2015 Recap and 2016 Goals

Posted in #ReadingMyLibrary Reading Challenge, 2015, 2016, ARC August, Book Clubs, Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge 2016, Bookish Bingo Holiday 2015, Bookish Bingo: Jan-March 2015, For the love of books, Penguin Random House: Challenge Your Shelf A-Z Challenge, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges, TBR Pile Reading Challenge (Roof Beam Reader), Terryville - Fiction Lovers by rebeccabook17

New Year 2015

When I set my goals for 2015 at the beginning of the year, I knew I had a lot to accomplish but I thought that the extra motivation would help me stay focused. My goals overall were more about trying new things and being more open to different types of books. And I can honestly say that I’ve read some books in 2015 that I would not have picked up on my own volition and I think I am a better reader for it. I just had no idea that becoming a book blogger was going to end up as a part-time job for me. I am so grateful to all of the authors and publishers and other media outlets that have allowed my blog to grow this past year and allowed me to grow as a reader.

So to recap how I did for my 2015 goals, I didn’t complete all of them but I think I did a fairly good job and I accomplished some extra things that a) distracted me and b) I never even knew existed. One lesson learned this year is that NetGalley approves most, if not all, of your review requests, so don’t request like 15 that are all being published in the same month (August & September were BIG NetGalley months for me, ha!). Another thing I learned this year is that if you have a blog where you review books, eventually authors and publishers will start contacting you asking you to review something for them. I was very honored to review a number of books for authors and publishers this past year and it was a great learning experience for me. Not only that but I read a lot of books I might not have heard of otherwise and I would have missed out on some great reads! So anyways, my original post about my 2015 goals you can find here. Below I’ll talk about how I did!

1. Read at least 20 different types of the books on the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist – This one I did manage to finish! I read over 20 of the checklist items, you can browse through the ones I used to check off on this list here.

2. Post at least 2 non-book review related posts per month – I think I did pretty darn good on this one, though I have to admit I was better about coming up with ideas at the beginning of the year. Some of my favorite posts from this goal include my post about Gretna Green, post on my annual Reading Retreat, and my Author Interview with Andrea Lochen who is such a sweetheart!! I did end up skipping multiple months on this goal because I just ran out of time but I’m glad I tried writing about different topics and expanding my knowledge on certain areas.

3. Participate in one book reading challenge (on an external site) per quarter – Did this one too! For Q1 I did the Bookish Bingo challenge, Q2 I participated in #ReadingMyLibrary, Q3 I participated in ARC August challenge, and Q4 I am currently doing the Bookish Bingo holiday edition!

4. Post at least two posts per month concerning various book memes – Oh gosh I only missed one on this!!! Ugh if I knew it would end up this way I would’ve just done that one so I could check this one off. Anyways the one I missed was my second October post, monkeys! As you can probably tell by my posts I tend to favor the Top Ten Tuesday posts, followed closely by Friday Finds and Waiting on Wednesday ends in third. If anyone has suggestions for fun book memes that they participate in I am open to new ones!

5. Read at least 5 books from Amazon’s 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime – I don’t think I ended up doing this at all, which is unfortunate but I have a lifetime (ha) still to read them so I’m sure it will happen someday!

6. Participate in Roof Beam Reader’s 2015 TBR Pile Reading Challenge – I ended up only reading 7 of the 12 in my pile for this challenge, but I am still really glad I participated since I read some books that I had on my book shelf for quite a while! You can see the books I read for this challenge here.

So overall I think I ended up accomplishing A LOT this year, though the things I accomplished didn’t end up all being things I had planned at the beginning of the year as my goals. I had no idea that I would get so involved in NetGalley and also in author/publisher requests, and while they definitely side-tracked me from my original goals, I think that I grew a lot as a reader and a blogger because of these events. Another thing that came into my life this year that I’m really enjoying is joining a book club! I’ve found some great reads so far through my library’s fiction book club and I’m looking forward to the books we’re reading in 2016! You can see the books we read this past year for the book club here.

