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229. The Pearl Thief

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Elizabeth Wein

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Foreign

320 pages, published May 2, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

The Pearl Thief is a prequel to Code Name Verity and follows the life of fifteen-year-old Lady Julia Beaufort-Stuart before she became a World War II spy operating under the code name of Verity.  When she returns to her grandfather’s Scottish estate, Julia gets entangled in a mystery involving some very valuable river pearls.

 

Quotes 

“It is possible there are some things you want so badly that you will change your life to make them happen.”

 

“I need complicated railroad journeys and people speaking to me in foreign languages to keep me happy. I want to see the world and write stories about everything I see.”

 

“I love the story of a thing. I love a thing for what it means a thousand times more than for what it’s worth.”

 

“It’s like being raised by wolves — you don’t realize you’re not one yourself until someone points it out to you. Sometimes it makes me so mad that not everyone treats me just like another wolf.”

 

“For the pleasure of giving, because what’s the point of just having? If I give a thing, I remember how happy we both were when I made the gift.”

 

“Inspector Milne’s suspicious prying appeared to have awakened her inner Bolshevik, and so I discovered my own lady mother is not above quietly circumventing the law.”

 

“That is a terrifically intimate thing, you know? Letting a stranger light your cigarette. Leaning forward so he can hold a flame to your lips. Pausing to breathe in before you pull back again.”

 

My Take

After reading and really enjoying Code Name Verity, I put in a request at the Library for the prequel and sequel.  The prequel, The Pearl Thief, was first up.   I liked it, but not nearly as much as Code Name Verity.  It was a bit hard to follow at times and I had trouble keeping some of the characters straight.  While Julie, the main character, has a lot of appeal, I still found the book to be limited in other regards.

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226. A Geek in Thailand: Discovering the Land of Golden Buddhas, Pad Thai and Kickboxing

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:  Jody Houton

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Travel, History, Foreign

160 pages, published January 26, 2016

 

Summary

While A Geek in Thailand is a travel guide for Thailand, it goes deeper into the history, culture, people and modern life in the Land of Smiles.  Organized with short articles, sidebar stories and interviews and numerous photographs, the author reveals a country a deep respect for nation, religion and monarchy.

 

Quotes 

 

 

My Take

As preparation for an upcoming trip to Thailand with my sixteen year old daughter, A Geek in Thailand was very useful.  After reading this travel guide, I feel that I have a much better understanding of the history, people, culture, food, sights and other aspects of Thailand.  Can’t wait to see it in person!

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223. Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Dennis Prager

Author:  Dambisa Moyo

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Economics, Public Policy, Politics, Foreign

208 pages, published March 17, 2009

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

In the past fifty years, the rich countries of the world have spent more than $1 trillion in development-related aid in Africa.  Shockingly, all of this money has not improved the lives of Africans.  Instead, things of gotten worse.  In Dead Aid, economist Dambisa Moyo seeks to explain how this happened and what can be done to improve the lives of ordinary Africans.  Moyo draws a sharp contrast between African countries that have rejected foreign aid and prospered and others that have become aid-dependent and seen poverty increase.  She explains how overreliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty, leaving them with nothing but the need for more aid.

 

Quotes 

“In a perfect world, what poor countries at the lowest rungs of economic development need is not a multi-party democracy, but in fact a decisive benevolent dictator to push through the reforms required to get the economy moving (unfortunately, too often countries end up with more dictator and less benevolence).”

 

“In 2004, the British envoy to Kenya, Sir Edward Clay, complained about rampant corruption in the country, commenting that Kenya’s corrupt ministers were ‘eating like gluttons’ and vomiting on the shoes of the foreign donors.”

 

“Africa is addicted to aid. For the past sixty years it has been fed aid. Like any addict it needs and depends on its regular fix, finding it hard, if not impossible, to contemplate existence in an aid-less world. In Africa, the West has found its perfect client to deal to.”

