My Monday tradition, including a look back and a look ahead — what I read last week, what new books came my way, and what books are keeping me busy right now. Plus a smattering of other stuff too.
Happy Labor Day! Does this mean summer is finally over? It feels like it’s barely started…
What did I read last week?
Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore: Done! My review is here.
A Little in Love by Susan Fletcher: Done! My review is here.
In graphic novels, I read The Good Neighbors trilogy (Kin, Kith, and Kind) by Holly Black, and loved it. My review is here.
Fresh Catch:
I picked up a used copy of The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd. After really loving The Invention of Wings (review), I thought I’d give this one a try, despite some not-so-stellar reviews on Goodreads.
What will I be reading during the coming week?
Currently in my hands:
I’ve just started Another Day by David Levithan. Given how much I loved Every Day (review), is it any wonder that I’m thrilled?
Now playing via audiobook:
I finished listening to the Stardust audiobook over the weekend. Such a treat! Even if you’ve read the story before (as I had), I encourage you to give the audiobook a listen. Neil Gaiman is a great narrator and makes the whole story just so… adorable! Plus, the audiobook concludes with an author Q&A that’s funny and informative and just terrific to hear.
Switching gears completely, I started listening to A Fatal Thaw by Dana Stabenow, the 2nd in her Kate Shugak mystery series. I love the Alaska setting and the character of Kate herself, and these audiobooks seem to move quickly and hold my attention. I’m only in the opening chapters, but I like it a lot already!
Ongoing reads:
Moving right along! Two chapters per week for each book, as part of discussions with the Outlander Book Club. We’ll wrap up both in December!
When a book starts with the main character dying slowly and painfully in the street, you know that you’re going to be in for an emotional ride.
Then again, what do you expect from a book whose essence can be boiled down to Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables as told by Eponine?
I mean, anyone who saw the musical version of Les Miz and didn’t get at least a little misty during this number has a heart of stone:
In A Little in Love, a dying Eponine recounts her sad life story, narrating all that she’s experienced in her young life that led up to this final moment. And so we go back to Eponine’s girlhood, as she lives in a small village at the inn run by her parents, the wicked, thieving Thenardiers. Eponine’s parents raise her and her younger sister to be wonderful thieves, able to pull rings off fingers, lift coins from pockets, take the buckles off a pair of shoes, without ever being seen. To steal is to earn love.
Into their lives comes a small girl named Cosette, deposited into the Thenardier’s keeping by her desperate mother, but the kindness and shelter she’d hope to secure for Cosette is never delivered. Cosette is treated like a dog and a slave, while the money left for her upkeep is spent on food and clothes for the Thenardiers. Eponine sees Cosette as a potential friend, until she is punished for showing any kindess. Eponine’s mother makes clear that only hardness is allowed. She must be cruel. She must be hard. Eponine can only keep what passes for love from her own mother by kicking Cosette and spitting at her, calling her ugly, and making her life miserable.
And so the years pass, until a kind-eyed man comes one Christmas to take little Cosette away into a better life. Eponine realizes just how trapped she is in the misery of her own family… but she herself has no way out, no kind-eyed rescuer to save her from her sad existence. After her father commits a horrible crime, they spend years on the run, eventually landing in Paris, where Eponine’s fate is sealed. She sees a young man, Marius, and falls instantly in love. Eponine is sickened by her family’s evil ways, and determines to be good, to be kind, to make her own way in the world and try to make amends. When Eponine realizes that Marius loves none other than Cosette, Eponine finds a way to unite the lovers, and ultimately… well, if you’ve watched the clip above, you know it doesn’t end well for poor Eponine.
A Little in Love is a lovely little book, not very long and with a nice, quick pace. Eponine’s world view may be limited, but it’s enough to show us the abject poverty of the lower classes in France and the depths to which people must sink in order to survive. Despite her horrible upbringing, Eponine holds onto her own humanity, and it’s through her sense of right and grace that we see that not all people are cruel, and that even poor, downtrodden people are capable of moments of kindess which can change lives.
