost it another star. Do what you will with this information.
Time to write: 5:10
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Book review: A God in Ruins
Title: A God in Ruins
Author: Kate Atkinson
Format: e-book
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Summary: Ted Todd is a WWII pilot. After the war, he marries his childhood sweetheart Nancy and they have a daughter, Viola. Viola has two kids of her own--Sonny and Bertie. This story rotates through history and characters to create the story that is A God in Ruins.
Review: Like We Were Liars, this is another book with a twist ending. The twist startled me so much that when it happened, I had to re-read it to make sure I had read it correctly. This book is also by the same woman that wrote Life After Life, which is about Ursula Todd. I had tried to read Life After Life but I found it unreadable. I'm sure it was good, but it wasn't the book for me at the time.
The reason I bring it up at all is that A God in Ruins focuses on Ted, Ursula's brother. A God in Ruins was great but it could have used some editing. For example, I didn't think the excerpts of the Augustus book were necessary. It also jumped around quite a bit which could be jarring for my easily confused mind. All that aside, it was still a great book.
Time to write: 5:36
Author: Kate Atkinson
Format: e-book
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Summary: Ted Todd is a WWII pilot. After the war, he marries his childhood sweetheart Nancy and they have a daughter, Viola. Viola has two kids of her own--Sonny and Bertie. This story rotates through history and characters to create the story that is A God in Ruins.
Review: Like We Were Liars, this is another book with a twist ending. The twist startled me so much that when it happened, I had to re-read it to make sure I had read it correctly. This book is also by the same woman that wrote Life After Life, which is about Ursula Todd. I had tried to read Life After Life but I found it unreadable. I'm sure it was good, but it wasn't the book for me at the time.
The reason I bring it up at all is that A God in Ruins focuses on Ted, Ursula's brother. A God in Ruins was great but it could have used some editing. For example, I didn't think the excerpts of the Augustus book were necessary. It also jumped around quite a bit which could be jarring for my easily confused mind. All that aside, it was still a great book.
Time to write: 5:36
Book review: We Were Liars
Title: We Were Liars
Author: E. Lockhart
Format: e-book
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Summary: Cadence Eastman comes from a wealthy family. She spends her summers on her family's private island off of the Cape with her cousins Mirren and Johnny, and Gat, who is the son of one of her aunt's boyfriends. When Cadence is 15, there's a terrible fire on the island. Cadence returns the island when she's 17 and tries to piece together the events of the fire. The story flips back and forth between the summers when Cadence is 15 and 17.
Review: It turns out this is a Young Adult (YA) novel. Who knew? This book is also positioned as a suspense novel but I don't think I'd characterize it as that myself. I'd say this is a coming-of-age novel. Anyway, this book is great if only for the ending alone. I almost don't want to say too much here at the risk of giving away the book, so just trust me on this one.
Time to write: 1:34
Author: E. Lockhart
Format: e-book
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Summary: Cadence Eastman comes from a wealthy family. She spends her summers on her family's private island off of the Cape with her cousins Mirren and Johnny, and Gat, who is the son of one of her aunt's boyfriends. When Cadence is 15, there's a terrible fire on the island. Cadence returns the island when she's 17 and tries to piece together the events of the fire. The story flips back and forth between the summers when Cadence is 15 and 17.
Review: It turns out this is a Young Adult (YA) novel. Who knew? This book is also positioned as a suspense novel but I don't think I'd characterize it as that myself. I'd say this is a coming-of-age novel. Anyway, this book is great if only for the ending alone. I almost don't want to say too much here at the risk of giving away the book, so just trust me on this one.
Time to write: 1:34
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Book review: The Accident
Title: The Accident
Author: Chris Pavone
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Format: Kindle
Summary: A mysterious yet explosive manuscript has landed on the desk of literary agent Isabel Reed. If she's going to publish it she needs to survive first. Every time another person gets a copy of the manuscript they end up dead.
Review: I have grown to love reading via Kindle but one of the downsides is the inability to quickly go back and re-read segments and this is one of those books that I needed to go back pretty often and try and remember what is happening. Many of the characters were very mysterious and unidentified at times, so it was sometimes difficult (for me) to figure out which character was speaking (the perspective kept shifting amongst different characters). Also, I'm not generally a huge fan of "there's a massive global conspiracy of the top business leaders and government leaders of the world." It's not that I don't think there are conspiracies, I just find it tiresome at times. This is a good suspense novel and I'd recommend it as a beach read (even though summer is over). The door was left open for a sequel, we'll see what happens with that. Despite this seemingly negative (or lukewarm) review, I'd consider reading the sequel.
Time to write: 5:30
Book review: Us
Title: Us
Author: David Nicholls
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Summary: Douglas is a pretty reserved and straight-laced guy. Despite this, he wooed the artistic Connie into marrying him almost 30 years ago and now their son Albie is 17 years old. Right before the family is set to depart on a month-long European tour, Connie announces that she wants a divorce. Should they cancel the trip? Of course not! Douglas wants to use the trip to persuade Connie to stay and to attempt to get closer to Albie. What could go wrong?
