Hell in a Handbasket by Denise Grover Swank (Rose Gardner Investigations #3) B+
Rose Gardner is like an old friend at this point. These books..there's dozens...got me through deployment number four, back in 2016. I can't not read each new one the week it comes out.
The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell C+
This was okay. I Found You was actually better because it had more mystery to it, but if you like British/English settings for your mysteries, this is fine.
Educated by Tara Westover B+
I thought this was very well done. I can't wrap my head around how difficult her life was, how much she had to re-learn, how hard she had to work, and WHY did she keep going back to her family.
Those parents should be locked up. It just makes me angry, really. The lack of medical care is what bothers me the most. This wasn't the best book I'd ever read, but it's important and it's a memoir that will make you think differently.
The Distant Hours by Kate Morton B-
I liked it. It was a good story. It had layers. Not as good as The Secret Keeper, but better than The Lake House. It was nearly 600 pages, but I never lost interest so that's a good sign.
The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
This was an excellent middle-grade WWII book. There was a much bigger story to it than just the war, and the war just served as a backdrop or background character. I think it'd be a great read-aloud for 4th, 5th, or 6th grade classes, but the kids would be unfamiliar with much of it, so there'd be a lot of explaining along the way. (I can't rate middle-grade books properly on my usual scale, it seems.)
Still Me by Jojo Moyes A-
Truth: I wasn't a fan of Me Before You. But I liked Moyes' other books well enough so I thought maybe that was just me and I read After You shortly after it came out.
I didn't like Me Before You because Louisa drove me INSANE. She was so listless and had no direction and just floated from day to day and I couldn't handle that. She had no ambition and I didn't like her at all. She was more helpless than Will in a lot of ways.
After You was slightly better but I don't remember much about it.
I got Still Me from the library so it wasn't a loss to me to at least try it.
I REALLY liked it. I thought it was interesting, and the characters moved forward, and Louisa seemed to get her sh*t together and become the person I wanted her to be in the first book. I also liked the plot. It was its own story in a lot of ways. I call it the best of the three.
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls A
I had a really hard time putting this one down. My cousin gave it to me for my birthday and I can't believe I waited a couple of months to read it. It's like Educated but better? I think the difference is that this took place before I was born, whereas Tara Westover's story is of my generation. If you haven't read this book, I HIGHLY recommend that you do. My friend said she had to read it in college, so it's likely I'm just very late to the boat on it.
Didn't finish:
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel. Maybe this was too literary for me. I've really tried to get into the genre of literary fiction over the last two years and it just doesn't work for me. I was just bored. And I felt so bad for Claude that I quit about two hours into the audio.
Also, I quit Britt-Marie Was Here about two months ago. I'm officially done with that author. Sorry to all who love him.
And I gave up on the Darling Investigation series by Denise Grover Swank. I didn't care about the characters so it just wasn't worth it.
Weird book habits:
I won't read books written in verse. I just won't. I also won't read poetry but that's its own genre, I suppose. If I hear about a great book and discover it's written in verse, I just bypass it.
I won't read books about animals, specifically dogs. Cannot, will not, won't. If a book takes a turn where something bad happens to a dog, I feel like that should be disclaimed as a warning on the cover.
Linking up with Jana and Steph!
