Deedledee is still reading

January
1. Take Me There by Susane Colasanti (read by MacLeod Andrews, Angela Dawe, and Sarah Grace)
2. The Greatest Hits of Wanda Jaynes by Bridget Canning
3. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes (ebook)
4. The Outsider by Stephen King (read by Will Patton)
5. The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon (read by Bahni Turpin, Raymond Lee, Dominic Hoffman)(YF)
6. The Alice Network by Kate Quinn (read by Saskia Maarleveld)
7. I Really Didn't Think This Through: Tales from My So-called Adult Life by Beth Evans (ANF)(ARC)
February
8. The Winter Palace: A Novel of Catherine the Great by Eva Stachniak (ebook)
9. Mr. Flood's Last Resort by Jess Kidd (read by Aoife McMahon)
10. Winter in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand (read by Erin Bennett)
11. Turtles All the Way Down by John Green (read by Kate Rudd)(YF)
12. Educated: a Memoir by Tara Westover (ANF)
13. The Space Between Words by Michele Phoenix
March
14. The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner (read by Rachel Kushner)
15. Forgiveness: a Gift from my Grandparents by Mark Sakamoto (ANF) (ebook)
16. Love and Ruin by Paula McLain (read by January LaVoy)
17. The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
18. The Life of Alice by Bruce Graham (ANF)
April
19. An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris (read by Eva Kaminsky)
20. Help for the Haunted by John Searles (ebook)
21. A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole (ebook)
22. Not That I Could Tell by Jessica Strawser (read by Erin Bennett)
23. Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman (ebook) (YF)
24. Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross (read by Kim Mai Guest) (YF)
25. Strong Female Protagonist: Book One by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag (AGN)
26. The Rest is Silence by Scott Fotheringham
27. No Place to Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Private Needs by Lezlie Lowe (ANF)
May
28. Transplanted: My Cystic Fibrosis Double-Lung Transplant Story by Allison Watson (ANF)
29. Far From the Tree by Robin Benway (ebook) (YF)
30. Precious Cargo: My Year of Driving the Kids on School Bus 3077 by Craig Davidson (ANF)(ebook)
31. The Witch Elm by Tana French (read by Paul Nugent)
32. Bizarre Romance by Audrey Niffenegger and Eddie Campbell (AGN)
33. A Stash of One's Own: Knitters on Loving, Living with, and Letting go of Yarn edited by Clara Parkes (ANF)
34. The Lightning-Struck Heart by TJ Klune (read by Michael Lesley)
June
35. Unleashed by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié (YF) (ebook)
36. The Waiting Hours by Shandi Mitchell
37. The Pharmacist's Mate: A Story of Birth, Death, Guitars, and Goldfish by Amy Fusselman
38. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (read by Jay Sanders)
39. Promises to Keep by Genevieve Graham
40. Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman by Anne Helen Petersen (ANF)
July
41. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (ebook)
42. Promises to Keep by Jane Green
43. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green (read by Kristen Sieh)
44. A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
45. Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley (AGN)
46. Elevation by Stephen King (read by Stephen King)
47. Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher (YF)
48. To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey (read by John Glouchevitch, Christine Lakin, and Kiff VandenHeuvel)
49. The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King
50. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance (read by J.D. Vance)
August
51. We Contain Multitudes by Sarah Henstra (YF)
52. Mom's Perfect Boyfriend by Crystal Hemmingway
53. Beartown by Frederik Backman
54. Transcription by Kate Atkinson (ebook)
55. Becoming by Michelle Obama (read by Michelle Obama) (ANF)
56. The Cresswell Plot by Eliza Wass (YF)
57. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (ebook)
58. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
59. Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World by Pénélope Bagieu (AGN)
September
60. A Destiny of Dragons by T.J. Klune (read by Michael Lesley)
61. Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner (read by Ari Graynor and Beth Malone)
62. The Parade by Dave Eggers (read by Dion Graham)
63. Why My Cat is More Impressive Than Your Baby by Matthew Inman
64. The Gown by Jennifer Robson (ebook)
65. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (read by Ann Dowd, Bryce Dallas Howard, Mae Whitman, Derek Jacobi, Tantoo Cardinal, and Margaret Atwood)
66. The Innocents by Michael Crummey
67. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng (read by Cassandra Campbell)
68. Above the Waterfall by Ron Rash (read by Richard Ferrone and Tavia Gilbert)
October
69. Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry (read by Will Patton)
70. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (read by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)
71. Red-Headed Stepchild by Jaye Wells
72. This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel (read by Gabra Zackman)
73. City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert (read by Blair Brown)
74. Nutshell by Ian McEwan
November
75. Public Library and Other Stories by Ali Smith
76. He Said / She Said by Erin Kelly (read by Helen Johns and Jonathan Broadbent)
77. Artemis by Andy Weir
78. Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks (YGN)
79. Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride by Lucy Knisley (AGN)
80. With Love from the Inside by Angela Pisel (ebook)
81. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (read by Edoardo Ballerini)
December
82. When the Floods Came by Clare Morrall (ARC)
83. Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton (ebook)
84. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (ebook)
85. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (ebook)
86. Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land (ebook)
87. Lights Out by Holly Black (read by Samuel Anderson)
88. What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera (YF) (ebook)
89. Women in Sunlight by Frances Mayes (read by Kimberly Farr)

