Review of My Reading in 2021

 Well, I am a little late for the review...blame it on the holidays, traveling, workers in the condo, getting home in January.  You can pick what excuse you like for me!  But I am back home and feeling settled and, better late than never, here's my review of my 2021 reading!

I read 72 books last year. (I am challenging myself to 80 for 2022). I have 17 books from my reading in 2021 that I rated from very good to excellent:

Magic Lessons-Alice Hoffman

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue-VE Schwab

Wintering-Kathleen May

Outliers-Malcolm Gladwell

We Begin at the End-Chris Whitaker

Hidden Valley Road-Robert Kolker

The Dry-Jane Harper

Killers of the Moon Flower-David Grann

Mrs. Lincoln’s Sisters-Jennifer Chiaverini

Beneath a Scarlett Sky-Mark Sullivan

The Heart’s Invisible Furies-John Boyne

The Lost Book of Names-Kristin Harmel

The TieThat Binds-Kent Haruf

The Exiles-Christina Baker Kline

Oh William-Elizabeth Strout

All the Children Are Home

The Book of Magic-Ann Hoffman

It's very surprising to me that 5 of the 17 were non-fiction! You may notice that 2 of the books are by the same author (one was read in January, and one was read in December).

Now to whittle down the list. This is fairly easy this year as some books really stood out to me. Here's my top 6:

Magic Lessons-Alice Hoffman

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue-VE Schwab

The Heart’s Invisible Furies-John Boyne

The Exiles-Christina Baker Kline

Oh William-Elizabeth Strout

The Book of Magic-Ann Hoffman

I really loved these 6 books. But as soon as I read one of them, I was quite certain that it would be my 2021 favorite, and I was right:

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne gets my vote for the number one favorite book read in 2021. If you haven't read it, I highly encourage you to read it. It's a beautiful story with wonderful writing.

December Reads

 

I actually read six books last month, but forgot to put one of them in the photo collage and am too lazy to re-do it right now! I read two very good books in December and the other four were just ok.

1) The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman: another winning book from a favorite author! This is the last book in the Magic series and it did not disappoint!

"Some stories begin at the beginning and others begin at the end, but all the best stories begin in a library."

And those words are exactly how this story began. Elderly Jet Owens still worked at the library and that is where she first heard the death beetle, signifying that she had seven days to live.  She left the library with her niece Sally and went home to let her sister Franny know that she (Jet) had seven days to live.

There were three generations of Owens women alive and they were all under the curse of their ancestor Maria Owens...it appeared that anyone the Owens family loved was destined to die early.

When the youngest of the women, Kylie Owens, learned that her fiance had been struck by a car and had severe head injuries, she realized that it was the curse striking yet again in the family.

This time the family decided they could break the curse by going to England where the curse began. As family members began searching for answers, the answers came. And in the end, as they say, all that matters is love.

2) The Push by Ashley Audrain: I immensely enjoyed this book! This story is wrought with many issues.  It is a story about marriage, children, generations of abuse, and mental illness.

In the very simplest terms, the story comes down to this: is the mother crazy or is the daughter evil?

I'm not even going to go into the details of this book, because I don't want to spoil anything for a reader. But I do encourage the book to be read!  Good story!

3, 4 & 5) Life is Messy by Matthew Kelly, The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom, and Hallelujah Anyway by Anne Lamott. None of these books really delivered for me.  And I do like the authors, but the books kind of struck me as books put out because it was time to put out a new book (if that makes sense).

6) I Found You by Lisa Jewell: This story struck me as three stories in one, all involving a man found on the beach one day who did not remember who he was or where he was from.  Meanwhile, a woman living elsewhere learned that her husband who is missing never existed. And elsewhere, a man remembers some man who had been quite disturbing and he never learned where the man had gone to. 

This was a pretty good, easy-reading mystery that I picked up while waiting for my hoped-for-book for Christmas! Which I did receive!!!

November has come and gone!

