Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic 50 Book Challenge 2015/What I've Read in 2015

#44 Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

I loved "To Kill a Mocking Bird". Given what I heard about this book, I wasn't expecting much. It was the same characters but it just didn't work for me. It breaks my heart to hear Atticus Finch saying such things as he doesn't want blacks in office. It just seems wrong.

Joan

It's been too long since I've updated this.

Christine
Pet Semetary
The Tommyknockers
The Shining
Salem's Lot

I did enjoy my revisiting of some of Stephen King's early classics. So much so, that I bought Dr. Sleep as well as 11.22.63 for myself for Christmas.

Nellie (Brides of San Franciso I - Cynthia Woolf

Dedicated Romance isn't normally my go to genre (I like it to be a major part of other genres like Fantasy or Thrillers). But something about this one intrigued me when it appeared on my free Kindle book list, so I gave it a go.

It was a simple, undemanding read, but I did enjoy it - right up until the last 10 pages when the author seemed to lose interest and wrapped everything up at breakneck speed with maximum contrivance. I was particularly aggrieved about a particular conflict being resolved by a major heel turn by a character who had been presented throughout as a thorough villain. But...ha ha...it was all a joke, didn't mean it. Um...yeah. Okay.

All Creatures Great and Small
All Things Bright and Beautiful
All Things Wise and Wonderful
The Lord God Made Them All
Every Living Thing

I fell in love with 'James Herriot's 'little cat and dog tales' back when I was a teen and they were first published. For some reason, I'd missed that another two volumes had been published in later years, so I picked up no. 4. So thoroughly enjoyed the nostalgia trip and reacquainting myself with these wonderful little stories of his life as a vet from the 30s to 50s in the Yorkshire Dales, that I bought the Kindle editions of the rest and had a real wallow.

Whether they are poignant, tragic, joyous, laugh out loud funny - the abiding thing that comes across and links all of the tales is Heriott's obvious, deep and abiding affection for the animal and human characters that shared his life and for the vast, sweeping landscape they lived in.

LabRat

When No One Is Watching - Joseph Hayes


A competently written thriller, which was all the more entertaining for not going in the cliched direction I assumed it would. It loses a few points for having an ending that was all sorts of contrived, but that didn't spoil it.

LabRat

#45 The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love—and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

I didn't like the main character of this book but the author did a wonderful job describing his world and the events that shaped him.

Joan

#46The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty

Leigh is the mother of high-achieving, popular high school senior Kara. Their relationship is already strained for reasons Leigh does not fully understand when, in a moment of carelessness, Kara makes a mistake that ends in tragedy -- the effects of which not only divide Leigh's family, but polarize the entire community. We see the story from Leigh's perspective, as she grapples with the hard reality of what her daughter has done and the devastating consequences her actions have on the family of another teenage girl in town, all while struggling to protect Kara in the face of rising public outcry.

I haven't read anything by this author before. This was an engaging story about relationships. I'm going to look for more of her books.

Joan

#47 Unwind by Neal Shusterman

The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of the child's organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn't technically end. Connor is too difficult for his parents to control. Risa, a ward of the state, is not enough to be kept alive. And Lev is a tithe, a child conceived and raised to be unwound. Together, they may have a chance to escape and to survive.

Definitely a YA book but it brings up intriguing questions. It's at least a trilogy so I'll try the others.

Joan