2019 PopSugar Reading Challenge

*1 - A book becoming a movie in 2019 - The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon (Jan 23)
*2 - A book that makes you nostalgic - The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King (July 21)
03 - A book written by a musician (fiction or nonfiction)
*4 - A book you think should be turned into a movie - The Alice Network by Kate Quinn (Jan 24)
*5 - A book with at least one million ratings on Goodreads - Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Aug 31)
*6 - A book with a plant in the title or on the cover - Far From the Tree by Robin Benway (May 8)
*7 - A reread of a favorite book -The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Dec 12)
*8 - A book about a hobby -A Stash of One's Own: Knitters on Loving, Living with, and Letting go of Yarn edited by Clara Parkes (May 26)
*9 - A book you meant to read in 2018- Turtles All the Way Down by John Green (Feb 18)
*10 - A book with "pop", "sugar" or "challenge" in the title - Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman (Apr 20)
*11 - A book with an item of clothing or accessory on the cover - The Gown by Jennifer Robson (Sept 18)
*12 - a book inspired by mythology, legend or folklore - The Outsider by Stephen King (Jan 8)
*13 - A book published posthumously - Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton (Dec 4)
14 - a book you see someone reading on TV or in a movie
*15 - A retelling of a classic -Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross (Apr 21)
*16 - A book with a question in the title - What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera (Dec 27)
17 - A book set on a college or university campus
*18 - a book about someone with a super power- Strong Female Protagonist: Book One by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag (Apr 22)
*19 - a book told from multiple POVs - Take Me There by Susane Colasanti (Jan 1)
*20 - a book set in space - Artemis by Andy Weir (Nov 8)
*21 - a book by two female authors - Unleashed by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié (June 3)
22 - A book with a title that contains "salty", "sweet", "bitter" or "spicy"
*23 - A book set in Scandinavia - Beartown by Frederik Backman (Aug 11)
*24 - a book that takes place in a single day - Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks (Nov 9)
*25 - a debut novel - The Greatest Hits of Wanda Jaynes by Bridget Canning (Jan 5)
*26 - a book that's published in 2019 - Transplanted: My Cystic Fibrosis Double-Lung Transplant Story by Allison Watson (May 5)
*27 - a book featuring an extinct or imaginary creature -A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole (Apr 14)
*28 - a book recommended by a celebrity you admire - The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey (Mar 24)
*29 - a book with "love" in the title -Love and Ruin by Paula McLain (Mar 24)
*30 - a book featuring an amateur detective- Mr. Flood's Last Resort by Jess Kidd (Feb 5)
*31 - A book about a family -Educated: a Memoir by Tara Westover (Feb 19)
*32 - A book written by an author from Asia, Africa or South America -My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Aug 22)
*33 - A book with a zodiac sign or astrology term in the title- The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner (Mar 6)
*34 - a book that includes a wedding - Me Before You by Jojo Moyes (Jan 6)
*35 - A book by an author whose first and last names start with the same letter - No Place to Go by Lezlie Lowe (Apr 24)
*36 - A ghost story - Help for the Haunted by John Searles (Apr 8)
*37 - a book with a two-word title - Bizarre Romance by Audrey Niffenegger and Eddie Campbell (May 25)
*38 - A novel based on a true story - The Innocents by Michael Crummey (Sept 22)
*39 - A book revolving around a puzzle or game - An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green (July 4)
40 - Your favorite prompt from a past Popsugar Reading Challenge

Advanced:
*41 - A "cli fi" book- The Rest is Silence by Scott Fotheringham (Apr 22)
42 - A "choose-your-own-adventure" book
*43 - An "own voices" book -Forgiveness: a Gift from my Grandparents by Mark Sakamoto (Mar 7)
*44 - Read a book during the season it is set in - Winter in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand (Feb 17)
45 - A LitRPG book
*46 - A book with no chapters / unusual chapter headings / unconventionally numbered chapters-The Pharmacist's Mate: A Story of Birth, Death, Guitars, and Goldfish by Amy Fusselman (June 16)
*47 &
*48 - Two books that share the same title - Promises to Keep by Genevieve Graham (June 21) & Promises to Keep by Jane Green (July 2)
*49 - A book that has inspired a common phrase or idiom- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (June 16)
50 - A book set in an abbey, cloister, monastery, vicarage, or convent

Book stats 2018
Completed 84 books

87% fiction
13% non-fiction
1% graphic novel

88% Adult
7% YA
5% children's

40% Audiobook
23% ebook
37% paper book

93% belonged to the library
6% were Advance Reading Copies
1% were owned/loaned

Welcome back!

Happy New Year!

Happy reading in 2019, Dee!

Happy New Year, Dee!

Happy 2019, Dee! I'll also be doing the Pop Sugar Challenge. Good luck :)

Hello! I just read in your introduction that you live in Nova Scotia. I am in Ontario, but I did a road trip to NS, NB, and PEI this summer with a friend. What a beautiful province you live in! I spend time in Halifax and Cape Breton, and I discovered so many other places I want to see on my next trip east. I had no idea how gorgeous our country is, as my travel up until this summer was mainly in Europe.

Looking forward to following your reading this year!

Book #1.
Take Me There by Susane Colasanti
Not a strong start to the reading year.
Most of the characters weren't that interesting. The revenge story seemed mean, especially when put up against the big speech by one of the characters about being good to each other.
Popsugar reading challenge: a book told from multiple POVs

Happy 2019
A year full of books
A year full of friends
A year full of all your wishes realised

I look forward to keeping up with you, Dee, this year.

Happy New Year, Dee. Sorry your first book of the year didn't work for you. They can only improve, right?

Book #2
The Greatest Hits of Wanda Jaynes by Bridget Canning
Wanda's having a bad week. She's just found out that her job at the college is being cut. After going to the gym she pops into the grocery store to pick up a few things and finds herself in the midst of a shooting. On impulse she throws a can at him, and this throw is caught on video.
Explores the nature of instant fame in the internet age, what it is to be a hero, and dealing with the fallout of both.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A debut novel

Book #3
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
I decided to read this because it was available on Overdrive when I was looking for a book. It was popular a few years ago and I do remember it being controversial.
Louisa loses her job at the tea shop and finds herself hired on as a caregiver/companion/cheerful person for a quadriplegic man, Will. While there is a bit of a romance it's more about Will's loss of his normal life and Louisa's finding her potential.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book that includes a wedding

>10 Deedledee: Sorry to hear your reading year did not get off to a better start, Dee, but it looks like your second and third reads were better for you!

Book #4
The Outsider by Stephen King
The first part of the book was great. I don't normally like police procedural type fiction but King made it so interesting because he really delves into the characters. But when the book turned to "horror" I liked it less.
Also, there was a glaring inconsistency with the monster that bothered me for the later part of the book.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book inspired by mythology, legend or folklore

Wishing you a lovely weekend, Dee.

Book #5
The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
I really loved this book. Much more than I expected too.

