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382. All the Bright Places

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Jennifer Niven

Genre:   Fiction, Young Adult, Romance

378 pages, published January 6, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

All the Bright Places begins when two teenagers, Theodore Finch and Violet Markey, meet on the ledge of the bell tower at their school where one or both of them is contemplating jumping.  It’s unclear who saves whom.  They are paired to work together on a school project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state.  They end up discovering each other.

Quotes 

“You are all the colors in one, at full brightness.”

 

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”        

 

“The problem with people is they forget that most of the time it’s the small things that count.”

 

“I know life well enough to know you can’t count on things staying around or standing still, no matter how much you want them to. You can’t stop people from dying. You can’t stop them from going away. You can’t stop yourself from going away either. I know myself well enough to know that no one else can keep you awake or keep you from sleeping.”

 

“The great thing about this life of ours is that you can be someone different to everybody.”

 

“Sorry wastes time. You have to live your life like you’ll never be sorry. It’s easier just to do the right thing from the start so there’s nothing to apologize for.”

 

“You make me lovely, and it’s so lovely to be lovely to the one I love.…”

 

“We are all alone, trapped in these bodies and our own minds, and whatever company we have in this life is only fleeting and superficial.”

 

My Take

A sweet, sad teenage romance.  I’m a bit old for it, but I think youngsters would enjoy it.

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379. There There

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Lisa Goldberg

Author:  Tommy Orange

Genre:   Fiction, Historical Fiction

294 pages, published June 5, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

There There is a story of twelve characters, all of whom are traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life back together after his uncle’s death and has come to work at the powwow to honor his uncle’s memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and has come to the powwow to dance in public for the very first time.

Quotes 

“If you were fortunate enough to be born into a family whose ancestors directly benefited from genocide and/or slavery, maybe you think the more you don’t know, the more innocent you can stay, which is a good incentive to not find out, to not look too deep, to walk carefully around the sleeping tiger. Look no further than your last name. Follow it back and you might find your line paved with gold, or beset with traps.”

 

“The spider’s web is a home and a trap.”

 

“This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that’s how you know you’re on board the ship that serves hors d’oeuvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who’ve never even heard of the words hors d’oeuvres or fluff.”

 

“She told me the world was made of stories, nothing else, just stories, and stories about stories.”

 

“Kids are jumping out the windows of burning buildings, falling to their deaths. And we think the problem is that they’re jumping. This is what we’ve done: We’ve tried to find ways to get them to stop jumping. Convince them that burning alive is better than leaving when the shit gets too hot for them to take. We’ve boarded up windows and made better nets to catch them, found more convincing ways to tell them not to jump. They’re making the decision that it’s better to be dead and gone than to be alive in what we have here, this life, the one we made for them, the one they’ve inherited.”

 

“That’s what she loves about Motown, the way it asks you to carry sadness and heartbreak but dance while doing so.”

 

“The wound that was made when white people came and took all that they took has never healed. An unattended wound gets infected. Becomes a new kind of wound like the history of what actually happened became a new kind history. All these stories that we haven’t been telling all this time, that we haven’t been listening to, are just part of what we need to heal. Not that we’re broken. And don’t make the mistake of calling us resilient. To not have been destroyed, to not have given up, to have survived, is no badge of honor. Would you call an attempted murder victim resilient?”

 

“The problem with believing is you have to believe that believing will work, you have to believe in belief.”

 

“We’ve been defined by everyone else and continue to be slandered despite easy-to-look-up-on-the-internet facts about the realities of our histories and current state as a people. We have the sad, defeated Indian silhouette, and the heads rolling down temple stairs, we have it in our heads, Kevin Costner saving us, John Wayne’s six-shooter slaying us, an Italian guy named Iron Eyes Cody playing our parts in movies. We have the litter-mourning, tear-ridden Indian in the commercial (also Iron Eyes Cody), and the sink-tossing, crazy Indian who was the narrator in the novel, the voice of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. We have all the logos and mascots. The copy of a copy of the image of an Indian in a textbook. All the way from the top of Canada, the top of Alaska, down to the bottom of South America, Indians were removed, then reduced to a feathered image. Our heads are on flags, jerseys, and coins. Our heads were on the penny first, of course, the Indian cent, and then on the buffalo nickel, both before we could even vote as a people—which, like the truth of what happened in history all over the world, and like all that spilled blood from slaughter, are now out of circulation.”

