Current Reads

I am almost finished with Me Before You by Jojo Moyes and it has been incredibly good. It's about a somewhat aimless young woman whose lack of money forces her to take a job as a caregiver to a wheelchair bound man--who does not want to live anymore. It builds slowly and hits all the good emotional buttons (for me at least) without being manipulative. I have no idea how it's going to turn out, but it has been a very good read. Recommend.

I'm currently reading Julia Gregson's Jasmine Nights which is hitting all my "love amidst war and espionage" buttons. The war is WWII, the setting is North Africa, and the lovers are a hot shot pilot and a singer.

Also, I know there are a lot of fans of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and the digital edition is on sale for $2.99 at Amazon, Sony, and Kobo.

I'm reading Bring Up the Bodies and it's even better than Wolf Hall. Just excellent. The final book in this trilogy is going to gut me, I just know it.

I'm also reading Crime and Punishment. I should say I'm rereading it, since I read it for homework in 12th grade, but I didn't like it much then so I thought I'd try again. It's so much better than I remembered. The one really odd detail that's sticking out to me is that none of the characters eat anything but pie or drink anything but vodka. Every meal is pie and vodka. Weird.

VodouDoll wrote:I'm reading Bring Up the Bodies and it's even better than Wolf Hall. Just excellent. The final book in this trilogy is going to gut me, I just know it.

Those two books are being turned into plays at the Royal Shakespeare Company this year - I'm super psyched for them.

Going back to my Gillian Flynn marathon, Sharp Objects really blew me away - loved it so much more than the other two.

I guess that started me on a crime fiction kick, because I finally read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which was not at all what I expected from all the hype. I loved how it was like three stories (the mystery, the magazine thing, and Lisbeth) in one and how they ended up coming together. Are the second and third books as good?

I think every book in the Millennium trilogy is equally enjoyable and addictive. I sped through all of them as quickly as they came in at the library! I can't really say that I remember any of them, but that's how it goes with most everything I read, honestly.

I like all three in the trilogy, though I think the first is the best. They are all worth reading.

Just into How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran. It's funny, irreverent, sometimes angry, always self-deprecating. I'm enjoying it. Whether I agree with her positions (on porn, on brazilian waxing) or disagree (using the c-word--um, no), I just want to keep turning the pages. And I want to go bar-hopping with her too.

Has anyone read Building Stories by Chris Ware? None of the libraries around me have it so I'm trying to decide if it's worth the $30 to order on amazon. I've heard such good things, but...$30. Yea or nay?

I had to go to Dublin yesterday so I took Jude Morgan's Indiscretion with me to read on the train and I read the entire thing between the two journeys. It was so enjoyable. It's another regency story, but very well written and really the characters could be set anywhere so you don't feel like you're reading another clichéd story with rakes and the sheltered young women who love them. I think it was big chicken who recommended his other book An Accomplished Woman to me a few years ago and I read it and wasn't disappointed. So I was delighted to find this one in the library last week.

My reading progress has been completely stunted by my acquisition of an iPhone. What's something fast-paced that will be impossible for me to put down once I start reading? I need a kickstart!

I picked up Just One Day by Gayle Forman from the library. It's part Before Sunrise, part Anna and the French Kiss, but I don't even care. It's so spot on to that time of your life where you're trying to figure out who you are vs. who everyone else thinks you are/wants you to be, and just how hard it is to navigate. Parts of felt so real, it hurt to read. I'm about 2/3 of the way through, and I know I'm going to be so sad when this book ends.

mokey75 wrote: Parts of felt so real, it hurt to read.

That's Forman in a nutshell. She is brilliant.

I loved her last two books. Bawled my eyes through If I Stay and was very very teary reading Where She Went. I couldn't show my face for a bit afterwards because of the whole red eyes, sniffles carry on.

Yeah, I loved If I Stay and Where She Went, so I was kind of wary of getting this one. But it's really brilliant. And I plan to finish it today, so I don't end up bawling on the bus thanks to her writing. Again.

I got a new phone and forgot to get my epically long book list off my old one - devastating! But thank heavens for all yall, because I just went through this thread (and Book Recommendations) and started to rebuild my list.

I'm reading Red Seas Under Red Skies, which is enjoyable so far. But I just got word that Tell the Wolves I'm Home is finally available for e-checkout (I love my library!) so I will probably switch to that for now.

QueenSix wrote:I had to go to Dublin yesterday so I took Jude Morgan's Indiscretion with me to read on the train and I read the entire thing between the two journeys. It was so enjoyable. It's another regency story, but very well written and really the characters could be set anywhere so you don't feel like you're reading another clichéd story with rakes and the sheltered young women who love them. I think it was big chicken who recommended his other book An Accomplished Woman to me a few years ago and I read it and wasn't disappointed. So I was delighted to find this one in the library last week.