Natasha is an undocumented immigrant and is trying to find a way to stop her family from being deported back to Jamaica. Over the space of 12 hours so much happens. She changes the course of multiple peoples lives (although she doesn't know it) and meets and falls in love with Daniel.
Daniel is the younger son of South Korean immigrants. He tries so hard to be a good son, even though what his parents want for him is not what he wants for himself. Daniel heads out that day to go to his interview for Yale and on his way sees Natasha and is captivated.
As the two spend the day together they fall in love and completely change each other's lives.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book becoming a movie in 2019

Book #6
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
Jumping back and forth between WWI and just after WWII, this is a story about strong, intelligent, capable women.
Charlie is young and pregnant and unmarried. Her mother it dragging her off to Europe to have her "little problem" taken care of. On the way Charlie takes off to find a woman in London who may be the key to the last known whereabouts of her cousin Rose.
Eve is Charlie's last hope at finding her cousin but she's so much more. A spy during WWI, Eve is smart and feisty and permanently damaged by war.
To me the information about the Alice Network, a WWI spy network headed up by a woman, was the most interesting part in the book. I didn't like how the two stories hinged together.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book you think should be turned into a movie

Book #7.
I Really Didn't Think This Through: Tales from My So-called Adult Life by Beth Evans

It's hard to define what kind of book this is - the publisher says it's self-help/humour but I feel like it's a bit of a memoir too.
Evans writes (and draws) about her experiences with depression, anxiety, and self-harm in a way that's very relatable and gives lots of suggestions about self-care.

Trying to take part in a 24 hour in 48 hour readathon and trying to get ready and pack for the Ontario Library Association Conference - these things don't work well together.

Book #8.
The Winter Palace: A Novel of Catherine the Great by Eva Stachniak

I don't know much about Catherine the Great or Russian aristocracy so this was an interesting read.

While the subtitle is A Novel of Catherine the Great, it's really about a young Polish woman named Barbara, a spy in the court of Empress Elizabeth who eventually becomes Catherine's friend. Barbara, or Varvara as she's known in the court, is an orphan who is noticed by Count Bestuzhev and taught spying ways. And that you can't trust anyone.

Book #9
Mr. Flood's Last Resort by Jess Kidd
I think I'm going to have to read this book again to pick up all the nuances.
There is so much going on in this book! Maud is sent by a caregiving agency to take care of Cathal Flood, a cantankerous old hoarder and while there she finds herself embroiled in mystery of his dead wife and missing daughter. With the help of a host of saints (that only Maud can see) and her agoraphobic landlady Renata she starts tracking down clues. Like I said, there's a lot going on.
A great read.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book featuring an amateur detective

>21 Deedledee: I could do with a readathon to catch up too, Dee

Book #10
Winter in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand
I did not realize this was a trilogy and as it got toward the end I was thinking that many of the stories would be left untold and then noticed it was listed as Paradise #1. Guess I'll have to wait until the next one comes out to see what happens.
On New Year's Eve, Irene is out with her friend and a little perturbed with her husband for not being home. Then she gets a call that there was an accident in the Virgin Islands and her husband is dead. She didn't know he was in the Virgin Islands. And there's more, he was with another woman. Irene and her sons fly down to try to figure out what was going on and discover so much more than they anticipated.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: Read a book during the season it is set in

Book #11
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
In this novel I think John Green shows a real and brutal version of what it is like to have OCD. Aza Holmes struggles everyday with "invasives" (invasive thoughts) that lead her to believe she's going to get C. Diff. and die or other terrible things. It leads her to live mostly inside her head. Her friend, Daisy, is super outgoing and talkative so they balance each other out.
The story of their friendship and Aza's mental illness is really the plot of this book. The mystery of the disappearance of the billionaire is mostly secondary.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book you meant to read in 2018

Book #12
Educated: a Memoir by Tara Westover
Wow, this family is so unbelievably dysfunctional!
Westover grows up in a very strict Mormon survivalist family in Idaho. Her family doesn't believe in schooling (she's supposedly homeschooled but very little of that seems to happen), or doctors and modern medicine. Her father suffers from undiagnosed mental illness and her mother is very obviously a beaten-down woman. Westover has several siblings are some of the relationships with them are quite turbulent, especially Shawn, who is very abusive.
Despite this and so many other barriers she manages to teach herself enough to not only pass the ACT but gain a scholarship to Brigham Young University, and then show herself to be such an exceptional student to go on to Cambridge and earn a PhD. She is shows she must have an exceptional mind.
A difficult read but impossible to put down.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book about a family

Book #13.
The Space Between Words by Michele Phoenix
Jessica went to Paris with her friends Patrick and Vonda. On their last day there they decide to go to a concert at the Bataclan. The date was November 13, 2015 and the concert they went to was one which terrorists targeted as part of attacks across the city. Ninety people were killed in that theatre and another 40 throughout Paris.
Jessica is seriously injured. After her release from the hospital she decides to take a tour of southern France rather than heading back to the US. At an antique shop she finds a treasure that leads her on a quest to determine what happened to a seventeenth century Huguenot family that fled France to escape persecution.

Book #14
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
Romy Hall is in prison serving a double life sentence plus 6 years for killing her stalker, a man who fixated on her when she was working as a lap dancer at the Mars Room. While Romy is the main character there are numerous people she encounters in the prison. She’s both very alone but also surrounded by a community.
Kushner did a lot of research on life as a prisoner and gives a realistic view of life in prison and the circumstances that lead to incarceration.
It’s a great book but it does read like a series of interconnected vignettes rather than a novel.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book with a zodiac sign or astrology term in the title

Book #15
Forgiveness: a Gift from my Grandparents by Mark Sakamoto
The first 3rd of the book is the most engrossing and difficult to read. Sakamoto interviews his paternal grandmother and his maternal grandfather to get their recollections for their time during World War II. His grandmother, Mitsue Sakamoto (nee Oseki) and her family had their regular lives taken away because they were Japanese or of Japanese decent. The government at the time considered them a threat and an enemy. They took their belongings, their livelihood, their dignity, and sent them far away from their coastal home.
On the other side of the world, Sakamoto's grandfather, Ralph MacLean was a soldier in Hong Kong and his regiment is decimated. He's captured and spends time in a couple of prisoner of war camps. The treatment was completely abhorrent.
Later Mark talks about the two families being brought together by the marriage of his parents and the subsequent failure of that marriage and his mother's descent into alcoholism.
It's a bleak and difficult book but eye opening.
Winner of CBC's Canada Reads in 2018.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: An "own voices" book

Book #16
Love and Ruin by Paula McLain
I really enjoy McLain's books. She writes about powerful women who fight against the requirements of society at the time.
Martha Gellhorn was an award winning war correspondent and novelist. She meets up with Ernest Hemingway shortly after the publication of her first book and thus begins a tumultuous love affair. Their relationship starts when they're both covering the Spanish Civil War, while Hemingway was still married to his second wife. Gellhorn becomes his third wife and she suffers for it. He seems to be the most angry when she shows the independence and intelligence that first drew him to her.


Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book with "love" in the title

Book #17
The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
The ending was not at all what I expected, in a good way. It's not often that I can't anticipate how a book will end.
Melanie is part of a very special class. They're all kept in locked rooms and are locked into special chairs when they go into class. They live in a compound to keep them away from the "hungries". When this compound is taken over Melanie escapes with her favourite teacher, Miss Justineau. On the road to Beacon, the command centre in Britain, she discovers that she's a hungry - sort of - and what it is to be a human.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book recommended by a celebrity you admire
recommended by Maggie Stiefvater

Book #18
The Life of Alice by Bruce Graham
Alice meets and marries the much older D.B. Lewis, but when they met he was already married. And this took place in rural Nova Scotia in 1913. The repercussions of this lead to Alice losing her family for the rest of her life.

Book #19.
An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris
The first book in a new series by Harris.
Lizbeth Rose is a gunslinger in some sort of alternate history of the U.S. She works with a team who are killed off almost immediately. She then falls in with a couple of wizards and everyone tries to kill them. There is some other plot but it's like an action movie, it's stuff that happens in between stuff blowing up.
It's not going to win any literature prizes but it's a fun, escapist read.

Book #20
Help for the Haunted by John Searles
Since her parents' murder, Sylvie has been "raised" by her older sister Rose. But what really happened in the church that snowy night in February? Sylvie's still trying to piece it together.

This book had good parts but it dragged a fair bit in the middle.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A ghost story

Book #21
A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole
My co-worker and I do weekly radio spots about different genres and things going on at the library. On a recent show we were talking book recommendations and this is a book she recommended. It is very far from my typical read and I have to say I didn't love it. I really only got into the book in the end when all the action was happening.
Lachlain was held captive and tortured for 150 years in the catacombs below Paris. Emmaline is a very young vampire/valkyrie mix who is visiting Paris to find out more information about her parentage. When Lachlain scents her he frees himself to find her because she's his fated mate. Then he spends the next half of the book being a possessive jerky ass and she's a receding wallflower who lets him get away with crap. Then he grows and she grows and blah, blah, blah.
I did like all of the paranormal stuff, not so much to romance.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book featuring an extinct or imaginary creature

Book #22.
Not That I Could Tell by Jessica Strawser

Kristin seemed to have everything; beautiful twins, a handsome doctor husband, a lovely home in a nice neighbourhood. Then one day she and the kids disappear. Did something happen to her? Is she running from her husband? Is it about money? The neighbours discover that maybe they don't know as much about each other as they think.

Book #23.
Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

What an amazing book! Shusterman tries to express what it is to live with a schizoaffective disorder, a deeply personal story for him as his son had to be hospitalized for a period due to his mental illness.

Caden's thoughts start racing. He starts to hear voices. He begins to have delusions. His friends and family become worried. His family brings him to a treatment centre.
The flip side of the story is being inside Caden's head and trying to sort out what's real and what's mental illness. What's real and what his medication is doing.

Book #24.
Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross

Ugh, I don't know why I finished this book. Starting at about the 30% mark I was yelling at the book. The premise was an interesting one but... sigh. Mira is the absolute definition of a Mary Sue.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A retelling of a classic

Book #25.
Strong Female Protagonist: Book One by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag

A really thought provoking take on the superhero genre.
Allison, and many others around the world, developed super powers when she was in her early teens. She joined The Guardians, a group of superheroes, to combat the supervillans. But at 19 decides to unmask herself and try to live a normal life. That doesn't really go as planned.

At the same time it explores what it is to do good in the world and the grey areas of morality.
Definitely a recommended read.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book about someone with a super power

Book #26.
The Rest is Silence by Scott Fotheringham

An unnamed narrator in rural Nova Scotia tells a story about Benny, a molecular scientist in New York, who has something to do with the plastic in the world disappearing. Our narrator talks about Benny's discovery of an enzyme that will eat plastic but what's left unsaid is what kind of destruction the loss of plastic would have on the world.

Fotheringham is a molecular biologist so he puts a lot of science behind the story.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A "cli fi" book

>38 Deedledee: Agreed, Challenger Deep was an amazing book. Glad you enjoyed it.

Book #27
No Place to Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Private Needs by Lezlie Lowe

Lowe examines the public bathroom as a social and political issue. In this fascinating book, she discusses how the design of public toilets (if you can even find one!) are not for cis-gender women, anyone transitioning, those with a disability (visible or not), caregivers, or the homeless. She talks about the rise of public "conveniences" as they were euphemistically known, and their disappearance. A really interesting read.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book by an author whose first and last names start with the same letter

Book #28
Transplanted: My Cystic Fibrosis Double-Lung Transplant Story by Allison Watson

Watson is an incredibly resilient person. Growing up with Cystic Fibrosis she had to undergo a number of medical procedures but chose to live life as fully as possible. When her lung function declined to the point that she could no longer function she was placed on the transplant list. Watson talks about her various health struggles, her transplant and recovery, her subsequent cancer and recovery, and finally her life today as a (mostly) healthy person.

A really great read. Especially as it has a happy ending.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book that's published in 2019

Book #29
Far From the Tree by Robin Benway
Grace is a teenager who has just given her baby up for adoption. Maya is trying to keep it together while hiding her mother's drinking. Joaquin has bounced around the foster system for years and has a hard time trusting people. These three find out they are siblings and create an instant bond. They help each other out with issues and bolster each other.
It was a good book but not great. Maybe because I'm not the target audience but it just seemed a little too formulaic.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book with a plant in the title or on the cover

Book #30
Precious Cargo: My Year of Driving the Kids on School Bus 3077 by Craig Davidson
A contender for Canada Reads in 2018, this is Davidson's memoir of driving school bus for one year because he was beyond broke and broken.
I really enjoyed reading about his interaction with the kids on his bus and how he both enjoyed and was frustrated by their quirks and personalities. Some of it was quite insightful and some of it felt like fluff to pad out the book.

