Author: Katie

Hello!

I haven’t posted about books that I have finished, so I am going to give you a quick overview of ones that I have recently finished. Reviews will be from Amazon and I will give you a quick opinion!

The Secrets of Midwives

From Amazon:
Three generations of women
Secrets in the present and from the past
A captivating tale of life, loss, and love…

Neva Bradley, a third-generation midwife, is determined to keep the details surrounding her own pregnancy-including the identity of the baby’s father- hidden from her family and co-workers for as long as possible. Her mother, Grace, finds it impossible to let this secret rest. The more Grace prods, the tighter Neva holds to her story, and the more the lifelong differences between private, quiet Neva and open, gregarious Grace strain their relationship.

For Floss, Neva’s grandmother and a retired midwife, Neva’s situation thrusts her back sixty years in time to a secret that eerily mirrors her granddaughter’s-one which, if revealed, will have life-changing consequences for them all. As Neva’s pregnancy progresses and speculation makes it harder and harder to conceal the truth, Floss wonders if hiding her own truth is ultimately more harmful than telling it. Will these women reveal their secrets and deal with the inevitable consequences? Or are some secrets best kept hidden?

I loved the grandma’s story the best! Just her story alone makes it worth reading. I would give this 3 out of 5 stars.

A Monster Calls

From Amazon:
At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting– he’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It’s ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth. From the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd– whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself– Patrick Ness has spun a haunting and darkly funny novel of mischief, loss, and monsters both real and imagined.

This book is really good and I am still digesting it. Jason was out of town, bought it at the airport and read it in 2 hours. We both agree that we might not be able to go see the movie because we might go into “English Patient” crying AKA sobbing. (I SOBBED at that movie and could not get it together even after the movie! Jason got the giggles about my crying and didn’t even well up during the movie!!  Now we refer to sobbing crying as “going English Patient!”) I would give this book a 4 our of 5 stars.

In a Dark Dark Wood

From Amazon:
What should be a cozy and fun-filled weekend deep in the English countryside takes a sinister turn in Ruth Ware’s suspenseful, compulsive, and darkly twisted psychological thriller.

Sometimes the only thing to fear…is yourself.

When reclusive writer Leonora is invited to the English countryside for a weekend away, she reluctantly agrees to make the trip. But as the first night falls, revelations unfold among friends old and new, an unnerving memory shatters Leonora’s reserve, and a haunting realization creeps in: the party is not alone in the woods.

The review from Amazon is scarier than the book. Leonora (AKA Lee or Nora) is invited to a hen party (AKA bachelorete party weekend) to a gal that she hadn’t seen or spoken to in 10 years. I felt as if the first part of the book was all about how Leonora did not want to go, didn’t want to be there AND wan’t invited to the wedding??? So I found myself thinking, “Don’t go! Leave! You weren’t invited to the wedding and you are still gong…DUH!!!”

This was probably the best part of the book:
In a Dark, Dark Wood opens in a hospital room, where a young woman wakes with contusions, scratches and a woeful head injury. Worse than her physical state, she is afflicted by memory loss and a nagging sense of guilt. She sees uniformed policemen stationed outside her room. “What happened?” she asks herself. Close upon the heels of that thought comes another one: “What have I done?”

There are a few twists that make you go “Oh.” But I just kept thinking…Go home!! I would give this book 2 out of 5 stars.

The Fireman

From Amazon:
No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.

Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.

Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.

I enjoyed this book! It was my first Joe Hill book and I think I might read some of his other books now. It is 700+ pages and gets a bit wordy and long in parts (like his dad’s books) but, overall I liked the character and the story and how everyone evolves. I would give this 3.75 out of 5 stars. 🙂

Happy Reading!

Hello, Readers!

I just finished a wonderful book!
Homegoing
by Yaa Gyasi

From Amazon:
The unforgettable New York Times best seller begins with the story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power, Homegoing traces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them through two continents and three hundred years of history, each life indelibly drawn, as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present day.
           
Effia and Esi are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.

When I first looked at the book, I noticed that each chapter was about a different person. (huh?) The book begins with a chapter about Effia and her life. The second chapter is about Esi, the second family story in the book, and her life. The next chapter is about Effia’s son, James, which goes back to the first family’s story.

WAIT! How am I going to find out what happens to Effia when they have already moved onto the next generation? Well, that is what is absolutely amazing about this book. The third chapter, James, is about Effia’s son. He tells his life story while continuing Effia’s story from a son’s point of view. It is amazing how the author tells the stories of the generations throughout the story, but in a way that I have never encountered in a book before. It also has a wonderful wrap-up at the end of the book for both family lines. The author wrote this in a brilliant manner.

I would give this book a 5 out of 5 stars! In my opinion, it is a must read!