Monday Musings

Highlights of the week: Jarrod was still gone last week (he's home now, yay!) and I was getting pretty lonely with just the cat for company! I did enjoy several evenings of reading in the hammock and basking in the absolutely perfect Ohio summer weather we've had lately. It's hard to beat 80 and mostly sunny. Also, I ate an entire bag of popcorn for dinner one night, which was pretty awesome. This is what happens when I'm left to my own devices!

Reading: This week I finished "See Also Murder" by Larry Sweazy (review) and "In the Unlikely Event" by Judy Blume (review). Both were ok -- though the Judy Blume book was a much better form of "ok" than the mystery. On Saturday I started "Armada" by Ernest Cline, his follow-up to "Ready Player One," and I'm really enjoying it so far. It was tough to decide what to read next -- as you can see, I had quite a fabulous selection!

Knitting: Still hard at work on my BlueSand Cardigan. It's coming along wonderfully! I'm having so much fun knitting my first sweater that I've already selected a pattern for sweater #2! I'll post progress pictures of my sweater on the blog soon.

Watching: One of my goals for Jarrod's two weeks away was to get a whole bunch of stuff from the DVR watched -- and I was terrifically successful on that front (not that it was that hard, let's be honest)! I'm now totally caught up on one of my guilty pleasures, the ABC Family show "Chasing Life," and I started season 1 of the Masterpiece Mystery series "Grantchester." A cute WWII soldier turned vicar (i.e. nice guy!) who solves murders and drinks too much? Count me in!

I also watched "Out of Africa" with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.  I was inspired to watch it after reading Paula McLain's new book, "Circling the Sun" (review). Young Meryl Streep is absolutely stunning!

Trying: Aztec Secret bentonite clay mask -- supposedly works wonders on skin! And Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pens, my first-ever fountain pens.

Looking forward to: Now that Jarrod's home, we can see the new "Mission: Impossible" movie! And -- one week from today -- the assignment list for our move comes out! We won't find out where we'll be stationed next until October but this is the list of all the open jobs for Jarrod's rank and career field -- and one of them will be his! Fingers crossed for some awesome locations!

Quote of the week: "Once you have a wonderful dog, a life without one is diminished." So true. We miss our dear, sweet Conan so much!

Book Review: "In the Unlikely Event" by Judy Blume

"In the Unlikely Event" by Judy Blume
First published in 2015
397 pages
My rating: 3.5 out of 5
Image from Goodreads

Pros:
*The plotline of three planes crashing in the same New Jersey town in the early 1950s is not as crazy as it sounds. Judy Blume actually grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, site of three plane crashes in 8 weeks the year she was 15.

*I loved the 1951-52 small-town New Jersey setting. It's fun to be transported back to a time when girls wore skirts and dresses every day, soda fountains were a thing, and everyone got their news from an actual newspaper. The historical fiction aspect of the book was great.

*Speaking of newspapers,  I really enjoyed the newspaper "clippings" at the beginning of every chapter. The colorful and rather biased reporting was apparently true to form, as Blume says in the acknowledgments section that she used some wording from actual newspaper stories covering the plane crashes. It added another level of interest to the story.

Cons:
*This is marketed as an adult book, but I thought it was more of a a teen coming-of-age story that, oh, just so happens to have a handful of horrific plane crashes thrown in. Judy Blume is famous for her kids' and young adult books, and I felt like this was really just a YA book with a few adult characters stuck in as an afterthought.

*Continuing that thought, the plane crashes -- the focus of the first half of the book -- really don't have anything to do with the underlying storyline, which takes the lead in the second part of the book. I expected the crashes to have more of an impact overall. Otherwise, what was the point of making them the star of the novel?

*There were way too many points-of-view. Perspectives changed multiple times in every chapter, and some of the characters were totally unnecessary to the story. It was a bit hard to keep the minor characters straight and I wish Blume had cut them out and let us hear more from some of the people we actually cared about (like the compelling Rusty, our main character's single mother, who got pregnant at 18 out of wedlock at a time when that was a cardinal sin -- and still managed to eke out a pretty good life for her small family).

