Book: Hungry Heart

 Book: Hungry Heart

Author: Jennifer Weiner

Pages: 416

This is my 228th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Jennifer Weiner is many things: a bestselling author, a Twitter phenomenon, and an "unlikely feminist enforcer".  She's also a mom, a daughter, and a sister, a clumsy yogini, and a reality-TV devotee.  In this "unflinching look at her own experiences", Jennifer fashions tales of modern-day womanhood as uproariously funny and moving as the best of Nora Ephron and Tina Fey.  No subject is off-limits in these intimate and hoenst essays: sex, weight, envy, money, her mother's coming out of the closet , her estranged father's death.  From lonely adolescence to hearing her 6 year old daughter say the F word - fat - for the first time, Jen dives into the heart of female experiences, with the wit and candor that have endeared her to readers all over the world. 

This was a pretty good book.  I really enjoyed the beginning - delving into her growing up years, her family dynamics, and into when she became a writer.  I also enjoyed the chapters where she talked about how she became comfortable with who she was.  I wish she would have left off the twitter reads - felt that was a bit too long in this book, but otherwise, a solid read.

Stars: 4 

Book: The Exiles

 Book: The Exiles

Author: Christina Baker Kline

Pages: 400

This is my 227th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.  During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to 7 years transport for stealing a silver spoon.  Canny where Evangeline is guileless, HAzel - a skilled midwife and herbalist - is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in this powerful story of survival.  Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance.  By the time the MEdea arrives, many of them have been focibly reloacted, their land seized by white colonist.  one of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen's Land.

Book: The Calamity Club

 Book: The Calamity Club

Author: Kathryn Stockett

Pages: 656

This is my 226th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Oxford, Mississippi, 1933.  Abandoned by her mother one Cristmas Eve, 11 year old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one.  Now one of the unadoptable "big girls" at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, she fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed.  Birdie Calhoun, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford to ask her socialite sister to help the struggling family she's left behing.  But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie discovers her sister's seemingly charmed life is a tapestry of lies.  Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman running low on luck with little left to lose.  When their fates - and Meg's converge, Charlie comes up with an audacious plan for them to take control of their lives.  But in a place and time where hypocrisy is rife and women's freedom is fragile, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences. 

This was a great book.  I listened to it and the audiobook was wonderful.  The narrator did a terrific job.  I loved Meg's chapters the most.  The story flows well, and even though you can see where it is all leading, it s such a sweeping story that it doesn't really matter.  I knocked it a half of a star only because Birdie's sister was awful.  I wish the author would have backed it off just a bit or have Birdie actually get upset with her sister more.  

Stars: 4.5 

Book: A Forsaken Prophecy

 Book: A Forsaken Prophecy

Author: Stacey McEwan

Pages: 480

This is my 225th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

There is war in Belavere Trench.  Nina Harrow and Patrick Colson, the last to wield their magical mediums, are the key to winning that war.  Now prisoners of the ruling Artisans, they've left Patrick's Craftsman rebellion on its last legs.  Patrick might still love Nina, but her lies have gotten them here.  He will find a way out - even if it costs her dealy.  But when whispers of an ancient prophecy arise, they must form a tenuous alliance and race against their enimiest to uneart a secret linked to the very origin of magic.

Stars: 3

Book: Pumpkin Heads

 Book: Pumpkin Heads

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Pages: 224

This is my 224th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends.  Every autumn, all through high school, they've worked together at the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world.  They say good-bye every Halloween, and they're reunited every September 1.  But this Halloween is different - Josiah and Deja are finally seniors, and this is their last season at the pumpkin patch.  Their last shift together.  Their last good-bye.  Josiah's ready to spend the whole nigh feeling melancholy about it.  Deja isn't ready to let him.  She's got a plan: What if - instead of moping and the usual slinging lima beans down at the Succotash Hut - they went out with a bang?  They could see all the shights!  Taste all the snacks!  And Josiah could finally talk to that cute girl he's been mooning over for 3 years.  What if their last shift was an adventure?

Stars: 4

Book: The Back Bedroom

 Book: The Back Bedroom

Author: Gregg Olsen

Pages: 134

This is my 223rd read for the year

What Amazon Says:

In 1976, in the sealed back bedroom of a home in Washington state, authorities found the decomposing body of 3 year old Davey Weilbacher, beaten to death nearly 2 months prior.  Beyond that bedroom door was self-proclaimed prophet Leon Cunningham, who convinced his sheltered cult of family and friends - including Davey's lost young mother - that the boy was possessed by the Devil.  Exorcism was the only way to save him, leading to a ritualistic campaid of abuse, control, unimaginable violence, and murder.  Gregg Olsen delivers a meticulously researched account of religious manipulation, domestic terror, and one woman's 50 year journey to finally tell the truth about what happened behind closed doors in that modest little yellow ouse in Yakima.

This book was hard to read.  I picked up this book as a free read from Prime and I normally like a good non-fiction book.  But fair warning - this is about serious abuse of a child.  I did finish it, because it is short, but it was a tough read.  The writing is just so-so as well.

Stars: 3

Book: A Discovery of Witches

 Book: A Discovery of Witches

Author: Deborah Harkness

Pages: 579

This is my 222nd read for the year

What Amazon Says:

In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library.  Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Mattew Clairmont.

Had a hard time getting through this one.  It started out interesting, then became a boring love story and went in 50 directions - none of them good.

Stars: 2