 

“What is clear is that democracy is not the prerequisite for economic growth that aid proponents maintain. On the contrary, it is economic growth that is a prerequisite for democracy; and the one thing economic growth does not need is aid.”

 

“It is worth pointing out that there has been some notable success with a concept known as ‘conditional cash transfers’; these are cash payments (in a sense, bonuses) made to give the poor an incentive to perform tasks that could help them escape poverty (for example, good school attendance, working a certain number of hours, improving test scores, seeing a doctor). The idea of conditional cash transfers has met with much success in developing countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru (a similar programme is now being tested in the boroughs of New York City).”

 

My Take

While economist Dambisa Moyo posits an interesting idea that less foreign aid is the key to solving Africa’s poverty issues, her book Dead Aid reads a bit like a master’s thesis.  It was interesting at times, but also a bit boring at other times.  I particularly enjoyed her discussion of micro-lending as part of the solution for Africa.  I was also fascinated to read how much China is investing in Africa, something I was vaguely aware of, and how the future of the continent is likely to be Chinese.

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215. Lincoln in the Bardo

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Author:  George Saunders

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

343 pages, published February 14, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Set in a graveyard during a single night in February 1862 and narrated by a variety of characters stuck in a limbo type existence, Lincoln in the Bardo is a unique literary experience.  It is near the beginning of the Civil War and President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son Willie dies and is buried in a Georgetown cemetery.  A grieving Lincoln returns to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy’s body.  Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory in a graveyard populated by a bizarre set of ghosts.  Within this transitional state, called a bardo in Tibetan tradition, a epic struggle ensures over Willie’s soul.

 

Quotes 

“His mind was freshly inclined toward sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help, or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it.”

 

“Strange, isn’t it? To have dedicated one’s life to a certain venture, neglecting other aspects of one’s life, only to have that venture, in the end, amount to nothing at all, the products of one’s labors ultimately forgotten?”

 

“Everything was real; inconceivably real, infinitely dear. These and all things started as nothing, latent within a vast energy-broth, but then we named them, and loved them, and, in this way, brought them forth. And now we must lose them.”

 

“What I mean to say is, we had been considerable. Had been loved. Not lonely, not lost, not freakish, but wise, each in his or her own way. Our departures caused pain. Those who had loved us sat upon their beds, heads in hand; lowered their faces to tabletops, making animal noises. We had been loved, I say, and remembering us, even many years later, people would smile, briefly gladdened at the memory.”

 

“Only then (nearly out the door, so to speak) did I realize how unspeakably beautiful all of this was, how precisely engineered for our pleasure, and saw that I was on the bring of squandering a wondrous gift, the gift of being allowed, every day, to wander this vast sensual paradise, this grand marketplace lovingly stocked with every sublime thing.”

 

“When a child is lost there is no end to the self-torment a parent may inflict. When we love, and the object of our love is small, weak, and vulnerable, and has looked to us and us alone for protection; and when such protection, for whatever reason, has failed, what consolation (what justification, what defense) may there possibly be?”

 

“His mind was freshly inclined to sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in the world one must try to remember that all were suffering (non content all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but rather, its like had been felt, would yet be felt, by scores of others in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone, and given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it.

All were in sorrow, or had been, or soon would be.

It was the nature of things.

Though on the surface is seemed every person was different, this was not true.

At the core of each lay suffering; our eventual end; the many loses we must experience on the way to that end.

We must try to see one another in this way.

As suffering limited beings-

Perennially outmatched by circumstance, inadequately endowed with compensatory graces.

His sympathy extended to all in this instant, blundering in its strict logic, across all divides.”

 

“Oh, the pathos of it! – haggard, drawn into fixed lines of unutterable sadness, with a look of loneliness, as of a soul whose depth of sorrow and bitterness no human sympathy could ever reach. The impression I carried away was that I had seen, not so much the President of the United States, as the saddest man in the world.”