I ended up reading 125 books during 2015, which was an increase over my last year’s number. And I hadn’t really set a number goal for 2015 since i didn’t think I could read more than I did last year but I ended up doing just that. I’ve summarized the number of books I read per month for not only 2015 but also 2014 & 2013, below is a depiction of the data:

Per month chart for end of year post

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And so on we move to 2016!! Very excited to embrace the coming New Year and continue on my reading journey. I’m going to be trying to consolidate some of my 2016 goals so that I’m more able to achieve them while also tying in requests from authors/publishers and my NetGalley reads. I am also hoping to expand my reach in 2016 in terms of Advanced Reader Copies and hopefully establish a couple contacts/relationships with some of the publishers that I like. Below is a summarized listing of what my goals are for 2016:

PopSugar 2016 Reading Challenge – Read at least 20 books off this checklist. I really enjoyed doing this checklist for 2015 so I decided to participate again for 2016
Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2016 – I heard a lot about this checklist this past year at the Book Riot Live conference and online and I’m excited to try this checklist this year!
Penguin Random House Challenge Your Shelf: Books A-Z Challenge – This was technically a 2015 challenge but I liked the list so much that I’m going to use it for 2016 just for my own purposes. I’m going to try and read at least 10 books off this list.
Participate in one shorter reading challenge per quarter. And since I’m a planner by nature I’ve already picked out which ones I plan to participate in:
1. Quarter 1 – I’m currently participating in Bookish Bingo: Holiday edition which runs through end of February 2016 so this one will be my Quarter 1 reading challenge
2. Quarter 2 – I’ve been wanting to participate in a Bout of Books challenge for a while now but the timing never lined up for me in 2015 so I am planning on definitely participating in the one in May 2016.
3. Quarter 3 – I really liked participating in the ARC August challenge this past August and I am sure I will have a bunch of ARC’s on my schedule at that point so I am planning to participate again this year.
4. Quarter 4 – I found this listing of the 24 Best Books About Witches to Get You in the Halloween Spirit and I noticed a lot of the books on the list were already in my TBR list so for Sept/Oct I am gong to work my way through this listing (this will be my own reading challenge hosted by my site).
Other general goals that are less defined but are just overall goals I’d like to work on:
1. Establishing contacts/relationships with publishers
2. Continue to review ARC’s from authors
3. Try doing some shorter reviews on books that I don’t necessarily have as much to say on. I’ve been having trouble keeping up with all the reviews I have to do and I’m hoping to write some shorter reviews this year for the books I’m just reading on my own
4. Try to wrap up some of the series that I’m in the middle of, I feel like there are just so many and I lose track of the characters. I know its unreasonable but I almost wish authors would release a full series at the same time and be like “ok that’s it I’m not doing anymore.” I’ll start reading a series because the “finale” is out and then there’s somehow another sequel released and while excited it is also incredibly frustrating.

SO! That is everything. Gosh that was a lot of typing but that is my 2015 wrap up and my 2016 beginning. I will also be posting my WordPress summary in a separate post as well. And for anyone interested here is a link to my Goodreads summary for the year. I hope everyone had a successful 2015 and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

new-year-wallpaper-hd

31Mar2015

Bookish Bingo reading challenge – Wrap up

Posted in 2015, Bookish Bingo: Jan-March 2015, For the love of books, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Well this wasn’t the neatest arrangement (below) but I am still learning! So above is my bingo card, completed as much as possible. I’m really pleased with how well I did! I think that if the contest hadn’t been during tax season I would have had a very good chance of completing the whole card! I was able to check off all but five of the squares. Below is each of the books I read, which square they checked off, and if you click on the cover it will bring you to my review on the book. I had a lot of fun with this reading challenge, and I would definitely like to play a game of book bingo again. The three month reading challenge is a little tougher for me since there are so many other challenges and goals I’m trying to reach this year that I decided to set aside to work on the bingo challenge for this quarter. Definitely a lot of fun though and I tried a lot of books I probably never would have read otherwise. There are many different sites that have some form of book bingo, and I would definitely encourage everyone to try it!

2014 Release You Missed

Free Space!