Why is time going so fast?  Maybe because I did my October Reviews in the middle of November and now it's time for November reviews! It was a good month of reading for me, though I didn't read as much as I had hoped! So here goes:

1) All the Children Are Home by Patry Francis: This book was a surprise to me.  I bought it at a small bookstore in Webster Groves, MO (The Novel Neighbor-great store) without having ever heard of it.  It turned out that I really liked it!

It is about a couple who began fostering children and after eleven years, felt that their family was complete with the four children who lived with them. The mother had conditions for taking in children-no babies, delinquents, and especially no girls. But a six-year-old girl, who had been taken from her home for neglect and abuse, became available and the parents were asked to keep her just until another foster home was available.

Six-year-old Agnes won over the family and changed them over time in ways that were never expected. It is a very heartwarming story that won my heart! (By the way, has anyone else heard of the name Patry?)

2) Anxious People by Fredrik Bachman: This book has had a lot of critical acclaim and people loving it.  I just wasn't taken with it.

The story is about eight strangers who were looking at an apartment that was for sale and while there, a failed bank robber appeared at the apartment and then hold the people hostage.  There were some funny moments in the story, but I just never cared much about the characters.  It's odd because I really love a couple of his books.

3) Purgatory Ridge by William Kent Krueger: The third book of the Cork O'Connor series. And another good mystery that takes place up around the Boundary Waters. As I wrote last month-I recommend reading these. They are well-written stories!

4) Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler: Ms. Tyler is a longtime favorite of mine, but I just didn't care much for this story. It was about a middle-aged man who had his life routines disrupted by his "woman friend" and a young boy who showed up at his house. I was very disappointed with the book.

5) The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristen Harmel: Thankfully, because I have read a couple of Ms. Harmel's books, I stuck with this one.  I kept thinking it was too preposterous to be true. 

The story began with a young baby being stolen from her home one evening.  The woman who took the baby girl raised her in the wilderness of the forests in Poland teaching her everything when would need to know about survival. As the girl got older, she learned that there were groups of Jews hiding in the forests. She knew nothing about the war that was occurring and learned that a group of people called Nazis wanted to hunt down these people and kill them. Eventually, she began teaching a group that she had come across in the woods about survival techniques, etc. to help them live. She began to learn how to interact and socialize with others and they all became her family.

I just kept on reading the book, not sure where it was going and not especially happy that I was reading it. Until the end. I loved the ending and then was able to read the author's notes after the ending and learned that, of course, the story was based on real events. It is a book that I will read again and look at it differently. I should have trusted the author!!!

October Books Read

 

I'm extra late posting for October, but I was gone for the last two weeks, so I am just catching up now! I read seven books in October and I guess traveling and sitting poolside in Mexico is conducive to reading!

1+2) I read the first two of William Kent Krueger's Cork O'Connor mystery series: Iron Lake and Boundary Waters. Cork O'Connor was a former sheriff in upper Minnesota, who was hired to solve crimes up in the area that he had previously worked. I found these first two mysteries to be quite compelling to read. This series began 20 years ago and the 18th book of the series is just out! I've decided to read one of the books each month, so I don't burn out on the series! His books Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land are among my favorite books. I love his writing and these books are as well written as his other books!

3) The Ambassador's Daughter by Pam Jenoff. This author's historical writing never fails to hit the mark. This book takes place in 1919.  Margot was the daughter of a German ambassador who accompanied her father to Paris and was quite happy there, despite having a fiance who had been badly wounded in the war, and was waiting at home for her. When a peace conference began outside of Paris, Margot had to go there with her father and found a job there to pass her time working for Georg. As Margot was there, she began to question her loyalties and had to work through what she thought was right and wrong.  It was a good story.

4) The Survivors by Jane Harper. As readers of the blog know, I recently became a big fan of Jane Harper's novels.  This newest one was as good as the others! In the novel, Kieran Elliot brought his wife and young baby back to his hometown for a visit.  They stayed with Keiran's parents and Keiran's brother's death was always present. When his brother died it had changed Keiran's life forever.  While Keiran was visiting, a young girl's body was found on the beach one morning and as the investigation went on, long ago secrets began to reveal themselves. It is a really well-written book.  I enjoyed it!