I enjoyed both of those books as well. I think I saw that Jude Morgan has another regency novel coming out this spring--IIRC, it's called The Folly.
My current read (at least, it's at the top of my to-be-read pile) is Unladylike Pursuits, by Alyssa Goodnight, also a regency novel (one of my favorite genres, but it's hard to find a really well written one--this one looks promising, though!).

To the poster above who mentioned Julia Gregson--have you read her earlier novel, East of the Sun? It's my favorite of her books (I've read three, as far as I know that's what she's had published).

stargirl, I agree, it is hard to get a good Regency story sometimes. I suppose it's no more than the YA genre when they get some successful tropes and everybody goes wild with them with varying degrees of success.

When I handed in my library card to get out some books this week, they told me I had to renew it so I did. It cost me all of TWO EURO! The thought of all those books ready for me to take home for that little nearly had me running around the library, arms outstretched going "WHEEEE!!" like a little kid.
Anyway, I took home six books, I was that excited. Nearly killed me carrying them home but you'll have that.

So I started reading There Is No Dog by Meg Rosoff late last night and I stayed up to finish it. I liked the conceit of the story in that God is actually Bob, a teenage boy who is a slave to his emotions, hence all the crap that happens on Earth. But I didn't like Bob. To be fair, I don't think I was really supposed to. Bob is an ass and the author makes no bones about it. I liked the ending and I'm glad I stuck with it but this seems to be a thing I have with her books. She's a great writer and has some interesting ways as regards style, but either her subject matter or her characters make it hard for me to say I'm really 'enjoying' the book. Like when I read The Bride's Farewell, I seriously had to keep checking that I hadn't somehow ended up with Angela's Ashes Lite. That was a fairly miserable book.

While I respect and like that she goes out there and tries something different for her YA audience, I find it hard to read her stuff sometimes. But I am always interested when she come out with a new book and I keep coming back for more.

Now I'm onto The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. I also got The Fault in our Stars out from the library but I'm saving that until next week when I'm on midterm and won't have to go to Guides/Brownies ready to bawl my eyes out.

Oh! I've had The Language of Flowers on my nightstand for an age. Please tell me if it's worth picking up, or if it's just fine collecting dust!

MaddyCat, I just finished Me Before You. The ending destroyed me though. I've been kind of down lately. But it was excellent.

However I'm reading the Chaperone by Laura Moriarty now, as an anecdote. Its fun so far. Its about a 30 something mother of two who is spending a month chaperoning a teenage Louise Brooks in New York.

I'm about halfway through Going Clear. I thought I knew a lot about Scientology, but I am realizing it is far more horrifying than I ever imagined. L. Ron Hubbard was a batshit crazy monster. And I kind of want to build a blanket fort, drag Beck into it, and give him a hug while trying to talk some sense into him. It's really amazing to see how easily some people were pulled into the cult, but at the same time you can totally see how it happened, how it made sense to them at the time. Scary, scary stuff.

Oh man, ever since I saw the review in Entertainment Weekly, I've been wanting to get my hands on that book!

whatthedeuce wrote:Oh man, ever since I saw the review in Entertainment Weekly, I've been wanting to get my hands on that book!

Seriously, do it. Crazy good reading.

Putting it in my library queue before I forget again!

Kiran wrote:MaddyCat, I just finished Me Before You. The ending destroyed me though. I've been kind of down lately. But it was excellent.

However I'm reading the Chaperone by Laura Moriarty now, as an anecdote. Its fun so far. Its about a 30 something mother of two who is spending a month chaperoning a teenage Louise Brooks in New York.

I'm glad you liked Me Before You and, yes, tears at the ending. But soooo good.

I liked The Chaperone a great deal. It's fun to see this uptight character rediscover herself and unwind a bit.

I am finally reading The Emperor of All Maladies, the biography of cancer that made such a splash in 2011 I think. Maybe 2012. Who can remember? Anyhow, I'm around to it now and it's EXCELLENT. I was especially intrigued by the "history of" part as I've always wondered how cancer was handled back in the dark ages of medicine, so it explained a lot. The history of breast cancer treatment is especially harrowing...like whoa. And the writing is totally engaging, something I was not really expecting, but am happy about, of course!

MaddyCat wrote:Oh! I've had The Language of Flowers on my nightstand for an age. Please tell me if it's worth picking up, or if it's just fine collecting dust!

I haven't finished it yet but I'm finding it very interesting. It's told in a nice readable style first person style and that drew me into the story very quickly. I think it is worth picking up.

MaddyCat wrote:

I am finally reading The Emperor of All Maladies, the biography of cancer that made such a splash in 2011 I think. Maybe 2012. Who can remember? Anyhow, I'm around to it now and it's EXCELLENT. I was especially intrigued by the "history of" part as I've always wondered how cancer was handled back in the dark ages of medicine, so it explained a lot. The history of breast cancer treatment is especially harrowing...like whoa. And the writing is totally engaging, something I was not really expecting, but am happy about, of course!

Sounds good, it's going on my list.