Pink Cover

Blue Cover

Graphic Novel

Middle Grade

Over 400 Pages

Forgotten Fridays Pick

Mystery or Thriller

Fairy Tale Retelling

Romance

Based on Mythology

Start a Series

Epistolary

Magical Realism

Pretty Dress Cover

2015 Debut

Gold Lettering

Mental Illness

POC MC

28Mar2015

2015 Book #23 – Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Bookish Bingo: Jan-March 2015, Humor, Non-fiction, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)
Author: Mindy Kaling
Date finished: 3/28/15
Genre: Humorous commentary
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Publication Date: September 18, 2012
Pages in book: 222
Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Blurb from the cover:

Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: the obedient child of immigrant professionals, a timid chubster afraid of her own bike, a Ben Affleck–impersonating Off-Broadway performer and playwright, and, finally, a comedy writer and actress prone to starting fights with her friends and coworkers with the sentence “Can I just say one last thing about this, and then I swear I’ll shut up about it?”
Perhaps you want to know what Mindy thinks makes a great best friend (someone who will fill your prescription in the middle of the night), or what makes a great guy (one who is aware of all elderly people in any room at any time and acts accordingly), or what is the perfect amount of fame (so famous you can never get convicted of murder in a court of law), or how to maintain a trim figure (you will not find that information in these pages). If so, you’ve come to the right book, mostly!
In Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood, with several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls. Mindy Kaling really is just a Girl Next Door—not so much literally anywhere in the continental United States, but definitely if you live in India or Sri Lanka.

My rating: 4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count towards my “Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “POC MC” square, which I had to ask to discover but this means Person of Color Main Character. I decided to give this book a try because I love Mindy’s character on The Office and I loved her in that movie with Natalie Portman where they are nurses that live in an apartment together. Unbeknownst Mindy is actually a writer for the show The Office. I had no idea of the extent of her genius! She comes off as cocky in some parts of the book but she should be! She is hilarious! I fought this book to be witty and very entertaining.
This book is a humorous look at the many different parts of Mindy’s life that have made her the Mindy she is today. Its also a commentary on many different things including dating and other general life areas. I thought it was really funny.

The bottom line: I thought this book was really funny, witty and interesting. Of course I like her sense of humor. I would recommend to people who laugh when the watch The Office. Not that she just talks about The Office or is defined by her work on The Office. But she writes some of the scenes for The Office. So. Whatever.

Memorable Quotes:
“Going on and on in detail about how stressed out I am ins’t conversation. It’ll never lead to anywhere. No one is going to say, ‘Wow, Mindy, you really have it especially bad. I have heard some stories of stress, but this just takes the cake.” (page 75)
As a follow up to this, your life is always going better than someone else’s at any given point. Unless you’re being murdered. That you should probably get to bitch about.

Link to Wikipedia website about author
Link to Amazon

28Mar2015

2015 Book #22 – He Wanted the Moon by Mimi Baird and Eve Claxton

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Bookish Bingo: Jan-March 2015, Memoir, Non-fiction, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter’s Quest to Know Him
Author: Mimi Baird with Eve Claxton
Date finished: 3/28/15
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Crown
Publication Date: February 17, 2015
Pages in book: 250
Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Blurb from the cover:

A mid-century doctor’s raw, unvarnished account of his own descent into madness, and his daughter’s attempt to piece his life back together and make sense of her own.
Texas-born and Harvard-educated, Dr. Perry Baird was a rising medical star in the late 1920s and 1930s. Early in his career, ahead of his time, he grew fascinated with identifying the biochemical root of manic depression, just as he began to suffer from it himself. By the time the results of his groundbreaking experiments were published, Dr. Baird had been institutionalized multiple times, his medical license revoked, and his wife and daughters estranged. He later received a lobotomy and died from a consequent seizure, his research incomplete, his achievements unrecognized.
Mimi Baird grew up never fully knowing this story, as her family went silent about the father who had been absent for most of her childhood. Decades later, a string of extraordinary coincidences led to the recovery of a manuscript which Dr. Baird had worked on throughout his brutal institutionalization, confinement, and escape. This remarkable document, reflecting periods of both manic exhilaration and clear-headed health, presents a startling portrait of a man who was a uniquely astute observer of his own condition, struggling with a disease for which there was no cure, racing against time to unlock the key to treatment before his illness became impossible to manage.
Fifty years after being told her father would forever be “ill” and “away,” Mimi Baird set off on a quest to piece together the memoir and the man. In time her fingers became stained with the lead of the pencil he had used to write his manuscript, as she devoted herself to understanding who he was, why he disappeared, and what legacy she had inherited. The result of his extraordinary record and her journey to bring his name to light is He Wanted the Moon, an unforgettable testament to the reaches of the mind and the redeeming power of a determined heart.