 

My Take

While generally well written with a few interesting characters, There There is such a downbeat tale of victimology that I was happy to finally be finished with it.  It reminded me a lot of You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie (author of the highly recommended The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian).  I get that Native Americans have had a raw deal in this country and feel betrayed.  It is  just a downer to read these tales of woe.

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377. The Woman in Cabin 10

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Ruth Ware

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller

357 pages, published April 16, 2019

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Woman in Cabin 10 is a thriller that takes place in the constrained confines of a high end luxury yacht that has set sail on the North Sea.  Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, is on board to cover the maiden voyage.  At first, she enjoys the glamour and opulence.  However, when the weather starts to turn, Lo is awakened in the middle of the night and views a woman being thrown overboard.  When she rings the alarm bell, no one believes her since no passengers are missing.  Things become more desperate for Lo as she begins to doubt her own sanity and struggles to figure out what happened.

Quotes 

“My friend Erin says we all have demons inside us, voices that whisper we’re no good, that if we don’t make this promotion or ace that exam we’ll reveal to the world exactly what kind of worthless sacks of skin and sinew we really are Maybe that’s true. Maybe mine just have louder voices.”

 

“Maybe that was closer to the truth–we weren’t captor and captive, but two animals in different compartments of the same cage. Hers was just slightly larger.”

 

“I love ports. I love the smell of tar and sea air, and the scream of the gulls. Maybe it’s years of taking the ferry to France for summer holidays, but a harbor gives me a feeling of freedom in a way that an airport never does. Airports say work and security checks and delays. Ports say… I don’t know. Something completely different. Escape, maybe.”

 

“There’s a reason why we keep thoughts inside our heads for the most part—they’re not safe to be let out in public.”

 

“Of course the one type of sashimi you really must try is fugu,” Alexander said expansively, smoothing his napkin across his straining cummerbund. “It’s simply the most exquisite taste.” “Fugu?” I said, trying to insert myself into the conversation. “Isn’t that the horribly poisonous one?” “Absolutely, and that’s what makes the experience. I’ve never been a drug taker—I know my own weaknesses, and I am very aware of being one of life’s lotus-eaters, so I’ve never trusted myself to dabble in that sort of thing—but I can only assume that the high one experiences after eating fugu triggers a similar neuron response. The diner has diced with death, and won.”

 

“she had made her way up the corporate ladder by treading on the backs of more young women than you could count, and then, once she was through the glass ceiling, pulling the ladder up behind her. I remembered Rowan once saying, Tina is one of those women who thinks every bit of estrogen in the boardroom is a threat to her own existence.”

 

My Take

I gave The Woman in Cabin 10 four stars because it has the quintessential quality of a good thriller:  I couldn’t put it down.  In a similar fashion to Something in the Water (a page turner that I also really enjoyed) Ware does a great job of keeping the tension high, the red herrings plentiful and the twists coming at just the right moment.  Highly recommended vacation read.

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375. Where the Crawdads Sing

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Pam Dupont

Author:   Delia Owens

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

384 pages, published August 14, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Where the Crawdads Sing tells the story of Kya Clark who was abandoned by her parents in the early 1960’s and left to fend for herself in the backwaters of Barkley Cove, a small town on the North Carolina coast.  Known to locals as the mysterious “Marsh Girl,” Kya teaches herself to read and channels her love of nature into a rare expertise for the tidewater flora and fauna.  When Chase Andrews is found dead in 1969, Kya is immediately suspected and put on trial.

Quotes 

“I wasn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full.”

 

“She knew the years of isolation had altered her behavior until she was different from others, but it wasn’t her fault she’d been alone. Most of what she knew, she’d learned from the wild. Nature had nurtured, tutored, and protected her when no one else would.”

 

“She could read anything now, he said, and once you can read anything you can learn everything. It was up to her. “Nobody’s come close to filling their brains,” he said. “We’re all like giraffes not using their necks to reach the higher leaves.”

