Americanah (4.5)

A short note...
Americanah is a lovely, satisfying book. If I had to compare it to something else I've read, I would say Americanah is most like a Jane Austen novel. If Jane Austen was a modern woman born in Nigeria and living in the U.S.

Ifemelu is Nigerian-born, lives in America, and blogs about race. The story follows her decision to move back to Nigeria with frequent meanderings back to the past to show why she chose to come to America and, perhaps, why she wants to return home. Leaving Nigeria meant finding opportunity as a student and as a writer, but it also meant leaving Obinze, her boyfriend and, perhaps, love of her life.

My first experience with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was watching her TEDTalk "The Danger of a Single Story," as part of my grad school program. Which is great and you should totally watch it.

One Plus One

Jess is a single mom who's husband has run off and left her with his teenage son, who spends all of his time in his room and comes home beaten up more often then not, and their daughter, a genius. Jess works as a bartender and a maid to make ends meet. Ed is a rich tech guru who just got busted for fraud. When Jess's daughter gets the opportunity to compete in a math contest that would give the family the money to send her to a better school, Jess will do anything to get her there.

Incidentally "anything" means taking a wad of cash Ed dropped when she drove him home from a binge at the bar she works at. And trying to drive her ex-husband's ancient car on a road trip. Which breaks down. And guess who picks her up? And decides, against all reason, to help the family get to the competition? Ed.

I devoured this book. It is the perfect love story. A book you read and go, "that's it, I'm reading only this author forever and no one else."

But...the next book I read from her was a whole different story...

Eleanor & Park (5), Rainbow Rowell

WARNING: Some swearing. Loads of swearing in the book, so if you're not into that, move along and read Cinder or something. 

Oh my God, you know when you finish a book and then all other books are ruined for you forever and you just have to lay there and wish there was someone else who had just finished being in this world so you could talk to them because why is this book over? Where will you go now? That was Eleanor & Park for me.

Eleanor is a chubby redheaded misfit who has just moved in with her mother, stepfather, and younger siblings after spending some time kicked out by her stepfather and living with her mother’s friends.

Park is a gangly half-Korean kid who manages to fit in with the other kids on the bus because his dad’s a vet and they’ve always been part of the neighborhood.

On Eleanor’s first day, the back of the bus kids immediately smell the scene of fresh meat. She has nowhere to sit on the bus until Park takes pity on her and whispers, “Jesus, fuck, just sit down.” They don’t talk. They never talk. But Park begins to catch her reading his comic books out of the corner of her eye. And then he begins to turn the pages more slowly, to make sure she has a chance to finish the page. And then he’s giving her comic books to read and she’s giving them back and before you know it they can’t stop talking to each other.

love is listening to a mixtape he made

You guys, I tried so hard to pretend this book was overrated. But I was so in love with it by like the third chapter. It dresses up as a love story, but it talks about bullying and abuse and all sorts of real stuff. Even the love story feels so real, you can feel them sneaking up on each other, you can feel them fall in love. And the end? The end is so smart. I tried to write a book once that began on the premise this book ended on and she sums up what I tried to say in 50,000 words in one sentence.

I’m not going to tell you what that sentence is because I don’t believe in spoilers.

So I finished this book at like 11:30 on a Wednesday and had no one to talk to so I went on twitter which was a mistake because all the teenyboppers who read it were like “sigh. SO IN LOVE. SO ROMEO. SO JULIET.” And I was like, “omg. Shut up. You understand nothing,” which is really the sign of a good book that it speaks to everyone on the level they’re on. Me? I’m in grad school and studying middle schoolers. Them? They’re in middle school dreaming about falling in love one day. And yet this book speaks to both of us.

But I have to admit, the love story was so cute.  I think I literally said “aww” out loud. More than once. In that really squeaking "squee" way like I saw a puppy or a unicorn. And now I’m ruined and can’t read anything else. It’s like playing a really pathetic game of Duck, Duck, Goose.

nope

nope

fine, I guess

Stay tuned to see what I actually finish.

I can’t even go back to Hunger Games because I literally just finished rereading the series after I finished Outlander. 