My rating: 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count towards my “Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “Mental Illness” square. I can’t remember where I first saw this book but it immediately caught my interest. Mimi Baird never knew why her father (Dr. Perry Baird) disappeared or what really happened to him, but years later she obtains his manuscripts and discovers that he suffered from manic depression and that his disappearances were due to his staying at various mental institutions during his manic episodes. His manuscripts detail his care and treatments as well as different details of his life after he disappeared from her life. This book combines notes from the mental institutions where Dr. Baird stayed, narratives from his manuscript, as well as letters between Dr. Baird and various peers and friends.
The first half of the book was difficult for me as this is where the bulk of the writing from Dr. Baird’s manuscript was included. As Mimi describes in a later passage, Perry alternates between a clear line of thinking and being eloquent and scientific in thought, and ramblings of delusions. At certain points in his writings it was hard to tell if the scene Perry was describing was one of his own imagination or something that actually happened. Also the differences between what Perry describes of his actions in the mental hospitals and what the medical record notes describe are slightly different, making it difficult for the reader to know what is real and what is not. This did not at all detract from the seriousness or the subject matter discussed within the memoir and only compounded the ways in which a mental disorder can distort reality for the patient.
The second half of the book was mostly a narrative written by Mimi Baird, describing her journeys in compiling this book and also in learning more about the father she never really knew. I found this narrative to be very moving and extremely touching. I thought that this book was well put together and was a very interesting look into the mind of an extremely intelligent man suffering from manic depression.

The bottom line: I found this book very interesting. While the first half of the book was slightly tough to get through, the daughter’s narratives in the second half added such emotion to the book. Very well done. I would recommend.

Link to Amazon

17Mar2015

2015 Book #20 – Tribute by Nora Roberts

Posted in Book reviews, Bookish Bingo: Jan-March 2015, Reading Challenges, Romantic suspense by rebeccabook17

Title: Tribute
Author: Nora Roberts
Date finished: 3/16/15
Genre: Romantic suspense
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Publication Date: July 8, 2008
Pages in book: 451
Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Blurb from the cover:

Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, is a long way from Hollywood. And that’s exactly how Cilla McGowan likes it. Cilla, a former child star, has found a more satisfying life working with her hands to restore homes from floor to ceiling – and has come here to her grandmother’s farmhouse, tools at her side, to rescue it from ruin. Sadly, no one had been able to save her grandmother, the legendary Janet Hardy. An actress with a golden voice and a tumultuous life, Janet entertained glamorous guests and engaged in decadent affairs – but died of an overdose in this very house more than thirty years ago. To this day, Janet haunts Cilla’s dreams. And during her waking hours, Cilla is haunted by her melodramatic, five-times-married mother, who carried on in the public spotlight and never gave her a chance at a normal childhood. By coming to the East Coast, rolling up her sleeves, and rehabbing this wreck of a house, Cilla intends to take a shot at finding some kind of normalcy for herself. Cilla has her work cut out for her – the house, once a place of comfort and simple rural beauty, is long neglected, crumbling, the grounds choked by weeds. Plunging into the project with gusto, she’s almost too busy and exhausted to notice her neighbor, graphic novelist Ford Sawyer – but his lanky form, green eyes, and easy, unflappable humor (not to mention his delightfully ugly dog, Spock) are hard to ignore. Determined not to carry on the family tradition of ill-fated romances, Cilla steels herself against Ford’s quirky charm, but she can’t help indulging in a little fantasy. But love and a peaceful life may not be in the cards for Cilla. In the house’s cluttered attic, she has found a cache of unsigned letters, tied with a faded red ribbon, suggesting that Janet Hardy was pregnant when she died – and that the father of her child was a local married man. Cilla can’t help but wonder what really happened all those years ago. The mystery only deepens with a series of cruel and intimidating acts and a frightening, violent assault. And if Cilla and Ford are unable to sort out who is targeting her and why, she may, like her world-famous grandmother, be cut down in the prime of her life.

