July Readin' Roundup

I don't know if July passed by slowly, or if I was reading a lot faster because of all the great books I read this month, but I read twice as many books as I normally do each month.   From YA and thrillers, along with audio books and my introduction to a few new authors this month.  July was filled with great reads.  Here are the books I read in July along with my brief synopsis of each.  Click on any book cover to purchase the book.  Click on the title, to see my full review!!  Happy Readin'!!



The Map That Leads to You by J.P. Monninger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Heather Mulgrew is on a summer trip with two of her closest friends from college. They have just graduated from Amherst College and Heather has a job waiting for her at Bank of America in New York City. This trip is exactly what they need before beginning the rest of their lives. On the train to Amsterdam she meets Jack and from that moment forward, her life will never be the same. Jack has a freedom that Heather has never experienced and together they build a great friendship that quickly turns to so much more.


The Girl Before by J.P. Delaney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
One Folgate Street is very unique. It is a minimalist designed apartment that is completely white and sterile. There have been very few residents at this address, the questionnaire alone is enough to turn most away, but Emma and Jane aren't like most women. They have both experienced a kind of trauma in their lives and see One Folgate Street as a way to make a fresh new start. When they each begin to experience things with the house, "glitches" it's enough to scare them. But with such an airtight contract with demanding rules, will they be able to leave this house or will it keep them trapped forever.



Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Billie Flanagan is an exciting woman. She lives for the moment. On the other hand, her husband, Jonathan, and her daughter, Olive, are a little more reserved. When Billie goes missing after a hike in Desolation Wilderness, her family is sure she is dead, but when Olive starts to have visions of her mother, she is unsure. Together, Jonathan and Olive embark on a quest to find Billie, and in the process discover secrets she kept and a bit about themselves as well.



Two From the Heart by James Patterson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book is divided into two short stories. The first is about Anne McWilliams. She lives on the beach in North Carolina, where she has lived for the past few years following a divorce from her husband. She is an old school photographer, so when a hurricane moves through and takes out half of her house that includes her darkroom, she is beyond devastated. Instead of dealing with the mess, she decides to travel the country and take new pictures and hear the stories of the people that go with those stories. How will this journey change the rest of her life?


All Is Not Forgotten by Wendy Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Imagine if you could take a pill and forget a traumatic event in your life. Sounds great right? But what happens when you still feel the emotions tied to that event? And how do you deal with those emotions when you're not even sure why you have them. Months after Jenny Kramer is raped at a party, she starts to see Dr. Alan Forrester to help her deal with the emotions of the trauma. All Is Not Forgotten is told from the Doctor's perspective as he treats Jenny and her family.




The Breakdown by B.A. Paris
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Cass is on her way home from an after work party in a storm. Her husband warned her about taking the shortcut as it could be very dangerous especially during a storm. When she sees a woman parked on the side of the road, she has to stop. But when the woman doesn't signal for her to help, Cass continues on the way home. The next day, she discovers that the woman has actually been murdered and this causes her to go into panic mode. When she finds out that she actually knows the woman, Cass is riddled with guilt. We follow Cass's story from July and the time of the murder to October when the murderer is caught. Cass's life takes a traumatic turn during these months and the story is enough to keep you on the edge of your seat.


I See You by Clare Mackintosh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Monday through Friday for most people is like Groundhog Day. You leave home at the same time every day, take the same route to work and then do the same thing on the way back home. Zoe Walker is on such a commute when she spots a picture in an advertisement that looks a lot like her. Her family can't believe it's her, but when more women appear in the same advertisement, then she is convinced she is correct. Officer Kelly Swift is the first to hear from Zoe and the pictures in the paper. She makes the connection between other pictures in the paper and crimes against women that have happened in the area. Will Kelly be able to find out who is behind the ads before it's too late?

Solo by Kwame Alexander
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Blade Morrison has reached a pivotal point in his life. He's graduating from high school, about to turn eighteen and has his whole life in front of him But with a famous father who is always in the media and a girlfriend whose parents can't stand you, it's hard to find your place. When Blade discovers something about his past, it will change his future forever. Set on two continents, inspired by rock and roll, and written in poetic verse Solo is one of the best books I have read this year.