Book #31
The Witch Elm by Tana French
Toby is a privileged white male. He has looks, money, a good job, a lovely girlfriend, and then a terrible robbery takes it all away from him. In the aftermath of a beating by robbers he has a brain injury that makes it difficult for him to concentrate or remember. He moves in with his seriously ill uncle and things start to look up. Then a dead body is found in his uncle's garden. The mystery of how the body ends up there then takes on the central focus of the book.
I did not like this book but stuck with it because I wanted to know how it would end. It plodded along slowly, with characters I didn't much care for. After a major twist, which I won't spoil, I began to hate Toby even more.

Book #32
Bizarre Romance by Audrey Niffenegger and Eddie Campbell
Thirteen of Niffenegger's short stories as illustrated by Campbell. As with other short stories by Niffenegger, these are odd and unsettling.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book with a two-word title

Book #33
A Stash of One's Own: Knitters on Loving, Living with, and Letting go of Yarn edited by Clara Parkes
A fantastic collection of essays that talk about a knitter's stash in terms of space, body issues, gender identity, and more. It's not just about the piles of yarn we have (or don't have), it's about our identities and our interactions.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book about a hobby

Book #34.
The Lightning-Struck Heart by TJ Klune
Hilarious! It's what I imagine a romance written by Terry Pratchett while high on Ecstasy would be like. It has wizards (both good and bad), magic, a hornless unicorn named Gary, a half-giant, a sexually aggressive dragon.... and that's just scratching the surface. And just so snarky! This is will lead to snort-laughing.
Sam is an apprentice to Morgan, the king's wizard. He's powerful and learning how to use that power. And he has the hugest crush on Knight Commander Ryan Foxheart. The problem being that Ryan is betrothed to Prince Justin. When they go off on an adventure together Sam falls more and more for Ryan, the man he cannot have.
The only issue I have is that the book is too long. It would have done well to have been edited a bit more. I will definitely be reading the next one in this series.

Hello! Oh, I love Terry Pratchett as light reading goes so, although I'm not in a mood for comedy at present, I might get that and keep it for comedy time. The unicorn's story reminds me somehow of the woolly mammoth in Ice Age who thought he was the only woolly mammoth left. I have every sympathy for mopey anthropomorphic animals. I know "anthropomorphic" is the wrong word — I'm having trouble sleeping so my vocabulary has gone on holiday!

That Popsugar challenge sounds like fun. I'm new to LT so I haven't heard of the more specific challenges and I've never done one. I'm an impulsive book buyer and reader, tending to jump on the moment, but that challenge might broaden things.

>51 RoseM.:
Yeah, I'm trying to use the challenge as a way to read some things I might not normally pick up.

Book #35
Unleashed by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié
I realize this is the first book in the Wolf Springs Chronicles so the authors can't reveal everything at once but it took so long to get to the action and the cliffhanger at the end seemed so contrived. I won't be reading further in this series.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book by two female authors

Book #36
The Waiting Hours by Shandi Mitchell

The interwoven stories of a cop, a 911 dispatcher, and an ER nurse. These are the people who save our lives, who we see (or talk to) at our darkest times. But how does this affect them? What toll does being a life-saver take on them?
Tamara takes a 911 call about a young boy who has been shot. Mike is the officer on scene. Kate is the woman who pours blood into his body in an effort to save him. While this is the story of one trauma it really shows how they cope with the difficulties of the job.

Book # 37.
The Pharmacist's Mate: A Story of Birth, Death, Guitars, and Goldfish by Amy Fusselman
Fusselman writes frankly about the impact the death of her dad has on her while also dealing with fertility issues.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book with no chapters / unusual chapter headings / unconventionally numbered chapters

Book #38
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
I read this book back in my 20s and decided to go back to it because of the Popsugar Reading Challenge. This time around I listened to the audiobook.

An anti-war novel published in the early 1960s, based in World War II. It's absurd and horrible and irreverent and serious all at the same time.

”You mean there’s a catch?”

“Sure there’s a catch, “ Doc Daneeka replied. “Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn’t really crazy.”

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book that has inspired a common phrase or idiom

Book #39
Promises to Keep by Genevieve Graham

It's 1755, and Amelie Belliveau and her family are trying to live as normally as possible while the English army puts more and more restrictions on their lives leading up to the point where they load them on to ships to send them away.
Corporal MacDonnell is very taken by Amelie and thinks what the army is doing is wrong and vows to do whatever he can to save her family.

Growing up in New Brunswick we learned a lot about the expulsion of the Acadians but sometimes fiction can make people see an event in another light or just try to put a human emotion behind a historical occurrence.

Book #40
Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman by Anne Helen Petersen

In each chapter Petersen examines an "unruly" behaviour by women through the lens of a celebrity. An interesting look at current feminism and the women's rights backlash.

Book #41.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Creepy in a subdued way, a dark gothic novel without explicit horror or gore.

Dr. Montague rents Hill House and invites those who he believes have previously experienced paranormal events to join him there as assistants. He wants to observe supernatural "manifestations" and make notes about them. Eleanor and Theodora, join him, along with Luke, who will inherit Hill House some day. The four of them not only experience disturbing events, they are also forever changed by their time there.

The Netflix series is only loosely based on the book but I could see where they pulled certain elements from the book to feature in the show.

Book #42.
Promises to Keep by Jane Green
A light, cliched read that I will likely forget by next week.
Sisters Callie and Steffi live opposite lives but still love each other. Callie is a married mother of two whose husband travels too much but she loves him madly. Steffi, although in her 30s, has yet to grow up and cannot seem to find love. Then there's Callie's best friend Lila, who has finally found love at the ripe old age of 40, and their mother who found love with her second husband but is now widowed.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: Two books that share the same title

Book #43.
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
It's hard to put out a novel and be judged on its own merits when your older brother is a famous YA novelist but I think Hank Green has done a good job with his debut novel. Is it perfect? No, but it kept my attention and entertained me.

