Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic 50 Book Challenge 2018/What I've Read in 2018

#16 The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion


This was lots of fun to read.

Joan

#17 The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion


This one had some fun moments along with some very awkward ones. This story was okay but I liked the first one more.

14. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya

Six-year-old Antonio becomes the protege of Ultima, an elderly curandera, in a small town in New Mexico in the mid-1940's.

This book is sometimes taught in English classes, but it was never on the curriculum when I was in high school. I checked it out of the library I run and read it recently. It's part coming-of-age story and part spiritual journey, and I found the spiritual journey part most interesting.

15. The River Nymph, by Shirl Henke

A decade after the Civil War, lady gambler Delilah Raymond wins a high-stakes game of poker against Confederate veteran Clint Daniels, taking his steamboat, which she intends to use to transport goods down the Missouri to the mining towns of the West. Daniels outmaneuvers her, though, and she winds up making the journey with him.

This is one of my favorite books by this author. It's the first in the River Nymph trilogy, though a better name for the trilogy would probably be "War is Hell," since that is the main theme throughout the series. Delilah is a widow, having lost her husband in the Civil War, and has lived by her wits (and with the help of her uncle's gun) since then. Clint is a veteran of the Confederate side, though he had no use for slavery. He also has a dark secret from his days as a "galvanized Yankee." Throughout the book, it's a question of whether he will be able to maintain the facade of civilization, or whether his journey back into the "heart of darkness" will cause him to revert to the savagery that ended his time in the western territories before. (Yes, Heart of Darkness is referenced in this novel.)

16. Spirit's Song, by Madeline Baker

In 1873, Kaylynn Summers is a runaway wife with a sizable bounty on her head (her wealthy, abusive husband really wants her back -- to teach her who she belongs to), who has been a captive of the Cheyenne for 8 months. Jesse Yellow Thunder is a half-breed bounty hunter who comes across her by accident in the Cheyenne camp and wins her in a horse race.

This is a well-written, sometimes humorous, and often sweet love story. Kaylynn is terrified of men after her experience with her husband, but learns to trust Jesse (and another would-be bounty of his, an incompetent half-Lakota bank robber named Ravenhawk). Sometimes more interesting than the romance story is the bromance between Jesse and Ravenhawk, who put aside their differences for the sake of Kaylynn, who sometimes gets in over her head.

17. The Midwife, by Gay Courter

Hannah Blau is a Jewish midwife-in-training at the Imperial College in Moscow in 1904 when an urgent missive from her mother brings her back to her childhood home in Odessa. Following the worst pogrom in Odessa's history, the family makes the decision to immigrate to America, where Hannah fights another type of prejudice (the medical establishment's prejudice against midwives) to become one of the most sought-after midwives in early 20th century New York.

This novel blended the the history of both pre-revolution Russia and early 1900's New York City with the story of a young woman overcoming incredible odds to not only survive, but succeed in her chosen career. Hannah is based in a large part upon the experiences of the author's grandmother, Anna Bialo Weisman, and Ms. Courter did a good job of mixing fact and fiction.

#18 Odd Child Out by Gilly MacMillan


Okay story - not a compelling read.

this is a very interesting topic

#19 Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety by Judith Warner


Lots of interesting ideas there. Some I agreed with. Others - hell no.

Joan

I think so too

18. The Fall: Tales from the Apocalypse, edited by Matt Sinclair

This was an entertaining anthology of stories about end-of-the-world scenarios. Some of them are unusual, such as the story of a zombie apocalypse told from the POV of BBC (Big Black Cat).

19. Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen

After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the Canadian wilderness, learning to survive initially with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.

This is one of the books assigned to kids in middle school that wasn't part of the curriculum when I was that age. I read it recently on the advice of one of my students, who checked it out and re-read it because she remembered enjoying it. She was right. This tale of survival and learning was well-written, well-researched, and overall excellent. I'd read other books by this author, but not this one. (Now I will have to check out and read the others.)

20. When Lulu was Hot: a Cajun Prequel Novel, by Sandra Hill

No one knows how old Louise Rivard, the notorious Cajun folk healer/matchmaker, really is. Nor do they know what happened to make her the way she is today, bless her bleeding heart. How did she get the name of Tante or Aunt, when she’s no aunt to any of the LeDeux clan? And what is this secret she’s hidden for more than fifty years?

This novel, set in Louisiana during World War II, tells the origin story of Tante Lulu, the elderly meddler/matchmaker of Sandra Hill's Cajun series. It tells about the great love of her life and how she came to be part of the LeDeux family. Parts are funny, parts are sad, and the ending was unexpected. My only quibble is with a bit of math -- no baby conceived in April of 1944 is going to be born in January of 1946. (That may be a typo, though -- January of 1945 is entirely believable.)

That sounds like a good one. I'll have to check it out.


#20 Born a Crime by Trevor Noah


This was a very entertaining read. He's very funny as he discusses things such as white church and black church and how a person must be tackled by the preacher to fully drive out the evil in him.

#21 The Perfect Girl by Gilly MacMillan


I was not impressed by this book. Any story where so much effort is put into describing physical appearances should tip me off that there's not much depth.

21. The Midwife's Advice, by Gay Courter

This is sequel to the novel The Midwife, in which the titular midwife expands her practice to become a sex therapist. The novel is set in New York City between 1913 and 1923, and includes a lot of historical events, including the fight for birth control, World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the influenza epidemic.

