March Book Review: Dark Places

If you've been following me the past few months, you know that I joined a REAL LIFE book club in my neighborhood as well as a virtual book club started by the Circle of Pine Trees blog.  You can click the button on the right side of my blog "A Year in Books" to join up - it's never too late!

With my real life book club I am trudging along through the book Middlemarch by George Eliot.  Seriously, when the club leaders said we would have 2 months to read this book, I scoffed. I'm a very fast reader, I can simply absorb books.  WOW have I been put in my place.  I need at least 6 months for this baby!  And thanks to all those who commented or emailed me telling me not to give up on Middlemarch.  Actually I don't dislike Middlemarch, but it is very tedious and very detailed and very very long.  It's like reading all of Jane Austen (with less humor and lighthearted romance) wrapped up into one book.  And I happen to be an Austen fan (Sense and Sensibility is my absolute FAVE Austen).

So, enough about that - I'm on like page 178 of a kazillion pages!  Basically not even a third of the way through.  I am not sure if I will finish by the time our next club meeting happens.

To keep myself from getting too overwhelmed, I've been slipping in some quick reads.  My book to report on for March (for the virtual book club) is Dark Places.  This book is by Gillian Flynn, the same author of the popular read, Gone Girl.  I didn't read Gone Girl but when someone offered me Dark Places and I saw it was the same author and had heard a lot of people had liked Gone Girl, I decided to give it a whirl.

I did NOT like this book.  Really, it didn't have anything to do with the writing or the author.  BUT... the subject matter was disturbing.  The main character is a pretty messed up gal (around 30 yrs old during most of her narration) and most of her family was brutally murdered.  When I read a book, I often fall in love with the characters even though they are very different from me or from other characters I read about.  I like several genres of books and love all kinds of characters, current, historical, international etc... However, I did not like spending time with the characters in this book.  The main character wasn't necessarily BAD but her life was totally depressing to me - as were the lives of most of the characters.  Some chapters I could hardly read because they depressed me so much.  This book is not a bad book - it just wasn't my type of read and literally left me with chills and a completely yucky feeling as I read it.

Did you read Gone Girl?  Was it any different?  Do you like this type of book or characters.  I'm wondering if I'm a total odd-ball for feeling this way about the book.  I'd love to hear your opinion.

Book Review Times Two

This month   last week, I read two books.

 

 

I'm also currently reading Middlemarch (but it's very long and very detailed and very tedious and very slow).  So I needed a quick read and a break from the other.

 

First, I grabbed Labor Day.  Labor Day is one of the books I wanted to read because I like to read books before I see the movie made from a book.  I also chose this one from my stack because it looked short.  And, it was.  I finished it in just a few hours.  Yes, I'm a fast reader, but really, the book wasn't very long.

 

It wasn't a heavy book, it took place all in the space of one weekend, and then a little follow-up tossed on to the end.  Based on the picture on the cover, I knew from the very beginning what would happen by the end of the book.  It wasn't hard to figure out - there wasn't a lot of puzzlement between the lines.  The characters were both strange and interesting.  You can't REALLY get to know a character from reading about their lives in ONE weekend... or at least in this book I couldn't, but the characters only went so deep anyway.  Things were both not believeable and also somewhat predictable.  It was a bit depressing even though it had a happy ending, everything tied up very neatly in a bow at the end.  Anyway - give it a read, the time won't cost you much.  It's an entertaining story for the most part.  See the movie too - I'm sure it will match the book, sounds easy to produce in movie form - haven't seen it yet.  All in all, I'd give it a 3 out of 5.

 

Then, I moved onto Divergent.  I used to read everything in the young adult section so I'd keep up with things that kids liked, but as my kids have gotten older, I've backed off from the young adult world.  This book for me falls into the post-apocalyptic genre.  It's the first of a trilogy.  It's science fiction-ish but the characters are just regular people, no aliens or anything.  From the first page I knew I would be fully entertained.  Again, it's not terribly deep and complex, but I don't always require that of a book.  Sometimes I just want it to take me on an adventure and this book did.  I more than half of it in one night when my lower back was hurting and I couldn't sit up to watch the olympics, so I reclined and read.  The next morning I read the rest of the book.  This book will be a movie in March.  In fact, I saw the trailer and it made me want to read it before I saw the movie.  I'm always interested to see how an author pictures our world when it has been decimated by war and people are trying to survive in a new sort of world.  The entire world of this book takes place in what was the city of Chicago...but there are two more books in the trilogy (already out - yes, I'll be reading book #2 as soon as I get it).  I enjoyed this book and I cannot wait to see how they depict all that is described in the movie.  It could be quite visually stunning and definitely one to see on the big screen.

 

As for Labor Day - the movie, wait til you can get it free on cable or netflix, no need to see that one on the big screen.

 

Did you read either of these books?  If so, let me know what you thought of them. 

 

This book review is part of "The Year of Books."  I am participating in these reviews over at Circle of Pine Trees blog.  Feel free to join in (button on right of my blog, take you there in one click).