April May (an unfortunate name) discovers what she believes is an art installation and has her friend come film a video. It turns out to be something much more dramatic as the statues, which April named Carl, have turned up in major cities all over the world. April's life is turned upside down by the "Carls" and she shoots into instant fame. A really interesting take on fame in the modern age.

And as per the usual, I did not enjoy the ending. I think Green has set this up for a sequel and it may have been better as a stand alone book.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book revolving around a puzzle or game

Book #44.
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

Wow, it has been a long time since I've been compelled to finish a book in one day.

Merry tells us about her mentally ill sister (or is she possessed) from her 8 year old point of view, and then 15 years later.

Hello again - have you read BRAZEN?

From the titles on your thread, it's one you might well enjoy.

Book #45.
Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley
Knisley says in this graphic memoir that she uses her drawing and writing to process things going on in her life and this was certainly a lot to process. In addition to talking about her pregnancy she also provides pregnancy information through the ages.

>62 m.belljackson:

Is that Brazen by Penelope Bagieu? I've put that one on hold at the library.

Book #46.
Elevation by Stephen King
A short book by King with two short stories; Elevation and Laurie.
Neither of these were particularly amazing stories to me. In Elevation, Scott has some odd affliction that makes him lighter and lighter but he still outwardly appears to be the same weigh. He, with a lot of work, befriends his neighbours and saves them from the prejudices of the community. Laurie is about a widower who is given a dog by his sister to make him live his life again.

Dee, dropping by to wish you a lovely weekend.

Book #47.
Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher
"Zoe" is a 15 year old with a secret. A secret so terrible that she can only share it with a man who is halfway across the world on Death Row in Texas. A secret that we don't find out until the very end of the book. What we do get is glimpses of her normal teenage life through letters she sends anonymously to a prison who she doesn't even reveal her name with.

Book #48.
To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
What a fantastic book!
An epistolary novel consisting of journal entries, drawings, photos, diary entries, descriptions of artifacts, newspaper articles, official army reports and letters. It tells the story of the journey of a small contingent of military who are trying to determine the way through the Wolverine River in Alaska in 1885. The journal of Lieut. Col. Allen Forrester is sent to a small museum in Alpine, Alaska by one of his descendants, Walt, who begins a correspondence with the young curator Josh. With this juxtaposition we get the magic realism of Forrester's story, the description of artifacts the museum holds, the diaries of Forrester's wife Sophie, and the present day description of what this trip meant to the Indigenous people of that area.
There is just so much happening here that I don't think I'm doing it justice.

Book #49
The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King
A rare foray into fantasy by King. This obviously takes place in the same universe as the Dark Tower series with the same bad guy.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book that makes you nostalgic

Book #50.
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
I was expecting more of an examination of the socioeconomic analysis and less of a memoir.
Vance grew up in Ohio but sees himself as a hillbilly because most of his neighbourhood and his family were transplants from Appalachia (in his case, Kentucky). While he makes some interesting points I found that mostly he was a lucky individual.

Book #51
We Contain Multitudes by Sarah Henstra
I loved this book!
Adam "Kurl" Kurlansky is repeating grade 12 and is randomly assigned to exchange one letter a week with Jonathan Hopkirk, a grade 10 student for an English assignment. It quickly grows into an unlikely friendship and an even more unlikely relationship. Their letters are intimate and honest.

Book #52
Mom's Perfect Boyfriend by Crystal Hemmingway
An epistolary novel that gives you access to the character's inner thoughts with diary entries and their conversations via text, email, or letters. A light novel, great for the summer.
Crystal is struggling in her romantic relationship and when she's laid off work she moves in with her mother to save some money. Margot, Crystal's mother, is a bit... much. She can take over her daughter's life. But when she meets a lovely man she backs off a bit. But the man Margot is dating is a little off, a little too perfect.

Book #53
Beartown by Frederik Backman
My book club is going to be discussing this in December and I think we'll have a lot to talk about.
Beartown is a small Swedish town that lives for hockey, runs on hockey, exists only for hockey. And as the town shrinks and dies a lot of weight lies on the Junior team to win. A win could mean a hockey academy and more business.
But then an accusation against a star player tears the town apart.
Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book set in Scandinavia

Book #54.
Transcription by Kate Atkinson
I liked this book but didn't love it as I have other books by Atkinson.
At the tender age of 18, Juliet is recruited by MI5, initially as a transcriptionist of meetings of Nazi sympathizers. Then they tap her to become a spy. But it is not at all the glamorous life.
Fast forward to 1950, Juliet is working on educational programs for children at the BBC when she gets a mysterious note telling her she'll pay for what she did. What follows is the story of double crosses, spies spying on other spies, and so on.

Book #55.
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama, we miss you! I'm not even American but I still miss her measured and gracious approach. In this book she talks about her upbringing in Chicago, her family life, education, how she met Barack, and then goes on to talk about her part in Barack's political career. A very interesting book.

Book #56.
The Cresswell Plot by Eliza Wass
Castella knows her family is different. After an incident the six Cresswell children are made to go to school instead of being home schooled by their mother. At school, Castella discovers there could be another way to life. That her father may not have a direct line to God. That her family may not be the only people who will go to heaven. As things worsen at home she must make a choice.

Book #57
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

“Femi makes three, you know. Three and they label you a serial killer.”

At it's core this is a book about sisters - sibling rivalries, family dynamics, and loyalty.
Korede is the older sister, much more pragmatic and put together. Ayoola, the younger sister, is wild and beautiful.... and also happens to be a serial killer.

Ayoola is so stunning that every man falls in love with her at first sight. Unfortunately for them, she tends to murder the man after she grows tired of him. And then calls her big sister in to clean up the mess. When Korede's loyalties are challenged by her little sister starting a relationship with her long time secret crush what will she do?

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book written by an author from Asia, Africa or South America

Book #58
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
So much of this is not relevant today but the message of our boiling down information to its lowest common denominator still rings true. I just hope we never get to the point where wholesale censorship of books becomes the case.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book with at least one million ratings on Goodreads

Book #59.
Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World by Pénélope Bagieu
Go read this book now!
Filled with stories about incredible, strong, intelligent women who could care less about society norms and shaped our history. All presented with lovely art work.
It took me a while to read this book as I restricted myself to one biography at a time to savour the stories.

