Finished audio 5-5-11, rating 3/5, fiction, pub. 2009

Unabridged audio 13 hours 24 minutes. Read by Ann Marie Lee

Annie Powers is crazy.  I don’t think I’m spoiling too much by telling you that since the title of the book comes from her spells of losing her memory.  Annie also used to be Ophelia March, daughter of one present parent,  her mother who is in love with a death row convict.  When the convict is released and he and his son are living with Ophelia her once crappy life takes a turn for the worse.  She becomes involved with her new stepbrother, Marlo.  But currently, Annie is a rich wife and mother who has everything she never dreamed possible when she was growing up.

So, does jumping around from past to present annoy you?  If it doesn’t then this book should hold your interest.  Do you like reading books that have no true sympathetic character?  This is the book for you.  As much as I wanted to like Annie/Ophelia the way the story was told made it impossible.  After reading the end of a book do you like knowing what happened?  What was real and what wasn’t?  If so, be prepared to be disappointed.  There were plenty of questions at the end, enough to make me rethink some of my basic assumptions, and I’m not sure if even a reread would answer them.  At the very least there are so many different stories all tied together so precariously that it feels exciting at first but then becomes a little hard to take seriously.

I liked the audio, but maybe I needed to have more focus (ie not when I’m driving around with Gage) when listening to it.  Maybe being able to read at a slower pace would have helped.  Or maybe I would still be just as confused and ambivalent about Annie/Ophelia.  She was not a warm and fuzzy character.  I liked the story through most of the book, but it had no real wrap up and I need a story that at least lets me think I’ve known what has happened.  The end had the potential to save the story but instead I was really disappointed.

I checked the audio out of the library.

Finished 3-14-11, rating 3/5, fiction, 353 pages, pub. 2010

Panic seized him.  He wasn’t prepared.  He had nothing to suggest.

He hung up.

In the quiet his emotions drifted from disgust to depression.  There was, however, no escape from his behavior, his acting like a lovesick teenager, not a person who uses his mind for a living, and he wondered if he had lost through nonuse what others had, the ability to communicate on a personal, even intimate, level.

page 45

Norm Armstein is a very successful corporate lawyer who has always been in love with his sister-in-law, if only his thick-headed brother hadn’t found her first they may have enjoyed a very happy life together.  After his last ill-fated trip back home to Isaactown, and Bev, he believes he sees her walking in Manhattan and follows her.  Only it’s not her, but a younger woman who befriends him.  Norm’s job is like a noose hanging around his neck and Harriet and her daughter are much-needed in his life.

Norm is like many who are lucky enough to have high paying jobs and not enough time to enjoy the fruits of his labor.  His attraction to Bev has colored his dating life for over 20 years and he has never truly been in love.  So, the story is about Norm finding a life in his middle age and how that life might fit in with a girlfriend and her daughter.

The story itself was good, but it was a slow read.  It had a lot of detail that really slowed the whole story down to a crawl, but that may have been purposeful, since the story was introspective.  As much as I enjoyed the idea of Norm’s story I found it hard to really care about him and even Harriet.  At first I felt for Bev and the life she chose/got stuck in, but in the end I didn’t care for her character either.  Solid writing and story, just not the story for me.

This was generously sent to me by the author.

Finished audio on 1-10-11, rating 3/5, fiction, pub. 2008

Unabridged audio.  9 hours.  Read by Jennifer Van Dyck.

Book 8 of the Eve Duncan series.

Years ago Eve Duncan lost her daughter to a killer and the body and killer were never found.  As a nationally respected forensic sculptor Eve is in the unique position of being called on to help identify unidentified skulls so that other families do not have to suffer as she has.  Now she has a lead on who may have killed her daughter and her Atlanta policeman boyfriend Joe tracks him to Indiana with Eve on his tail.  Henry Kistle is for sure a pedophile, but is he also Bonnie’s killer, like he claims?  Eve brings in help from old friends and a new one, in the form of a spiritual listener from another Johansen novel.

I read the first few of this series many years ago and enjoyed them, but I wasn’t all that interested in this one.  Maybe I would have liked it more if I was caught up with the series, I don’t know.  Her boyfriend, who I liked earlier, was a jerk in this one.  And I found the bad guy pretty one-dimensional, nothing interesting about him.  The book was okay, but not one I’d recommend.

Jennifer Van Dyck had many voices for the multitude of characters, but some were more funny than they should have been.  The man from South America sounded Indian to me and maybe my dislike of the bad guy came from his annoying voice.  So, I don’t know if I would have like reading it better.  I think I might have since a few of the voices really turned me against the character.

I checked this audio book out of the library.

Finished 10-26-10, rating 3/5, fiction, pub. 2004

You see, I’d always assumed I would die before my father.

Most people find talk of death unsettling, but I’ve lived with the threat of it for so long, it doesn’t have that effect on me.  The possibility of death has been my reality for the last fourteen years, an d I’m as comfortable talking about it as I am the weather.

Chapter 1

Lydia has opened up a yarn shop in Seattle.  After two bouts of cancer she has decided to make her dream job come true.  She begins a knitting class to bring people to the store and suddenly has three new friends to knit with every Friday.  Jacqueline is a society gal who is hard to like, Carol and her husband are on their last in vitro treatment and she is desperate to have a child and  Alix is a troubled girl looking for an easy way to fulfill her court appointed community service.  The four women become fast friends and are able to provide support through their troubles.

This was a sweet, easy read, like most of Macomber’s books.  The chapters jump between the women and this diluted the stories for me.  I got a little taste of each, but wasn’t really invested in any of them.  The women were relatable and their stories made them feel like familiar friends, or maybe just acquaintances.  I liked it but won’t be reading any of the other books of this series.  It was just a little too easily wrapped up for me.