5) The Unwilling by John Hart. Yes, another mystery.  I don't know why. Jason French had just been released from prison after serving 27 months for violence and drugs.  He wanted to reconnect with his family, so he and his young brother Gibby spent a day together, and then, as the day was ending, a young woman in their car began taunting a busload of prisoners.  A few days later she was found dead and Jason was the prime suspect.  Gibby got involved trying to prove his brother's innocence and soon he was also a suspect after another girl was found dead. This is a complicated, compelling story! I highly recommend it!

6) Oh William by Elizabeth Strout. Oh Elizabeth, how much I loved this book! If you recall, Ms. Strout had written a book called My Name is Lucy Barton a few years ago.  In Oh William, Lucy is telling the story of her ex-husband William.  William discovered/unearthed some startling results when he began studying his genealogy. He asked Lucy to go with him on a trip to investigate what he had found.

This novel was an absolutely beautiful story and completely unexpected! I read it in a few hours. 

7) Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah. This was probably my least favorite of the books that I read, but it was still a decent story. Joanne Teale was doing some graduate research and was living in a cabin in southern Illinois for the summer. One day, a girl who called herself Ursa showed up at the cabin. She reported that she had come from the stars and needed to witness five miracles. Joanne could not get any information about who she was, nor where she was from. Joanne enlisted her neighbor Gabe to help her find out about the child.  As the summer went on, the three of them became close, but Ursa's past still remained unknown.  Why was no one looking for her or reporting her missing? It was kind of a feel-good type of book in the end.

Goodbye September!

 Where did September go?  My goodness, but time is going by fast! I had some good reads this month, two in particular:  The Exiles and The Tie That Binds -both by authors who I have enjoyed reading in the past.

1) All the Ugly and Wonderful by Bryn Greenwood: I found this book to be incredibly disturbing.  There was plenty of "ugly", but I really didn't find any "wonderful" in the story. 

A grown man falls in love with an eight-year-old girl and the relationship continues through adulthood. I finished the book because I kept waiting for "wonderful" to happen, but nothing wonderful happened as far as I was concerned. So that's my very brief review of that book!

2) Raven Black by Ann Cleeves was a delightful surprise to me.  I didn't have very high expectations for this mystery, but it turned out to be quite intriguing. 

A young girl was found murdered on the Shetland Islands and the crime appeared to be similar to an old unsolved murder in which an old, lonely man was always considered to be the prime person of interest. As he is with the recent murder. This is the first of a series and I will continue on with it! I never suspected who the murderer was

3) The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf was a delight.  He is one of my favorite authors and I couldn't believe that I hadn't read this one! It was written in 1984, the first of his novels, and like his later novels, takes place in Colorado.  His characters in all of his books are so well-developed that I always feel as if I may know them! 

This novel is about eighty-year-old Edith Goodnough.  It began with Edith in the hospital recovering with a police officer guarding her.  She had been charged with murder. This sweet old lady who never married and gave up her own chance of happiness to care for the family and their farm, living with her abusive father for years, whilst her brother took off one day, leaving her alone with their father. The brother didn't return for years.  This story of Edith is so beautifully told by her neighbor.  A lovely read.

4) When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O'Neal was quite a disappointment to me.  It began being quite interesting, but the end was really lacking for me.  

Two sisters, Kit and Josie, who grew up in California had spent most of their lives surfing when they could. When they became adults, Kit became an ER doctor, while Josie continued to search for the perfect wave.  Until one day, Kit learned that Josie had been killed in Europe by a terrorist attack. Fifteen years later, Kit sees Josie on television. She was leaving a club in New Zealand that had caught on fire. It was unmistakably Josie, so Kit went to New Zealand to find her. While searching for Josie, Kit recalls long-ago memories of secrets and traumas that the family had lived through.  It was a good read until near the end when everything went "chick read".

5) The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline was a great read! I am sorry that I let it sit for so long on my TBR pile.