This was a hard world, I knew that. It was dangerous; it had its knives and lies and cruelties, and Paris felt on the edge of such trouble. but there were small wonders too — everywhere.
Eponine’s voice is simple and genuine. She loves, she aches, she regrets. She despises her parents’ and sister’s actions, but not the people themselves. She would be forgiven for resenting Cosette and standing in her way, but of course she doesn’t: By helping Cosette, she’s doing what little she can to apologize for the years of cruelty, lightening her own burden of guilt even while adding to the pain she suffers knowing Marius will never love her as she loves him.
I would imagine that most readers of A Little in Love will be at least a little familiar with the story from the movie version of Les Miserables. This book is a reimagining of Victor Hugo’s story, so some plot changes may be confusing for those expecting the story they viewed on-screen. It doesn’t matter much, really: Because neither version of the story looks through Eponine’s eyes, the narration of A Little in Love covers new ground even when going over plotlines that may be familiar. It’s a hard balancing act for a retelling to stay faithful to the original while adding enough new elements to make the story fresh and surprising, and author Susan Fletcher achieves this remarkably well in A Little in Love.
Eponine is a tragic character, a small player in the grander story of Les Miserables, and it’s lovely to see her getting the center stage billing she deserves in this new novel.
Two final thoughts:
♦ A Little in Love is being marketed as a young adult novel. I’d just add that younger teen readers (and older middle school aged readers) could easily enjoy this book, especially if they’ve seen the movie version. While the book portrays horrible living conditions, cruelty, starvation, crime, etc, it never gets graphic and there’s no sexual content.
♦ I really wish this book had a better title! It’s not bad, but it’s not memorable or particularly connected to the story itself. I found myself having to double-check the title several times in order to make sure I got it right! It just seems awfully generic, like something you’d paste on a light-hearted high school romance, and I’m afraid it doesn’t do the weightiness of the story true justice.
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The details:
Title: A Little in Love
Author: Susan Fletcher
Publisher: Chicken House Ltd
Publication date: August 25, 2015
Length: 288 pages
Genre: Young adult fiction
Source: Purchased
I have shelf overload. A few years ago, I added a bunch of shiny new bookshelves, assuming they’d be neat and organized, with room to spare, for years and years and years.
I won’t do anything as drastic as going on a book-buying ban, but I do want to finally take some time to acknowledge how many unread books are actually sitting here in my house.
To that end, one change I’ll be making is mostly sitting out my usual “Wishing & Waiting” posts for a while. I want to stop focusing on upcoming new releases and instead give myself time and space to concentrate on the books I already own. You know, the ones I was actually dying for when they first came out… and then never did anything with.
Step #1 in my goal of appreciating what I already have (okay, yes, this could be a much wider goal about appreciating all the good in my life… but for now, let’s focus on books, shall we?) is taking stock of all the books tucked into all the various nooks and crannies in my house. I can’t read what I already have if I don’t know what I already have!
Like the numbers and Excel geek that I am, I started by doing an inventory. Picture me, laptop in hand, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of my shelves. I decided to create a spreadsheet listing every book in my house that I haven’t read yet. Here are the basics of what I did:
Going shelf by shelf, I made a list of everything on my shelves not yet read.
I only counted the books that are actually mine — so my kids’ books don’t count. Unless they’re kid books that I want to read myself. (I’m starting to get muscle strain from tying myself into so many knots.)
As I scoured my shelves, I came across bunches that — let’s face it — I’ll probably never read. The ones that I felt “never will I ever” about got pulled from the shelves and put into to-be-donated boxes. Yippee! I’m counting and I’m cleaning!
I set up separate tabs in my worksheet (fun with Excel!) for fiction, non-fiction, and graphic novels.
When I got through all the physical books in my house, I decided to check my Kindle contents. Yikes. I have a lot of Kindle stuff that I’ve snatched up when there were price drops, but never got around to reading. So, another tab just for Kindle, but I only included books that I really intend to read. Because there are some that just aren’t going to happen, ever.
