Category: Reading

Fever by Mary Beth Keane is my books clubs’ September pick. But it became available from the library quickly & even more amazing, I found time to make it there to pick it up before my hold expired.

Fever tells the story of Mary Mallon, who you might know as Typhoid Mary. The author does a great job telling Mary’s story. Making us see her as the human, the lady with real feelings & sense of self behind the scary nickname.

Before Fever, I didn’t know that much about typhoid nor the sanitation of NYC in the early 1900s. I also thought all the discussion of the working class was very interesting. I wasn’t familiar with North Brother island & that sick & seriously ill were isolated like they were.

If you’re interested in reading about the person behind the typhoid headlines, read Fever. But don’t wikipedia her first if you want to be surprised. I did & then it took away some of the book for it. I still thought it was very interesting & a good book.

Labor Day had been passed down to me when a friend moved. I’m pretty sure it sat untouched on my den floor for a year before about a month ago I snatched it up.

I read the book in under a week while pumping. It wasn’t a can’t-put-it-down thriller, but I liked it none the less. Labor Day takes place over {you guessed it} Labor day weekend in a small town in the northeast. It’s told from the perspective of a coming-of-age boy in regards to how a chance meeting on this weekend changed his life.

It was good. Not great in a over the top super memorable way. But I’m glad I read it.

After getting so much movie buzz, my book club decided to read Matthew Quick’s novel & discuss it for our May meeting. I took advantage of kindle’s $4.99 sale since the weight list at our library was crazy long. This is the first book I’ve bought in a while but it was worth it IMO.

Silver Linings Playbook follows the story of Pat, a guy recovering from mental illness. He’s trying to find his footings after being released from a mental hospital & moving back home with his parents & without his wife. He’s experiencing ‘apart time’ from his wife & doing everything he can to better himself. The story follows along this journey as he’s looking for the silver linings in his life.

I haven’t seen the movie & have heard it’s not as good as the book {most aren’t}. After reading the book, I can’t imagine Mr. Eye Candy Cooper as Pat, but I still want to see the film. I’ve also heard that a big scene that the entire book leads up to discovering is shown in the preview. That’s weird.

I’d recommend Silver Linings Playbook to pretty much anyone. Philly natives & Eagles fans would enjoy it. Dads & sons. People with ties to mental illness. It was a quick read & one I kinda missed reading after I was done.

My current reading mission is to get rid of my TBR {to be read} pile. It’s sat for years in between our couch & love seat somewhat untouched. Now, the pile of books {& the laptop & plug beside them} are a main attraction for Lucy & Zach. I’ve been taking advantage of car trip & pumping reading recently trying to get that stack read & the books shipped off via paperbackswap. {I’m ldybugsuzi there if you want to help!}

A few years ago, I got obsessed with all things Philippa Gregory. I think I read like 75% or more of her novels within a few months. I believe The Red Queen wasn’t quite out yet at that time. I put it on my paperbackswap wish list & then in my TBR pile when it arrived.

The Red Queen reminded me why I got obsessed. The history nerd in me comes out while reading historical fiction. This one is more behind the scenes scheming & battle scenes than love stories like some other of her works. But it was good.

I was glad the story of Henry Tudor was told through his mother. I liked having her perspective & think it would’ve been a very different {but still been very interesting} novel had it been told from Jasper Tudor or Henry’s perspectives.

I have not read The White Queen {the first of the Cousin’s War series}, but I plan on requesting it from the library soon. I’ll be reading them out of order which I guess is fine if not slightly historically confusing.

If you’re a fan of historial fiction, England’s royalty & Philippa Gregory, you’ll want to make sure to read The Red Queen. It was a quick, pretty light read.

I finished Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult last Thursday {I’m a fast reader}. And I’m left feeling that I’m 62% sure I read it before. Maybe? Years ago, I went on a Jodi Picoult tear, reading everything of hers that I could get my hands on. And Perfect Match was left in my PBS wish pile. So maybe I hadn’t read it.

I feel like if I had, it would’ve left a mark on my brain. But at the same time, reading it {maybe again} as a mother, makes me see events & characters completely different. Where before I would’ve felt very bad for 5 year old Nathaniel & his mother Nina as they dealt with his sexual assault, now I was haunted to the point of almost having to put the book down. Perfect Match definitely caused me to open up some communication lines with the husband over when to discuss stranger danger etc with the babies.

I won’t go into all the details & spoil this book for you, but as a mother of young children, the thought of Lucy or Zach being harmed by someone we know or don’t know or by whom we entrust their care, scares the shit out of me. And I honestly don’t know what I would or wouldn’t do if that situation occurred. So I can’t blame Nina for the actions she takes in Perfect Match. As a county DA who prosecuted sexual predators, she knew the way our system can {& does} often fail the young victims.

Perfect Match is yet another {like Lone Wolf} Jodi Picoult book that I couldn’t put down. You know that I normally read while pumping. The last two novels, I brought home with me & had to read at night before bed to get just a few more pages into it before the day was done.

Perfect Match is one of Picoult’s earlier books, so while it’s told from multiple points of view {first person from both Nathaniel & Nina}, the different voices don’t have their own fonts in this one. But the author does a great job with diction & sentence structure so that you can easily tell which character is currently telling the story.

I’d recommend Perfect Match to any Jodi Picoult fan. But I’d warn a new or young mom before hoping into this one blind.

I’ve read almost everything by Jodi Picoult, but it’s been at least a year since I read anything from here.

I almost immediately remembered why I love her books. I like her style. The way the words flow & how you’re captured & taken into the story so quickly.

I knew little about wolves going into this novel. {Besides my beloved NCSU Wolfpack, of course.} I loved the fact that one of the main characters was a biologist who literally lived with & cared over packs of wolves. I found that aspect of Lone Wolf so fascinating. Like most Jodi Picoult novels, this one was told from the different characters perspectives {love that!} & I looked forward to Luke’s sections so much so I could read from inside his mind.

I think I was a little let down but not surprised by the way Lone Wolf ended. Often Jodi Picoult books have crazy twist endings {My Sister’s Keeper anyone?}, this one kind of didn’t. And I was okay with that.

I was too engulfed in Lone Wolf to leave this to the pump room alone; I was up way too late reading & finishing this last week. I was on such a Jodi Picoult high after I finished that I’ve moved on to the next Picoult novel in my TBR pile. My Perfect Match review will be coming soon.