 

“His dad had told him many times that the definition of a real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what’s necessary to defend a woman.”

 

“lot of times love doesn’t work out. Yet even when it fails, it connects you to others and, in the end, that is all you have, the connections.”

 

“How much do you trade to defeat loneliness?”

 

“Time ensures children never know their parents young.”

 

“Autumn leaves don’t fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar.”

 

My Take

I liked, but did not love, Where the Crawdads Sing.  I typically am a big fan of books where the main character overcomes a big hurdle by relying on themselves and others to learn what they are capable of.  This book has that in spades along with some well done courtroom scenes.  However, it was a bit too formulaic with an unearned, twist ending that keeps me from rating it higher.

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374. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   J.K. Rowling

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult

341 pages, published July 2, 1999

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is book two in the classic Harry Potter series.  Once again escaping his mean muggle relatives, Harry is delighted to be back at Hogwarts with besties Ron and Hermione.  However, his happiness is soon interrupted when students begin turning to stone and the school is ominously put on notice that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened.

Quotes 

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

 

“When in doubt, go to the library.”

 

“Honestly, if you were any slower, you’d be going backward.”

 

“Ginny!” said Mr. Weasley, flabbergasted. “Haven’t I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain?”

 

“Your aunt and uncle will be proud, though, won’t they?” said Hermione as they got off the train and joined the crowd thronging toward the enchanted barrier. “When they hear what you did this year?”  “Proud?” said Harry. “Are you crazy? All those times I could’ve died, and I didn’t manage it? They’ll be furious…”

 

“Do I look stupid?” snarled Uncle Vernon, a bit of fried egg dangling from his bushy mustache.”

 

“Hang on . . .” Harry muttered to Ron. “There’s an empty chair at the staff table. . . . Where’s Snape?”

“Maybe he’s ill!” said Ron hopefully.

“Maybe he’s left,” said Harry, “because he missed out on the Defense Against the Dark Arts job again!”

“Or he might have been sacked!” said Ron enthusiastically. “I mean, everyone hates him —”

“Or maybe,” said a very cold voice right behind them, “he’s waiting to hear why you two didn’t arrive on the school train.”

Harry spun around. There, his black robes rippling in a cold breeze, stood Severus Snape.”

 

“Gotta bone ter pick with yeh. I’ve heard you’ve bin givin’ out signed photos. How come I haven’t got one?”

 

“Ron: Why spiders? Why couldn’t it be “follow the butterflies?”

 

“Voldemort,” said Riddle softly, “is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter. . . .”

He pulled Harry’s wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words:

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves:

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT” 

My Take

I am having so much fun re-reading the Harry Potter series.  Or, rather, listening to them with the delightful audio version narrated by the incomparable Jim Dale who brings the story to life with his imaginative voice work.  J.K. Rowling is a marvel, crafting a richly drawn fantasy world replete with an incredible level of detail while still managing to create completely relatable characters.  A pleasure for readers of any age!

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373. All for Nothing

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Meris Delli-Bovi

Author:   Walter Kempowski

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

384 pages, published July 2006

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

All for Nothing takes place in Germany during the end of World War II when everything is falling apart.  The Russian army is advancing and Germans are fleeing the occupied territories in cars and carts and on foot.  In a rural East Prussian manor house, the wealthy von Globig family tries to seal itself off from the world.  Twelve year old Peter von Globig fakes illness to escape his Hitler Youth duties.  His father Eberhard is stationed in Italy with a desk job safe from the front and his mother Katharina has withdrawn into herself.  The house is run by a Auntie with the help of two Ukrainian maids and a Pole.  The family has no plans to leave until Katharina’s decision to house a Jewish stranger for the night forces their hand.

Quotes 

 

My Take

A very depressing, but insightful, book about the human condition, especially when under stress.  As a Christian, I don’t agree with  the author’s sentiment that our lives are “all for nothing.”  I think what we do during our brief stay on earth matters and how we live our lives and treat those around us has value.