I didn’t include ARCs. Either I’ll read them or I won’t, but since I didn’t purchase them and can’t give them away (since they’re mostly on my Kindle), I’m not including them in my inventory.
So where did I end up? Let’s do the math:
Ha. 598? That’s a bit daunting. Overwhelming. Coma-inducing.
When will I ever read them all???
Listen, I’m a realist (sometimes). It’ll take time. No pressure, no timetables, no deadlines. After all, the last thing I need in my life is one more way to feel stressed!
My entire goal here is to keep myself aware. Aware that I have plenty of awesome books sitting on my shelves, just waiting for me to show them some love.
So will I stop buying or borrowing new books? Heck, no.
But I will try to make more time for the books I already have, rather than always rushing toward the newest and shiniest. I want to read without pressure, without commitments, without timetables. Just reading what I want, when I want — isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?
And what about my book math? To keep myself on track, I’m going to be check my “book score” at the start of each new month. I know I’m unlikely to read more than a few non-fiction books in a year, and that’s okay. The Kindle books, well, I’ll get to when I get to. So, going forward, I’ll do a little Book Count update, including my physical books (fiction and graphic novels) still unread, plus any new additions, minus any I’ve read in the past month. Fun with numbers! And to keep myself on track, I’ll have a little Book Count icon in my sidebar that I’ll update too… because, what the heck – why not?
“Take a Peek” book reviews are short and (possibly) sweet, keeping the commentary brief and providing a little peek at what the book’s about and what I thought.
Synopsis:
(via Goodreads)
In San Francisco, the souls of the dead are mysteriously disappearing—and you know that can’t be good—in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore’s delightfully funny sequel to A Dirty Job.
Something really strange is happening in the City by the Bay. People are dying, but their souls are not being collected. Someone—or something—is stealing them and no one knows where they are going, or why, but it has something to do with that big orange bridge. Death Merchant Charlie Asher is just as flummoxed as everyone else. He’s trapped in the body of a fourteen-inch-tall “meat” waiting for his Buddhist nun girlfriend, Audrey, to find him a suitable new body to play host.
To get to the bottom of this abomination, a motley crew of heroes will band together: the seven-foot-tall death merchant Minty Fresh; retired policeman turned bookseller Alphonse Rivera; the Emperor of San Francisco and his dogs, Bummer and Lazarus; and Lily, the former Goth girl. Now if only they can get little Sophie to stop babbling about the coming battle for the very soul of humankind…
Christopher Moore with “squirrel people”. Image via wunc.org
My Thoughts:
Here’s a slightly edited version of what I wrote on Goodreads:
I’ll just say it: Christopher Moore can pretty much do no wrong. Take his earlier books: Enormous lizards? Artificial whales? Stupid angels and Jesus? Shakespeare, Impressionist painters… you get the drift. For ultra-weird but extremely funny (and even touching) stories, you really can’t beat the Author Guy’s books.
Secondhand Souls is a sequel to A Dirty Job, which is an awesomely hilarious, entertaining, occasionally crude, always crazy tale — and Secondhand Souls lives up to it, not quite perfectly, but awfully darn close. The characters we love are back, in different places in their lives (and even in different bodies), but still themselves. Plus, there are some memorable new characters, including a Golden Gate Bridge painter named Mike, a mysterious man dressed all in yellow, a lovesick ghost, and a banshee with a fondness for tasers, among others.
San Francisco itself is a star, and seeing such a crazy adventure unfold in our beloved city is at least half the fun.
Who am I kidding? It’s all fun. The logic of the story gets a little thin at times, and forget about character development: We’re plopped down into the lives of the characters from A Dirty Job, and either you remember them or you don’t. But, it doesn’t really matter. If you’re a Christopher Moore fan, you need to read this. And if you’ve never had the pleasure, I’d say put this one on hold and read (at least) A Dirty Job — and possibly a few others — before picking up Secondhand Souls.