 

My Take

While Lincoln in the Bardo has received numerous awards (Man Booker Prize (2017), Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Fiction (2018), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction (2017), Waterstones Book of the Year Nominee (2017), Gordon Burn Prize Nominee for Longlist (2017)), I liked it, but did not love it.  First of all, the book is a serious downer with its focus on grief and loss.  George Saunders has some eloquent things to say on these subject and does so in a very inventive and creative manner (hence all of the awards).  However, I found it difficult to really get into this book and didn’t mind at all when I finished.

 

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211. The Little Paris Bookshop

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Author:  Nina George

Genre:  Fiction, Romance, Foreign

392 pages, published June 23, 2015

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

In The Little Paris Bookshop, we hear the story of Monsieur Jean  Perdu who operates an unusual bookstore on floating barge on the Seine River in Paris.  Perdu, who calls himself a literary apothecary, has the uncanny knack of recommending precisely the right book for his varied clientele. The only person he can’t seem to heal through literature is himself.  After almost 20 years, he’s still haunted by heartbreak.  Manon, his one true love, left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.  When he finally does read it, he pulls up his anchor and begins an adventure of self-discovery and a quest to heal his broken heart.

Quotes 

“Books are more than doctors, of course. Some novels are loving, lifelong companions; some give you a clip around the ear; others are friends who wrap you in warm towels when you’ve got those autumn blues. And some…well, some are pink candy floss that tingles in your brain for three seconds and leaves a blissful voice. Like a short, torrid love affair.”

 

“Reading—an endless journey; a long, indeed never-ending journey that made one more temperate as well as more loving and kind.”

 

“Whenever Monsieur Perdu looked at a book, he did not see it purely in terms of a story, retail price and an essential balm for the soul; he saw freedom on wings of paper.”

 

“We are loved if we love, another truth we always seem to forget. …Loving requires so much courage and so little expectation.”

 

“We cannot decide to love. We cannot compel anyone to love us. There’s no secret recipe, only love itself. And we are at its mercy–there’s nothing we can do.”

 

“All the love, all the dead, all the people we’ve known. They are the rivers that feed our sea of souls. If we refuse to remember them, that sea will dry up too.”

 

“I like being alive, even if it’s occasionally a real struggle and fairly pointless in the grand scheme of things.”

 

“Kästner was one reason I called my book barge the Literary Apothecary,” said Perdu. “I wanted to treat feelings that are not recognized as afflictions and are never diagnosed by doctors. All those little feelings and emotions no therapist is interested in, because they are apparently too minor and intangible. The feeling that washes over you when another summer nears its end. Or when you recognize that you haven’t got your whole life left to find out where you belong. Or the slight sense of grief when a friendship doesn’t develop as you thought, and you have to continue your search for a lifelong companion. Or those birthday morning blues. Nostalgia for the air of your childhood. Things like that.”

 

“Habit is a vain and treacherous goddess. She lets nothing disrupt her rule. She smothers one desire after another: the desire to travel, the desire for a better job or a new love. She stops us from living as we would like, because habit prevents us from asking ourselves whether we continue to enjoy doing what we do.”

 

“We are immortal in the dreams of our loved ones. And our dead live on after their deaths in our dreams.”

 

“You only really get to know your husband when he walks out on you.”

 

“Saudade”: a yearning for one’s childhood, when the days would merge into one another and the passing of time was of no consequence. It is the sense of being loved in a way that will never come again. It is a unique experience of abandon. It is everything that words cannot capture.”

 

“All of us preserve time. We preserve the old versions of the people who have left us. And under our skin, under the layer of wrinkles and experience and laughter, we, too, are old versions of ourselves. Directly below the surface, we are our former selves: the former child, the former lover, the former daughter.”

 

“We turn peculiar when we don’t have anyone left to love.”