 

BY THE WAY - Kate Winslet happens to have a role in both films, and no, I didn't know that when I picked up the books!



 

Book Clubs and I'm Invited

I've always been a reader.

I read a lot.

I read fast.  I cannot get to the words fast enough to satisfy myself.  I pour through a good book like there's no tomorrow.  I get attached, I can't put it down and then it ends.

Sometimes it's weird because I've been in "book land" - kind of similar to blog land except the blog land characters sometimes converse with me - and then all the characters in book land disappear and I feel lonely until I find new friends in a new book.  Yep - I'm weird.



Click on the book to see it at Amazon.  This series is one of my all time favorites.  If you haven't read it and you don't know "Jamie and Claire" goodness I'm excited for you!  Truly one of my faves.

I remember hot summers in Maryland where I grew up.  My neighbor Rachel and I would walk to the PG County Library and get as many books as we could carry home.  The walk was a good mile away!  Sometimes we'd bring home 12 or more chapter books each.  In about 2 weeks we had both finished them all.  When we ran out of book recommendations, we'd walk along the stacks with our eyes closed and pick out whatever we touched and try to read it and like it - sometimes that worked out.

Here's another series I like.  It's a simpler subject matter but I really wish there was an Elm Creek Quilts retreat center in Pennsylvania - I'd sign up in a second!

Anyway, I've always liked to read.  My love of reading helped me pick my college majors (English for the reading and Journalism for the writing).  I would read an entire bookshelf of novels every college semester.

I think I've pretty much read every novel written about Arthurian legend.  I specialized in that for my English degree and have read most of the classics and anything else I could find as well.

Once I graduated and had kids, I was still reading regularly - to my kids - to myself.  I read adult books as well as just about everything in the young adult section and most of the Newberry book winners.  I tried to read everything the kids were assigned in English that I hadn't before read.



This one is a great series too - I've read them all!



Another great series.  I went to west Africa 10 years ago but this series has me dying to visit Mma Ramatswe in Botswana in the south.  Wonderful characters and Alexander McCall Smith can REALLY write his female characters!



So you get it, I love books and I love to read.  A lot of people know this about me.  I talk often of my love of reading with loads of acquaintances and friends.  Bunches of my friends started or were already in book clubs.  Every time I heard of a book club I'd say, "I've always wanted to be in a book club."  That was followed by total silence and a lack of invitations to join.  And believe me, there have been tons and tons of book clubs in the neighborhoods around where I live.  Every time I heard of one, I suggested my interest.  Never have I been invited to join.  I've lived here 18 years.

Yes, it hits a sore spot.  Yes, I'm confused. 

So last month, for the first time EVER I was invited to join a book club.  The club has been going on for years and years - 15 years, maybe longer.  I know almost everyone in it.  It's always been a closed group.  And somehow, it opened and someone asked me to join and I said YES before she could finish her sentence.  She told me what we were reading and I bought it from Amazon, free 2 day shipping (typically I'm a library borrower but I was too excited for that) and had the book finished in 2 days!

The day after I finished the book, I came across a blog post about a girl who wanted to start a very informal blogger book club.  It would just be a group of people who would read a book once a month - any book, blog about it and join the linky party connecting their blog about the book.  There is also a group on GoodReads but I haven't figured all that out just yet.

Nonetheless - YAY!  I feel like at age 50, I finally get to do something I've always dreamed of!  SO SO excited.  We had our first meeting in the neighborhood for the January book club meeting.  There is one other girl that is new to the group - she's also new to the neighborhood and she's a fab gal so I'm excited to join alongside her.

Here's what I read in January:

Here's my review:  I love historical  fiction and I'm always interested to learn about a place or a time period or a historical even that I don't know much about.  Much of the setting of this book was in Spain in the 1500s, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition.  Much of it takes place in a convent.  Some of it carries across the ocean to "new Spain" aka Latin America.  The book covers a lot of angles about women through the centuries and has some interesting characters and stories.  However, there are a LOT of characters who have a lot of stories and sometimes I got a little confused.  The ending wraps up all a bit too nicely, but you want it to do that as much as you don't want it to be predictable.  There are some inconsistencies in characterizations but mostly I really enjoyed the book and was quite blown away by the time span over which the Spanish Inquisition had such an influence!

Here's what I'm going to read for the next neighborhood book group:

We have 2 months to read this one because it's apparently very very long.  AND as an English major I cannot believe I haven't read this.

Because I read fast, and we have 2 months for Middlemarch, I'm also going to try and read this book:

One of my reading goals is to read all the books that are coming out as movies this year and next.

You can find a list of those books by CLICKING HERE and CLICKING HERE.

There are some REALLY awesome books being made into movies.  I can't wait for The Giver, one of my favorite young adult books.

So if you noticed, I added photos of books between my paragraphs - some of my favorites and put a little caption about each one.  I hope you enjoy my referrals.

And I don't think it's too late to join along with the GOOD READS bloggy book group.  There's a button in my side bar that will take you right there to the post about it.

Happy Reading, Sher

PS.  If you need more book selections I could give you LOADS of them.