And for a more articulate review, here’s what my friend Heidi had to say about it:
Of all Christopher Moore’s novels, which range from the adolescent and ridiculous (Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings) to the pretty much perfect (Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal), the ones that Charlie Asher lives in are my favorites. Secondhand Souls is of course the sequel to A Dirty Job, which introduced us to Charlie, beta male junk shop owner, and the hidden world of the Death Merchants. (Also: a devastatingly cool record-shop owner called Minty Fresh, a toddler who may-or-may-not be Death and her pet Hellhounds, Lily the PerkyGoth, Audrey the Buddhist nun, The Emperor of San Francisco, The Morrigan and The Squirrel People, among others.) Read that before you read this, or you’ll be really lost. In fact, you probably are already.
With the whole bizarre gang back in play — plus some new additions — Secondhand Souls is not a mere cheesey sequel (though cheez plays a critical role); it’s more like visiting with batshit crazy old friends. Unfortunately for them it turns out, due in large part to the events in A Dirty Job, there’s a dangerous backlog of uncollected souls lurking around San Francisco, and Charlie and friends are once again embroiled in the danger and magical maneuvering that is dealing with the powers of darkness rising. Fortunately, they are more than weird enough to handle the crisis. I don’t want to spoil the plot, so I’ll just say it’s hilarious.
Maybe I love these books because they capture San Francisco’s magic in ways that ring true in my heart. It’s like an idealized version of my hometown — in the topography of Moore’s books I basically live across the street from Minty’s shop, and nobody ever has to step over homeless people sleeping in the vestibule. Crazy people are really helpful geniuses, and even normal folks can afford the rents. (I find all this somehow reassuring, as magic is in short supply around here these days.) Also, the characters have more fun talking to each other than anybody ever has had in the history of ever. (Except maybe “The Gilmore Girls.”) For nutty-but-somehow-deep dialogue, you really can’t beat Christopher Moore. 5 whole-hearted, sunny-yet-deeply-morbid stars.
(With thanks to Heidi, for letting me borrow her review! For more awesome Heidi reviews, you can find her here on Goodreads.)
So hey – if you’re new to Christopher Moore, this is not the place to start! Maybe spend some time with Practical Demonkeeping or The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, or even his first novel set in San Francisco, Bloodsucking Fiends. Bask in the absurd and wacky, soak up his crazy but somehow perfect tricks of language, and just enjoy the WTFness of it all. When you’re ready for true brilliance and lots of heart, read Lamb. Or harken back to Shakespeare as you never knew it with Fool and The Serpent of Venice. Uh oh, I feel a Christopher Moore retrospective post coming on! Stay tuned… and meanwhile, get thee to a copy of A Dirty Job as soon as possible.
Going now.
Need a cheez. (Read Secondhand Souls and this will make sense.)
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The details:
Title: Secondhand Souls
Author: Christopher Moore
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication date: August 25, 2015
Length: 352 pages
Genre: Fiction/Humor/Supernatural
Source: Purchased
Let’s talk about the terrific trilogy I just read! Presenting…
Holly Black excels at creating beautiful yet dangerous faerie worlds in her novels, and here she does so in graphic novel format.
Kin, Kith, and Kind tell the story of Rue Silver, a seemingly normal high school student whose life starts falling apart when her mother disappears. When her father, a folklore professor at the local university, is accused of murdering a student, things gets decidedly weirder.
Rue sees odd visions — people with horns or wings, a creature in the tree outside her house — and remembers all the slightly bizarre things about her mother. Like, for example, how her beautiful mother never seems to age, and how she hangs out naked in the garden, and how the flowers seem to respond to her.
The truth is slowly revealed: Rue’s mother is a faerie, making Rue only half-mortal. And it turns out there’s a plot afoot: Rue’s grandfather Aubrey is a faerie king, and wants to claim the entire city as a world for his people.
These books are such fun! There’s drama and danger, romantic love, passionate encounters, and familial love and loyalty at stake. The story builds, with Rue evolving into a force to be reckoned with, the more she claims her birthright and power.