*The main narrator, Miri, is only 15. I'm sure I was naive about plenty of things at that age, but Miri is painfully and irritatingly so. Sometimes I yearned to give her a good, hard shake on the shoulders. In fact I felt all the young women in the book were completely in the dark about so many things -- especially sex. No, you cannot get pregnant just from being touched down there, ya dummy! (Thank god we live in the 21st century where I'm pretty sure no high school seniors could possibly think that. Blume put quite a bit of teen sex talk in the book [my this-is-a-YA-book-in-adult-clothing warning bells are going off here!] and I was pretty disgusted by the misogynistic and sexually repressive culture of the '50s -- really not all that long ago.)

So...
This book wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it could've been better. If it had been more adult-oriented I probably would've given it 4 stars. Still, I was really intrigued by the based-in-fact plane crash plot... it's nuts to think our author lived through that terrifying time herself!

Book Review: "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson

"I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson
First published in 2014
371 pages
My rating: 5 out of 5
Image from Goodreads

The Short of It:
This book was awesome. Read it.

The Long of It:
Other than the Hunger Games trilogy, I don't think I've ever awarded 5 stars to a YA book. Young adult books usually just aren't my thing, and I often tend to be particularly harsh when reading overly hyped ones. But "I'll Give You the Sun" transcended all that. It was not a typical YA book. In other words -- I loooooooved it!

"I'll Give You the Sun" is a story of secrets and lies, guilt and grief, love and forgiveness and family, art and creativity -- and most importantly, about figuring out who you are, flaws and all. Its real, raw themes are relevant to people of all ages, and the brilliant, lovely, metaphor-filled writing is so incredibly readable and complex that it'll appeal to everyone. Sorry here, YA superfans, but seldom do young adult books possess the depth of plot and skilled writing that adult books often have (which makes sense, because they're for teenagers), but Nelson didn't dumb down anything for her audience.

So what's it about? Jude and Noah are twins, nearly inseparable from birth to age 13, despite their differences: Jude is beautiful and popular and full of daring, and Noah is artistic and quiet and a little odd. But during their 13th summer, everything changes. Bit by bit, their relationship devolves until, at age 16, they barely speak to each other. The story alternates between age 13 and age 16, with Noah telling us the story of their 13-year-old selves and Jude narrating three years later.

I can't remember the last time a book got at my emotions like "I'll Give You the Sun" did. I gasped aloud, I smiled, I cringed, I chuckled. Nelson crafted two extremely lovable, extremely imperfect characters and you'll be rooting for them -- and for their relationship with each other -- the whole time.

I highly recommend this book for teens and grown-ups alike. The broad themes are ones everybody can relate to, and the writing is wonderful. Let the beautiful cover draw you in, and then get lost in the story of Jude and Noah.

Book Review: "See Also Murder: A Marjorie Trumaine Mystery" by Larry Sweazy

"See Also Murder: A Marjorie Trumaine Mystery" by Larry Sweazy
First published in 2015
250 pages
My rating: 2.5 out of 5
Image from Goodreads

The Short of It:
The unique main character and setting held promise, but the murder-mystery fell completely flat for me. Interesting story, terrible mystery. (I do love the cover, though!)

The Long of It:
As far as amateur sleuths go, Marjorie Trumaine is one of the most novel I've read about. In 1964, she lives with her husband, Hank -- who is paralyzed from the neck down after a hunting accident  -- on their rural North Dakota farm. To make extra money, she works as a professional indexer, creating indexes for the backs of nonfiction books, a perfect task for a booklover with an organized and analytical mind. Life has thrown a lot of challenges Marjorie's way, and her perseverance and take-it-as-it-comes attitude are admirable.

When her friends at the neighboring farm are horrifically murdered -- their throats slit while they slept -- Marjorie gets drawn into the into the investigation when the sheriff asks her to look into an element of Norse mythology found at the scene. Eventually, realizing she's the only person with all the pieces to the puzzle, she knows it's up to her to find the killer.

