It's my last book post of the year, wow! And what a year it's been, huh?
Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall - My mother-in-law loaned me this book, and it was really good. It's told from the POV of a 9-year-old white girl, Starla, living with her grandmother in the south in the 1960s. She runs away from home and hitchhikes with a black woman, Eula. It was simplistic in its story-telling {since a 9-year-old is our storyteller} with such great lessons and insights as Starla learns about life, love, racism, family. I felt like it could have felt forced or hokey but it wasn't. I was really engaged and invested in the story and thought it was a winner.
Still Mine by Amy Stuart - I think I finally figured out why I don't love thrillers. I value connections, and love to get to know the characters really well in a book. In a thriller, there is always so much mystery about the characters, so much hidden, so much slowly being uncovered. I feel like I never connect with the characters or it takes a really long time, and since I value connections so much, I end up feeling like something is lacking. The other issue I can have is when the main character is a bad person - it's a similar issue, but when I don't like the person I'm following, that is also a challenge for me! This was a thriller about an investigation of a missing girl in a coal mining community dying after a mine explosion killed miners and closed the mine. The mystery was interesting, and I thought the resolution was pretty unique. If you like thrillers, this one was pretty good. If you feel like me...meh ha. This is a trilogy, which intrigues me a little, so we'll see if I read anymore of them.
Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert - Last year, I read Get a Life, Chloe Brown and really enjoyed it. This was the 2nd of 3 books about the Brown sisters. This one follows Dani, who doesn't have relationships, and Zafir, who is all about romance and finding his happy ending, and what happens when they are 'fake' dating to gain support for Zaf's charity. Pretty predictable in some ways, but I like this author and her writing style and really liked the characters of Dani and Zaf. This is definitely R-rated.
The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede - Another winner! I chose this for the Blog Friends Book Club, and it was fantastic. I had this book on my TBR list after seeing Come From Away in February. {Remember when we could go to a theater and see a play? SOB.} I thought this would be a great book for our book club because this is a story of 7,000 passengers from flights all over the world that were stranded in Gander, Newfoundland after the 9/11 terror attacks, and we have 3 Americans {from different parts of the US} and a Canadian. We had a really great time discussing it and all shared our 'where we were on 9/11' stories.
Life Will Be the Death of Me...and You Too! by Chelsea Handler - My BFF, Kristen, gave me this book {along with Still Mine} and I had no idea what to expect. I've never read anything by Chelsea Handler and only know her personality through her TV show. Well this was surprisingly good! This is her 5th book I think and I think they are all memoirs, but this one focused on her experiences in therapy and especially around her healing from her brother's death. It was a really touching book, and I came away with a lot more respect for Chelsea. It was also really well written, and I want to read some of her other books now!
The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine - I definitely ended the month on a high-note with this one! Ignore everything I said about thrillers above because this one knocked my socks off. Reading a book like this is why I keep coming back to thrillers - if they were all like this, I'd never stop! I think most people read this book 3 years ago, ha, but I'm so glad I finally got around to it. This story follows Amber, who befriends Daphne only to get close to Daphne's family and eventually Daphne's extremely wealthy husband. The first half of the book is Amber's side of the story and the second half is Daphne's. It is wicked and diabolical and delicious, I ate it up!!
And that was my November! I had my 3rd tie for favorite book of the month between My Oxford Year and The Warmth of Other Suns. They both really got to me - in vastly different ways - this month, and I loved them both!
