Me Before You

This review will be short. Me Before You is one of those books I just can't say much about because knowing too much will spoil the book's effect for the reader.

Macro scale speaking though, this book is about the lives of two people - Louisa Clark, a 26-year-old woman who has yet to leave her parents' home and find herself and Will Traynor, a privileged 34-year-old man who has a new challenge in his life. The book is about if Will can overcome that challenge with the help of Louisa.

It's a romantic comedy of sorts, though it wouldn't be if played on the big screen. It'd be drama all the way. But the writing is clever. The characters are precious. The ending is well, I can't tell you that. I'll just say I loved it. And for those who know me and my book loving ways, you probably know how this book ends.

For anyone in a book club - you must read this as it would lend to amazing discussion on a controversial moral issue (again, not going to say which one). The range of emotions I felt when reading this book was broad. This book and the characters in it will stay with me for a long time.

Kisses From Katie

This is an amazing story. Especially for an American to read. While I wasn't engaged the whole book (I skimmed some of it), the writing wasn't great (she's not a writer so I didn't expect it to be), and some of her statements about Americans seemed off target, misunderstood, or naive (typical socialism sentimentality regarding the rich in America), the story is amazing.

An 18-year-old girl, just out of high school left her privileged life to move to Uganda to be a teacher. She ended up starting a nonprofit organization to help send poor kids to school, help feed the starving, and some other amazing things. Her organization is Amazima Ministries and if you are reading this post, you should stop right now and go take a look at the organization. If not to financially give, to see what a 18 year-old girl is capable to starting.

While I found the book a little tedious to get through due to some personal dislikes of her style (won't go into detail as to not offend others), her story is inspiring.

I mean come on. She's 22 and has 14 children. Unmarried. Who isn't inspired by that?!

Don't Go

I loved Look Again by Lisa Scottoline. Interesting, the book review I did is my most popular post. Her latest book just came out - Don't Go. I had high expectations for this book and let me just say that I was disappointed. I didn't want to be. And I tried to not be. But I just was.

The style of writing was similar to Look Again, but not quite as well written. The twists and turns weren't nearly as interesting, exciting, or surprising as in Look Again. And the story line was ho hum.

I don't regret spending my time reading it; it's good. It'd be a good beach read. And I think men will like it since the main character is a man and there is a lot of military lingo and action.

The plot is about an Army doctor who is a month shy of his release when he gets word that his wife died in a household accident. The very first chapter of the book opens with what happened, which was fantastic. Scottoline's opening was strong.

The novel is about Mike and his infant daughter, Emily and how they reunited, if they reunite, and some other interesting plots along the way.

And while the book started out really strong, it ended in a fizzle. There was a nice bow wrapped up at the end and much of it seemed very unrealistic. There were two characters in the book that end up in a romance, but there's no development that got them there.

Don't Go was too formulaic for what I expected and wanted from her.

The Bean Trees

The story line of this book had so much potential. A young woman just barely an adult is given a baby at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant as the woman is passing through a town. The baby has no papers, no birth certificate, no social security number. It's about this womans' life and how she survives since she has no job, no money, no place to live.

The writing in The Bean Trees was flat. There were two main characters/narrators and I kept waiting to connect to them and be able to hear their voices. That never happened. Even the character who was written in 1st person didn't really have a voice. Even though I didn't really love it, I wanted to finish it. Not because it was good, but just because I wanted to see where Kingsolver was going with it. And I do love books where the lives of two people who are so different from one another intersect.

I ended up putting this down because life got busy. Then when I went to pick it back up, I lost the desire to see what happens. So, this is a book fail.

A Land More Kind Than Home

This is Wiley Cash's debut novel. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I think debut novels are the best. The Help. The Secret Life of Bees. The Light Between Oceans. Wonder. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Rules of Civility. Bastard Out of Carolina. Still Alice. 

That's enough debut novel love.

I love the voices in this novel. I love how the character development is so rich (perhaps because I live in North Carolina?! Would love to test that theory) that even though there are three narrators and they all live in the NC mountains, I still mentally have different voices for them all. I hear them differently. There is a young boy, an older sheriff, and an even older midwife. Of course I hear their voices differently since one is female, one is a boy, and the other an older male. But more than that, I hear their accents differently. Their nuances that make them unique.

I love the story. It's back country goodness. It's snake handling religion goodness. It's manslaughter, poverty, addiction, and a lot of I-hope-they-catch-the-guy. The story is slow and steady, but not to be confused with boring. It's not a mystery since we all know who done it. It's more a question of will he/they get caught and how. Will the church responsible for the atrocity be shut down.

I highly recommend this book. It was well written, interesting plot, great character development, and a unique topic. And of course, super fun since it's set in NC and I live in NC.  

Requiem

This review is mixed. I really enjoyed the first 2 books in this series. And so I had high hopes and expectations for the last book, Requiem. It started out fine. The love triangle angle was working well. I would have said the book was good. A page turner for sure.

Then as the book progressed, the story really didn't. The build up of the resistance wasn't well written. The end of the book was rushed. The love triangle wasn't really resolved. I like the guy Lena ended up with (obviously can't say who here), but how she got there was rushed and not well developed. And there was no resolution between Lena and the other guy she didn't choose.

Overall, the series was good. The 2nd book in the trilogy, Pandemonium, left the last book so much potential. Sadly, Requiem just kind of fizzled out a bit because of the rushed ending and the love angst. I'd still recommend it as a series though.

Calling Me Home

Calling Me Home is a page turner of a book. When I first started the novel, I thought that maybe it wasn't going to be well written because the conversations and voices were a little too cliche, but I was pleasantly surprised as I continued reading. It's actually a great book. The narration is very unique and interesting. But let me back up.

The story is a good one. It is about a 89-year-old white woman, Isabelle who asked her 30-something black hairdresser, Dorrie to drive her across several states to a funeral. The chapters go back and forth from present day on the road trip where Dorrie's life seems to be falling apart as they drive to the 1940s where Isabelle's life is unfolding.

Like I said before, the narration is unique. Dorrie is the narrator, but she only really narrates every other chapter. The chapters she's not narrating are quasi narrated by Isabelle when she was a young woman.The unfolding of Isabelle's story is so well done and compelling.  The book doesn't feel like it's narrated by two different people though. It flows so well that you don't notice. Because Isabelle is telling her tragic story little by little, there is great suspense built as the author cuts back to present day at a pivotal point.

What I love about this book is that while the most compelling story line is Isabelle's (she fell in love with the son of her black maid - all but illegal in the south in the 1940s), Dorrie's story line is also interesting. I enjoyed reading about how the past of one person's can alter the future of someone else.

I highly recommend this book. It's a quick and easy read with surprises along the way. And a sweet story of race relations and reconciliation.