Summer reading

Some of the books I’ve read during this summer holiday. In June I read mostly chick-lit due to the travelling and easy beach reading.

Trollope, Joanna: Marrying the mistress

Well, just as the header says. A judge finally divorces his wife of decades and decides to marry his longtime mistress. The ex-wife is mentally ill, the older son acts like he was the spouse and not son and younger son has delightfully a decent head on his shoulders. The mistress is a reasonable woman and in the end the whole thing wraps up nicely but not quite like one expected. I gave it 2 stars in Goodreads just because it was a bit too long.

Kelly, Cathy: Once in a lifetime

I had to check the story from Goodreads since I couldn’t remember anything. Normal Kelly novel, nothing surprising except the white witch woman who was introduced in the beginning and then forgotten.

Harris, Jane: Sugar money

This could have been interesting but sadly it was so slow, predictable and boring I just leafed it through. A story about two slave boys at Martinique who try to save their former slave comrades from Grenada. Part of the not-engrossing was the thing that the boys talk in Creole so I had trouble understanding them.

Walker, Fiona: Lots of love

Finally a chick-lit I enjoyed a bit more even thou it’d have been more interesting with fewer pages. Some nice witty bantering, crazy villagers and ’hot mess’ as someone said in Goodreads made it a nice beach book.

Matson, Morgan: Save the date

Oh dear, where to start. A highschool girl’s sister is getting married at their house and everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. At first it gave some chuckles but in the end you just wait what the author has decided. The plot itself promised so much more as the mother is a cartoonist who has been drawing a strip of a cartoon family with nation wide following and the family is of course the base for the cartoon. One of the son’s isn’t talking to his mother due to that and there’d be so much potential for a different kind of book but it all gets steamrolled under the disasters happening. So it was okay but not what I expected. I also got mixed up with the family members since there was so many of them.

Hoffman, Alice: Rules of magic

A prequel for Practical magic which I read years ago and liked a lot. So I really enjoyed reading this one too. I like Alice Hoffman’s style and now I’m thinking of rereading Practical magic too. Beautiful writing provokes thoughts about living and loving and life.

Carey, M.R. : The girl with all the gifts

I seldom pick up books about zombies and I really haven’t watched many movies etc about them so I was a bit surprised when I realized this novel was about them. An interesting dystopian thriller about what it is to be human and what makes one human. For some reason I went to the Net and watched the movie trailer and it made me just angry. So don’t do that. This novel deserves so much more.

Ng, Celeste: Little fires everywhere

A novel that leaves you thinking about all kinds of things. Very good story about a small town and the people in it. I really liked the way Celeste Ng describes teenagers. I bought this one at Honolulu airport because I had just finished ’The girl..’ and I didn’t have anything to read on the plane and then I couldn’t read this in the plane because it needs commitment and space to think about it all.

Rowling, J.K. : Casual vacancy

OMG. Just saying that this one makes me feel sorry for the trees. A small town in England and it’s local people trying to bully and bullying each other to do what they wish. In the end teens save the day again. Really a waste of paper, ink and Rowling’s talent.

Edvarsson, M.T.: A nearly normal family (audiobook)

Okay. A Swedish detective story about a family with father (a priest), mother (a lawyer) and 18-y-o daughter. The daughter is taken to custody for killing a man. Firstly I really didn’t realize it was a Swedish novel until I heard RA saying the names in English (I do wish they had someone teach the Swedish pronounciation) and then I had trouble keeping listening to the story because Swedish thrillers are boooooring. Sorry. Secondly I really don’t like reading legal procedures since they are quite boring. I think mostly I just enjoyed hearing Richard’s voice in my ears because I knew the culprit quite early on. And I admit, I have a mild dislike on Swedish thrillers, they are usually slow and dragging.

Doerr, Anthony: All the light we cannot see

A lovely book. I had some distrusts with it in the beginning due to all the good words I had heard and read but in the end it was really a lovely story about how coincidental life is and can be. At the beginning the chapters changing felt a bit awkward but once the story got me I got used to it. A blind French girl and a poor German boy during WWII about once again being human and moral compassion and love. Luckily the story continued past the war too but a bit differently than one expected.

Tudor, C.J. : The taking of Annie Thorne (audiobook)

As I’m not a great fan of horror I thought that this was just another detective story. So I was not thrilled with it. For me it was also a bit sloppy mix of Stephen King’s ’Shining’ and ’Pet semetary’, I think C.J. Tudor climbed over the fence where it was lowest. Once again Richard’s voice forgave a lot, he is honestly one of the best audio book actors there is. The story itself wasn’t frightening at all, I liked some of the characters (especially the school mistress) but it’d have been better with more editing. Again sorry for the trees.

So there, some books were really great and some were really not and then there was the middle ground. All in all quite a good reading and I still have a week left to read from dawn to dusk!