 

“Some fathers cannot love their children. They find them annoying. Or uninteresting. Or unsettling. They’re irritated by their children because they’ve turned out differently than they had expected. They’re irritated because the children were the wife’s wish to patch up the marriage when there was nothing left to patch up, her means of forcing a loving marriage where there was no love. And such fathers take it out on the children. Whatever they do, their fathers will be nasty and mean to them.” “Please stop.” “And the children, the delicate, little, yearning children,” Perdu continued more softly, because he was terribly moved by Max’s inner turmoil, “do everything they can to be loved. Everything. They think that it must somehow be their fault that their father cannot love them. But Max,” and here Perdu lifted Jordan’s chin, “it has nothing to do with them.”

 

“…having a child is like casting off your own childhood forever. It’s as if it’s only then that you really grasp what it means to be a man. You’re scared too that all your weaknesses will be laid bare, because fatherhood demands more than you can give…. I always felt I had to earn your love, because I loved you so, so much.”

 

“His father would presumably have signed up without hesitation to the three things that made you really “happy” according to Cuneo’s worldview. One: eat well. No junk food, because it only makes you unhappy, lazy and fat. Two: sleep through the night (thanks to more exercise, less alcohol and positive thoughts). Three: spend time with people who are friendly and seek to understand you in their own particular way. Four: have more sex—but that was Samy’s addition, and Perdu saw no real reason to tell his father that one.”

 

“Jeanno, women can love so much more intelligently then us men! They never love a man for his body, even if they can enjoy that too —- and how.” Joaquin sighed with pleasure. “But women love you for your character, your strength, your intelligence. Or because you can protect a child. Because you’re a good person, you’re honorable and dignified. They never love you as stupidly as men love women. Not because you’ve got especially beautiful calves or look so good in a suit that their business partners look on jealously when they introduce you. Such women do exist, but only as a cautionary example to others.”

 

My Take

While I enjoyed reading The Little Paris Bookshop (the name is a bit of a misnomer; it should have been titled the Literary Apothecary), it started to drag a bit at the end.  However, author Nina George has some great insights about reading, love and human nature which ultimately made it a worthwhile read.  I also enjoyed the adventure of traveling on a literary barge down the Seine outside of Paris.

 

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204. The Girls

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Author:   Emma Cline

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Crime

355 pages, published June 14, 2016

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

The Girls takes place in Northern California during the tumultuous latter part of the 1960s.   Protaganist Evie Boyd, a young teenager at loose ends after her parents’ divorce is whose desperate need for acceptance draws her to a group of girls and their charismatic leader who entice her into their cult.  Things start to unravel and Evie comes close to committing heinous violence, ala Manson Family style.

Quotes 

“That was part of being a girl–you were resigned to whatever feedback you’d get. If you got mad, you were crazy, and if you didn’t react, you were a bitch. The only thing you could do was smile from the corner they’d backed you into. Implicate yourself in the joke even if the joke was always on you.”

 

“Poor Sasha. Poor girls. The world fattens them on the promise of live. How badly they need it, and how little most of them will ever get. The treacled pop songs, the dresses described in the catalogs with words like ‘sunset’ and ‘Paris.’ Then the dreams are taken away with such violent force; the hand wrenching the buttons of the jeans, nobody looking at the man shouting at his girlfriend on the bus.”

 

“Girls are the only ones who can really give each other close attention, the kind we equate with being loved. They noticed what we want noticed.”

 

“I should have known that when men warn you to be careful, often they are warning you of the dark movie playing across their own brains. Some violent daydream prompting their guilty exhortations to ‘make it home safe.”

 

“At that age, I was, first and foremost, a thing to be judged, and that shifted the power in every interaction onto the other person.”

 

“I waited to be told what was good about me. […] All that time I had spent readying myself, the articles that taught me life was really just a waiting room until someone noticed you- the boys had spent that time becoming themselves.”

 

 “I paid bills and bought groceries and got my eyes checked while the days crumbled away like debris from a cliff face. Life a continuous backing away from the edge.”