This novel is about women in the1840s who were convicted of a crime (or crimes) in England and were sentenced to a penal colony in Australia. One of the main characters in the book was Evangaline the daughter of a minister, who was left penniless when he died so a position was found for her as a governess for a wealthy family.  She fell in love with the older son, who seduced her and gave her a family heirloom, a ruby ring.  The son left on a trip and the ring was discovered in Evangeline's room.  When the family learned that she was also pregnant, Evangeline was charged with theft and taken to prison.  A few months later she was sentenced to Australia. The women were put on an old slave ship and there Evangaline met others who she would be with for seven to fourteen years, depending on their sentence. The women helped each other, including when Evangeline gave birth to her daughter.

There were many notable characters in the book, including Hazel, a young girl who was also a midwife. Hazel had street smarts and helped Evangeline navigate Australia. And there was Mathinna, the daughter of a chief, who was taken by a wealthy English family to be raised as an example of what could be done with the heathens.

It's a long book, based on true events.  I learned a lot about the history of how women were treated (as slaves).  I enjoyed this book very much!

6) Another book by Kent Haruf that I had not read: Where You Once Belonged. It is interesting to me that I didn't like this book the way I have liked his others.  I wasn't satisfied with the ending, but I can't quite figure out why. I think I wanted more clarity, but I also think that is what the author intended!

The book began with a big red Cadillac coming into Holt, Colorado, and just parking in the spot where all the town could see. The driver never got out, just sat in the car.  Eventually, people in town learned that it was Jack Burnett.  Jack had left town eight years before, leaving his wife and children and many debts. No one had ever heard from him since that time.

This small novel described who Jack was growing up and all that he had going for him.  Until that one day when he left town. It is a good character study of a man who has it all and then his life goes bad. 

August reads

I read six books in August, with one of them being one of my very favorite reads of the year!

1) The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine: Amber was discontent with her life and decided that she deserved to be a rich and powerful woman like socialite Daphne Parrish.  Amber arranged for them to literally run into each other where Amber conveniently dropped a magazine that was about cystic fibrous. Daphne questioned her about having the magazine and Amber told her that she had a younger sister who had died from it. Which was a lie, but Amber had done her research and knew that Daphne's younger sister died of it.  So that's how Amber began their friendship. She quickly insinuated herself into Daphne's life.  And eventually into Daphne's husband Jackson's life.

I'll say no more, other than it was a good story with some nice twists to it!  It would be a good book club read!

2) Beneath A Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan: This was on my radar for a long time, and I finally picked it up.  I'm very glad that I did.  It is a novel based on a true story from Italy during World War II.

Pino Lella was a young, carefree teenager until his home in Milan was destroyed by Allie bombs.  He began working for the resistance, helping to lead Jews to Switzerland.  His parents feared for his life doing this work and made him join the German Army hoping that he would be safe during the war. However, Pino was injured and at the age of eighteen was recruited to be a driver for General Hans Leyers, Hitler's leader in Italy.

This afforded Pino the opportunity to spy on the Nazi occupation and pass information on to the resistance.

This is certainly the short version of this long book! The novel is very readable and gripping.  The author became friends with the real Pino and his son who helped him with important details for writing the book. It's a great read!

3) I needed something light after reading the above book, so I picked up On The Island by Tracey Garvis Graves: This was a rather interesting read. Thirty-year-old Anna was hired to tutor sixteen-year-old TJ at the family's summer home on a tropical island. The two of them boarded a private plane to meet TJ's family at the island when their pilot had a heart attack and the plane landed in the ocean.  The pilot was dead, but Anna and TJ were able to make it to shore, but quickly found that no one lived on the island that they were on.  They had to learn survival on their own. 

It was a quick, but interesting read.

4) This is another book that had been on my radar for a long time and I finally dug into it.  The novel is The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne.

The novel began with a young sixteen-year-old girl living in a small Irish village being shamed at Mass by her parish priest, and sent away on a bus by her parents, told to never return.  Her sin? She was pregnant. She boarded a bus to Dublin, wondering what she do, where she would live. 