This is from my personal library and was chosen by ‘Nise, Mom, and Bonnie.  Here’s what they had to say…

“You have to read Debbie Macomber and this is a great series about a knit shop and women’s friendships.”  Bonnie

“It’s great when you need a light read.” ‘Nise

Finished audio 8-6-10, rating 3/5, fiction, pub. 2008

This unabridged book was narrated by Cassandra Campbell

Nan is a widower who owns a large house in Nantucket.  When her money runs out she decides the best thing to do is fix up the bedrooms and rent them out for the summer.  She has two boarders, Daniel who has just come out of the closet to his wife and Daph who is on her own when her teen daughter spends the summer with her father.  When Nan’s son, Michael shows up the house is full of camaraderie, even through turmoil.

The blurb on the back of the book focuses on eccentric Nan and she is a great character, but she was just a peripheral player once all of the house guests arrived.  I liked Nan and would have loved the story being a little more deeply focused on her.  While I liked all of the characters the book did become a little too thin when each of their stories were being told at once.

That being said it was a nice audio book for the car.  It was easy listening, if not the most fulfilling of stories.

I checked this book out of the library.

Finished 6-4-10, rating 3/5, non fiction, pub. 2000

It had been startling

and disappointing to me

to find out

that story books

had been written by people,

that books were not

natural wonders, coming up of themselves

like grass.

-Eudora Welty

With a title like this how could I not pick it up, especially since I found it at Half-Price Books?  There are seven different groupings of women with short bios of each woman included.  I enjoyed some chapters more than others and there is a large selection of women from every time period and geographic location (although it is clearly Anglo based).  I had heard of maybe a little more than half of these women and enjoyed getting to know some women that I knew of, but had never read.  Betty Friedan, Mary Baker Eddy, and Gertrude Stein were a few that interested me the most, since I knew so little about them.  I didn’t realize that Gertrude Stein was buried at the Cemetery of Pere-Lachaise in Paris or else I would had looked for her when we were there last week. I’ll be talking about that cemetery in my Paris recap on Sunday.

I thought the book was good, but considering the title, a little boring.  I read it in snippets, so it took me a long time to finish.  This would not have happened if I had been truly engaged.  This book is gift sized and I do think it is a fun gift for a book lover, especially those who are interested in biographies of women.

This is from my personal library and was chosen for me by Amanda, Angie, and Mystica.  Here’s what they had to say…

“Partially because I love the title, and also because it sounds like the name of a self-help group that I probably need to join (okay, so there’s actually no probably about it.)”  Angie

“What a really apt title for almost all of us!”  Mystica

“Awesome title!”  Amanda

Finished audio 5-5-10, rating 3/5, spiritual fiction, pub. 2007

Narrated by Roger Mueller

Mack is haunted by the death of his youngest daughter.  Becoming a shell of his formal self he keeps God at a distance even as his wife embraces God, or Papa as she likes to call him.  One day a few years after the kidnapping Mack receives a note from Papa that asks Mack to come to the Shack.  Mack hides his intent from his wife and children and heads to the Oregon wilderness one weekend.  Mack is greeted by a large black woman (God), and nondescript Jewish man (Jesus) and an Asian spirit (Holy Ghost).  As the weekend unfolds Mack learns about what love and God really mean and he is able to come to terms with his heartbreaking past, even beyond that of the death of his daughter.

There are many hot button issues covered here with religion, forgiveness, pain, and grace being a few of the prominent ones.  Mack spends alone time with each of the trinity and learns from each of them, some lessons more meaningful than others. 

My Mom raved about this one as did many people who read it and I wanted to love it too.  Only I didn’t love it, but I did like it.  There were lots of things to think about in this one, but it didn’t change my view of the world or my role in it.  There were lots of things in here that I already believed and there were others that were interesting and thought-provoking.  I guess I just don’t like fiction books that cram too many spiritual ideas in.  The story becomes irrelevant and almost trite.  I’d rather read a fiction story that addresses one issue or a nonfiction book that doesn’t bother with trying to manipulate my feelings.

I listened to this in the car which I do not think was ideal.  Maybe if I had been able to set the book down and think on it at various times I would have enjoyed it more.

I borrowed this unabridged audio book from the library.

Finished 4-20-10, rating 3/5, fiction short stories, pub. 1991

This collection of 13 short stories had a few gems, but was mostly just average for me.  These were published in magazines in the 1970’s & 80’s and they seemed a little dated to me.  But maybe all of these stories of  life in English villages added this feeling.  I have read one Pilcher book and thought it was good but not great, so maybe she’s just not my taste. 

My favorite story was Amita.  This story of prejudice was told from the perspective of a young girl, a perspective adults should consider more often.  Kids don’t understand prejudice, unless they hear it from their family members or even peers.  This was the bias of the English against mixed marriages with Indians and the little English girl fell in love with the beautiful Indian woman who had married her neighbor.  We have different prejudices here, but aren’t all prejudices the same at the core?

I also liked Gilbert.  This was the story of a bachelor who married a widow with two young girls.  He was excited to have a ready-made family, but had yet to make a real connection with the older girl.  When Gilbert the goldfish died he had the chance to show his mettle.  The girl’s reaction the death and the idea of a funeral was the most funny part of the whole book.

Tea with the Professor was a sweet love story.  The Before Christmas Present was a great story about a woman finding her own power past that of a wife and mother.  These four stories were all a delight to read, but the only ones out of the 13 that I gave an A or B.  I’m guessing that if you enjoy Pilcher you would enjoy these stories more than I did.  And I’ll be offering this as one of my free books for May, so stop by on May 1st if you want a chance to win it.

This book was given to me by my friend Jessica years ago and I finally got around to reading it!