Anonymous wrote:All the Light We Cannot See. I got so attached to the characters and hated to see it end.

+1
I didn't get attached to the characters but loved the beautiful writing.

Anonymous wrote:Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
A wonderful story about family, forgiveness and unconditional love.

Runner-up: The Wedding People by Alison Espach -- a story about crawling out of depression and starting over, which actually manages to be funny too

I loved Hello Beautiful, and also Elinor Oliphant, as someone noted on the previous page.

I'm not having the best year of reading. Some that I've *liked* are Nora Goes off Script, James, The Sentence.

I've read a few popular books that I did not like at all: Malibu Rising; Red, White and Royal Blue; Pineapple Street

Better living through birding. Going to see the author speak soon

I'll see your Demon Copperhead and raise you a David Copperfield read side by side. A. maze. ing. cultural experience that is available to all!

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

For fans of The Wedding People -- note: spoilers ahea

I'm the PP who picked this as my runner-up book of the year. I really liked Phoebe, plus I'm a sucker for the New England coastal wedding trope. But I'm still not sure I buy into the idea that she was just drifting through life aimlessly, living a life "contained", and that this led her to seriously consider suicide. Yes, of course, she hit a horrible trifecta of infertility, the pandemic, and Matt's infidelity, but there just seemed to be a disconnect between who she was before all that happened and who she was when we first encounter her checking into the Cornwall. Espach wants us to see Phoebe as someone who becomes aware of her needs and her power to take action to try to meet those needs. But does she? I mean, she decides to stay in RI and responds to the ad about being a winter keeper. But at a pivotal moment she doesn't reach out to Gary until it's almost too late. What am I missing?

This is an old book but --
An Old Man Who Reads Love Stories by Luis Sepulveda.

It's short, and deals with themes of growing old and nature and man's interaction with it. It's a little like Old Man and the Sea, but not Hemingway-esque. But it's an Old Man whose got to deal with some sh*t relating to how scary nature can be....and there's a lot of flashbacks to how he ended up where he is. I thought it was a good combination of thoughtful and philosophical but also good character development and basically an adventure story.

The wedding people

Anonymous wrote:Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
A wonderful story about family, forgiveness and unconditional love.

Runner-up: The Wedding People by Alison Espach -- a story about crawling out of depression and starting over, which actually manages to be funny too

The audiobook of The Wedding People was phenomenal. Definitely one of my favorite books of the year.

No Ordinary Bird by Artis Henderson.
Fantastic.

Wolves of Eternity - Knausgaard

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
A wonderful story about family, forgiveness and unconditional love.

Runner-up: The Wedding People by Alison Espach -- a story about crawling out of depression and starting over, which actually manages to be funny too