Interestingly, Marjorie creates an index to organize her thoughts when the time comes to solve the murder, which was completely new to me. I also liked that the book was set in a rural location in the '60s -- post-horse-drawn carriage and telegram, pre-computer -- which added an element of interest to the story. In this age of smartphones, can you imagine making a phone call on a party line where any of your neighbors could be listening in, with the quality of the call subject to the wind's swaying of the phone lines?

Unfortunately, despite the clever characterization and choice of location and time period, I didn't love this mystery in the end -- because the mystery didn't seem to be the focus of the story. It was like: meet Marjorie, indexer, farmer and wife to an invalid husband who, oh, just so happens to solve a string of grisly murders in her quiet North Dakota town. Hardly any detective work happened. And, once all was revealed, the killer's motive was barely explained and rather confusing. I didn't feel I got a satisfying conclusion to the mystery at all. I learned a lot about Marjorie, but not what drove a person to commit several murders.

I had a hard time choosing a rating for "See Also Murder." On the one hand, the writing was better than adequate (though there were a few times I was irritated by clumsy sentences or repetitive wording), Marjorie was an interesting and likeable main character, and the setting was unique. And I even learned something -- I really had no idea what goes into creating back-of-the-book indexes (and the author himself is a professional indexer by trade). But this book is advertised as a mystery -- it says so right in the title -- and I was wholeheartedly disappointed in that aspect.

I Judge Books By Their Covers: "The Bookseller"

Hello, my name is Lindsay, and I judge books by their covers.

Confession: I always judge books by their covers. A book's appearance -- from the artwork to the font to the colors to the texture to the weight and cut of the pages (I like the ragged-edged ones) -- is very important to me. And there are certain kinds of covers I like and certain ones I'd never pick up unless I was already planning to read the book. It's fascinating to see how covers change between editions -- hardcover and paperback, or U.S. and international. I'm always discussing book covers with my co-workers at the library, so I thought it would be fun to share some beautiful -- and awful -- covers here!

The cover on the left is the U.S. edition, the right is the U.K. version.

 The German version with the title "When I Woke Up."

As I mention in my review, half the reason "The Bookseller" caught my attention is that it's got the word "book" in the title and features a book on the cover. (The other half of the reason is that it's set in Colorado, my home state, in the '60s.) I wasn't overly wowed by Swanson's novel, but I thought it would be fun to compare covers.

Out of the three options, the U.S. cover is the one most likely to cause me to pick up the book and read the blurb if I saw it sitting on a shelf somewhere -- but it really doesn't do anything to tell the reader what the book is about. The main character owns a bookstore, but other than that books don't really come into play at all.

The U.K. cover gives the best idea of what the story is about -- the same woman living two very different lives. I don't hate the artwork, but it doesn't do much for me either. The vintage coloring conveys the appropriate time period, but it's not as aesthetically pleasing as the U.S. cover. I think it just needs more of something. (Or less of something? Maybe that bright aqua stripe down the front is distracting.)

The German cover -- WTF, Germany? I have absolutely no idea what any of that has to do with the story. A cityscape, some brightly colored polka dots, birds, flowers? However, the title (can someone tell me why they change these things?!) actually fits the story far, far better than "The Bookseller." It translates to "When I Woke Up," and it's fitting because the main character of the book is living in two worlds, a dream world she visits at night and her real life. On top of that, she's eventually "woken up" -- snapped out of the fog she's been living in.

I wish the book had the German title and some cross between the U.S. and British artwork. Mish-mash all three and you'd actually have a beautiful cover that gives the reader some clue as to what lies on the pages within!

Winner: ?
A cross between all three would be ideal.

Monday Musings

Highlight(s) of the week: Jarrod was gone for work this week and I definitely made the best of having the house to myself. Of course I miss him, but I did enjoy finally watching all of last season's "Downton Abbey" (can you believe there will only be one more season? Sniff, sniff...) and spending a shameful number of hours outside reading in my hammock.

I also did some online shopping this week and ordered this awesome Hermione Granger shirt that says, "When in doubt, go to the library." Is there a more perfect shirt to wear to work at the library? And I also ordered some Pilot Varsity fountain pens. I've been wanting to start writing my letters with a fountain pen for a while and I'm told these disposables are perfect starter pens.