I really liked the illustrations, which are in black and white throughout the three books. Rue and her friends are all distinct and well-drawn, and I love Rue’s depiction as a cool, funky, rebellious girl, in looks as well as in actions. The inhabitants of the faerie world are visually wonderful, with wings or fangs or talons, beautiful and menacing, and each one different and unusual. The details are terrific, and I particularly love the pages with crowd scenes, where all the various denizens of faerie (or the human world) appear as individuals, even when the page is teeming with them.
The story starts small, focusing on Rue and her personal dilemmas, and grows to a much wider scale, culminating in a fight for survival between the human and faerie worlds.
These books are a quick read, and ideally should be read right in a row for peak enjoyment. I found the Good Neighbors trilogy a really nice treat after a lot of heavier reading, and recommend them as a (dare I say it?) magical diversion when you’re looking for something a bit different to spend your time with.
Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!
NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
(published 1999 )
I’m listening to the audiobook of Stardust, narrated by Neil Himself, and it’s just a delight. It’s been many years since I first read Stardust, and I’d forgotten how sweet and funny and sly it can be — and also eerie and moody and dangerous. Here are but a few little selections that either gave me the chills or made me chuckle. And they all just sound so good when read out loud:
He summoned his children to his bedside and they came, the living and the dead of them, and they shivered in the cold granite halls. They gathered about his bed and waited respectfully, the living to his right side, the dead on his left.
Or for a lighter mood:
“I knowed a man in Paphlagonia who’d swallow a live snake every morning, when he got up. He used to say, he was certain of one thing, that nothing worse would happen to him all day. ‘Course they made him eat a bowlful of hairy centipedes before they hung him, so maybe that claim was a bit presumptive.”
One more bit of conversation:
Tristran thought for some moments, and then he said, “I come from the village of Wall, where there lives a young lady named Victoria Forester, who is without peer among women, and it is to her, and to her alone, that I have given my heart. Her face is– ”
“Usual complement of bits?” asked the little creature. “Eyes? Nose? Teeth? All the usual?”
“Of course.”
“Well then, you can skip that stuff,” said the little hairy man.
What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!
If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:
Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!
There’s nothing like a Wednesday for thinking about the books we want to read! My Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday post is linking up with two fabulous book memes, Wishlist Wednesday (hosted by Pen to Paper) and Waiting on Wednesday (hosted by Breaking the Spine).
My most wished-for book this week is:
The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende (to be released November 3, 2015)
Synopsis via Goodreads:
From New York Times and internationally bestselling author Isabel Allende, an exquisitely crafted love story and multigenerational epic that sweeps from San Francisco in the present-day to Poland and the United States during the Second World War.
In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco’s parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There, as the rest of the world goes to war, she encounters Ichimei Fukuda, the quiet and gentle son of the family’s Japanese gardener. Unnoticed by those around them, a tender love affair begins to blossom. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart as Ichimei and his family, like thousands of other Japanese Americans are declared enemies and forcibly relocated to internment camps run by the United States government. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love that they are forever forced to hide from the world.
Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the elderly woman and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco’s charmingly eccentric Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years.
Sweeping through time and spanning generations and continents, The Japanese Lover explores questions of identity, abandonment, redemption, and the unknowable impact of fate on our lives. Written with the same attention to historical detail and keen understanding of her characters that Isabel Allende has been known for since her landmark first novel The House of the Spirits, The Japanese Lover is a profoundly moving tribute to the constancy of the human heart in a world of unceasing change.
A new Isabel Allende novel is definitely a reason to cheer! The plot and the setting sound amazing to me. Can’t wait!
What are you wishing for this Wednesday?
Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays? Come join me for my regular weekly feature, Thursday Quotables! You can find out more here — come share the book love!
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Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I host a Book Blog Meme Directory, and need your help! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info!
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Ten Characters You Just Didn’t Click With.
This is a tough one. For me, this wouldn’t include the obviously bad eggs — I mean, we’re not intended to click with the villains, right? So I’m trying to come up with ten characters who are supposed to be important, sympathetic characters, people whose sides we’re meant to be on, but for whatever reason, I just never felt the love…. or at least, not right away.
