I have had a goal to spend less time on social media for awhile now. I go back and forth between being really great at this and being… not so great. This past month I decided that every time I would normally reach for my iPad to check Facebook or Instagram, that I would instead reach for a book. This had multiple positive effects. One, it reminded me how much I love reading!! Two, my kids saw me with a book in my hand instead of with an electronic device (I try to read the hardcopy instead of reading on my iPad for that very reason). Three, I got so wrapped up in what I was reading that I started bringing my books with me everywhere I went. I got addicted to the stories instead of being addicted to checking my social media!
Reading is also a form of a creative outlet for me. Doing something other than photography drives my creativity in a different way, and allows me to be open to new and exciting ways of seeing the world. I’ve also decided to start reading more business books, but I don’t get through those ones nearly as fast as the others. In fact, I’ve been working on the same business book for about 2 months now, and I will review that one whenever I get around to finishing it 🙂
Without further ado, here are four books I read in July — (there are only three pictured because the library was demanding I return my book or else FEES!)
We Were Liars – E. Lockhart
I picked up this book for a monthly, stay-at-home mom book club I belong to. I had no idea what it was about, and the synopsis on the back of the book wasn’t very telling. In fact, it said something along the lines of, “If someone asks you what this book is about, just lie.” So I didn’t have any expectations of this book. I’ll try to be more helpful than the synopsis, without giving anything away.
There are 3 cousins and one friend that spend every summer on an island owned by their grandparents. We’re thrown into a summer where the main character, Cadence, is trying to piece together what happened to her and the cousins two summers back. Her memory is patchy, she suffers from debilitating headaches, and all their moms – the aunts – are acting weird. No one will tell her what’s going on, telling her that they think it will be better if she figure things out on her own. So she starts putting sticky notes up on the wall whenever a memory flashes back to her, or whenever someone lets slip something that might lead to answers. We also watch as she picks up odd habits like giving one of her personal items away every day – even things with sentimental value like photos of her grandma or books or clothes. The story goes back and forth between three summers – the present tense summer, and the previous two. Readers learn about her growing love for the 4th member of their gang, the only one that’s not a cousin, as well as the drama between their mothers. Their family comes from old money and their 3 mothers are constantly fighting over who will gain their dad’s inheritance. They pit their children – the cousins – against each other in battles to win the “affection” of grandpa so they will be chosen to inherit the island.
The first thing I noticed – and loved – about it was Lockhart’s writing. She is a super raw, rich writer. She uses analogies that feel so real and, at times, violent, that it caused me to stutter in my reading. It took me a few minutes of, “Wait, did that actually happen? Is her heart actually on the ground, bleeding rivers onto her front lawn?” before realizing it was just a super dramatic way of saying her father leaving her broke her heart. She doesn’t limit the drama to her analogies. Once readers are finally told what happened to Cadence two summers ago, it is quite a blow to the heart. It’s extremely heavy and emotional, and not a book that is for sensitive readers. A few friends said it was super painful for them to read, while I was more along the lines of, “Oh, now that was a twist!” and enjoying the surprise.
I would rate it PG-13 for intense, emotional elements, teenage and adult drinking, and minor swearing/discussion of sex.
4/5 Stars
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks: E. Lockhart
So one of the questions brought up while discussing We Were Liars at my book club was if we would read another book by that author. I decided that I definitely would, as I tend to gravitate towards emotionally heavy books and also I just liked her writing. So I picked up another book from Lockhart. This one was infinitely lighter than Liars but still so enjoyable and fun.
We start off the book learning that Frankie has recently undergone a glamorous transformation over the course of a summer from ordinary to noticeable. She’s not used to getting attention but she adjusts quite nicely, and quickly. It’s not long until she is dating the most popular guy in school, the one she’s had a crush on for awhile. The novelty of having a popular guy, Matthew, for a boyfriend doesn’t last long, though, and Frankie tires of just being something of his that’s pretty to look at and easy to get along with. She doesn’t like being just the girlfriend…she wants in on the secret society she knows he and her ex-boyfriend are involved with. Frankie stops at nothing to figure out what they are doing and then, once she does crack their society, she rises to the top and controls their pranks…without them even realizing it.