Thinking: Can you believe it's August and that the summer is 2/3 over already? Ohio had such a cool, rainy start to the season and it's only now feeling like actual summer. I'm definitely enjoying the blue skies and copious sunshine -- and I wish we could just press pause! We have a busy month and a half ahead of us and before we know it, it'll be fall. This is our last summer in Ohio before we move to parts unknown next winter. I love Ohio summers and I'm trying to enjoy the mild nights, bountiful fireflies, beautiful wildflowers and all the sweet corn and delicious ice cream cones I can handle!

Reading: As I mentioned, this was a banner week for reading. I finished up the audiobook of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (I can't say enough about the awesome HP audiobooks!), finished "The Kill Artist" by Daniel Silva (ok), read "The Bookseller" by Cynthia Swanson (meh) and blew through "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson (surprisingly phenomenal). Now I'm reading "See Also Murder" by Larry Sweazy, set in the 1960s and about an indexer (literally, a woman who makes indexes for the back of books) and a murder mystery.

Knitting: Still working on my BlueSand Cardgian. It was coming out way to small so I ended up ripping the entire thing out and starting over last Monday. I was devastated, and I almost shed a tear over the whole fiasco! But now I'm back on track and almost caught up to the place I had been before disaster ensued.

Watching: I watched all of last season's "Downton Abbey," which was totally awesome, as well as "The Longest Ride," which was surprisingly good for a Nicholas Sparks movie. Not only was it the best Sparks movie I've seen (and, yes, I think I've seen them all), it was the best movie I've watched in a while. After I finished "Downton" I watched the first episode of another PBS series, "Mr. Selfridge." I wasn't totally hooked, though, so I'm not sure if I'll continue. I also watched "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" since I just finished the audiobook and was reminded of how different the movies are from the books. Ugh!

Eating:
Last week I mentioned that I made these blackberry cheesecake bars from the Pioneer Woman to take into work. Well, I saved a few for myself and I ate them alllll week. And they only got better with time. I highly recommend this recipe!

Quote of the week: "Books were my transport to the larger world, even though I'd castrated more hogs than I would like to admit, pulled weeds until my hands ached well into winter, and withstood the fickleness of North Dakota weather like every other farmer's wife I knew. Farm work was in my blood, but books had always been my first true love. They were my magic carpet ride to a normal life; my sanity." -- Marjorie Trumaine in "See Also Murder" by Larry Sweazy

Book Review: "The Bookseller" by Cynthia Swanson

"The Bookseller" by Cynthia Swanson
First published in 2015
336 pages
My rating: 3 out of 5
Image from Goodreads

I picked this novel up for two reasons: it's set in my home state of Colorado in one of my favorite time periods, the 1960s, and it has the word "book" in the title. How could I not give it a try?!

Overall, though, I was a bit underwhelmed by this story about what might have been, about grief, family and unforeseen challenges.

The year is 1962. Kitty is a single 38-year-old who owns a struggling bookstore in Denver with her best friend. She's fairly content with her life and resigned to being the slightly eccentric old maid, but when Kitty begins having some extremely realistic dreams in which she is Katharyn, married mother of three, she starts to think about how her life could've turned out differently. As she gradually begins to prefer her other life, in the big modern house with the handsome and devoted husband and the three adorable little kids, the line between dreams and reality becomes blurred. Eventually Kitty will have to choose -- face the harsh realities of her real life or live in the fictional world of her dreams?

While it's true that the story is not quite as straightforward as it seems, the plot  -- even with its revelations and twists -- didn't really wow me. I understand the message Swanson's work is meant to convey, and the writing was adequate, and it was a really fast read, but "The Bookseller" was just ok for me. Eventually everything comes together, but for most of the book we're just traveling back and forth with Kitty/Katharyn between her two lives while additional plot elements are slowly added to the mix. The whole thing was really kind of dull.

I wouldn't necessarily dissuade you from reading "The Bookseller" if you're already planning on it, but I wouldn't recommend this book either. There are so many books out there just waiting to be devoured, and it's always a bit of a bummer to read one that's "meh" (even if it is about a woman who owns a bookstore and is set in the best state in the Union) when you could've been reading one that's spectacular.