If you like this, read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, more Rainbow Rowell, or something. I need to go read something that is a complete 180 because I can't even.

Up Next:

American Gods

Things We Set On Fire (3) & The Color Purple (5 million stars)

TL;DR Don't even read this blog post, just go read The Color Purple.

I feel bad telling you guys about books I didn't like. Like, why am I wasting your time? And what if by reading this you don't read it but it actually would have been a book you really, really liked? I should just not tell you anything too special about it and say it's pretty good and then you can read it or not just like you were already planning on...

I got this for free from Amazon Prime, and at first I really liked it. But then I got distracted by something shiny and completely forgot I was reading it. And how much can you really say you liked a book if you literally forgot you were reading it? So here's why it's three stars. It's not a bad book, so it doesn't get 2 stars or a "I didn't even bother finishing it," it just felt a bit predictable after a certain point and so I didn't really feel the need to finish it.

I also, as previously mentioned, sometimes get really ADD and bored of a book that doesn't have a compelling love story, SO....I went off and re-read a love story I liked (or two) and then finished this book when I remembered it.

Anyway, the books about Vivvie and her estranged daughters. Estranged Daughter #1 (Kate) tries to commit suicide and her eldest daughter, Averlee, finds her unresponsive, slumped over the kitchen table and has to call the ambulance. So grandma gets the girls and Estranged Daughter #2 drives from Portland to Florida in about a day (um?) to help with the girls. And eventually we find out why Kate tried to kill herself and by then I'm bored. (Which is not to say suicide is boring but that this was not a compelling story about a person who is struggling with suicidal ideation)

Also the daughters acted about 3 years younger than their listed ages. I pictured them, based on their actions as the elder, Averlee, being between 7 & 10, but Quincy acted about 4 and at some point was mentioned turning 7. Averlee has to help Quincy buckle her seatbelt and tie her shoes and my 5-year-old cousin can do all of that no problem. Of course, my cousin is a genius and perfect in every way, but I might be biased.

I would love to hear from anyone who liked this book. I honestly didn't understand why the women all hated each other so freaking much. I mean, if Celie and Shug Avery can get along, why can't they?
You know what, actually, go read  The Color Purple if you're into fiction about women. If you have read that, then I guess you can read this book until you find something better. Get it from the library though. Don't pay $8 for it. Unless you're rich. In that case, go for it.

If you don't know about this book, you should. Don't let the first page scare you away. You should AT LEAST go watch the film, which was also amazing except I didn't watch it all in one sitting because it was way too depressing. You get to see Whoopi Goldberg do some outstanding acting, and Oprah wasn't bad either.

Did you know Oprah was in a movie?

 There is also a musical, that is also good. I have definitely belted out "African Homeland" in my car, by myself, so many times.

SPOILERS

HERE JUST WATCH IT - Wait, don't there's definitely a HUGE SPOILER unless you don't pay attention to any of the character's names. Out of context maybe its ok. 

Flu Books & Mostly I Talk About Jennifer Lawrence

I missed last week! And I was doing so well :( The problem, fortunately, was not for lack of having books to talk about, but rather that I was having too much fun reading the books to tell you about them. But sharing is caring, so I suppose I will briefly catch you up.

First off, I got the flu and didn't have the energy to hold up a book so I marathon listened to The Hunger Games again because I have a problem and apparently like to surround myself with suffering while I'm sick. I don't think it actually made me feel better, but at least I was entertained. Then I finished and had to turn to some new books, but I was only half awake through a lot of them, so I don't really have opinions on them apart from "I knew what was going on, and I loved them [the characters] because they were my only friends." Because I was too sick to talk to people, not because that's actually true. I hope.

(5 stars) This is my new favorite thing in the universe. You think I read a lot? Nope. Language Arts teacher Donalyn Miller is the teacher I wish I had. She develops this crazy system where she teaches kids to read by actually letting them read. WHAT? I know! How will they become better readers by reading every day? How does that even work?

While reading it, I was in the process of applying to grad school for teaching and it made me feel like I could actually do this thing I want to do, and that Donalyn's classroom would be my dream classroom. But, I also want to teach math. I wonder if there's a book called the Math Whisperer I could read next.
Anyway, cross your fingers for grad school! Read this if you're a teacher or want to help your kiddo learn to read, or if you're such a nerd you like to read about reading.