Book #60
A Destiny of Dragons by T.J. Klune
A funny and magical romance but after the second book in this series I feel like the novelty has worn off.

Book #61.
Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner
A story of two sisters from the 1950s to the present but really an examination of the times. Touching on everything from women's rights, social justice, the counterculture of the 1960s, drug use, and well.... everything.
Jo and Bethie are middle class Jewish girls growing up in a time of great social change. The story follows them through their whole lives as they seek happiness and fulfillment.

Book #62.
The Parade by Dave Eggers
In an unnamed country just past a decades long war two men arrive to pave a road. The road will connect the tiny villages of the South to the capital in the North. They have a tight timeline because the road is going to be celebrated with a parade. Over the course of several days they're threatened, arrested, one of them becomes incredibly ill.
A really interesting, fast read.

Book #63
Why My Cat is More Impressive Than Your Baby by Matthew Inman
Another fun collection of comics by Inman (aka The Oatmeal).

Book #64
The Gown by Jennifer Robson
Just after World War II, while Britain is still reeling from their wartime losses and the economy is struggling, young Princess Elizabeth becomes engaged to Philip Mountbatten. Far from being the story of the royals, this book is historical fiction that is based on the women who created the beautiful dress the princess wore.
Ann and Miriam are two of the embroiderers who work at the famous Norman Hartnell fashion house, the maker of the royal wedding dress. Miriam came to England to get away from her past, having survived the Nazis.
Years later, after Ann's death her granddaughter, Heather finds some embroidered flowers and a picture of her Nan with Miriam (now a famous artist). Knowing nothing of what happened early in her grandmother's life Heather goes on a quest to find out more about this woman.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book with an item of clothing or accessory on the cover

Book #65
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
It's difficult to read this now because it seems less and less like fiction. But there is perhaps a happy ending ... of a sorts.
It gets into more of the beginning of the Aunts and what it was like to grow up as a young woman in Gilead.

Book #66
The Innocents by Michael Crummey
This is like the 1980s movie The Blue Lagoon but instead of a tropical paradise it's a Newfoundland outport in the 1800s.
Evered and Ada are left orphaned when an illness carries off their mother and father, leaving them alone in an isolated outport. They don't exactly know their ages but it's probably around 10 and 11. They've met only one other person in their whole lives outside of their family. The book follows them as they grow up, taking on adult responsibilities at a young age, meeting the few people who end up on their shores, and dealing with their burgeoning sexuality.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A novel based on a true story

Book #67.
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Lydia, the 15 year old middle child in the Lee family, is a different person in each aspect of her life. To her mother she's the studious child who is planning to become a doctor. To her father she's a popular girl with tons of friends. To her brother and sister she's the favourite child who takes all their parent's attention. But at school she's failing physics and has only one friend. She's faking her life. Then one day she disappears. Her body is found in the lake up the road from her house and her family tries to piece together the real Lydia.
An exploration of grief and family relationships.

Book #68
Above the Waterfall by Ron Rash
I love the storytelling in this book, it feels like walking in on the middle of a conversation.
Set in the Appalachia mountains in North Carolina, Rash's book focuses on the lives of those affected by economic depression, the meth problem, and the strong family connections of the region.
Small town sheriff, Les is just a few weeks away from retirement. He gets called into a trespassing dispute that gets out of hand. And park ranger, Becky whom he loves, is caught in the middle.
The writing is spare but lovely.

Book #69.
Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry
This is not normally a book I would read but I had an Audible credit and I saw that this is read by Will Patton so I decided to give it a try. Although chronologically first in the Lonesome Dove series, this book was published 10 years later and I think it is really aimed at those who already have a knowledge of the characters. It was both action packed and repetitive.

Book #70.
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This very brief essay was originally delivered as a TEDx talk in 2012 (on audiobook it was 45 minutes long), in which Adichie provides clear, personal examples of behaviours and cultural mindsets that are harmful to women and men.

Happy Thanksgiving, Dee.

Book #71.
Red-Headed Stepchild by Jaye Wells
I added this to my TBR list back in 2009, so I don't remember what prompted me to do so. I kept expecting the book to get better, better enough to convince me to read on in the series, but that didn't happen.

Sabina is half-vampire and half-mage. Raised by her grandmother the vampire leader, she was trained to be an assassin and to hate herself for her impurities. When she's sent on a mission to infiltrate a cult working to bring supernatural beings together she finds out more about her origins than she could have ever imagined.

Book #72.
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

Rose meets Penn when she's still resident working night shifts at the ER. They marry and have two boys right away. Then try once more for a girl - twin boys. With 4 young children they try one more time for a daughter and have Claude. But Claude is not Claude but Poppy. While Claude's physical gender is a male, she feels like a female. With five children Rosie and Penn struggle to keep up with their children's basic needs but they know that they want their children to be happy and have a wonderful life. When Poppy is threatened the family decides to move across the country and without making a conscious choice they decide to keep her identity a secret.

Book #73.
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

Vivian is a vain 19 year old in 1940. She's been kicked out of Vassar and her parent's send her off to live with her aunt in New York. Her aunt runs a crumbling and failing theatre in Manhattan and Vivian throws herself into the life of showgirls and parties. When a scandal strikes, Vivian runs back home with her tail between her legs. Her aunt convinces to come back to New York and she then lives there for the rest of her life. Her story is being told by her in a letter to the child of the love of her life at the age of 89.
I enjoyed this book but there was a lot about the plot that didn't make sense. Why would Vivian's wealthy, conservative parents send her to live with her aunt, of whom they didn't approve. Why would Vivian send her whole life story to a stranger?

Book #74.
Nutshell by Ian McEwan
I hate read this book. The premise is interesting but I didn't enjoy it at all. If I hadn't been reading this for book club I would have given up about 25 pages in.
A retelling of Hamlet, Trudy and Claude are plotting the death of Trudy's husband. Young "Hamlet" is the narrator, observing the deceit from within the womb.

Book #75.
Public Library and Other Stories by Ali Smith
I've been picking at this book for a while. The stories are dark and seems to deal a lot with death. My favourite story was The Definite Article, I also really enjoyed the bits between the stories when writers and others talk about public libraries and what they mean to them.

