Eight books this month! A couple were just light, fluffy, “beach” reads, but one was a hard core difficult to get through. Read on for my March 2019 book review….
I started off March with STATION ELEVEN by: Emily St. John Mandel.A virus has wiped out most of humanity. The people remaining are plunged back in time to a world without electricity, government or really any modern conveniences at all. Groups of people have banded together to try and survive. Station Eleven is a group of traveling musicians and entertainers. They are nomads attempting to bring some arts and culture back into a world with none. Of course they face peril along the way. I will admit I didn’t really care about any of the musicians, they were all rather non-descript. In fact they were most often referred to by just their instrument…”first clarinet” for example. But mostly my issue with this book is the fact that it takes place 20 years after the “Georgia Flu” has swept through the world and they are still living so very primitively. You can’t possibly tell me that this flu wiped out every single engineer or scientist on the planet! It’s not as if there weren’t all of the infrastructure just lying about that could be used to recreate the previous way of life. I just felt frustrated that no one seemed to be bothering to try and get the country up and running. And when the the book finally ended, I just felt like…meh…who cares. For that it gets just 2 stars
A World Full of Strangers by: Cynthia Freeman. Oh sweet Jesus! This book would have been ok…good even if not for the ridiculous main characters! Katie the wife…she is intolerable. She’s passive while still being vindictive and…just plain ugh! David the husband is a mean, cheating, self-absorbed SOB. The only moderately likable character is the son, Mark. But he plays too small a part to safe this plot line. 1 star, and that’s being generous.
Bundles of Joy by: Linda Fairley. True stories from a midwife in England. I typically enjoy reading about midwives and while there were some good stories here (some sad, most happy), I think the author spends too much discussing her personal life rather than her patients and we get bogged down in her divorce. I found out this is her second book…not sure it I will go back and read the first. 2 stars seems fair.
On the Island by: Tracey Garvis Graves. This is a simple, quick, beach read. Tutor Anna has been hired to work with T.J. a teenager who has lost several years of schooling due to his battle with cancer. T.J.’s parents are flying their son and his new tutor to the Maldives where he can recuperate and avoid distractions while he catches up. BUT, their plane goes down. Pilot is dead and they were the only two passengers. Thus begins their time on a deserted island. Initially their only thought is survival but as time goes by and they rely on each other for everything, it’s only natural that they begin to have feelings for each other. I thought this book was sweet. I liked both Anna and T.J and I thought it wrapped up nicely. If you are looking for light and easy (with a touch of R-rated) than this is the book for you. 4 stars.
The Island of Sea Women by: Lisa See. This one put me way outside my comfort zone. Much like the only other book I’ve read by this author The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. (which came in 4th, in my top books of 2018). Imagine a remote village on a small Korean island where the women are the ones who work and support their families while the husbands are relegated to looking after the babies and children. The all-female diving collective is an ancient tradition that carries on today. Although now, I understand, they actually use wet suits instead of thin cotton clothing! While this book goes into great detail as to the how and why this tradition came into being, it’s really more about female friendships and family secrets. It spans 8 decades…including the Japanese occupation and the Korean war. I will admit I knew next to nothing about this time period and what I read was shocking. I took time out to research more about what I had been reading about. I couldn’t believe that the actions and incidents I was reading had actually happened…but they did and many were truly horrific. 🙁 This book was challenging but really deep with characters that will stay with me for a long time. I suspect this one will be in the running for top 2019 book. 5 stars
Uncharted By: Tracey Garvis Graves. This novella is referred to as “On the Island 1.5”. In the book I reviewed above by the same author there is a tiny sub-plot, a bit of a mystery. In this super quick read you find out what that sub-plot was all about and how it ties into all of the events that occurred in “On the Island”. I don’t want to say too much because it would give away the ending to the earlier book. But this was cute and easy. 3 1/2 stars
Friends From the Edge by Heather Balog. Ok, I’m going to assume that I downloaded this one for free on my Kindle, otherwise I might be mad that I paid good money to read this drivel. Four friends, one fateful night which leads three of them to reunite decades later. Trust me you will end up not caring at all about what actually happens since it take so long to get there and once you are there it’s not even that big of a mystery. Just don’t bother. 1 star
I’m Just Happy to Be Here by: Janelle Hanchete. Oh boy. This book was hard. Janelle is a highly educated drug addict and alcoholic. She goes off on benders like you can’t even imagine. She’s fired from jobs, goes through several re-habs all while truly believing that she is better than everyone else. Her self-righteousness and holier-than-thou attitude is disgusting. Oh and did I mention she’s a mother? A mother who seems to manage not to drink or do drugs while she’s pregnant but drinks like a fish while she’s breast feeding. She frequently drives drunk or high with her daughter in the car. Her mother eventually takes her kids away. (thank god). She goes to the sketchiest places with total strangers to do coke or Ecstasy and at one point (because the trailer she was crashing at didn’t have working plumbing) poops in a bag and carries it around with her in her trunk. I guess when you are high this makes sense??? I hated this woman and her choices…but I’m not supposed to hate someone when they eventually get clean and work every single day to stay that way, right? I almost set this one aside many, many times. But she was so awful I just had to see how things turned out. I don’t even know what to rate this book. I mean I hated everything about it BUT on the other hand, her story was raw and true and it certainly made me FEEL things! LOL! I’m going to have to think about this one for a while before I can rate it.
That’s it for this month! Did you read anything good in March? Share in the comments if you have any “must-reads”. 🙂
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