Now, Donalyn is a bit of a militant reader. When a kid comes to school saying "teacher! I read all through Thanksgiving and barely talked to my family!" (or something along those lines) And while this is something I absolutely did as a child, I don't think it's actually something you should recommend children do...maybe suggest they actually talk to their family? I donno, just a thought.

After reading this book, I am now trying to read a nonfiction book for ten minutes a day. So far it's actually kind of terrible because it makes me think too much late at night which does not make me want to sleep. Perhaps I can learn to wake up and read. But I can barely wake up to go to rehearsal, which is what I live for, so don't hold your breath.

(4 stars?) I really can't talk about this book without spoiling it. Mostly because I don't remember anything except for the end because I had a fever of 101 still. I might have even been up to 102 if that was my post-Hunger Games phase.

Basically it's about two different women in foster care, one in the 1920s, which was just about as horrible as you imagine it was, and the other today. The modern girl is not as bad as White Oleander, which traumatized me in 9th grade. (I read that and The Bell Jar and wrote a lot of bad poetry. I was the coolest.)

It's kind of cheesy. It's also kind of sad. I didn't feel super emotionally invested in the characters but I was just shy of hallucinating so...anything's possible really. Maybe this book is brilliant and I was just too sick to know any better.

(5 stars) This book was so good you guys. You should definitely go read it immediately. My only problem with this book was that I listened to the audiobook and the narrator did not have Jennifer Lawrence's sassypants dialogue down very well. Which is my problem with every book where JLaw's in the movie.

I'm going to steal the GoodRead's description, which I can only assume is on the back of the book because it's much better than anything I could write.

"Meet Pat. Pat has a theory: his life is a movie produced by God. And his God-given mission is to become physically fit and emotionally literate, whereupon God will ensure a happy ending for him -- the return of his estranged wife Nikki. (It might not come as a surprise to learn that Pat has spent time in a mental health facility.) The problem is, Pat's now home, and everything feels off. No one will talk to him about Nikki; his beloved Philadelphia Eagles keep losing; he's being pursued by the deeply odd Tiffany; his new therapist seems to recommend adultery as a form of therapy. Plus, he's being hunted by Kenny G!"

Emotionally literate. That is beautiful. This book is beautiful, and funny, and just....stop reading this and go read it.

Don't try and watch the movie two days after you finish the book. That is a bad idea. It doesn't matter how brilliant the entire cast is (especially JLaw, who won an Oscar for the role), you will fall asleep. Or I did. It was also midnight. I make good decisions.

Please tell me you're all as obsessed with Jennifer Lawrence as I am. 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (5), Stephen Chbosky

Charlie is a freshman. A geek. The kind of guy that doesn't really fit in and mostly just talks to his English teacher and reads books. That is, until seniors Patrick and Sam begin to hang out with him and introduce him to the world of smoking, drinking, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

This book was beautiful. I'd heard for years that I should read it and it just stayed packed away on my list of books, getting skipped over for non-YA while I was being a pretentious snob. Then I realized that there are earth-moving YA books and you are still allowed to read them when you become an adult, crazy right?

Anyway, this book is beautiful. It reminds you of the messiness of life and doesn't try and wrap it up in shiny paper and make it all ok, but let's you wallow in the shared misery of being a human. It gives you hope that it's all wonderfully worth it.

The other thing I love about it is that Charlie reads a whole bunch of really good books, which makes me want to go out and read a bunch of really good books.

Charlie's Reading List

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald

On the Road, Jack Kerouac

A Separate Peace, John Knowles

Walden, Henry David Thoreau

Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs

Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie

Hamlet, William Shakespeare

L'Etranger, Albert Camus

The Mayor of Castro Street, Randy Shilts

Selected poems, E. E. Cummings

Someone Else's Love Story (4)

This is my second book by Joshilyn Jackson. And I devoured it just as quickly as the first one. I loved it. I thought it was beautiful and I got very little sleep on two different nights because I couldn’t put it down. The second I decided to just finish the damn thing so I could start sleeping again.

