Hello all and a big SORRY  I have been away from the blog for so long.  It was a crazy summer and I am hoping to be able to put a lot more time and effort into posting!  I figured I would start with a quick FYI of what I am just now starting to read.  I was lucky enough to receive a copy of We Are Not Ourselves through  Librarything’s Early Reviewer program.  I just got it last week and am very excited to crack it open.  Here is a summary-

Born in 1941, Eileen Tumulty is raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Woodside, Queens, in an apartment where the mood swings between heartbreak and hilarity, depending on whether guests are over and how much alcohol has been consumed.

When Eileen meets Ed Leary, a scientist whose bearing is nothing like those of the men she grew up with, she thinks she’s found the perfect partner to deliver her to the cosmopolitan world she longs to inhabit. They marry, and Eileen quickly discovers Ed doesn’t aspire to the same, ever bigger, stakes in the American Dream.

Eileen encourages her husband to want more: a better job, better friends, a better house, but as years pass it becomes clear that his growing reluctance is part of a deeper psychological shift. An inescapable darkness enters their lives, and Eileen and Ed and their son Connell try desperately to hold together a semblance of the reality they have known, and to preserve, against long odds, an idea they have cherished of the future.

Through the Learys, novelist Matthew Thomas charts the story of the American Century, particularly the promise of domestic bliss and economic prosperity that captured hearts and minds after WWII. The result is a riveting and affecting work of art; one that reminds us that life is more than a tally of victories and defeats, that we live to love and be loved, and that we should tell each other so before the moment slips away. 

Epic in scope, heroic in character, masterful in prose, We Are Not Ourselves heralds the arrival of a major new talent in contemporary fiction.

I am half Irish and cannot wait to get into this story!  Have you read it yet?

A Wedding in Provence

by Ellen Sussman

published by Balantine Books

2014

I received this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

My Review

I was very excited to read this book, but about half way in I lost a little.  I love the premise of a family gathering in France for a wedding- must be so many interesting characters and scenes!  Olivia is marrying Brody at her best friends’ inn in Provence, and is expecting her two adult daughters and Brody’s mother to attend.  Her daughters Nell and Carly as as different as night and day and really don’t get along that well.  As the weekend unfolds there are many tears and revelations.

This was a fun book to read and it went very quickly. At first, I really didn’t like any of the characters- Olivia and Brady weren’t really fleshed out, and Carley and Nell just annoyed me.  As the story moved on, I found the characters of the sisters develop and open up and this made the book worth reading.

Summary

What could be more idyllic than a wedding in Provence? That’s what Olivia and Brody think when they invite their closest friends and family to spend their wedding weekend with them. But when Olivia’s older daughter from her first marriage invites a man she met on the plane to join her, the delicate balance of the entire weekend is upset. Soon Olivia’s best friend, the owner of the inn who is hosting the wedding, discovers that her husband has cheated on her. Then Brody’s mother shows up without his father, who has gone into hiding. How can one choose love in the midst of chaos? Told from the point of view of Olivia and her two daughters, A Wedding in Provence is a moving novel about love, trust, secrets and family.

Hello all!  This past June, I really got into reading the great Stephen King.

I was fortunate enough to win a copy of Bag of Bones from Rory over at Fourth Street Reviews for participating in King’s March.  I then decided to tackle my first novella by King, and then timed it totally right to request Mr. Mercedes as soon as it was released from my library.

So, I decided to wrap all this up in one mini review post.

Bag of Bones

Thank you so much Rory!  I don’t think this would have been on my radar, if it had not been recommend to me by you.  I am continually surprised by how versatile a writer Mr. King is.  I first read The Shining, which scared the life out of me.  Next up was The Stand-so very different, but equally captivating.  Now we have Mike Noonan, and his broken heart.  Did Stephen King realize he was writing what is essentially a love story, albeit a haunted, spooky one?  My heart broke with Mike’s grief for Jo, his dead wife.  Don’t get me wrong-this is no fluffy love story.  It is creepy, with lots of bad people, ghosts, and very strange going ons.  But it is amazing how King shows grief, and live, through Mike. I loved this story, and want everyone to read it.

Great lines-

“Any good marriage is secret territory, a necessary white space on society’s map. What others don’t know about it is what makes it yours.”

“A writer is a man who has taught his mind to misbehave.” 

“For men, I think, love is a thing formed of equal parts lust and astonishment. The astonishment part women understand. The lust part they only think they understand.”

Mr. Mercedes

Mr. Mercedes is King’s newest novel, released just last month.  This is the story of a man who ran into a line of people waiting to enter a job fair with a stolen mercedes, and  Detective Hodges who recently retired, leaving this case open.  When the killer contacts Hodges in hopes to drive him over the edge of despair, he piques the detectives interest too much, and pushed him back on the case.  Part of the genius of King’s writing is the belief that evil, and evil people, are right there walking among us everyday, mostly without us knowing.  A great story- definitely recommend reading this.

Great lines-

“Hodges has read there are wells in Iceland so deep you can drop a stone down them and never hear the splash. He thinks some human souls are like that.”

“Never tell a lie when you can tell the truth.”

“Everybody likes the ice cream man.”

Different Seasons

This is a collection of four novellas and is the only one of the three books by King I read last month that I didn’t love.  First, I am not a fan of short stories, though I don’t know why.  Second, it contains two stories that have been made into movies that I love. So, let me review each story-

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

If you saw the movie, you know the story- Andy Dufrene is sent to Shawshank prison for the murder of his wife and her lover.  The story was good and well written, but-I am cringing when I write this- I liked the movie better.  I think it is an amazing movie and I loved Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman in it.  It was slightly different from the book, and whenI read it, these differences bothered me- sort of like it usually bother me watching a movie after I read the book.  It was a good story, but the movie tells Andy story more fully.

 Great lines-

“I guess I just miss my friend”.

“Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

“Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.

Apt Pupil

This was one very creepy story and I did enjoy it.  Todd Bowen, 12 years old, discovers that an old neighbor  was a nazi commander at a concentration camp, and is now in hiding.  He forces Mr. Dussander to tell him all he wants to know or he will expose him.  Todd want to know everything that Dussander did or saw in the camps, in painful detail.   This book has no sympathetic characters, and has been called “pure evil” by some.

The Body

This was the other story that bothered me a bit, but not as much as Shawshank.  Stand by Me-the movie version of this novella, is wonderful.  It is the amazing story of youth and friendship, and I consider it mandatory viewing for parents and preteens alike.  This is the story of four friends, who decide to go look for a dead body during the last days of summer.  Will Wheaton and River Phoenix do an amazing job and its you haven’t seen it, go get it now.  The novella was VERY good, but I couldn’t help compare it to the movie I loved.  The book isn’t very different from the movie-or vice versa- and I think you should experience both.Great lines-

“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12 – Jesus, did you?”

“Am I weird?”

“Yeah. But so what? Everybody’s weird.”

The Breathing Method

A wonderful, creepy tale about Davis, a middle aged lawyer who joins a gentleman’s club, where they enjoy brandy and tell stories- engraved on the fireplace is-“It is the tale, not he who tells it”.  We learn the story of Miss Sandra Stanfield and her illegitimate child.  A wonderful story- short and sweet.