Happy Monday, friends! I am coming to you after a fairly low-key weekend. It rained all day Friday and Saturday, so I took it easy and didn’t do too much. Saturday night, I did a fantasy football draft and Sunday was a writing date with my friend M. I’m trying to keep this week plan-free because next weekend is going to be packed: book club, the Backstreet Boys concert, and an overnight in Orlando.
I finished three books last week. Loved two of them, tolerated the other one. 🙂 My reviews are below.
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (★★★★☆)
This novel was so lovely! It’s literary fiction, which isn’t a genre I gravitate to, so listening to it on audio was the way to go for me. The narrator was fantastic! It’s about a girl named Katie who meets a man named Tinker on New Year’s Eve of 1937. She’s celebrating the last day of the year with her friend Eve, and meeting Tinker takes the two of them on a whirlwind year of parties and new people and new jobs and new experiences. It’s a slow and meandering novel at times, not very plot-heavy, but the writing style and characters just completely worked for me.
You Had Me at Hello by Mhairi McFarlane (★★☆☆☆)
This novel was okay. It could have used a tighter edit (400+ pages for a romance novel is about 100 pages too long, IMO.) And it was literally 430 pages of “will they or won’t they” and then 5 pages for the conclusion.. It’s a “reunited lovers” romance about Ben and Rachel, who were best friends in college when a falling out caused them to lose contact. It’s been 10 years since then when they bump into each other again. Now, Rachel is newly single and Ben is married. No infidelity happened in the story, but it teetered a bit on the edge of it at times. It was a fine story, but not one I’m rushing out to recommend.
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (★★★★★)
Oh, I loved this novel so, so much. It was such a sweet story about a grumpy old man, Ove, who is trying to figure out what to do with himself after his beloved wife, Sonja, dies. A family of four moves into the house next door and basically upends his life. The chapters take us back and forth between Ove’s past and how he met Sonja to present day and what he’s doing now to move through his grief. Content warnings abound for this novel, especially for suicide, so take care if you decide to read this novel. I don’t generally have to be wary about content warnings, so I really, really loved this novel and all it entailed, but I can see how it would be very triggering for other people. For me, it’s easily making my list of favorite books of 2019 and I’m just a true fan of everything Backman writes.
What I’m reading this week…
> Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo, on audio. This was my pick for my local book club and thankfully, three of the girls who have read it have rated it 4 or 5 stars. (WHEW!) I started the audiobook yesterday and will need to speed through it before book club on Friday. Thankfully, it’s a short(ish) audiobook at 8 hours.
> After You by Jojo Moyes. Me Before You is one of my all-time favorite novels and I was hesitant to pick up the second novel in what became a trilogy. I wasn’t sure I needed a continuation of Louisa’s story. However, enough time has passed since I read Me Before You (and saw the movie), and I think I’m ready to dive back into Lou’s world.
> American Dreamer by Adriana Herrera. A bunch of trusted romance readers have read this novel and loved it, so I decided to pick it as my romance for the week. It’s a M/M romance and so far, it’s excellent.
What are you reading?
I had to look up what literary fiction is, and yep – I don’t gravitate toward that, either! (I think The Goldfinch is that category?) Towles wrote a book I have in my to read list – the one listed on the cover – A Gentelman in Moscow.
A Man Called Ove is also on my list!!!! It sounds really interesting. I hope I get to it this year.
I am so glad your book club pick was a hit!
I am reading The Alice Network. I am sort of in to it, but not LOVE-LOVING it. 🙂
For some reason I was the outlier who didn’t love “Stay with Me.” I think I gave it 3 stars? I finished “The Resistance Women” yesterday morning. It took me about 7-8 days to read that which is a long time for me but it turns out you don’t get much reading done on a vacation with a toddler! It was really well-written and difficult to read at times, but I am glad I read it! Now I am reading “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone” which is a memoir written by a therapist. She talks about the patients she works with and how she needed to go to therapy after going through a difficult break-up. It’s really interesting and a page-turner! Next up I have a couple of non-fiction books from the library: French Kids Eat Everything and The Year of Less (which will be my “Y” book for the A-Z challenge).
I must check if A Man Called Ove is on my TBR list yet.
I’m currently reading the Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty and am enjoying it so far. I absolutely love the Moriarty sisters books 🙂