If you ask, "If you love it so much, why did you give it a 4 and not a 5?" It's because I love a lot of things. Like pizza. But pizza is not a 5-star food. This book did not change my life, and I probably won't read it 18 million times, so it gets a 4. You could say I throw the word "love" around a lot. 

Our story starts with Shandi, who is 21 and raising her three-year-old son, father unkown. Her best friend Walcott helps her in this endeavor and everything else ever, including moving to Atlanta to live in her father’s second condo so she can be nearer school and put her son, who is a certifiable genius, into a more advanced preschool.

On the way they stop for gas, Shandi and her son Natty go inside for snacks, and they end up in the middle of an armed robbery. And this hunky guy, William Ashe, gets in between the gunman and Shandi’s son. So, of course, she falls in love with him, who wouldn’t?

If that doesn’t sound like your kind of book, it probably isn’t, and you can feel free to join in my conversation that is chock full of spoilers. If you mind Shandi’s love interest being nicknamed “the great god Thor,” then this book is probably not for you. But it’s cute and exciting and talks about all manner of love: friendship, family, romantic, lust, love for child, love for parents, ect.

I loved this book and it made me feel really uncomfortable. So you can keep reading if you want to but there major, major, major spoiler alerts ahead if you do. But I want to talk about my feelings, I need to share them with someone and I don’t know anyone who’s read the book. Now, I’m probably reading way more than I need to into this novel. I completely understand and accept that. But two things bugged me:

Spoiler #1 (less major spoiler) Shandi’s best friend is Walcott. William’s best friend is Paula. For a second I thought this was going to be a breath of fresh air where guys and girls could be friends and sometimes sleep together and not be in love with each other. Though I contest that once sex is involved it’s probably going to get messy. And I do pretty much believe in the When Harry Met Sally line that guys and girls can’t just be friends. One of them is, at some point, going to fall for the other. But I really, really wanted this book to not go there because I’m really over that plot line and for awhile it seemed like it wasn’t going to go there. And I hate the idea of “oh my god, suddenly I realize I’m in love with him! I’ve always been in love with him!” And that’s probably just a personal problem I have because I don’t think that’s how love works, I think that’s how stories work, and I think it’s a lazy plot device unless you have a crime TV show that needs it to keep people interested (a la Bones. Mostly I just really loved Bones). I won't tell you who likes who though, so maybe this isn't that much of a spoiler. And I will say that Joshilyn turns the best-friends-in-love plot time around a few times in the book, so I could consider that she is exploring the idea. The very, very end part is definitely cheesy. 

Spoiler #2 (Basically going to ruin the entire plot of the book. Stop reading now. You've been warned.) So here’s the deal about Shandi’s son, who she loves with all of her heart. He is the product of her getting raped at a party. This is something she has repressed within herself and only actually admits it when he is three years old and she meets William Ashe, who is sitting between a loaded gun and her son. And on the one hand, ok, you decide you want to keep your pregnancy for whatever reason and you don’t want to think about how you got him because you want to love him. Ok. But it felt kind of preachy that she decided to keep it. Moving on.

So Will ends up being a genius scientist. Who has Asperger’s, so I guess that is sort of brought into the conversation as well? And Shandi’s mom is very Catholic and her dad is very Jewish so we're talking about what religion does to family relationships. And small-town Wilcott has two moms, because they are in love. So what I'm saying is: Joshilyn is all over the place about what she’s saying in this book. So there’s that. I kind of just wanted to ask what exactly she was trying to say about everything in the entire world. It felt unfocused. 

Back to the baby daddy. Genius but not quite socially adept Will uses genetics and they figure out who the dad is. The guy that raped her when she was drugged. He has some form of Asperger’s as well, and was trying to make friends by joining a frat and chugged way too much beer and was not the one who drugged Shandi but she mistook him for Walcott, who she was in love with for that moment, and the had sex in the backyard. Then he got sick and passed out in the bushes, so that’s why Walcott found her all by herself, half naked, in the backyard. But he’s actually a really sweet guy who just thought that Shandi liked him and wanted to have sex with him and he was really drunk so he didn’t know that she was drugged.

