Hamnet
My first read of the new year was actually supposed to be my last read of the previous year, but I didn’t get it finished in time. Hamnet is the story about Shakespeare’s family. The story is very historical fiction, as we don’t really know much about Shakespeare and his life. And to tell the truth, the story more revolves around the women in his life, and Shakespeare isn’t really ever really named.
The novel deals very heavily in the loss of a child. Historically, Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, died at the age of 11, cause unknown, but heavily believed to be from the bubonic plague. The story is beautifully told, and I really enjoyed the dual storylines of Agnes’ past and present in the front half of the book. If you can’t handle reading about a child dying or reading about a mother’s grief, you may want to hold off from reading this book for now.
Rating: 4/5
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
This book was so beautifully written, it just transported you to Italy. Everyone knows that the second born Fontana daughter is cursed to never find love. Which is why when Great-Aunt Poppy calls Em and Luce and tells them she can break the curse on her 80th birthday if only they all go to Italy, what is there to lose?
Nothing. There is nothing to lose, and what follows is a fun story about finding yourself at any age, and not letting a family legend define you. The characters leapt off the page and sprung to life, and this book should be a study in character development. And interwoven with the Italian adventure of Poppy, Em and Luce is a beautiful love story between Poppy and Rico that will equally break your heart, and make it swell in joy. (BOTM)
Rating: 5/5
Play it as it Lays
Realistic Fiction is not my favorite genre, so I dreaded this book a little when it came up as the randomized choice in the book club I’m doing with my sisters. And while it was not something I would normally pick up, it was okay. The problem with realistic fiction is it doesn’t really feel like anything really happens in the book. The plot moves slowly. Also, in this book the characters were not very likeable, and there was absolutely no character growth. The book didn’t really hold my interest, but I didn’t hate the book, and I’m glad I read it and went outside of my comfort zone.
Rating: 3/5
Pretty Little Wife
When everyone started raving about Pretty Little Wife in the Book of the Month Club Facebook group, I knew I needed to read it. Thankfully my friend had it and let me borrow. I went into the book thinking it would be very much like Gone Girl or Girl on a Train, and a lot of it read that way. Spouse mysteriously disappears, surviving spouse is the prime suspect. However, there are multi-layers to this book.
The story starts off pretty slow and predictable, but soon the story picked up and the suspense kept me reading. And then the end. Let me tell you. If you like good endings to your suspense/thrillers, this is a book for you. (BOTM)
Rating: 4/5
The Giver
My book club book for January was The Giver. I hadn’t read it since I first read it in middle school over twenty years ago. And let me tell you, reading it as an adult is a completely different experience than reading it as a pre-teen. When you’re twelve, you’re reading it as if you’re Jonah. As an adult, you can see more of the nuances of the community. Also, since having read this previously, I had also read two of the sequel books. Knowing what comes next really takes away from the ambiguousness of this books endings. All of this being said, I still loved the book very much, and it is one that absolutely holds up through time.
Rating: 5/5
The Book of Longings
What. A. Beautiful. Book. Told from the point of view of Ana, Jesus’s wife, The Book of Longings brings to life Israel at the time of Jesus. Relegated to a mere side character, Jesus is treated as a historical figure rather than a religious one, and I think that is what makes the book so beautifully done. Yes, Ana is Jesus’s wife, but she is also so much more than that. Feminist in a time when it was unheard of, Ana longs for her freedom, and to write.
Ana is such a well drawn character, it’s hard to imagine that she wasn’t real. She starts off as a wealthy girl, who doesn’t want to be forced to marry someone she doesn’t love, transitions into her role as Jesus’s wife where she learns how to farm and do domestic chores, and finally as a devout religious figure who writes for the rest of her days.
We all know how Jesus’s story turns out, and even though I know the story of the crucifixion in my sleep, it’s even more devastating told through the eyes of the woman who called him beloved.
The prose is beautiful, and I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve read a book by Sue Monk Kidd. (BOTM)
Rating: 5/5
Tower of Swallows
Book 6 in the Witcher series, and the penultimate book at that. This was my audiobook for the month, because at about twenty hours, I can only listen to one audiobook a month right now.
This book was mostly about Ciri, and her journey to The Tower of Swallows. The book was mostly filler, and not a whole lot happened to advance the plot very much. Geralt and Yennefer are barely in it. My favorite part of these books is the analyzing of Ciri’s genetics, which sounds weird. I probably wouldn’t enjoy it so much if I was physically reading all of it, but I love listening to it.
There’s a big reveal at the end about Ciri that made me yell in the car, and I waited very impatiently for the final book to arrive in my library app.
Rating 4/5
Boyfriend Material
Boyfriend Material is such a fun book featuring one of my favorite romance tropes: fake dating. Luc is the son of two former rock stars, so basically famous by association. When he gets a series of bad press, his job tells him he needs to clean up his image or get fired. So, he gets set up with Oliver, a straight laced attorney who needs a date to his parents’ anniversary party. What follows is exactly what you would hope from a fake dating romance.
Luc and Oliver’s relationship was very swoonworthy, even before the fake dating turned into real dating. The book also had amazing side characters and made me laugh out loud several times before utterly breaking my heart and making me cry. This book is all around perfect. I had been looking for something to stand up against Red, White and Royal Blue, and this one hit the mark perfectly.
Rating: 5/5
Winter Counts
Winter Counts was a very interesting book. It was advertised as a thriller, I would categorize it more of a suspense than a thriller. It definitely kept me reading. It was a slow burn, but totally worth it. Virgil is a vigilante on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, taking care of cases law enforcement won’t, bringing justice to the people. When hard drugs start finding their way to the rez, and his teenage nephew he’s caring for OD’s, it becomes Virgil’s mission to find who is bringing in the drugs, and bring them down.
What follows is an intricate story of finding the balance between biding your time and following the laws, and bringing about justice for those you love. All of which is interwoven with what every day life is like on an Indian Reservation. The story is both simple and complex, and it builds to an amazing finale that has me hoping Weiden will make this book the first in a series of Virgil the Vigilante books. (BOTM)
Rating: 4/5
The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living
This was a very cute book. It was a nice formulaic romance about a baker who moves to a small town to bake for a tiny little inn. She finds love and family and plays in a bluegrass band. All while baking delicious pies and cookies and all manner of desserts. I absolutely adored Livvy and thought she was a very well developed character. I do wish there was more Martin, and that the author showed more of their relationship developing rather than Livvy baking practice pies for the pie contest. Other than that, I felt this was a great book, and it made me super hungry for apple pie.
Rating: 4/5
Conversations with Friends
Another pick for my book club with my sisters. The randomizer seems intent on bringing me out of my comfort zone with realistic fiction. This one, though, was a chore for me to read. I was already a bit against it when I flipped through and noticed there were no quotation marks. And then as I was reading, the prose felt more like Rooney was making lists of things that happened.
The book was definitely not one for me. This book was just another strike against realistic fiction, and a very big one. The characters were all terrible people with nothing redeeming about them, especially Frances, the narrator. The only character I felt anything remotely close to sympathy for was Nick, and that’s because I felt sorry that everyone was treating him terribly. This was advertised as a romance, but I found absolutely nothing romantic about it, and I was rooting for Nick to just leave both Melissa and Frances and go live with his sister and beloved niece. The ending just made me rage. The story felt like it dragged, and nothing seemed to actually happen in the book. I don’t plan on reading anything else by this author.
Rating: 2/5
Stephanie Caffrey, Author 