Here we go:
Seven whom I just never really liked:
Gale Hawthorne (The Hunger Games): I was definitely Team Peeta, but even at the very beginning, Gale just didn’t particularly appeal to me, and he never did grow on me either.
Eragon (Eragon): Eragon’s a bit of a jerk, IMHO. He doesn’t listen to people who obviously know better, he keeps getting his friends into mortal danger, and he’s kind of careless with his magic. I love Saphira the dragon, but maybe the fact that the title character of the series doesn’t appeal to me is part of the reason why I haven’t felt compelled to continue reading the rest of the books.
Margo (Paper Towns) and …
Alaska (Looking for Alaska): I don’t like these wild child girl characters, the mysterious free-spirited untameable special ones who set the boys next door spinning in their orbits. Just, no. (As you can imagine, these books just didn’t work for me.)
Marguerite Blakeney (The Scarlet Pimpernel): It seems as though every chapter in this book has to remind us that Marguerite is the most beautiful and clever woman in all of Europe. I found her kind of insufferable, which is too bad, considering she’s the heroine.
Bella Swan (Twilight): Does this one even need explanation? I just wanted her to grown a spine and stop throwing her life away. Oh well.
Anyone from The Raven Boys: Don’t shoot me. I know people love this series. But when I read the first book, the characters all kind of mushed together for me and none of them made me care about them as individuals.
And three who became favorites — but it took me a while:
Margaret Hale (North and South): I’m still reading this book, so I have no definitive opinions yet. Margaret starts out as highly snobby and prejudiced, but she’s really improving! I didn’t click with her at first, but now I really like her.
Jo March (Little Women): Jo is meant to be the stand-in for the author and the one readers really connect with. I think my problem was that I read Little Women when I was a bit too young. Jo’s stubbornness and trouble-making streak didn’t appeal to me then; I was more smitten with Beth’s unwavering goodness. (This all changed when I re-read Little Women as a teen, because who wants to be good as gold as a teen-aged girl? Raising a little hell was much more enticing at that point.)
Fanny Price (Mansfield Park): Like Margaret Hale, Fanny Price really grew on me during the novel. I had a hard time seeing past her meek ways and her constant frailness, but I ended up really admiring her inner strength as the book progressed. So while I didn’t click with Fanny right away, by the end, I thought she was terrific.
Yes, eventually, for these three I’d have to say:
Are any of my characters on your list this week? Or have I included anyone about whom you feel completely the opposite?
Share your links, please, and I’ll come check out your top 10!
If you enjoyed this post, please consider following Bookshelf Fantasies! And don’t forget to check out my regular weekly feature, Thursday Quotables. Happy reading!
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Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I host a Book Blog Meme Directory, and I’m always looking for new additions! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info!
My Monday tradition, including a look back and a look ahead — what I read last week, what new books came my way, and what books are keeping me busy right now. Plus a smattering of other stuff too.
What did I read last week?
The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach by Pam Jenoff: Done! My review is here.
Persuasion by Jane Austen: A funny thing happened while listening to the Persuasion audiobook. I got to within 2 hours of the end of the audiobook, and just felt like something was missing. Maybe my attention wandered at crucial moments or I was just having a distracted week (quite likely), but I felt like I just wasn’t FEELING the story. So, I grabbed my printed edition off the shelf and started over from the beginning… and enjoyed it very much! Sometimes, you just need to take the time to slow down and absorb some Austen.
PS – I just noticed how well these two covers go together! I love when that happens.
Pop Culture:
My son and I have been watching Buffy together, and we finished season 2 this past weekend. Ouch, the feels! The season 2 finale is never not heartbreaking. There really are so many excellent episodes in the 2nd season. I originally watched Buffy years ago with my daughter — it’s super fun to be experiencing it all over again with my younger kiddo!
Fresh Catch:
Hot off the press! A few new releases arrived this week:
What will I be reading during the coming week?
Currently in my hands:
Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore! I’m so excited.