So, basically, I’m irked that while there are so many conversations about date rape and guys not really getting the blame and girls getting slut shamed for being raped and this book is like well sometimes everyone’s to blame. Or something. And while it’s super sweet to think that he’s not a villain and he’s a normal guy who’s misunderstood, but I just don’t think the world is that easy of a place. Maybe I just like to live in a feminist part of the internet and don't want to think that a guy ever has an excuse if he rapes a girl. Ever. We don't even get to find out who drugged her and is really the bad guy so I have no one to channel my hatred at. 

This was a really long rant. Have a unicorn.

bingebehavior.com

I like that this book made me think about things and my views on things. I liked this book. I don't necessarily agree with much of it, but it was a fun read. 

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (4)

After starting and - not abandoning, but - shelving the last four books I picked up, I didn't know if I could like any books. Maybe I’d read all the books I would like in my life. It was over. I might as well go re-read Game of Thrones*. Then Harry Potter. Then Hunger Games. And perhaps start all over again.

I was sold by the end of the first page.

“I’d sit at my kitchen table and start scanning help-wanted ads on my laptop, but then a browser tab would blink and I’d get distracted and follow a link to a long magazine article about genetically modified wine grapes…”

You sir, understand me. I will read your book.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is a book for nerds. So many of us are nerds these days, with the rise of Microsoft and Google and the Internet you need to be a nerd to make a living. This book takes nerds and the things they love and combine them into your tale-as-old-as-time Hero Quest. Its light, and lovely, and sweet.

It's about kids who play a lot of D&D

Clay Jannon is a young web designer living in San Francisco who has just been laid off. To break the monotony of idly searching for jobs, he takes long walks. And one fateful day he wanders down the wrong street at the right time and spies a help wanted ad. So begins his journey at the 24-Hour Bookstore. The patrons are strange. Really strange. And he has to keep a log of what they get (they never seem to pay, but each has a membership card) and also what they looked like and how they appeared to be feeling.

Thus starts your hero quest. What are these books? What language are they even written in? He brings in his best friend and his love interest and together they are off to find a path to immortality. 

Now I think I need to go read a book that’s thick and long and breaks my heart. Because that’s what I like to do with my time.

*Yes, I know it’s called A Song of Ice and Fire. But no one calls it that. No one but you and me, friend. No one but you and me. 

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend (5) - Matthew Dicks

If I really, really like a book I find myself still thinking like the narrator after I've finished their story. Which sounds crazy, but I'm an actor, remember? I loved the narrator, Budo, and I devoured this book fast enough that he totally got into my head.

Budo is Max’s imaginary friend. He’s real, but invisible to everyone but Max, and the other imaginary friends he meets. But he has his own emotions, his own thoughts, he can even leave the house and go on his own adventures. He is also the oldest imaginary friend he’s ever met, because Max needs him more than other kids.

I loved this book. It was beautiful and arresting, I loved the characters and I simply couldn’t put this book down.

Budo is obsessed with death. Mostly his own death, because if Max ever stops believing in him, Budo will die. He will fade away until he disappears completely. The novel revolves around this idea, of reality, and of death. Budo is lucky because he can walk through doors, and Max lets him roam around the school. Budo has his own best friend, an imaginary girl named Graham. Budo is also lucky that he looks so much more human than some imaginary friends: such as Puppy, the dim-witted imaginary friend of a kindergartener, Wooly, who looks a lot like Flat Stanley and can’t walk, or Klute, who looks like a bobble head. It is sweet, and funny, and sad, and beautiful.

There is also a thrilling bit after Max gets kidnapped and Budo has to figure out how to save him before Max is taken away forever.

This book has been compared to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which I also loved and remember reading in approximately one sitting. 

A Walk Across the Sun (4)

"If thou has not seen the devil, look at thine own self." -A Walk Across the Sun

I’m not going to lie, I wrote a review of this book with 100 pages to go and came thisclose to putting this book down and walking away. I’ll make sure it’s in here somewhere if you want to listen to a weird rant. I whined to my roommates about how I just wanted to walk away from the book. I had a snack. I sat down. And after three more pages I was riveted. Like, don’t-move-a-muscle-except-to-wipe-away-your-tears riveted.