I absolutely loved Frankie’s fiesty personality. In both Disreputable and Liars, the main characters were females who were learning how to assess young, new love. What to do with it and how to make it your own…But they were also girls learning to push against the walls that family and society were fencing around them. They fought back. In Liars, the repercussions were much more devastating, but in Disreputable they are fun, rebellious, and (pretty much) harmless. My favorite quirk about Frankie was her obsession with words. She invents the Neglected Positives, and uses them throughout the rest of the novel. Everytime she did, it made me smile and like her that much more. Maybe because that small part of her reminded me of myself….and I would have liked to see more of Frankie in myself as a teenage girl. The parts that cared about being more than just the girl that hangs around, just barely outside the circle of boys, never content just to be looked at rather than valued for her wit and creativity.
I would rate it PG. Limited swearing/sex elements
4/5 Stars
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister: Gregory Maguire
I opened this book a little leery of what I would find. I had started another book of Maguire’s and had to put it down quite abruptly due to its content, so I was hoping this one would not also be questionable. And trust me, it takes quite a bit to put me off so you know it was bad.
But this one was quite clean, I was happy to discover. It’s a “re-telling” of the Cinderella story. He turns the classic fairy-tale into something more of a historical fiction, and tells it from the point of view of one of the Ugly Stepsisters instead of Cinderella. While the book does follow the same basic pattern as the Cinderella story we all know, many of the details are very different. The circumstances in which the family joins Cinderella and her father, at what point and how Cinderella’s mother dies, and Cinderella’s personality, to name a few. There is also a side story with new characters introduced, a love story of her own for the stepsister.
Even though this wasn’t my favorite book, I read it quickly and kept intrigued enough by it. It was not at all a “feed good” novel, and there are very few happy moments. Even the ending isn’t all that happy, though there is a tiny bit of closure. I would rate it PG-13, mostly because of the emotional elements in it, though there is minimal sexual content.
2.5/5 stars (meaning, I didn’t not like it, nor did I particularly like it)
The Art of Racing in the Rain:
There is a story behind why I chose to read this book. It is definitely not one I would have picked up off the shelves and read on my own. Especially if I had read the the book’s description on the jacket. But late one night I got a text from my brother that asked if I had read that book. When I told him no, he wrote back and told me that I absolutely needed to. Like, right this second. I told him, “Great! I’ll get it from the library on Monday!” He said, “No, no, you will get it on Kindle and read it now!”
The book is told from the point of view of the main character’s dog, Enzo. That in itself is kind of a fun, different perspective. The dog is cute, funny, and likable. He believes that when he dies he will be reincarnated as a man, and that he will do a much better job being a person than most other humans do. He learns everything he knows from watching TV all day while is his owner is gone at work. The first few chapters are Enzo as an older dog, preparing to die. He wants to die on his own, and he doesn’t want his owner to suffer from his death. We then go back in time and watch as Enzo and Denny meet for the very first time – the day Denny arrives at the farm to pick out a new puppy. Soon, a woman enters the story and not longer after, a baby girl. Enzo eventually learns how these two new humans fit into his life, and they form a new family.
My brother was a little disgruntled to hear that I did not enjoy this book nearly as much as he did. In my defense:
1) Denny is a semi-professional race car driver. Every other chapter of this book is yet another car and/or racing analogy. I can only handle so many of these before I get bored. I ended up skimming these parts.
2) In any given book, I can easily handle 3-4 sad things happening, especially if there are happy things in between to counteract. Or, if these sad things are not predictable, as in We Were Liars, the sad things were a twist to the plot, and therefore provided intrigue. This book had way more sad things going on – and from the very beginning! I mean, we knew the dog was going to die starting on page one!! I hate when I’m set up for sadness from the onset. It’s like DOOM for the rest of the book. At least there is a happy ending after the dog dies. If there weren’t, I would’ve chucked it out the window. The ending in this book was much more satisfactory than the ending in Confessions.
Like I said, Enzo’s character was the redeeming factor in this book. He offered insight into the human existence that only a dog could, and you loved him just as you would any family dog. I just cried way too many times in this book without enough other, good things to make up for it. And, if we took out the racing analogies, the book would have been half the length, which means those sad things would have been crammed even closer together! There was a bit of language and a few sexual encounters, but both were told as if from a dog’s point of view….so it wasn’t descriptive in the usual sense? I would rate it PG-13 for that.
3/5 stars (it got bumped up half a star because of it’s happy ending)
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I am currently reading Divergent for the first time! I know, I’m a little late to that bandwagon. I actually watched the movie and, while I was watching it, just kept thinking about how much I wanted to get inside her head and know what she was thinking. That’s when I realized if I am that curious about it, I just need to read the book! I am also reading How to Win Friends and Influence People. Check in next month to read my reviews!
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