Attachments

Finally! After reading many mediocre (at best) books for the past month , I finally get one that's good. Not just good but great. Unique. It is now on my list of favorite books.

Do not read a thing about this book before reading it. All you need to know is that it's endearing and maddening novel filled with tragic timing and is so funny and clever. The editing and grammar references are fantastic. I loved this book so much that it made me immediately get Rowell's other books from the library. And it made me want to take her to coffee to ask what happens next after the last sentence of the story. This was truly a delightful read.

A House in the Sky

When I first started reading this book, I thought it was fiction that read like a memoir. Then I realized that this sounds too real to be made up; it is in fact a memoir. A haunting one. It's an amazing story of depravity and hope. The novel is one big juxtaposition.

Amanda and her friend get kidnapped by an extremist Islamic group in Somalia. She is in captivity for a long time and this book is her telling of the story. It is one that will stay with me for a long time and I think is a must read for everyone. It will open your eyes to the world. To terrorism. To the ethics of paying ransoms or not. To many other things that are just too complicated to even mention on a blog. Not many memoirs have me googling the author. This one I did immediately. I even stalked her Instagram. Crazy, right? And once you read it, you'll find out why I became a crazy stalker.

I Kill the Mockingbird

This is a cute juvenile fiction book and is a great read for book lovers and kids. My 4th grader read it and liked it. I wouldn't call it great literature or a great book, but it's cute. And it has potential to inspire kids to read actually great books. It's about a small group a friends who love the book To Kill a Mockingbird and start a conspiracy to try to get other kids in their town to read it for their summer reading. Their campaign gets more out of control than they anticipated. And their plan ends up working. Overall, a good book for middle elementary aged kids. And I will say that I took some notes on other good books mentioned in this one for my kids to read.

The Shoemaker's Wife

This is your classic immigrant novel about an Italian teenage boy who was forced to immigrate to America and your atypical Italian teenage girl who immigrated with her father in hopes of making money for their family back home in the Italian Alps. The beginning of this book had such potential and I was falling in love with the characters and their endearing personalities. Then they came to America and the book went downhill. If Trigiani had just stuck to the characters of Enzo and Ciro, the book would have been great; the characters development in the beginning was excellent.

But then the author moved the novel into less about the actual story and into more about the culture of Italians. Interesting, to be sure. There were just too many details in the things that don't even matter. All that extraneous detail, along with the length of the novel made it tedious at times. Many times. So much so that by the end of the book, I didn't actually care what happened to anyone, I just wanted the book to end.

I wanted to badly to give this book a raving review. And at points, I could have. Unfortunately, those parts that held the most potential were rushed and forced and written in such a way as to not make you really care.

Girls in White Dresses

This is a book about...uh...I'm not actually sure what the plot was. If I had to describe it, I'd say a dumb book about annoying women and their dysfunctional relationships with men. I usually love dysfunction, but this is dumb dysfunction. Perhaps this is the biggest fluff novel I might have ever read. Don't waste your time people. Even if you need a fluff novel. This one is not worth the time.

One More Thing, The Reason I Jump, By Nightfall, Notes From the Internet Apocalypse

One more thing by Bj Novak. Really really dumb stories. And not even in a funny way. Gave up 3 stories in. Don't waste your time on this one.

The Reason I Jump. This is a book written by a 13 year old boy with Autism. I found it to be self-righteous, unbelievable, and simple. The format was question-answer with a few short stories thrown in. It got old but I felt like I needed to finish it in case that ah ha moment come; I even got close. However, I ended up picking up a good book and by the time I had the opportunity to come back to this one, I wasn't interested. I hate to sound harsh, but I think this kid should have had more help in writing the book or waited until he was a bit older.

By Nightfall. I loved one of Cunningham's other books, The Hours so one day when I was perusing the library looking for a book to read, I migrated to Cunningham to see what else he's written. Oh dear. I couldn't even finish this book. Fifty percent of it I don't understand. No, 75%. The actual story line is somewhat interesting. However, the pretentious commentary is not.

Notes From the Internet Apocalypse. Stupid. Poorly written. Dumb. I usually make myself read to page 50 of a book before stopping. I got to 26. And that was about 25 pages longer than I wanted.

The Boy in the Suitcase

This is a very quick read. Be prepared to stay up too late and neglect responsibilities to finish reading this book.

Mikal is a 3-year-old boy who gets kidnapped. A Red Cross nurse, Nina finds him in a locker and yes, he is in a suitcase. Nina has an obsession with helping people, so she tries to find out where the boy belongs.

It's a Nordic crime fiction book and that's about all I can say about the book. It does get a little confusing as you read it since there are multiple parties involved throughout, but it's easy enough to follow.

My only criticism is that I think some of the book gets lost in translation. My guess is that if you are from Denmark or Lithuania or know a lot about their cultures, you will understand and get this book better than the American lens through which I read it.

I've heard that this may be the first of a series, which would then make this book even better. To see the why behind what makes people the way they are would certainly make Nina a more interesting character. Were it this book alone, Nina would be a little maddening. But if the authors put more background on her story, her characters and this book would come more to life.