The Girl in the Red Coat

Holy moly, this book. Excellent. Read it. And don't read much about it beforehand. Here's what you should know:

A little girl disappears and yes, she's wearing a red coat. The book is mainly about what happens to her, with some chapters about how her family is dealing with the disappearance.

I will let you know, there is no sexual child abuse which as a mother is too difficult to read. There is some physical and emotional abuse though.

Falling

This book has very mixed reviews. It is about a woman, Emma, who moves away from her family in England and worked in banking for 5 years. She was ready to get out of the rat race, so she moved to a small community and tried to find her self. She ended up falling for her landlord, who fell for her back.

First, let me talk about the characters. They were good, but archetypes. But at lease I cared about them. I felt something for all of them, either love or disdain. I enjoyed some of the quirks Jane Green wrote into them, however she tries too much to be relevant with her characters. While the point I'm sure was to relate, I just found myself bored and passing judgement on them. Emma was overly dramatic about life which made her obnoxious.

Second, the writing. It was straightforward and not at all interesting. She tried too hard to throw in every type of modern cultural reference. Ie. Tinder. Facebook. Etc. Nothing much happens the whole book until the last few pages.


Third and lastly, the end. There is a great twist at the end, but getting to the end was a tiny bit boring. And while it certainly makes for a shock, it's not what you want to happen. I love a sad ending, but this one was too much. Maybe it was my state of mind, but I wish the ending was different. But, alas Jane Green wanted it to end in drama and she certainly succeeded.

Behind Closed Doors

Wow, this book. Think Room plus Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was an amazing book. It opens with the perfect couple having a dinner party. For a while, you get the sense not all is perfect and as the book goes on, you start to look for what is the problem.

Then the author lets you know. And you are caught in between being utterly shocked and not surprised at all. It's a book you don't want to know more about, but for anyone reading this, please for the love of all good books, read this novel.

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper

This book had so much potential. Finally, a book with a creative and unique plot. Authur Pepper is a recent widower who finds a charm bracelet of his late wife that he's never seen before and has exotic charms on it. He is struggling with the loss of his wife and trying to figure out who he is without her when he decides to try to track down where the charms come from.

Through this journey, he becomes aware that he actually likes adventures and is learning about the parts of his wife he never knew through them.

It was a good book. I never wanted to put it down. But it wasn't as compelling as I hoped it would be. The writing was just fine. Patrick told the story, but didn't have much of a great commentary. Worth the read if you want a change of pace from love story to adventure.

The Light in Paris

This was such a fantastic book. One of my favorites in 2016. Eleanor Brown is the author of another book I love, The Weird Sisters. So, I knew I liked her writing style, which is brilliant, but unassuming. Cultured, but not pretentious.

The Light in Paris is narrated by a 30 something very unhappily married woman who married a man just because her mom wanted her to and it's what her peer group did. You get married, you have kids, you go to women's league meetings.

Her story parallels her grandmothers, Margie who did the same thing; she settled because she was expected to. However, not before going to Paris in 1924 for the best 3 months of her life.

The Light in Paris is about breaking free from traditional roles and others expectations of you. It's about finding yourself before you settled down. Knowing who you are, what you love, and what gives you joy. All of which is outside of a man's love. While there are love stories in this book, it's not about finding love. It's about defining what womanhood is. It's about empowering women to be who they were meant to be - an artist, an adventurer, a writer.

I loved this book and highly recommend it.