After she had the baby, she gave him to the nuns to place for adoption.  His parents were Charles and Maud Avery, and Cyril grew up being constantly reminded that he was not a "real Avery". His adopted parents were quite uninvolved with the young boy as he grew.  He met a young man at boarding school.  JulianWoodbead had been to Cyril's home once when they were young and  Cyril never forgot him. They quickly became best friends all through school until they were a bit older and Cyril unexpectedly left Ireland and over the years learned who he really was as a man.

This is a huge book that covers from the 1940s to today. And I loved it.  I haven't read such an interesting and well-written book since I read A Little Life. It will certainly be in my top five favorite reads for 2021.  Maybe my favorite!

5) I finished The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen.  It seems that I have been reading it forever because I would only read one "Spiritual Imperative" per day for my spiritual reading. This book is called Fr. Nouwen's "secret journal" that he kept when he was going through dark times after the loss of a beloved friendship.  I found it mostly quite helpful with my journey.  Sometimes one of the Imperatives didn't seem to reach me, but most did.  I would recommend this book for those who want to go deeper into their journey.

6) Lastly, I re-read The Book of Lost Names by Kristen Harmel.  I just read it last winter, so the only reason I read it again so soon was that it is the chosen book for the library's book club that meets here. The book club is tomorrow, but I don't have much expectation that anyone will be there.  There was another book club that met at a different time and day at the library and I went to that, and no one came, other than the librarian monitor of the club. She said that since  COVID began, people began to quit coming to that one, but the one scheduled for tomorrow has had people coming sporadically, so I am giving it a try.  I blogged about this book on the 5th of December 2020 if you want to read my review.  It's a good book!

July reads

 My reading seemed down a little in July, probably because we were so busy traveling for three weeks!  Hopefully, it will be picking back up!  I read three books this month, two I liked, one I was a bit disappointed in.  For regular readers of this blog, you may have noticed that I have switched to the Goodreads widget on the side of the blog to show what books I've read.

The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda is a pick for the library book club here for August.  This will be my first time attending, so I hope I like the group!

I did like the book! It was an easy read, kind of a good read for summer! The story took place in a small town in Maine, that was a vacation spot for the wealthy.  Avery had lived in the town all of her life, but Sadie was one of the summer people.  They had developed a friendship over the years and would be inseparable during the summers when Sadie was there.  But the last summer Sadie was there she died.  It was determined to be a suicide, but Avery was convinced that it wasn't. When Sadie's family returned the following year, Avery was determined to learn the truth.

The story was a good mystery and well-written!

I loved Mrs. Lincoln's Sisters by Jennifer Chiaverini!  The story is told in different time periods, going back to 1825 to 1882, but each chapter was well-labeled so I did not have any difficulty keeping up with the book. I didn't realize until I was done reading it that it was a sequel to Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker, so now I will have to read that sometime!

The story centers around Mary Todd Lincon and her sisters and begins in 1875, several years after the death of Mary's husband, Abraham Lincoln.  Mary had been declared insane and was in an institution. Her sisters had great concerns about her as did Robert Lincoln, her only living child.  In the story, the sisters all played a large part in Mary's story, and the book is quite good at describing all of the differences that were between Mary and her sisters as they grew. And how they tried to help Mary after the death of her husband.

I found the book to be fascinating.  I want to learn much more about Mary and about her sisters! 

I just finished City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert and was disappointed with it.  For one thing, it is a huge book! (I had found a hardback copy at the used bookstore and bought it, even though I always prefer paperbacks.) My disappointment was that on the second page of the book, we learn that there was a man involved with Vivian Morris, who was the love of her life.  It's not until page 400, that the reader learns who this man was. 

In-between pages 2-400, the life of Vivian is told.  And it is an interesting story, but way too long for me. She had been asked to leave Vassar after her first year, so her parents sent her to New York to stay with her Aunt Peg.  Aunt Peg owned a run-down theater where she and her staff put on plays for the neighborhood audience. Vivian became their costume designer and made all of the costumes. She was introduced to the nightlife of New York by the showgirls who worked for her Aunt Peg. 

It was all interesting, but I wanted to know more about the man she loved! Ms. Gilbert is certainly a talented author so I don't mean to disparage that.

"Love like that is a deep well, with steep sides.

       Once you fall in, that's it-you will love that person always. "