 

My Take

The Girls is an intriguing, but very disturbing, book.  It explores how young teenager Evie Boyd gets sucked into a cult because Suzanne, one of the older members, notices her and gives her attention.  It also shows how easy it is for our innate sense of right and wrong to blur so much that we justify monstrous actions.  As the parent of a sixteen year old girl, my takeaway from this book is to love my daughter unconditionally, be interested in her life and know who her friends are and how she spends her time.

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192. The House of Silk

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Anthony Horowitz

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime

294 pages, published November, 2011

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

For the first time in its 125 year history, the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate authorized the talented Anthony Horowitz to write a new Sherlock Holmes novel.  The result is The House of Silk which reads very much like the original Holmes’ mysteries.  Set in London of 1890, a fine art dealer named Edmund Carstairs visits Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson to beg for their help.  He is being menaced by a strange man in a flat cap – a wanted criminal who seems to have followed him all the way from America. In the days that follow, his home is robbed, his family is threatened. And then the first murder takes place.

 

Quotes 

“Show Holmes a drop of water and he would deduce the existence of the Atlantic. Show it to me and I would look for a tap. That was the difference between us.”

 

“For all men are equal at the moment of death and who are we to judge them when a much greater judge awaits?”

 

“We’re all on the road to ruin but some are further ahead than others.”

 

“when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

 

“Childhood, after all, is the first precious coin that poverty steals from a child.”

 

My Take

If you are a fan of the Sherlock Holmes books, then you will likely enjoy The House of Silk.  While the original books are not of particular interest to me, I enjoyed, but did not love, this new take on the detective in the deerstalker cap.  I found Magpie Murders, a modern mystery penned by the inimitable Anthony Horowitz, far more enjoyable and engrossing.

 

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187. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Neil deGrasse Tyson

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Science

222 pages, published May 2, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

 

Summary

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry is a series of essays written by well known Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.  Some of the fascinating topics covered are:  What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us?  What is the impact of the Big Bang?  How do black holes work?  What are anti-matter, quarks and quantum mechanics?  Will we find other planets with intelligent life in the universe? Are there multi-verses?

 

Quotes 

“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.”

 

“Matter tells space how to curve; space tells matter how to move.”

 

“For reasons I have yet to understand, many people don’t like chemicals, which might explain the perennial movement to rid foods of them. <…> Personally, I am quite comfortable with chemicals, anywhere in the universe. My favorite stars, as well as my best friends, are all made of them.”

 

“We do not simply live in this universe. The universe lives within us.”

 

“Every cup that passes through a single person and eventually rejoins the world’s water supply holds enough molecules to mix 1,500 of them into every other cup of water in the world. No way around it: some of the water you just drank passed through the kidneys of Socrates, Genghis Khan, and Joan of Arc.  How about air? Also vital. A single breathful draws in more air molecules than there are breathfuls of air in Earth’s entire atmosphere. That means some of the air you just breathed passed through the lungs of Napoleon, Beethoven, Lincoln, and Billy the Kid.”

 

““What we do know, and what we can assert without further hesitation, is that the universe had a beginning. The universe continues to evolve. And yes, every one of our body’s atoms is traceable to the big bang and to the thermonuclear furnaces within high-mass stars that exploded more than five billion years ago.  We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out—and we have only just begun.”

 

“For reasons I have yet to understand, many people don’t like chemicals, which might explain the perennial movement to rid foods of them.  Personally, I am quite comfortable with chemicals, anywhere in the universe. My favorite stars, as well as my best friends, are all made of them.”

 

“The power and beauty of physical laws is that they apply everywhere, whether or not you choose to believe in them. In other words, after the laws of physics, everything else is opinion.”

 

“But what if the universe was always there, in a state or condition we have yet to identify—a multiverse, for instance, that continually births universes? Or what if the universe just popped into existence from nothing? Or what if everything we know and love were just a computer simulation rendered for entertainment by a superintelligent alien species? These philosophically fun ideas usually satisfy nobody. Nonetheless, they remind us that ignorance is the natural state of mind for a research scientist. People who believe they are ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the universe.”