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372. The Taster

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Nancy Sissom

Author:   V.S. Alexander

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

323 pages, published January 30, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

Summary

In early 1943 Germany, a teenaged Magda Ritter is sent to live with her relatives in Bavaria.  Living in deprivation as a result of the second World War, Magda’s Aunt and Uncle expect her to get a job.  After an interview with the civil service, Magda is assigned to the Berghof, Hitler’s mountain retreat, to be a taster for the Fuhrer’s food to prevent poisoning.  High in the Bavarian Alps, the Berghof is its own world, far from the battles that are consuming Germany.  While Magda grows accustomed to her dangerous job, she begins to have doubts about the war, doubts that are stoked by Karl, a young SS officer with whom she falls in love.

Quotes 

 

My Take

I liked, but did not love, The Taster.  I’ve read so many books about World War II and, other than some details about the last days of Adolf Hitler, there was little new in this book.  While it is well written, I had little connection with any of the characters.

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369. Still Life

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Louise Penny

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime

402 pages, published May 22, 2012

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Still Life is the first book to feature Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec.  He is called in investigate the suspicious death of Jane Neal in the rural village of Three Pines south of Montreal.   Neal’s body is found in the woods, shot in the heart with an old fashioned arrow.  Shortly before her death, Neal’s painting Fair Day which depicts many of the local community members was accepted into a local art show.  A coincidence?  Inspector Gamache must discover the truth.

Quotes 

“Life is choice. All day, everyday. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It’s as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful.  So when I’m observing that’s what I’m watching for.  The choices people make.”

 

“There are four things that lead to wisdom. You ready for them?’

She nodded, wondering when the police work would begin.

“They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean.” Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. “I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. I was wrong’.”

 

“Myrna could spend happy hours browsing bookcases. She felt if she could just get a good look at a person’s bookcase and their grocery cart, she’d pretty much know who they were.”

 

“Life is change. If you aren’t growing and evolving, you’re standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.  Most of these people are very immature. They lead “still” lives, waiting.”

 

“I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life.”

 

“They waited for life to happen to them. They waited for someone to save them. Or heal them. They did nothing for themselves.”

 

“The fault lies with us, and only us. It’s not fate, not genetics, not bad luck, and it’s definitely not Mom and Dad. Ultimately it’s us and our choices. But, but’ – now her eyes shone and she almost vibrated with excitement – ‘the most powerful, spectacular thing is that the solution rests with us as well. We’re the only ones who can change our lives, turn them around. So all those years waiting for someone else to do it are wasted.”

 

“I’ve been treating you with courtesy and respect because that’s the way I choose to treat everyone. But never, ever mistake kindness with weakness.”

 

“Aid workers, when handing out food to starving people, quickly learn that the people fighting for it at the front are the people who need it least. It’s the people sitting quietly at the back, too weak to fight, who need it the most. And so too with tragedy.”

 

“Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table,”

 

“Normally death came at night, taking a person in their sleep, stopping their heart or tickling them awake, leading them to the bathroom with a splitting headache before pouncing and flooding their brain with blood. It waits in alleys and metro stops. After the sun goes down plugs are pulled by white-clad guardians and death is invited into an antiseptic room.  But in the country death comes, uninvited, during the day. It takes fishermen in their longboats. It grabs children by the ankles as they swim. In winter it calls them down a slope too steep for their budding skills, and crosses their skies at the tips. It waits along the shore where snow met ice not long ago but now, unseen by sparkling eyes, a little water touches the shore, and the skater makes a circle slightly larger than intended. Death stands in the woods with a bow and arrow at dawn and dusk. And it tugs cars off the road in broad daylight, the tires spinning furiously on ice or snow, or bright autumn leaves. ”

 

“Life is loss.  But out of that, as the book stresses, comes freedom. If we can accept that nothing is permanent, and change is inevitable, if we can adapt, then we’re going to be happier people.”

 

“Everyday for Lucy’s entire dog life Jane had sliced a banana for breakfast and had miraculously dropped one of the perfect disks on to the floor where it sat for an instant before being gobbled up. Every morning Lucy’s prayers were answered, confirming her belief that God was old and clumsy and smelt like roses and lived in the kitchen.  But no more.  Lucy knew her God was dead. And she now knew the miracle wasn’t the banana, it was the hand that offered the banana.”