Here’s my initial reaction: (100 pages to go)

This book was interesting but the writing felt very pedestrian after reading Diaz’s This is How You Lose Her. It felt long. I mean, I read Game of Thrones in a week. This felt long. I semi-lost interest two-thirds of the way through but kept plodding along because I couldn’t just abandon it. I got it from the library. I have to give it back. I have no problem abandoning books I actually own, which is weird now that I think of it. Shouldn’t I care more about the books I actually spent money on? Well, sure, but I got it for $3 at Half-Priced Books, so it’s not a complete loss.

A Walk Across the Sun is the tale of two sisters, Ahalya and Sita Ghai, orphaned after a tsunami in their native India and sold into the sex trade; and the man, Thomas Clarke who is trying to rescue them and fix his marriage. Chapters flip between Ahalya, Sita, and Thomas' perspectives with a slightly distorted timeline that left me a bit confused. I’m not dumb enough to be confused about if the current chapter happened before or after the previous chapter. I didn't get confused during Game of Thrones, did I? (No, I didn't) George R. R. Martin is the master at weaving all of those plot lines together, and he has approximately 1 billion characters to keep track of. Across continents. Get it together, Corban. 

The biggest problem with A Walk Across the Sun  was that I couldn’t feel what the characters were feeling. I felt more empathy towards Yunior*, and we all know how I felt about him. In fact, I care more about Cersei Lannister** then I do about these characters, and I hate Cersei way more than Yunior. The only character I’ve hated more than Cersei was Professor Umbridge*** and at least she got what was coming to her. More or less.

What I did like was that Addison explained the world to me. My last cross-cultural excursion made me feel relatively confused since I didn’t understand several of the words on each page, but Addison explained everything to me very concisely. At least he didn’t make me feel stupid.

It didn’t suck. But there are probably better books out there. Let me know if you need help finding one. I’ve found like 20 I want to read while procrastinating finishing this one. I may also just be ADD about how many books I want to read and not letting myself fully immerse myself in the story of the book. Perhaps if I had tried to savour this book instead of devour it, I would have liked it better.

After the last 100 pages

Yes, there was almost a hundred pages in the middle that were Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix painful. Yes, that probably means it was a bit too long. But the end was perfect. I cried. I won’t tell you if they were happy tears or sad tears or both but I like crying over books because I’m a masochist.

I’m so glad I didn’t give up on it.

*This is How You Lose Her, Junot Diaz – beautiful prose, horrible main character. Kind of like Cersei.

**Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin - get with the program. It will only take you between four months & two years to get through all five books, judging by the length of times it has taken me my two roommates. My friend Liz read the first book in 2 days, but she's crazy. It took me four months to get through A Feast for Crows alone, because of Cersei’s chapters. Stay strong my friends, it gets better.

***Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix, J.K. Rowling - it is unforgivable that you did not know that. You just crucio-ed my heart.  And you don’t even know what that means

This is How You Lose Her (3.5)

“And that's when I know it's over. As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it's the end.” - This is How You Lose Her

Well, this is one of those books that makes me feel like I’m either an idiot or a terrible person. I liked it but I didn’t love it. And the more I think about it, the less I like it.

This is How You Lose Her is the story of Yunior, his family, and his pathetic attempt at a love story. I didn’t find Yunior relatable for most of the novel. And while most of the novel is from his perspective, there are some random chapters in the middle from other characters’ perspective, and I’m not sure how they fit into the story. Those chapters were lovely, and when we went back to Yunior’s story for the end of the novel it was a bit of a disappointment.

“She's sensitive, too. Takes to hurt the way water takes to paper.” -- This is How You Lose Her

****SPOILERS AHEAD*****

like this, but better.

Now I didn’t actually hate the novel as much as it's about to sound like I did. Diaz’s prose is beautiful. The short story in the middle of a Latina washwoman trying to make her way in America was lovely.