What great books did you read in July?  Comment below!

Review: Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown

Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown 
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

JUST RELEASED THIS WEEK!!

Billie Flanagan is an exciting woman. She lives for the moment. On the other hand, her husband, Jonathan, and her daughter, Olive, are a little more reserved. When Billie goes missing after a hike in Desolation Wilderness, her family is sure she is dead, but when Olive starts to have visions of her mother, she is unsure. Together, Jonathan and Olive embark on a quest to find Billie, and in the process discover secrets she kept and a bit about themselves as well.

Thank you to NetGalley, Spiegel & Grau, and Random House for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Sybilla "Billie" Flanagan is the type of character you're not sure if you love or hate. She lived her youth free and reckless and now as a wife and mother, she's your typical "room mom" always there for school activities, to help where needed, snacks for Olive after school, and a home cooked meal on the table every night. But this is not the life she envisioned for herself, she misses the days when life was much more carefree. After spending time with her husband and daughter at the beach, Billie decides to take a weekend hike to sort out the thoughts that are going on in her head. Unfortunately, she never makes it home. Much to the devastation of her 16 year old daughter, Olive, who was going through enough as a teenage girl in high school. When she starts having visions of her mother at every turn, and Jonathan finds things hidden amongst Billie's belongings, they question whether she is really dead, or if she has just left them. Together, they will try to find the answers to the questions they have.

This is the first book I have by Janelle Brown, but it will not be the last. This was a totally enjoyable book. You felt like you were sitting with Olive in the Subaru searching all over for her mother. This was a great summer read. There are a couple of twists you don't see coming, but it fits with the character of Billie. The more you learn about her, you're not sure if you want to be her friend and go along for the ride, or hate her for all the secrets she keeps from the ones she loves. I wasn't sure if I was routing for Olive to find her mother, or to just accept the fact that she was dead.

Highly recommended!!

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Review--The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian

The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Richard and his younger brother, Philip could not be more different. Even so, Richard decides to use his home for his brother's bachelor party. Knowing how Philip and his friends are, he expects that this will be a wild party, but out of respect for his wife and child, he hopes it doesn't get too terribly wild. So when two strippers show up with their two bodyguards(apparently they're supposed to keep the men in check)this does not alarm Richard. What does alarm him though, is how young they look and the things Philip are doing with them even with the bodyguards present. When the girl, named Sonja jabs a knife into the neck of one of the bodyguards, all of the men are in total disbelief. Even more shocking are the two gunshots heard after. Sonja along with the other stripper/dancer/call girl, Alexandra, make their escape in the truck they arrived in. Richard is left with two dead men in the middle of his living room and a lot of explaining to do to his wife, Kristen.

The Guest Room will have you quickly turning pages to determine what is going to happen next. Told from two perspectives, third person narrative giving us the story as it unfolds through each character and first person narrative, told by Alexandra in which she tells her entire life story including the fateful night where her life changed forever.

I have read two of Chris Bohjalian's books previously. I was first introduced to his writing through a book club selection of Midwives. After that I added all of his books to by TBR. So far, this has been my favorite, but I'm just a juvenile in reading his books. This book had me go through a whole host of emotions. At the end, I cried. This is an amazing book that everyone will enjoy. One of the best books I have read this year.


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Review--Where We Belong by Emily Giffin

Where We Belong by Emily Giffin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What happens when you give birth to a child and give her up for adoption? You never tell the father that you are even pregnant, in fact you don't tell anyone but your mother. Eighteen years later, this child shows up at your doorstep eager to find out about the parents who couldn't keep her How do you explain what happened so long ago and how do you go back and correct the wrongs?

Marion and Kirby tell the story from their own perspectives describing the emotions they go through in order to deal with their present circumstances. Kirby is at a pivotal point in her life. She is about to graduate high school and is unsure about what the next step should be. Her adoption allows her to contact her birth mother once she reaches eighteen and she doesn't hesitate to do just that. Marion, a show creator living in New York City is doing exactly what she dreamed. She's dating an amazing man and things in her life seem to be going just right, but when Kirby arrives at her doorstep her whole life is put into perspective and she is forced to analyze her world to see if it's really as great as it appears.