 

“Almost invariably people expected that if you were a good person you shouldn’t meet a bad end, that only the deserving are killed and certainly only the deserving are murdered.  However well hidden and subtle, there was a sense that a murdered person had somehow asked for it. That’s why the shock when someone they knew to be kind and good was a victim. There was a feeling that surely there had been a mistake.” 

My Take

While Still Life has received critical acclaim in the mystery fiction world (named One of the Five Mystery/Crime Novels of the Decade by Deadly Pleasures Magazine, Winner of the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys awards), I had a hard time really engaging with it.  I never warmed up to Chief Inspector Armand Gamache or the supporting characters.  Penny does have many insightful things to say about the human condition.  However, I was happy to finish the book so I could move onto something new.

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367. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   J.K. Rowling

Genre:  Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy

357 pages, published June 26, 1997

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the first book in the classic Harry Potter series.  The book opens with orphaned Harry living a miserable life with his uncaring Aunt and Uncle.  Harry sleeps in a closet under the stairs while they spoil Dudley, their only child who is the same age as Harry.   Things soon change when Harry discovers that he is a Wizard and is sent off to the Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to learn about magic.  There he meets new friends, discovers his own magical powers, has many adventures and confronts the evil Voldemort.

Quotes 

“A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours’ time by Mrs. Dursley’s scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley…He couldn’t know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: “To Harry Potter – the boy who lived!”

 

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

 

“The truth.” Dumbledore sighed. “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”

 

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our

 

“Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. Love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves it’s own mark. To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.”

 

“Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”

 

“There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.”

 

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”

 

“As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all – the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.”

 

“Now, you two – this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you’ve – you’ve blown up a toilet or –”

“Blown up a toilet? We’ve never blown up a toilet.”

“Great idea though, thanks, Mum.”

 

“So light a fire!” Harry choked. “Yes…of course…but there’s no wood!” …

“HAVE YOU GONE MAD!” Ron bellowed. “ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT!”

 

“Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn.

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there.” 

My Take

When my oldest child Nick was in grade school, we started reading the Harry Potter series together and I was completely enchanted.  While recently checking out Lethal White (Book 4 in J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike Detective series), I asked the Librarian for a good audio book recommendation.  She suggested the Harry Potter series.  Well, as Gretchen Rubin says, “the best reading is re-reading” and she was never more right.  Although this time around, I am going to listen to the audio version.  The voice work of actor Jim Dale is an impressive delight and brings these creative and ingenious stories to magical life.

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362. The Colorado Kid

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Stephen King

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Novella

205 pages, published October 4, 2005

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Colorado Kid is a novella by master storyteller Stephen King that centers around an unsolved mystery.  On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There’s no identification on the body.  It’s more than a year before the man is identified and the more that is learned about the man and the bizarre circumstances of his death, the less that is understandable.  It seems like an impossible crime.

Quotes 

“Sometimes loving eyes don’t see what they don’t want to see.”

 

“Forty seemed about right, and it occurred to me that it’s too bad for a fella to die at forty, a real shame. It’s a man’s most anonymous age.”

 

“Here I am, ninety years old and ready for the cooling board, using a brand new Macintosh computer, and there you sit, twenty-two and gorgeous, fresh as a new peach, yet scrawling on a yellow legal pad like an old maid in a Victorian romance.”

 

“Well then, I’m going to tell you a secret almost every newspaper man and woman who’s been at it awhile knows: in real life, the number of actual stories – those with beginnings, middles, and ends – are slim and none. But if you can give your readers just one unknown thing (two at the very outside) and then kick in what Dave Bowie there calls a musta-been, your reader will tell himself a story.”

 

“We poor humans are wired up to always think the worst is gonna happen because it so rarely does.”

 

“You go back to that old business the way a kid who’s lost a tooth goes back to the hole with the tip of his tongue.”

 

“It was that kind of story. The kind that’s like a sneeze which threatens but never quite arrives.”

 

“I like a woman who hasn’t decided the kitchen’s a place of slavery just because she works for a livin.” “I feel absolutely the same way about a man,” 

My Take

While I’m a big fan of Stephen King, I really didn’t enjoy The Colorado Kid that much.  Not enough story, character development and an unsatisfying ending.

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