My rating: 3.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count towards my “Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “Gold Lettering” square. So Cilla, a child star now grown up and trying to find her place in the world, has purchased her grandmother’s homestead from her mother. Ford is attracted to Cilla right off the bat and he immediately can picture her as the star of a new series for his graphic novels (like comic books). Someone is threatening Cilla though, leaving her mutilated dolls of herself from when she was a child star, destroying her house, even attacking her friend Steve. Ford will do anything to protect her.
I didn’t especially love this book. There were entertaining parts but overall I didn’t love the plot line and I didn’t especially jive with the plot twist of who ended up being the bad guy at the end. I guess the book was ok.

The bottom line: This book was ok, I wasn’t thrilled but it kept me entertained for the most point.

Link to author website
Link to Amazon

9Mar2015

2015 Book #19 – The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson

Posted in Book reviews, Bookish Bingo: Jan-March 2015, Fiction, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: The Bookseller
Author: Cynthia Swanson
Date finished: 3/8/15
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Harper
Publication Date: March 3, 2015
Pages in book: 336
Stand alone or series: Stand alone, her first novel actually!

Blurb from the cover:

Nothing is as permanent as it appears . . .
Denver, 1962: Kitty Miller has come to terms with her unconventional single life. She loves the bookshop she runs with her best friend, Frieda, and enjoys complete control over her day-to-day existence. She can come and go as she pleases, answering to no one. There was a man once, a doctor named Kevin, but it didn’t quite work out the way Kitty had hoped.
Then the dreams begin.
Denver, 1963: Katharyn Andersson is married to Lars, the love of her life. They have beautiful children, an elegant home, and good friends. It’s everything Kitty Miller once believed she wanted—but it only exists when she sleeps.
Convinced that these dreams are simply due to her overactive imagination, Kitty enjoys her nighttime forays into this alternate world. But with each visit, the more irresistibly real Katharyn’s life becomes. Can she choose which life she wants? If so, what is the cost of staying Kitty, or becoming Katharyn?
As the lines between her worlds begin to blur, Kitty must figure out what is real and what is imagined. And how do we know where that boundary lies in our own lives?

My rating: 4.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count towards my “Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “2015 Debut” square. I had seen this book being promoted in many different places but I wasn’t sure what to expect going into it. It’s a hit or miss many times with debut authors, some take a few novels to really hit their stride and others hit it out of the park right away. I have to say this book just floored me. I’ve never experienced anything like it. I haven’t felt so deeply and cried so much while reading a book since I read A Walk To Remember (back in high school I think) and yet the emotions in this book stemmed from a completely different place, the one I connected to most being love and loss of family.
This book was just fascinating. Katharyn and Kitty alternate between the two worlds in which they live, both lives feel so real and yet they are so completely different (they even exist at different points in time) that they can not possibly be connected. At first Kitty is sure that the life Katharyn leads is the dream, but as time goes on she has more and more trouble deciding what is real. She is losing memory of blocks of time, sometimes days, in both worlds. I don’t want to give away the end of the book but both Katharyn and Kitty end up forging one person in the end, reminding each what the other had lost and who they want to want to be as a person overall.
There were some slower parts in the beginning of the book that I found myself struggling through but the last 100 pages of the book I was riveted, you couldn’t tear me away from the story. There were so many emotions in this book; guilt, fear, loss, despair, love, compassion. The amount of feelings that you as the reader obtain from this book is just overwhelming. This was a great book and I can’t wait to see more from this author in the future.

The bottom line: EVERYONE READ THIS BOOK IMMEDIATELY. SO MANY FEELINGS. (P.S. make sure you have a box of tissues handy)

Link to author website
Link to Amazon

7Mar2015

2015 Book #18 – The Marriage Charm by Linda Lael Miller

Posted in Book reviews, Book series, Bookish Bingo: Jan-March 2015, Brides of Bliss County, Contemporary romance, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: The Marriage Charm
Author: Linda Lael Miller
Date finished: 3/7/15
Genre: Contemporary romance
Publisher: HQN Books
Publication Date: January 27, 2015
Pages in book: 297
Stand alone or series: #2 in Brides of Bliss County series

Blurb from the cover:

