August Pick

Darci and I have been talking and we decided that at least through the end of the year we're going to start doing 1 book pick a month instead of our normal 2. We both are HUGE readers and both sometimes read more than 2 books a month ... but with both of us being pregnant & being so busy in both of our lives we're going to cut down the book that we read for this blog to just 1 a month. We hope that you continue to read along with us! We've got some good picks coming soon .... including the sequel to the great book Hunger Games!!!



For August I picked out "Domestic Affairs" by Eileen Goudge. My mom always gives me big stacks of books, mostly crime or mystery, which I really haven't been in the mood for lately, but I spotted this romance/drama/betrayal book and it looked pretty good. I know nothing of the author but apparently she has written other books too. I'm a few chapters in so far and it's a pretty easy read - and a pretty good story so far. Nice and no-thinking reading for me - exactly what I need when I'm 3 weeks away from having this baby!

I hope you'll read along with us ..... especially now that you have a whole month long to get the book and read it. Book review coming at the end of the month ....

June 15th pick & review

Yes it is almost the end of June but I couldn't let the month end without posting about this pick -- Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. I really liked this book. It was kind of dark and morbid - but at the same time it did give hope and showed you that people can prevail even during the most trying times.

Just a little synopsis -- a random meteor hits the moon and causes it to be knocked off kilter a little bit. Because of this all sorts of natural disasters start happening - changes in the seasons, giant tidal waves, etc, and it is affecting mankind all over the world. We get to watch and see how one family handles the disaster and following months into winter with little heat, almost no food, sickness, death and worse.

It's eye opening and frightening and amazing all at the same time. I'd really recommend it. It's a young adult book so it's a quick read, also, like The Hunger Games was.

May pick

So, another extended break. Hey, that's what a crazy holiday season and then both of us getting pregnant within a few months of each other will do to us! We're both now (mostly) over the first trimester exhaustion and are both ready to get in some good summer reading.

The book we're jointly picking for May (since we're halfway through the month already) is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.



I read about the book first on my friend Erin's blog, and it sounded really good. Then reviews of it started popping up everywhere with people saying things like "better than Twilight??" and "an amazing book that kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time". When I went online to put a hold on it so I could pick it up at the library, I was shocked to see that I was #98 in line - in our library system that had over 50 copies of the book! Since that was 2 weeks ago and I've only moved up a few spaces in line, I finally broke down and just ordered online. Darci has already read it (in less than 24 hours) and said it was great - so I knew I would want it eventually.

I hope that you'll be able to find a copy and read it with us! It's the first book of a trilogy, with the next installment due to come out in September. From what I've heard most people that finish the first one are dying for the next one to be released! I can't wait to get it in the mail!

January 15th Pick

... and we're back!

We took an extended break because of the holidays and new year ... but I don't know about you - I am READY to get back into reading some good books. The first book of 2009 is my pick - and I chose "The Glass Castle" by Jeanette Walls. It's a memoir by the author about her childhood growing up with an alcoholic father and mentally ill mother. I've read that it's as haunting as it is humorous - as delightful as it is sad. I can't wait to get started!



I've also got some older reviews I need to post to get caught up to date ... so if we read a book that you're dying to discuss (I know you are, Jill!) then I should have them all posted in a few days! :)

November 15th pick

Since Darci and I have been on a little quilting frenzy lately (see here and here and here and here) I kind of had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to pick a quilting/crafting type fiction novel for this months pick. I wasn't sure how big of a genre that was ... after all how many quilting/knitting/crafting novels could there really be? So I was so excited when I saw the book "The Fortune Quilt" on a little end cap at the library. The word "quilt" and the cute little illustration on the cover just jumped out at me so I checked it out wanting to bring it home and do a little more research on it. Turns out, it's supposedly a pretty good book. It seems a little "lighter" than what we've been reading (since I'm still plodding through The Gargoyle) but that's exactly what I'm in the mood for. So, I'm not going to post any plot points or online reviews - just go pick it up, tell us you're going to read along with us, and enjoy the no-brainer novel!

October 15th pick

I found this book and told Erin about it and it sounded interesting. She read some reviews of it and we got a little scared when they were saying "The Gargoyle is an Inferno for our time." But then her "other mom" Nicole sent her an email about it -

I am about to jump into a book by Andrew Dickenson called "The Gargoyle" have you heard of it? Apparently it's a first book by the author and he's added an interesting twist to it. It's a love/hate relationship between critics so I thought I would send it to the BEST critics, you know, those hot chicks from the "It's Only A Novel" site. Anyway - let me know if I should read it or color in it.

So after that Erin and I decided it was fate we HAD to read it. It does sound really different. I love me some romance, as you well know. Here is alittle snip it from the synopsis:

"A beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly injured mercenary and she was a nun and scribe in the famed monastery of Engelthal who nursed him back to health."

Sounds good, huh? Who is with us?

On The Side Erin

For my neighborhood book club pick this past month we read "Dishwasher" by Pete Jordan. It was a great book that I probably never would have picked up and read had it not been for the fact that it was picked out for me. It is about a guy who really doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, so he kind of makes the joke-goal that he wants to wash dishes in all 50 states. The book is non-fiction, and is about all the people he meets and things he does while traveling around the country. The book is fun and lighthearted -- I mean what type of guy really has a life's ambition to be a dish washer -- but his stories are great and it's interesting to see how he gets around and picks up different jobs and then just leaves and moves on to a different state when he gets bored.