Throughout their journey, the two women will discover the true soul of themselves and find a more secure place in their own lives as well as in each others.


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Summer Reading 2016

SUMMER READING 2016

It's that time of year again, the kids are out of school, the library has started the summer reading program, and I'm ready to dive into some good reading this summer.  So far my summer reading has started off well with The Fixer by Joseph Finder.  I have borrowed a few books from the library that have been on my reading list for a long time.  Wreck and Order by Hannah Tennant-Moore, Maya's Notebook by Isabel Allende, The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian, 15th Affair by James Patterson, and Murder in Time by Julie McElwain, and Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter.  

I have a couple o books from NetGalley that I can't wait to read.  The most anticipated for me is First Comes Love by Emily Giffin, All is Not Forgotten by Wendy Walter, and Results May Vary by Bethany Chase.  Results May Vary comes out in August and I will be participating in a blog tour for the book release in the middle of August.  

There are a few other books I have added to my TBR list that I hope to get to this summer or later this year:  Rich and Pretty by Rumaan Alam, Modern Lovers by Emma Straub, Girls On Fire by Robin Wasserman, Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn, Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett, Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson, and Foreign Agent by Brad Thor.

So this is what I hope to read over the summer.  What is on your summer reading list?

Summer Reading!!

   

It's three days into the official start of summer.  My inbox has been filled with the books that I have to read this summer.  So I've taken what they have given me and made my own list of books I hope to get the chance to read(probably not all this summer though).

Here is what is on my list:

An Untamed State by Roxane Gay

Mireille Duval Jameson is living a fairy tale. The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haiti’s richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, by all appearances a perfect life. The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her father’s Port au Prince estate. Held captive by a man who calls himself The Commander, Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom. As it becomes clear her father intends to resist the kidnappers, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents.

An Untamed State is a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, and of the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce. It is the story of a willful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places. An Untamed State establishes Roxane Gay as a writer of prodigious, arresting talent.

China Dolls by Lisa See

In 1938, Ruby, Helen and Grace, three girls from very different backgrounds, find themselves competing at the same audition for showgirl roles at San Francisco's exclusive "Oriental" nightclub, the Forbidden City. Grace, an American-born Chinese girl has fled the Midwest and an abusive father. Helen is from a Chinese family who have deep roots in San Francisco's Chinatown. And, as both her friends know, Ruby is Japanese passing as Chinese. At times their differences are pronounced, but the girls grow to depend on one another in order to fulfill their individual dreams. Then, everything changes in a heartbeat with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Suddenly the government is sending innocent Japanese to internment camps under suspicion, and Ruby is one of them. But which of her friends betrayed her?


The Vacationers by Emma Straub

For the Posts, a two-week trip to the Balearic island of Mallorca with their extended family and friends is a celebration: Franny and Jim are observing their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, and their daughter, Sylvia, has graduated from high school. The sunlit island, its mountains and beaches, its tapas and tennis courts, also promise an escape from the tensions simmering at home in Manhattan. But all does not go according to plan: over the course of the vacation, secrets come to light, old and new humiliations are experienced, childhood rivalries resurface, and ancient wounds are exacerbated.

This is a story of the sides of ourselves that we choose to show and those we try to conceal, of the ways we tear each other down and build each other up again, and the bonds that ultimately hold us together. With wry humor and tremendous heart, Emma Straub delivers a richly satisfying story of a family in the midst of a maelstrom of change, emerging irrevocably altered yet whole.


 
I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You by Courtney Maum

Despite the success of his first solo show in Paris and the support of his brilliant French wife and young daughter, thirty-four-year-old British artist Richard Haddon is too busy mourning the loss of his American mistress to a famous cutlery designer to appreciate his fortune.

But after Richard discovers that a painting he originally made for his wife, Anne -when they were first married and deeply in love-has sold, it shocks him back to reality and he resolves to reinvest wholeheartedly in his family life . . . just in time for his wife to learn the extent of his affair. Rudderless and remorseful, Richard embarks on a series of misguided attempts to win Anne back while focusing his creative energy on a provocative art piece to prove that he's still the man she once loved.