 

“The cosmic perspective shows Earth to be a mote. But it’s a precious mote and, for the moment, it’s the only home we have.”

 

“Earth’s Moon is about 1/ 400th the diameter of the Sun, but it is also 1/ 400th as far from us, making the Sun and the Moon the same size on the sky—a coincidence not shared by any other planet–moon combination in the solar system, allowing for uniquely photogenic total solar eclipses.”

 

“At least once a week, if not once a day, we might each ponder what cosmic truths lie undiscovered before us, perhaps awaiting the arrival of a clever thinker, an ingenious experiment, or an innovative space mission to reveal them. We might further ponder how those discoveries may one day transform life on Earth.  Absent such curiosity, we are no different from the provincial farmer who expresses no need to venture beyond the county line, because his forty acres meet all his needs. Yet if all our predecessors had felt that way, the farmer would instead be a cave dweller, chasing down his dinner with a stick and a rock.”

 

My Take

I liked, but did not love, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.   A collection of essays by famous Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, there are some very interesting ideas in the book, but it felt a little disjointed to read.  I preferred Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli, a short book that I read earlier this year.  I’m not sure what it is about astrophysicists, but they tend to write short books.

 

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177. The Book That Matters Most

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Ann Hood

Genre:  Fiction, Romance

358 pages, published August 9, 2016

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

After her 25 year marriage has fallen apart when her husband leaves her for another woman and with her two grown children pursuing their own lives outside of the country, Ava is at loose ends.  She joins a book group, looking for companionship and a place to get her moorings.  When Ava’s friend and the book group’s leader announces that the year’s theme is for each member to present the book that matters most to them, Ava rediscovers a book from her childhood that helped her through the untimely deaths of her sister and mother. Alternating with Ava’s story is that of her troubled daughter Maggie, who, living in Paris, descends into a destructive relationship with an older man.  Ava’s mission to find that book and its enigmatic author takes her on a quest that unravels the secrets of her past and offers her and Maggie the chance to remake their lives.

 

Quotes 

“It mattered most to me then because of where I was in my life. So in a way, there isn’t just one book that matters most, there might be several, or even a dozen.”

 

“When you read a book, and who you are when you read it, makes it matter or not.”

 

“Could a writer understand how her book had saved someone long ago, when the world was a fragile, scary place and the people she loved weren’t in it anymore? Could a writer understand that her book had mattered more than anything?”

 

“If you wait long enough, someone had told him once, you settle into being married.”

 

My Take

As a book lover, I was intrigued to listen to The Book That Matters Most.  In fact, the thing I liked most about this book was seeing what book was chosen by each character as mattering most in their lives.  I also loved To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, and Catcher in the Rye.  I haven’t read the other selections (Pride and Prejudice, Anna Karenina, Slaughter House Five, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), but am intrigued to do so after finishing The Book That Matters Most.  The other parts of the book that focus on Eva and her daughter were fine, but a bit clichéd.

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172. Then Came You

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Jennifer Weiner

Genre:  Fiction

400 pages, published July 12, 2011

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

The lives of four very different women intertwine in unexpected ways in Then Came You.  Each woman has a problem: Princeton senior Jules Wildgren needs money to help her dad with one final shot at rehab.  Pennsylvania housewife Annie Barrow needs money to stay financially afloat.  In her early 40’s and unable to conceive, India Bishop wants to have a child.  India’s stepdaughter Bettina wants her original family back.  Through egg donation and surrogacy, we follow the stories of these four interesting women.

 

Quotes 

“The thing about bad decisions is that they don’t feel like bad decisions when you’re making them. They feel like the obvious choice, the of-course-that-makes-sense move. They feel, somehow, inevitable.”

 

My Take

Then Came You is a quick, fun, light read.  I enjoyed all of the characters and scenarios created by Jennifer Weiner and was interested in seeing how she would wrap up the story (she inserts an obligatory twist).  However, it is a bit on the fluffy side and has not stayed with me several weeks after finishing.

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