Congratulations on reaching 75, Dee.

Have a lovely weekend.

Congratulations on reaching 75, Dee!

Book #76
He Said / She Said by Erin Kelly

I'm not sure if I can write about this without spoiling the twist ending. So instead I'll just say men are all assholes.

Book #77.
Artemis by Andy Weir

Much like in The Martian, Weir has a talent for taking very scientific explanations and boiling them down to make them easily understood without taking away from the plot or the pacing of the novel.
Jazz is a smuggler in the only city on the Moon, Artemis, but she longs for something better. When she's offered a lot of money to pull off a heist she jumps at the chance but then everything goes awry and now her life is in danger.
I'd say this book is mostly fluff. I can totally see this being made into a movie.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book set in space

Book #78.
Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks
Josiah and Deja have been working at the Pumpkin Patch every fall throughout high school but tonight is there very last night. Deja's mission is to make Josiah talk to "Fudge Girl", the woman he's been mooning over for 3 years, oh, and to try every snack she's never had. In the course of the evening they have a lot of adventures and fun.
I love both Rowell and Hicks so their teaming up to create a graphic novel was very exciting for me.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book that takes place in a single day

>98 Deedledee: Andy Weir's writing is cinematic isn't it, Dee?

Have a great weekend.

Book #79.
Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride by Lucy Knisley

Earlier this year I read Kid Gloves, Knisley's story of trying to get pregnant. In that she referred to Something New, the story of her wedding - so I added it to the list.
I love Knisley's writing style, she takes something that happens everyday and adds a lot of depth. In this case she talks not only about her own wedding to John but about the wedding industry and wedding traditions from around the world.

Book #80.
With Love from the Inside by Angela Pisel
I think this book had a hard time deciding what it wanted to be. There were lots of parts that didn't seem to fit in with the story. It could have been tightened up a bit and made it a much better story.
Sophie's life has been a lie for a long time. Her mother went to prison for the murder of her little brother when she was young. She's never told her husband or his family about this. When her mother's lawyer tracks her down and tells her that her mother's execution date has been set she has to determine if she'll see her one last time.

Book #81.
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
I picked this book up because I'm taking a trip to Italy, and spending a few days in the Cinque Terre. In this novel Walter creates the tiny fictional village Porto Vergogna near the Cinque Terre. While that's where the action begins in the early 1960s this book travels to modern day Hollywood, Scotland, Seatle, and Idaho. And if you think that's a lot of locations you should see the cast of characters. But Walter makes it work. I cared about the characters (even the self absorbed assholes) and would wonder what they were doing when another character was being featured.

Have a great weekend, Dee.

Book #82
When the Floods Came by Clare Morrall
The concept is really interesting but the secondary plot seemed a bit far fetched.

Roza and her family live in an apartment building all by themselves after the major climate change and a super virus has wiped out much of the population in England. Her father is an artist and tries to keep the building in good repair, Roza and her mother both work online, the other three children do??? One day, out of the blue, Aashay shows up and changes the way they live. He opens up another world to them, but is he to be trusted?

Some of the changes of the dystopian future don't quite ring true.

Book #83
Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton
I've never read anything by Crichton so I don't know if this was his usual writing style, but it does sound like a subject area that was a bit out of his wheelhouse.
The pirate adventure was ok, I could see this being made into a movie, but a bit farfetched.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book published posthumously

Book #84
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
I initially read this book about 10 years ago and loved it then. On the re-read I loved it just as much. An epistolary novel set just after World War II in London and Guernsey island. Juliet receives a letter from Dawsey hoping she can help him find a book and that letter sets a whole chain of events in motion. It's a lovely hopeful and heart wrenching novel.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A reread of a favorite book

Book #85
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

This book is a bit disjointed, which makes sense when you realize he wrote it while undergoing treatment for the cancer that ultimately took his life.

Kalanithi was a neurosurgeon, a philosopher, a poet, and so much more. It is a shame that he died at such a young age who knows what further brilliance he would have brought into this world.

Book #86.
Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land

A memoir of poverty and single parenthood, Land does more than many people in her shoes would have done to get out of the desperate situation that she's in by taking classes on top of all of her other responsibilities. Additionally, she describes what she learns of the lives of those whose houses she cleans. It's along the lines of "money doesn't buy you happiness".
Many of the critiques of this book I've read are about Land's choices in life. Would I have made the same choices, maybe not, but then I'm not in the same place as her. I think it's very easy to judge someone if you don't have to walk in their shoes.

Book #87.
Lights Out by Holly Black
A fun Doctor Who novella by Holly Black featuring the 12th Doctor.

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas!

Thank you for keeping me company in 2019.......onward to 2020.

Book #88
What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera
I'm not a person who generally likes a "meet cute" but in this case I'll make an exception.
Ben is on his way to the post office to mail a box of stuff to his ex-boyfriend. Arthur sees him on the street and thinks he's so cute he follows him in. They strike up a conversation about the universe when a flashmob marriage proposal erupts and Arthur loses Ben in the confusion. They didn't even exchange names, how are they ever going to meet again?

Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book with a question in the title

My top 5 reads of 2019:

The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
Help for the Haunted by John Searles
No Place to Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Private Needs by Lezlie Lowe
The Lightning-Struck Heart by TJ Klune

Book #89.
Women in Sunlight by Frances Mayes
Parts of this book were great but overall it's too long and has too many characters and story lines. This could have easily been two books.

The main story is that of three older ladies who meet at a retirement home but then become friends and decide to rent a villa in Italy. Susan was, until just recently, a very successful real estate agent. Her husband died after years of suffering with Alzheimer's. Camille is a retired art teacher. Her husband just recently died and her son and daughter-in-law are trying to move her into a retirement community and take her house. Julia has left her husband. He's been having an affair. Her daughter Lizzie is a drug addict and lost to her.

The three women are super lucky in their ability to live in Italy and follow a life of leisure. They meet people, follow their passions, make friends, and take lovers.

The other story is of Kit, another American expat, who lives nearby. I believe it is she who is telling the story. Kit is a poet and author working on a book about her friend Margaret, yet an another American expat, who has died. So we also get a bit of Margaret's story.

The descriptions of Italy were lovely and poetic.