Her lover, Ramόn, has a wife who won’t move to America. He talks of buying a house where they can live together but is still writing home to the wife. That relationship is foreign to me, why keep a wife while you’re really with another woman? But at the same time I can understand it, a cross-continent divorce is probably difficult, and culturally may not be something Ramόn views as an option. At least they are honest with each other.

Yunior's story is less palatable. Yunior is devastated when the love of his life leaves him. She leaves him because she finds out he has cheated on her with over fifty different women. Call me a feminist (please), but I have no pity for him. And I barely feel like he learned his lesson. He couldn’t get over her and took to running, which gave him plantar fasciitis so he had to quit, which lead to yoga, which lead to a bad back and blah blah blah his life is so hard. 

His friends think his actions are entirely reasonable. His married friend knocks up a girl back in the Dominican Republic. And I think it was supposed to be sweet how excited he was to have a son, but I was a little more concerned about his wife and daughter back home. 

Call me a feminist, but I just couldn't like these men. 

As a complete aside: I just checked the holds I need to go pick up. I have five books to go get. whoops. I PANICKED when I finished my last book because I "only" had three books from the library. ONE of which was the second in a series and came before the first in the series (whoops) the SECOND is a Philippa Gregory and I didn't suspend my hold fast enough because I like Philippa Gregory. She's like my go-to author every time I have time to read because she generally has an amount of researched historical facts, which makes me feel smart, and it's about women and usually about who their in love with which is satisfying. But Philippa is no Jo, I do not have to read every book she's ever written. She's just kind of where I go when I don't know what to read. 

But I'm only 1/3 of the way through the Third book...so I feel like I have a long way to go. Picking up 5 books seems like a lot. Especially since I have 2 2/3. 

I have a problem. 

A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty (4.5)

 I thought I was going to hate this book. I literally only got it from the library because it was on the Goodread's Choice list from last year. And I figured I didn't have to finish it if it was as dumb as it sounded. The title, the cover, the author's name (Joshilyn? What is this, 19 and counting?) all annoyed me. The book "is a powerful saga of three generations of women, plagued by hardships and torn by a devastating secret, yet inextricably joined by the bonds of family." (Goodreads book description). Kill me. Please.

But I gave it a chance out of sheer desperation. And it was Gone Girl kind of page turner, but with more likeable characters. I was hooked by page 3. Yes, 15-year-old Mosey Slocumb deserves to be slapped for her teenage use of the English language. But seeing the story from her, her mother Lisa, and grandmother Jenny's points of view was a perfect balance.

Slight spoiler alert (like chapter 3): while building a pool in the backyard they find a dead baby buried under Lisa's favorite willow tree. Here's the spoiler...it's Mosey. No, Mosey isn't some weird ghost we're following around for a third of the book. She's real too, but she's not Lisa's biological daughter.

definitely not 19 & counting

Lisa ran away when she was 15 and Mosey was a few weeks old. Jenny assumed that Lisa had run off with Mosey, but real-Mosey was buried in the backyard and Lisa went on a drug-addled tour of the US and came back with a new Mosey. That is what this book is about. Who is Mosey? How did real Mosey die? Can they keep this secret from the town or are Lisa and Jenny going to be prosecuted for murder?

And did I mention that Lisa had a stroke so she can't actually talk to anyone about what is going on? Her chapters are a rollercoaster through the past, revealing piece by piece what really happened while Mosey and Jenny try to figure everything out on their own.

And yes, Mosey knows she's not real-Mosey, and Jenny knows...but both are trying to hide this information from the other, which leads to...

I'm not telling you that. Go read the book.

upcoming books

I think the biggest problem with this book is that it was billed as fiction and sounded like it was going to be some sort of family bonding story, and I felt like it read more like a mystery. Perhaps if it had been billed as mystery/suspense it would have gotten more attention? 

I liked this book so much I have to restrain myself from binge-reading everything Joshilyn Jackson has ever written. Because I do that, but then I get sick of them and never want to read them again (Dan Brown, prime example. J.K. Rowling only exception). Instead I put a hold on her next book. Which is coming out in November. Which would be super pathetic but I'm actually 7th in line. Six people thought of this before me. I am a failure.