Book:A Month of Sundays

 Book: A Month of Sundays

Author: Julie Mars

Pages: 208

This is my 240th read for the year

What Amazon says:

This book is about the seven months that the author spent as her dying sister's primary caretaker, and after her sister died, the 31 houses of worship that she visited in 31 weeks in her hope of finding an outlet of her grief and getting some answers to spiritual questions.  Her houses of worship include traditional churches, mosques, temples, Buddhist, Zen, Spirtualist, Scientology, Salvation Army and so forth.

This was a pretty good book.  I found this by accident and I am glad I did.  I think it is well written, and I loved how the author weaved her visits to different houses of worship with the story of her sister.  She and her sister were very far apart in age - her sister being more of a parent figure than a sibling.  The author always looked up to her sister so when she is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given just a few months to live, Julie drops everything to care for her.  After her sister dies, Julie looks for her and looks for closure as she tries to find the faith that her sister had at the end of her life.  Good book.

Stars: 4

Book: Black House

 Book: Black House

Author: Stephen King and Peter Straub

Pages: 672

This is my 239th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

20 years ago, a boy named Jack Sawyer traveled to a parallel universe called the Territories to save his mother and her Territories" Twinner" from an agonizing death that would have brought cataclysm to the other world.  Now Jack is retired LA homicide detective living in the nearly nonexistent hamlet of Tamarack, Wisconsin.  He has no recollection of his adventures in the Territories, and was compelled to leave the police force when an odd, happenstance event threatened to awake those memories.  When a series of gruesome murders occur in western Wisconsin that are reminiscent of those committed several decades ago by a madman named Albert fish, the killer is dubbed "the Fishman" and Jack's buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help the inexperienced force find him.  But are these new kilings merely the work of a disturbed individual, or has a mysterious and malignant force been unleashed in this quiet town?  What causes Jack's inexplicable waking dreams of robin's eggs and red feathers?  It's almost as if someone is trying to tell him something.  As this cryptic message becomes increasingly impossible to ignore, Jack is drawn back to the Territories and to his own hidden past, where he may find the soul-strength to enter a terrifying house at the end of a deserted tract of forest, there to encoutner the obscene and ferocious evils sheltered within it.

This books was fine.  It is the second book (and last) in the Talisman duology.  I listened to it and it passed the time, but I did forget that it was the second book in the Talisman which I really didn't like.  I got through it, but it was a bit of a trudge.  I do like the narrator he chose for this series - that helped.  The Black House is actually a very small part of this book - it was very confusing.  It is a bit rambly and I had a hard time caring about the characters.  I have found that books that have more than one author don't work for me.  

Stras: 3

Book: Flatlands

 Book: Flatlands

Author: Sue Hubbard

Pages: 272

This is my 238th read for the year

What Amazon says:

Freda is a 12 year old evacuee from East London, who has been sent away at the start of the war, leaving behind everything familiar to her, to escape the expected German bombing.  In her new temporary home in Lincolnshire, Freda finds herself billeted with a strange, cold and ultimately abusive couple, whose lives mirror the barren landscape in which they live a hand to mouth existence, based upon subsistence farming and poaching.  There, deprived of any warmth, she meets a young man - Philip Rhayader - a conscientious objector who has left Oxford and his prospective vcation in the church following a nervous breakdown.  Together they explore the wild, beautiful landscape of the Wash, teeming with migrating birds, and nurse an injured goose back to health.  As they do so, Philip introduces Freda to the wonders of the natural world and its enduring power to heal.

This was a pretty good book.  It was an easy read and flowed well.  Freda and Philip are very likable characters.  The book is written as a journal that Freda is writing as an old woman accounting for her time during the war.  The situation with Freda and her time with her billeted family is hard to read.  

Stars: 4

Book: The Search for Mother Missing

 Book: The Search for Mother Missing

Author: Janine Vance

Pages: 184

This is my 237th read for the year

What Amazon says:

Travel for fun with the Vance Twins during their very first trip to Seoul, South Korea.  The adventure takes place 20 years ago during what Janine calls "the dark ages" before social media, worldwide investigations into adoption agencies.  This vacation covers a very short span of 2 weeks in 2004 while the twins attended an adoption conference for the first time and learn that other Korean adoptees and parents have valid complaints and curiositites yet to be addressed by the authorities of the day in the field of International adoption.

