Thanks to a holiday and some vacation, I managed to get myself back on track with readings this month. 7 books and 2,454 pages. Not too shabby! So here we go.
The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman (321 pages). I go back and forth between liking Hoffman as an author and not understanding her style in the slightest. One third of the way through and I was thinking this one might be one of the later. By the end, I knew I was right. Eighteen year old Coralie lives on Coney Island with her father in 1911. He owns the Museum and Coralie has been one of his wonders- a mermaid, thanks to her webbed hands and ability to hold her breathe for a very long time. But the Museum is faltering. Coralie happens upon photographer Eddie Cohen, a former Orthodox Jew, on the banks of the Hudson. A mystery and two fires later, Coralie learns some truths about herself and her father that finally allow her to escape the Museum. I didn't like the book very much. Some of the passages were very beautifully written, but a nice turn of phrase isn't the same thing as a great book. I wanted this book to be better than it was- the premise of a freak show seemed so good! It took me fifteen days to read (only four days of actual reading time), but the bulk of those days were in August!
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown (353 pages). The Andreas sisters have always been a little different than everyone else. Probably because their father, a Shakespeare professor, named them after Shakespearean characters and peppers his speech with the Bard at every opportunity, a trait that rubbed off on the girls. The sisters are all adults now, but find themselves back at their parents' when they learn of their mother's cancer. Each sister is at a very different place in her life, but each of them seem equally lost. They book was a very easy read and a lot of fun for this English major (who took two different Shakespeare classes in college)! One thing I really enjoyed was that the narrator uses "we" and simultaneously refers to each sister by her name or as "she." It's like the narrator was all three of them somehow. It took me three days to read it (only two days of actual reading time). I actually read half of it each day. Hooray for pool time over the holiday weekend!
The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian (375 pages). This was a weird one. And more than a little disturbing by the end. Chip Linton was a commercial airline pilot who was unable to do what Sully Sullenberger had been able to do- he couldn't land a plane in water and have all of his passengers survive. When Chip was unable to cope, his wife Emily decided that the family needed to move. So the Linton family, including twin daughters Garnet and Hallie, moved to a very small town. A very small town with a lot of greenhouses. And a lot of women with herbal first names. And into a house where a twin had "committed suicide" many years earlier. Chip's PTSD has made him more susceptible to the ghosts that haunt their home. And who knows what the crazy herbal witches have in store for the twins. One fun line- when a character goes missing, one of the herb-named comments that maybe he did what that South Carolina governor did. And that was literally the only light point in the entire novel. It was dark and the ending totally blindsided me (as Bohjalian tends to do). It took me twelve days to read it (only three days of actual reading time).
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (321 pages). I watched this miniseries when it came out a year or so ago. And I remember thinking, did they even read the Bible first? While I've always been torn on whether or not Dinah was raped, I never had other doubts about the stories of the Bible. This novel seems to take liberty after liberty with the history of the Bible. Like making some of Jacob's sons twins. That's never mentioned in the Bible. Which you'd think would be a big deal because of Jacob being a twin and all. Or changing names of people. I did like hearing about the relationships between all of the women in Jacob's family. And the creative story that the author gave to explain Dinah's rest of the story (which isn't in the Bible at all). All in all, if you take it as fiction, it's a good story. If you take it as historically accurate Biblical truths, it's almost blasphemy. What baffled me the most was that the author is Jewish. You'd think SHE would know her Old Testament a little better than most. It took me three days to read it.
Always the Bridesmaid by Whitney Lyles (321 pages). A little light chick lit after two slightly heavy books. Cate Padgett is 26 years old, happily dating a picture perfect man, and the bridesmaid in four weddings in just a few months. She manages to be the perfect bridesmaid, all while wondering when it's going to be her time to say "I do." But when an old friend reenters her life and her perfect boyfriends turns out not to be so perfect for her, will she figure out what she really wants before it's too late? Super cute, super easy. It took me half a day to read it.
The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes (369 pages). I loved, loved, LOVED this book! It was two intersecting stories- that of Sophie in 1917 German-occupied France and of Liv in modern day London. Sophie's husband was an artist and painted a beloved painting of her, for her. Unfortunately, the German commandant in their town took both a liking to the painting and to Sophie. Decades later, Liv is a young widow. Her husband purchased a painting for her on their honeymoon. The Girl You Left Behind. A painting of Sophie. The ensuing legal battle over the restitution of the painting was fascinating. And the ending was everything I wanted it to be and more. Both of the stories were enthralling - Sophie's quest for survival and Liv's quest for a new life. It took me three days to read it (only two days of actual reading time).
I read one other book, but for some reason there is a bug on my blog and it won't let me post about it. While We Were Watching Downton Abbey by Wendy Wax (354 pages). Took me half a day to read. Really good. About the lives of residents in an apartment building in Atlanta who become friends thanks to a weekly viewing party of Downton Abbey.
All in all, a pretty good month. Only one book that I truly disliked and a lot that I really enjoyed!
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