The women of Bliss County have a pact—to find husbands. The right husbands.
One already has: Hadleigh Stevens, who married rancher Tripp Galloway a few months ago. Now Melody Nolan thinks it’s her turn. Melody has recently found success as a jewelry designer, and her work is the focus of her life. She’s not exactly unhappy, but she wants more. She’s always been attracted to Spence Hogan, the local chief of police, but she’s convinced that Spence, a notorious charmer, isn’t what you’d call husband material.
Spence is a good cop who isn’t scared of anything—except love. And he’s done everything he can to preserve his reputation as a womanizer—a reputation that keeps marriage-minded women, including Melody, at bay. And yet…there’s something about Melody he can’t forget. Something his heart can’t ignore.

My rating: 2.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count towards my “Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “Pretty Dress Cover” square. When I saw this book at the store one of my first thoughts was “what a pretty wedding dress that is” so I thought it would fit into this category appropriately for bingo. So this book tells the story of the second girl in a group of three friends. And I can already see that the three girlfriends who have been best friends since they were children are going to magically fall in love with a group of three guy friends. I always find it interest how neat and tidy these things end up sometimes. So Melody and Spencer have a history I guess, she asked him to marry her after one hot and heavy summer when she was 20 and he said no because he didn’t want to ruin her life so then they didn’t talk for 7 years until their best friends got married. Seems realistic right?
So then the wedding throws them in each other’s paths again and then all of a sudden they are running into each other everywhere, even though they’ve managed to pretty much avoid each other for the past seven years. And then they fall in love and stuff. Honestly I was a little disappointed with this one. The conversations all felt unnatural and forced. The plot seemed unrealistic to me. I mean there was like a mystery/suspense aspect thrown in there with the robberies but I felt like it wasn’t really serious through the whole book and why would a master antique thief running an antiquities ring in multiple states care about some small town police chief? Seriously? And why didn’t we get to find out what kind of charm Melody would make for the three girls’ bracelets based on her engagement? THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE SERIES! I got to the end and I was like, what about the charm? The book is even CALLED the Marriage CHARM and we don’t get to find out what kind of charm she designates for herself.

The bottom line: I’m fairly neutral on this one. It was a cute story but not too interesting. Don’t think I’d recommend it but also wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it.

Link to author website
Link to Amazon

4Mar2015

2015 Book #17 – The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen

Posted in Book reviews, Bookish Bingo: Jan-March 2015, Fiction, Magical realism, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: The Girl Who Chased the Moon
Author: Sarah Addison Allen
Date finished: 3/3/15
Genre: Fiction, magical realism
Publisher: Bantam Books
Publication Date: March 16, 2010
Pages in book: 269
Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Blurb from the cover:

Emily Benedict came to Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her mother’s life. Such as, why did Dulcie Shelby leave her hometown so suddenly? And why did she vow never to return? But the moment Emily enters the house where her mother grew up and meets the grandfather she never knew—a reclusive, real-life gentle giant—she realizes that mysteries aren’t solved in Mullaby, they’re a way of life: Here are rooms where the wallpaper changes to suit your mood. Unexplained lights skip across the yard at midnight. And a neighbor bakes hope in the form of cakes.
Everyone in Mullaby adores Julia Winterson’s cakes—which is a good thing, because Julia can’t seem to stop baking them. She offers them to satisfy the town’s sweet tooth but also in the hope of rekindling the love she fears might be lost forever. Flour, eggs, milk, and sugar . . . Baking is the only language the proud but vulnerable Julia has to communicate what is truly in her heart. But is it enough to call back to her those she’s hurt in the past?
Can a hummingbird cake really bring back a lost love? Is there really a ghost dancing in Emily’s backyard? The answers are never what you expect. But in this town of lovable misfits, the unexpected fits right in.

My rating: 4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count towards my “Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “Magical realism” square. For anyone who doesn’t really understand what the magical realism genre is (because I didn’t really know) its basically when magic is readily accepted in the “rational world” as being normal or accepted. If you’d like to read more about the concept of magical realism as a genre, you can do so here. I really liked this book a lot. It hooked me in almost from the beginning and I couldn’t seem to put it down. Allen has such a talent for writing, as you read her books you can feel the magic in the words leaping off the pages. It is really something special to experience. I loved the plot too, the connection between Julia and Emily. One had given up her daughter a long time ago and the other had just recently lost her mother, both searching for comfort and home. It was a touching and magical (duh) story and I can’t wait to read more by this author.