Skillfully balancing biting wit with a deep emotional undercurrent, debut novelist Courtney Maum has created the perfect portrait of an imperfect family-and a heartfelt exploration of marriage, love, and fidelity.





 Lay It On My Heart by Angela Pneuman

This piercing, sly debut novel tells the story of one unforgettable month in a Kentucky girl's thirteenth year. Charmaine Peake's prophet father has been committed to a psychiatric institution. Her mother, forced to rent out their house and move them down to a trailer on the river, won't stop telling Charmaine things she doesn't want to hear-from marital details and middle-aged doubts to uncomfortable preoccupations with Charmaine's changing body. A sanctimonious missionary kid has taken over her real bedroom, where Charmaine discovers his stash of strange and questionable photos. She is being tested at every turn: Where will her choices take her? And her faith? She tries to pray ceaselessly as her father taught, but with so much upheaval, even God seems to have changed.

   

The Mockingbird Next Door: Life With Harper Lee by Marja Mills

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is one of the best loved novels of the twentieth century. But for the last fifty years, the novel’s celebrated author, Harper Lee, has said almost nothing on the record. Journalists have trekked to her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, where Harper Lee, known to her friends as Nelle, has lived with her sister, Alice, for decades, trying and failing to get an interview with the author. But in 2001, the Lee sisters opened their door to Chicago Tribune journalist Marja Mills. It was the beginning of a long conversation—and a great friendship.

In 2004, with the Lees’ blessing, Mills moved into the house next door to the sisters. She spent the next eighteen months there, sharing coffee at McDonalds and trips to the Laundromat with Nelle, feeding the ducks and going out for catfish supper with the sisters, and exploring all over lower Alabama with the Lees’ inner circle of friends.

Nelle shared her love of history, literature, and the Southern way of life with Mills, as well as her keen sense of how journalism should be practiced. As the sisters decided to let Mills tell their story, Nelle helped make sure she was getting the story—and the South—right. Alice, the keeper of the Lee family history, shared the stories of their family.

The Mockingbird Next Door is the story of Mills’s friendship with the Lee sisters. It is a testament to the great intelligence, sharp wit, and tremendous storytelling power of these two women, especially that of Nelle.

Mills was given a rare opportunity to know Nelle Harper Lee, to be part of the Lees’ life in Alabama, and to hear them reflect on their upbringing, their corner of the Deep South, how To Kill a Mockingbird affected their lives, and why Nelle Harper Lee chose to never write another novel.




Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

  A murder… . . . a tragic accident… . . . or just parents behaving badly?  
What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.   But who did what?
  Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads:   Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one. Her ex-husband and his yogi new wife have moved into her beloved beachside community, and their daughter is in the same kindergarten class as Madeline’s youngest (how is this possible?). And to top it all off, Madeline’s teenage daughter seems to be choosing Madeline’s ex-husband over her. (How. Is. This. Possible?). 
Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn’t be, with those rambunctious twin boys? Now that the boys are starting school, Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body. But royalty often comes at a price, and Celeste is grappling with how much more she is willing to pay.   New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny. Jane is sad beyond her years and harbors secret doubts about her son. But why? While Madeline and Celeste soon take Jane under their wing, none of them realizes how the arrival of Jane and her inscrutable little boy will affect them all.
  Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive.  



Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is the story of Emily Shepard, a homeless girl living in an igloo made of garbage bags in Burlington. Nearly a year ago, a power plant in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont had a meltdown, and both of Emily's parents were killed. Devastatingly, her father was in charge of the plant, and the meltdown may have been his fault—was he drunk when it happened? Thousands of people are forced to leave their homes in the Kingdom; rivers and forests are destroyed; and Emily feels certain that as the daughter of the most hated man in America, she is in danger. So instead of following the social workers and her classmates after the meltdown, Emily takes off on her own for Burlington, where she survives by stealing, sleeping on the floor of a drug dealer's house, inventing a new identity for herself, and befriending a young homeless kid named Cameron. But Emily can't outrun her past, can't escape her grief, can't hide forever-and so she comes up with the only plan that she can. 


What is on YOUR summer reading list?