Now playing via audiobook:
As noted above, I didn’t really fully engage with the Persuasion audiobook, although I still intend to finish it. Meanwhile, while I was busy catching up with Persuasion in print, I switched over to the audiobook of Stardust, read by Neil Gaiman himself! It’s been a long time since I first read Stardust, and it’s lovely to revisit the story, plus Neil’s narration is amazing.
Ongoing reads:
Two chapters per week for each of these, for my online book group discussions with Outlander Book Club. Both books should be done by December!
Thank you for joining me for my stop on the blog tour for Pam Jenoff’s new historical romance, The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach! And don’t forget to check out my giveaway — scroll down to enter… and good luck!
Synopsis:
Summer 1941
Young Adelia Monteforte flees fascist Italy for America, where she is whisked away to the shore by her well-meaning aunt and uncle. Here, she meets and falls for Charlie Connally, the eldest of the four Irish-Catholic boys next door. But all hopes for a future together are soon throttled by the war and a tragedy that hits much closer to home.
Grief-stricken, Addie flees—first to Washington and then to war-torn London—and finds a position at a prestigious newspaper, as well as a chance to redeem lost time, lost family…and lost love. But the past always nips at her heels, demanding to be reckoned with. And in a final, fateful choice, Addie discovers that the way home may be a path she never suspected.
My Thoughts:
I have really mixed feelings about this book. First, the positive: I thought the author did a great job conveying the feel of Philadelphia and the Jersey beaches in the 1940s. The street scenes and depictions of life in a summer beach town were very convincing. I really enjoyed seeing Adelia’s unofficial adoption into the Connally clan. This big, noisy Irish family just opened their hearts and home to her, and it was heartwarming to see this lonely, frightened immigrant girl find a place to fit in.
Likewise, the scenes set in wartime London were stirring, especially seeing the devastation of the Blitz and the danger of simply walking down a street, as well as the sad plight of war orphans and the courage of the war correspondents and soldiers setting off on secret missions. The risks and uncertainty add a sense of breathlessness to every interaction, and I liked seeing Addie find a place amidst the chaos and confusion, seeming to discover a calling of her own.
What worked less well for me was the romance, or rather, romances, that are at the heart of the story. To put it bluntly, I just didn’t buy any of Addie’s love interests. I found her actions and decisions confusing, and even by the very end of the story, I wasn’t convinced by her supposed motivations or feelings. Part of the problem may have been the condensed time frame of the story, covering about four years starting from when Addie is sixteen. An awful lot happens in that amount of time, including romantic entanglements that spring up almost instantly and some that seem to dissolve just as quickly.
For me, The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach seemed over-plotted, and I didn’t feel that the emotional arcs built, but rather jumped from point A to point B (or even C). The romantic aspects of this book just didn’t gel, but I did enjoy the historical setting and the way the descriptions evoke a real sense of a by-gone era.
Pam Jenoff is the Quill-nominated internationally bestselling author of The Kommadant’sGirl. Sheholds a bachelor’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University and a master’s degree in history from Cambridge, and she received her Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania. Jenoff’s novels are based on her experiences working at the Pentagon and also as a diplomat for the State Department handling Holocaust issues in Poland. She lives with her husband and three children near Philadelphia where, in addition to writing, she teaches law school.
Title: The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach
Author: Pam Jenoff
Publisher: Mira
Publication date: July 28, 2015
Length: 384 pages
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of TLC Book Tours
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GIVEAWAY!
I’m excited to be giving away a bookbag and finished copy of the book! Want to win? No fancy footwork required — just leave a comment below answering any one of these questions:
– What’s the best book you’ve read set during wartime?
– What beach holds special memories for you, and why?
– If you could live in a different period in history, what would you choose?
Extra credit: Do you follow Bookshelf Fantasies? Let me know in the comments if you follow me and how (email, Twitter, WordPress, etc), and you get an extra entry in the giveaway!
That’s it! I’ll do a random drawing on September 1st to pick a winner. Thanks for playing along!
My Monday tradition, including a look back and a look ahead — what I read last week, what new books came my way, and what books are keeping me busy right now. Plus a smattering of other stuff too.
Bookshelf Fantasies 