Anonymous wrote:Just started The Bee Sting
Just finished Chip War (nonfiction) and The Confession Club by Elizabeth Berg (3rd in a series)

Reading the Bee Sting now. What happened to the punctuation? 😭

I read "The Sweeney Sisters."
It's about three sisters who find out shortly after their father dies that there is a fourth sister.
I liked it. Well, actually it took me a while to get into it because the book took a lot of time explaining who all the characters were. Once all that was sorted and we got seriously into the story, then I enjoyed it.

I just started Barbra Streisand's autobiography and I'm reading Next Level about nutrition and exercise in middle age.

Anonymous wrote:Just finished The Last Applicant. I don’t love intense psychological thrillers so this was good for me. A little bit contrived but a solid 4.5/5

I loved the beginning of the book and then thought it went completely off the rails and couldn't finish it quickly enough. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Anonymous wrote:Finished Middlesex. I didn't really enjoy the beginning, but the middle to end was pretty good. The first half was OK, I kept reading it, but found myself skimming certain parts, it felt overstated or something. I think I would have liked it more if I had known half the book was backstory. I'll probably read it again.

Read Yellowface. It was a quick read for me and I enjoyed it well enough to not regret spending my Saturday on it 😅

Reading In 5 Years by Rebecca Serle. Finding it endearing, like the cliches are comforting.

I read Middlesex like 20 years ago (in college). I remember being a little horrified.

Someone Else's Shoes by Jojo Moyes

I've only read a few chapters but I am already enjoying it. Two very different 40-something year-old women become intertwined in each other's lives due to a mix up in gym bags.

So far it is a fun read.

My mom passed along Go as a River over Christmas, so far it is great https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63922274-go-as-a-river

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trying to get through as much of How To Survjve a Plague (AIDS mémoire/nonfiction) before the library yoinks it back. Really good but wasn’t exactly Christmas fair.

I was able to renew and finish it this week! Really good (although really long — the audio book is 24 and a half hours) and very interesting for me to learn more about that era. Also a little disconcerting to think how much of it overlapped with my life; I remember the “you can’t get AIDS from shaking hands” lectures in my rural elementary school although I had no notion of the experience adults were living in big cities at the time and for the decades previous.

The author based this book on a documentary film he made of the same name and also has a documentary film on Covid so I’m going to see if I can find those at the library too.

If you want a corresponding fiction book about the AIDS crisis, read The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. It's so good.

Anonymous wrote:Trying to get through as much of How To Survjve a Plague (AIDS mémoire/nonfiction) before the library yoinks it back. Really good but wasn’t exactly Christmas fair.

I was able to renew and finish it this week! Really good (although really long — the audio book is 24 and a half hours) and very interesting for me to learn more about that era. Also a little disconcerting to think how much of it overlapped with my life; I remember the “you can’t get AIDS from shaking hands” lectures in my rural elementary school although I had no notion of the experience adults were living in big cities at the time and for the decades previous.

The author based this book on a documentary film he made of the same name and also has a documentary film on Covid so I’m going to see if I can find those at the library too.

Anonymous wrote:Just finished the House on the Cerulean Sea. Really enjoyed it.

Up next: Unsheltered.

Really excited for Cerulean Sea! I’m like ninth on the waitlist…

I’m rereading Sarah J Maas’s series before the release of her new book at the end of the month.

The Fortunes of Jaded Women, by Carolyn Huynh. So far, so good! It's funny, engaging, and an easy read. The author uses a lot of Vietnamese words and phrases, but it's done in such a way that you can easily understand what she's getting at from context (I don't know a word of Vietnamese).

One of my pet peeves is authors using non-English words and phrases just for the heck of it. Non-speakers of the language should be able to infer what you're trying to say; a reader shouldn't have to break out Google Translate to figure it out. Huynh does a good job with it and the added Vietnamese makes you feel like you're really sitting in on a conversation between the characters.

Anonymous wrote:Just finished the House on the Cerulean Sea. Really enjoyed it.

Up next: Unsheltered.

I read Unsheltered a few years ago. I live in a fixer-upper house and found the book very relatable.

Anonymous wrote:Tom Lake is apparently better as an audio book read by Meryl Streep.

I did it on audiobook. Her voice is great but it’s still boring.

I'm finally reading Killers of the Flower Moon. Gripping writing.