The bottom line: This was a charming and magical story, I would definitely recommend!

Link to author website
Link to Amazon

2Mar2015

2015 Book #16 – Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Posted in Book reviews, Bookish Bingo: Jan-March 2015, Fiction, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Author: Maria Semple
Date finished: 3/1/15
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Publication Date: December 21, 2012
Pages in book: 326
Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Blurb from the cover:

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.
Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette’s intensifying allergy to Seattle–and people in general–has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.
To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence–creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s role in an absurd world.

My rating: 4.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count towards my “Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “Epistolary” square. Well I just freaking loved this book. I mean I seem to have a thing for epistolary novels in general but this book specifically was fun, playful, witty, and just riveting. I literally read it in a day, I just could’t put it down. I love Bernadette’s character, probably because I can relate to it quite a bit. She’s a little bit ADD, a little bit OCD, and a whole lot of antisocial. She is very close with her daughter,Bee, a very bright young girl who’s just been accepted to Chaote (boarding school back East). I love Bernadette’s description of living in Seattle, and I love the gnats! Hilarity ensues in Bernadette’s interactions with Audrey (the gnat next door) and they end up crossing swords a couple times throughout the book.
One of the things that I found really interesting about this book was that none of the characters ended up really being “the bad guy.” All of the adults did dumb, selfish, petty things but all of them also at other points in the book did selfless, loving things. It really made you think about how we’re all him and no one is either all bad or all good, people are selfish and weak and make mistakes. I loved that about this novel.

The bottom line: LOVED THIS BOOK! EVERYONE READ IT NOW!

Link to author website
Link to Amazon

28Feb2015

2015 Book #15 – I Married the Duke by Katharine Ashe

Posted in Book reviews, Book series, Bookish Bingo: Jan-March 2015, Historical Romance, Prince Catchers, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: I Married the Duke
Author: Katharine Ashe
Date finished: 2/27/15
Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher: Avon Books
Publication Date: August 27, 2013
Pages in book: 363
Stand alone or series: #1 in the Price Catchers series

Blurb from the cover:

On the way to marry a prince in a castle, a lady should never: 1. Bribe an infuriatingly arrogant and undeniably irresistible ship captain, 2. Let him kiss her senseless on a beach, 3. Battle thieves at his side, and 4. Exchange wedding vows with him, even under the direst circumstances.
But daring, determined Arabella Caulfield isn’t just any lady. And Luc Westfall is no typical ship captain. He’s the new Duke of Lycombe, and to defeat a plot that could destroy his family he must have an heir. Now he knows just the woman for the job…and he’s not above seduction to turn this would-be princess into a duchess.

My rating: 2.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will count towards my “Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “Start a New Series” square. This book had an awful lot going on. A scarred, pirate, soon-to-be duke who needs to help a governess crsos to France for a new job where she’ll meet a prince that maybe she’ll marry and instead she almost gets raped (that part was pretty awful and scary) and then the pirate dies (or not really) and then he appears at the duke’s chateau in France where the governess just happens to be. And then the pirate ends up being blind and she leaves him at the altar and oh my goodness. I could barely keep up at some points, but was pretty bored at other points. It actually made for an emotionally confusing read. I think that the plot line of this book had real promise but there was just too much thrown in there for plot twists.
And to be honest, I couldn’t stand the heroine for most of the book. During the day she keeps pushing the hero away and rejecting him, thinking he doesn’t really love her and they shouldn’t have gotten married while he was dying on a beach, but then as soon as he comes in her room at night she’s like “take me,” Ugh it was so aggravating. I know that men and women have communication issues but the hero and heroine in this book had maybe 2 meaningful conversations. They couldn’t ever seem to actually talk to each other about how they were feeling. I don’t know where the relationship was but I missed it. There were parts of the book that I liked but overall I think it was frustrating. Hopefully the next book in the series is a little less frustrating.

The bottom line: This was far from my favorite. I’m going to stick with the series though, I want to find out who marries the prince.

Link to author website
Link to Amazon