Review: One Day is one of my favorite books of all time so I was excited to see Nicholls' latest book. I couldn't bring myself to see the movie version of One Day because I'm not a huge fan of Anne Hathaway and I didn't want to see yet another movie epically fail to do a book justice. I digress.
It took me a while to get into Us, but once I did I enjoyed it. This book certainly didn't go the way I thought it was going to. How could it? Here's what I liked:
Author: David Nicholls
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Summary: Douglas is a pretty reserved and straight-laced guy. Despite this, he wooed the artistic Connie into marrying him almost 30 years ago and now their son Albie is 17 years old. Right before the family is set to depart on a month-long European tour, Connie announces that she wants a divorce. Should they cancel the trip? Of course not! Douglas wants to use the trip to persuade Connie to stay and to attempt to get closer to Albie. What could go wrong?
Review: One Day is one of my favorite books of all time so I was excited to see Nicholls' latest book. I couldn't bring myself to see the movie version of One Day because I'm not a huge fan of Anne Hathaway and I didn't want to see yet another movie epically fail to do a book justice. I digress.
It took me a while to get into Us, but once I did I enjoyed it. This book certainly didn't go the way I thought it was going to. How could it? Here's what I liked:
- The back story on how Douglas and Connie met.
- How Douglas' initial perspective on his relationship with his son didn't portray the full story.
- The disastrous start to the trip and how it evolved.
- Douglas' acknowledgement that he had made mistakes and his attempts to fix them.
- The ending.
So why not the full five stars? Because initially it wasn't one of those books that I was dying to read at the end of the day. I'd pick it up and I enjoyed it, but it wasn't one that I wanted to stay up all night reading.
Time to write: 6:26
Book review: Department of Speculation
Title: Department of Speculation
Author: Jenny Offill
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Summary: Just see what it says on Amazon. It is not helpful.
Review: This is one of those books where now that I'm finally getting around to writing the review, I don't have the faintest idea of what it was about. I took a look at Amazon for some clues but that wasn't terribly helpful either. When I finish a book, I generally jot down my rating right away. Since I gave it three stars, I apparently I thought it was alright. Not terrible but not great. Not a terribly informative review but there you go. Did I think it was one of the Top Ten Books of the Year like the NY Times Book Review did? No, but I think we all know that the NYTBR and I generally aren't on the same page anyway.
Time to write: 4:16
Author: Jenny Offill
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Summary: Just see what it says on Amazon. It is not helpful.
Review: This is one of those books where now that I'm finally getting around to writing the review, I don't have the faintest idea of what it was about. I took a look at Amazon for some clues but that wasn't terribly helpful either. When I finish a book, I generally jot down my rating right away. Since I gave it three stars, I apparently I thought it was alright. Not terrible but not great. Not a terribly informative review but there you go. Did I think it was one of the Top Ten Books of the Year like the NY Times Book Review did? No, but I think we all know that the NYTBR and I generally aren't on the same page anyway.
Time to write: 4:16
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Book review: Blackout: Remembering the things I drank to forget
Title: Blackout: Remembering the things I drank to forget
Author: Sarah Hepola
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Summary: Sarah's a blackout drinker. What's a blackout? A blackout is essentially an empty space in your mind where you don't remember what happened. Blacking out is not the same as passing out. Sarah would wake up in a strange bed (or her own bed) and have no idea how she got there. Sometimes there'd be a man in the bed with her and she'd have no idea who the guy was. Sarah decided she needed to get alcohol out of her life and come to terms with who she was without alcohol.
Review: I've always been a sucker for addiction stories. I watched Intervention for years and recently got sucked back into it. I have a fascination with understanding what led people to go down the path of addiction (or get dragged) and what motivates them to get better. This book was right up my alley. Sarah's accounts of her alcoholism and blackouts is raw and honest. It takes a lot of courage to share that she doesn't remember things. Highly recommended.
Time to write: 4:23
Summary: Sarah's a blackout drinker. What's a blackout? A blackout is essentially an empty space in your mind where you don't remember what happened. Blacking out is not the same as passing out. Sarah would wake up in a strange bed (or her own bed) and have no idea how she got there. Sometimes there'd be a man in the bed with her and she'd have no idea who the guy was. Sarah decided she needed to get alcohol out of her life and come to terms with who she was without alcohol.
Review: I've always been a sucker for addiction stories. I watched Intervention for years and recently got sucked back into it. I have a fascination with understanding what led people to go down the path of addiction (or get dragged) and what motivates them to get better. This book was right up my alley. Sarah's accounts of her alcoholism and blackouts is raw and honest. It takes a lot of courage to share that she doesn't remember things. Highly recommended.
Time to write: 4:23
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