The Secret Life of Bee's - review

This book was really cute and sweet. An easy read. This was about Lily who ran away from her Dad with her housekeeper a black women in 1964. Lily was only 14 and wanted to find out all that she could about her mother that died when Lily was 4 years old. It was interesting to be taken back to the 60's when blacks were being persecuted, so when Lily went to live with a house full of black women people did not know what to think about it. I loved that Lily found the "Women of Mary" women and learned all that she could about being a bee keeper. She found her first love, which was really sweet, as a first love should be. At the end of the book I really wanted to know more. I wanted to know what she is doing now that she is all grown up. Does she still live with the women? Is she a bee keeper or did she take up writing? I guess we will never know. Atleast I can go and see the movie now and see how that turned out. What did you think?

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!

November 1st pick

I choose The Secret Life Of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd book because it sounded like a good story. I have always thought the 1960's were an interesting time in our history. "The search for a mother, and the need to mother oneself, are crucial elements in this well-written coming-of-age story set in the early 1960s against a background of racial violence and unrest."






After I choose it and put it up on the blog I saw previews for the movie. I had heard nothing about it. Hopefully alot of you will read the book along with us before you go and see the movie.



I am still reading the Gargoyle, it is a "heavy" book so hopefully I will finish it soon so that I can start this book.

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?

One Shot - review

I thought this was a good mystery and enjoyed reading it. I got a little caught up in the abrupt sentences and all the details. Lee Child just went on and on in the details, things that we really didn't need to know and I ended up skimming through alot of pages because of it. I think it would have been a better book if it had been shorter. I could not make up my mind on Jack Reacher, he doesn't seem to be the typical hero. Most of the time I was deciding if I liked him as a person. A point in his favor is that he is very thorough. What did you think?

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!

October 1st Pick

I thought it was time to read a mystery. It also helps that it is the month for scariness, Halloween is here. I wanted a change of pace, to read a book that is not usually on a book club list. I had no idea what writer to choose from and wanted to try someone new, so I asked around at the used book store that I go to and this was the majority choice. One Shot is a Jack Reacher novel and I was told that you do not need to read them in order, they all stand alone. I chose this one and from the synopsis it sounds really good:

One heartland city thrown into a state of terror. But within hours the cops have it solved: a slam-dunk case. Except for one thing. The accused man says: You got the wrong guy. Then he says: Get Reacher for me.

Sounds good. Anyone else want to read this mystery with us??