This book was really terrible.  It is so poorly written.  Very juvenile.  A lot of exclamation points.  It was all over the place with message.  It seemed to be mostly them having fun on vacation instead of delving into their want to find their birth parents in Korea.  It was bad from beginning to end - skimmable at best - and I should have just quit reading it.  

Stars: 1

Book: The Carols of Christmas

 Book: The Carols of Christmas

Author: Andrew Gant

Pages: 224

This is my 236th read for the year

What Amazon says:

Everyone loves a carol.  In the end, even Ebenezer Scrooge had a soft spot for them!  They have the power to evoke a special type of mid-winter joy, like the aroma of gingerbread of the twinkle of lights on a tree.  It's a kind of magic.  But how did they get that magic?  The author tells the story of twenty carols, each accompanied by lyrics and music, unraveling a captivating and often surprsing tale of great musicians and thinkers, saints and pagans, shepherds and choirboys.  Along the way, Gant answers some of the biggest questions he's received about these beloved carols over the years, including: How did the most beloved carols come to be?  Why do we sing the versions of carols that we do?  How do these carols stand the test of time?  You get to delve into the history of favorites discovering how "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" came to replace "Hark how all the welkin ring" and how an English folk song about a dead ox and a poem by an American pilgrim became "O Little Town of Bethlehem".

This was a pretty interesting book.  I grew up like most people singing Christmas songs in church and school and in the car while shopping.  Learning where a lot of them originated from was quite surprising.  Told with good research and a bit of humor, and at times can get a little technical with musical information.  Overall a good read and I learned that a lot of these songs have nothing to do with Christmas at all (from their origins).  Good read.

Stars: 4

Book: Finding Christmas

 Book: Finding Christmas

Author: Karen Schaler

Pages: 384

This is my 235th read for the year

What Amazon says:

This year, she can't wait to share her favorite Christmas traditions with her boyfriend, Grant.  She thinks he's "the one".  So when Grant's hectic work schedule has him more "Bah Humbug" than "Ho Ho Ho" Emmie creates a holiday-themed scavenger hunt to help him find his Christmas spirit.  At the end of the journey, Grant will arrive at the charmingtown of Christmas Point where she's planned a remoantic weekend filled with holiday activities.  But Emmie's plan backfires when a mix-up has the wrong guy following her clues.  Sam, a best-selling mystery writer, thinks Emmie's clever Christmas riddles are from his agent, who is trying to help him get over his writer's block.  When he arrives at Christmas Point and finds Emmie, he immediately feels she's someone special, but she cannot see beyond the fact that the wrong guy showed up.  When Grant finally shows up, Emmie is disappointed to discover he's not enjoying the activities she planned and can't help but wonder if he is really the one for her.  She also cannot get Sam out of her mind.

No one who knows me will be surprised that I thought this book was bad.  Why did I read it?  For a Holiday challenge I am doing for a friend.  I tried to find something for this last category, but gave up and decided to suck it up for a rom/com Hallmark channel type book.  But this one was just poorly written.  Of course you know what is going to happen right from the beginning - that is expected and not the problem.  The problem was the juvenile story.  Emmie is a dumb character.  And extremely whiny.  They make Grant out to be horrible because he has to work so much and doesn't love Christmas to the impossible level Emmie does.  The over use of the word Christmas and Perfect was astonishing.  I think either word was in every other sentence.  There was so much laughing at the dumbest stuff.  I don't know - just overall bad.

Stars: 2

Book: You Better Watch Out

 Book: You Better Watch Out

Author: James Murray

Pages: 240

This is my 234th read for the year

Amazon says:

48 hours until Christmas, Jessica Kane wakes up with blurred vision, ears ringing, and in excruciating pain.  A gash in her head and blood running down her face, the last thing she remembers is goingfor a run and something or someone hitting her in the head.  It doesn't take her long to realize she is trapped in an unknown, deserted town with five other stragers who share similar stories of being attacked and stranded there.  unsure why and how they got there, she knows one thing for certain, she has to find a way out.  That becomes nearly impossible when someone is meticulously orchestrating their deaths, one by one, and the only thing Jessica can do is watch the life leave their eyes.  The fenced-in town is the killer's very own playground and there's nowhere life to hide.

This book was fine.  I read it for a holiday challenge and it fit the category.  It is a short book and I finished it pretty quickly.  Easy read.  I have to admit I didn't see the killer coming for quite a while, so that was a plus.  There is a lot of gore - doesn't bother me.  The ending was just okay.  They left it on a bit of a cliff hanger, so maybe there is going to be a second one?  Who knows.

Stars: 3