The next book we have picked is "Little Heathens, Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression" by Mildred Armstrong Kalish. It's another non-fiction book about, like the tagline leads you to believe, growing up on an Iowa farm during the Great Depression. I'm excited to read this book - the New York Times picked it as one of the 10 best books of 2007.

I've got a lot to read - better get reading!

September 15th Pick + From Page to Screen

This book is Erin's pick for the month, but I am writing about it since she is swamped with sewing her Superhero Capes. I know she picked this book because she had seen it around and heard people talking about it. The story is about every woman's fear: what would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? We will have to find out.

From the Page to the Screen:

It seems like alot of the books were have or are reading is being made into a movie and this month's pick is no exception. Lifetime made this movie and aired it in April of this year and I have tried to find when it will be re-airing but I have not been able to find out. I have Netflix and found out you can rent the movie, and it comes out on DVD on October 7th. It stars Dermot Mulroney ("The Wedding Date"), Gretchen Mol ("3:10 to Yuma") and two-time Oscar nominee Emily Watson.

The Rest of Her Live - Review

Overall I liked the book "The Rest of Her Life" by Moriarty. I think that the book started off a lot better than it ended ... even though I liked the ending. I think that the book was a lot like a Jodi Picoult book in that it took an interesting situation (in this a teenage girl accidentally hits and kills a girl with her SUV) and shows all views of it from the people surrounding the event.

I almost preferred the secondary storyline about the mothers life growing up. I think that was a little more interesting and gave us insight to her character.

I just kept expecting this book to "grab" me like it did in the first few chapters, and it never really did that. Did I enjoy it? I did. Would I read it again? Probably not. But I'm glad I read it. It made me think - and not all books do that.

August 15th Pick

So I know you've all been waiting on pins and needles to find out what the August 15th book pick is ... I know, I know, I've been busy. Luckily now I'm all settled in at Darci's house in California and this is literally the first chance I've had in a week to get online and update this blog with my pick.

I didn't really have a book in mind to pick, but Darci had this one on her shelf and it looks good. I've actually started reading it already and I really like it so far ... it's The Rest of her Life by Laura Moriarty. It's about a mother and daughter relationship and how a chance accident both strains and builds their relationship.

It's endorsed by Jodi Picoult, who we both really like, so I'm hoping this book is as good as Jodi's good books are. Who's going to read it with us?

July 15th pick

I had heard a lot about Libba Bray's "A Great and Terrible Beauty" but made it my pick for July without really knowing anything about it. Come to find out, it's another Young Adult genre book (like Twilight) about a young girl who, after an unconventional upbringing in India, is sent back to England to attend an all-girls boarding school. There she falls into the usual petty squabbles of popularity and independence, before realizing that there is more to the school than she first realized. In a madcap tale of gypsies, magical powers, and deep dark soul-sucking evil Gemma has to face up to her own personal demons as well as the very real spirits that wish her, and her friends, harm.

I was happy to find out that this book is the first in a Trilogy, with Rebel Angels and The Sweet Far Thing rounding out the three. I can't wait until my library finally gets it in and I can start it. I know a lot of you have already read it - so I hope you'll come join us in talking about it once more people finish it!

Mad River Road - review

My June 15th book pick was the mystery Mad River Road by Joy Fielding. In a word - "eh". For me, this book was neither intriguing or believable, two things I think a good mystery should be. I could never really get into the characters and thought that their choices in the book were not things that a normal, intelligent person would do! I mean, jumping into a car and going on a road trip with a guy you met YESTERDAY? And that's just one example.

I know Darci didn't like this book, either, and it's a shame, because I've read other Joy Fielding books and they're not all like this. Maybe this one was just a fluke. Did anyone else read it (I know you have it, Mom!), and what did you think?

I really like the mystery genre and I'd like to choose another mystery book at some point. Whatever it is I hope it's not as much of a smeller that this one was!

June 15th book pick

For my pick this month I choose Mad River Road by Joy Fielding. Darc and I haven't read any mystery books together yet and I think we both like the genre. I've had this book sitting on my bookshelf for a while now and I can't wait to start it. Who's going to read it with us?

Change of Heart - review

I have been trying to get Darci to read Jodi Picoult forever. I lent her my copy of "The Pact" which she promptly gave back to me and said that she couldn't get into it. So it was fitting that the first Picoult book that she read (and finished!) was called "Change of Heart". I think she liked it, didn't you, Darc?

I had read a few Jodi Picoult books before this one, and she stayed with her typical "ripped - from - the - headlines" / "hot - button - issue" main plot. This time she was dealing with the death penalty and more specifically the rights of those inmates on death row. She really did a good job of getting you to see the world from Shay's point of view. He's not a character that you would normally feel like identifying with, since he was convicted of murder, but you really do feel for him and what he's going through. I also really liked the romance storyline for Maggie. As a parent, it was hard to think that a mother could be presented with the type of choice that Mrs. Nealon was presented with in the book - what would you do? What a difficult choice to try to honor your one child that was taken from you in a horrific way, or to try to save your other child that is here with you now.

I really liked this book and still love Jodi Picoults style of writing. She writes a gripping novel that keeps you interested from the start.