22. A Madness so Discreet, by Mindy McGinnis

Grace Mae knows madness. She keeps it locked away, along with her voice, trapped deep inside a brilliant mind that cannot forget horrific family secrets. Those secrets, along with the bulge in her belly, land her in a Boston insane asylum. When her voice returns in a burst of violence, Grace is banished to the dark cellars, where her mind is discovered by a visiting doctor who dabbles in the new study of criminal psychology. With her keen eyes and sharp memory, Grace will make the perfect assistant at crime scenes. Escaping from Boston to the safety of an ethical Ohio asylum, Grace finds friendship and hope, hints of a life she should have had. But gruesome nights bring Grace and the doctor into the circle of a killer who stalks young women. Grace, continuing to operate under the cloak of madness, must hunt a murderer while she confronts the demons in her own past.

I've noticed an overriding theme in this author's work -- young women with abusive or otherwise dark pasts who prove capable of amazing acts of violence. These aren't the sort of revenge-themed stories one might expect, though -- there's always the question of whether an act of violence was really right, and the novels delve deeply into life's shades of gray.

23. How Do Birds Find Their Way? by Roma Gans

I won this book in a drawing at a conference I went to, and since the reading level was too low for high school, I took it home and read it to my 7-year-old niece. The information is presented simply, talking about birds finding their way using landmarks and the position of the sun and stars. It also speculates on birds using the Earth's magnetic field to guide them when migrating.

24. Not a Drop to Drink, by Mindy McGinnis

Lynn knows every threat to her pond: drought, a snowless winter, coyotes, and, most importantly, people looking for a drink. She makes sure anyone who comes near the pond leaves thirsty, or doesn't leave at all. Confident in her own abilities, Lynn has no use for the world beyond the nearby fields and forest. Having a life means dedicating it to survival, and the constant work of gathering wood and water. Having a pond requires the fortitude to protect it, something Mother taught her well during their quiet hours on the rooftop, rifles in hand. But wisps of smoke on the horizon mean one thing: strangers. The mysterious footprints by the pond, nighttime threats, and gunshots make it all too clear Lynn has exactly what they want, and they won’t stop until they get it.

In a future world where water is scarce, a source of drinkable water is something worth killing over, and Lynn and her mother, Lauren, are no strangers to destroying any threats to their pond. Anyone who approaches the pond is driven away or killed -- no questions asked. Then Lynn finds herself alone, with only a distant neighbor and a family of starving people who don't know how to survive nearby.

I liked this book, but some questions were never answered -- specifically, why is water so scarce? Maybe the sequel, A Handful of Dust, will supply the answer.

#22 When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan T. Anderson

This is a controversial one. I felt the author's points were solid.

Joan

25. In a Handful of Dust, by Mindy McGinnis

In this sequel to Not a Drop to Drink, the protagonist of that book, Lynn, travels with the girl she adopted, Lucy, in search of the rumored desalinization plants and normalcy in California. Since they are in Ohio, it's a long trip, with dangers from man, beast, and nature.

I liked the concept of these books (basically, they're post-apocalyptic westerns), but there are too many things that don't add up. The book says there's a shortage of water, but never really shows it, except to state that the water was turned off in the cities. There seem to be ample lakes, rivers, and streams, except in the desert (where lack of water is the norm in real life). The lack of research where medical issues are concerned stood out, too:


Some parts of this book remind me of other dystopias, namely The Road, Soylent Green, The Stand, and The Handmaid's Tale.

26. O, Juliet, by Robin Maxwell

This book is a novelization of the story of Romeo and Juliet, but set in Florence, Italy on the cusp of the Renaissance. The story plays out in much the same way (and ends the same way), but Romeo and Juliet are quite a bit older (he's 25, she's 18, which was apparently quite normal for marriage in 15th century Florence), and Juliet's betrothed (named Jacopo Strozzi in this version) is the villain of the piece. Both Romeo and Juliet are poets, and there are multiple quotes from Dante Alighieri (and not The Divine Comedy, either, but rather The New Life, or La Vita Nuova, which tells the story of his love for a woman named Beatrice Portinari).

I learned a lot from this book, both about the background of the story (there are similar tales from all over the world) and about Renaissance Florence. I also learned a lot about Dante. Amazingly, I'd never known about La Vita Nuova, despite working as a librarian for 17 years. (I did know about The Divine Comedy, and that one is actually fairly popular amongst my teenage students.)

27. The Trial of Mary Lou, by Ron Carter

One warm June day back in 1931, Mary Lou Hubbard took the worn family Winchester .30-30 from the peg on the wall of her family's cabin in Settlement, Idaho. Her sights rested on the form of Corvis Lumley rowing his way across the Snake River. He was intent on making trouble, and Mary Lou knew it. Although she loaded only enough ammunition to sink Lumley's boat and humiliate him as he sunk 20 yards from shore, he wasn't going to let her get away with it. Lumley claimed attempted murder, and so began the trial of Mary Lou Hubbard -- a trial that brought together the unlikely combination of a Harvard graduate, an eighty-nine-year-old defense counselor, and a grizzled old clerk who wore the judge's black robes because the judge refused to.

This book was pretty funny. The slick new lawyer from Boston, eager to make a name for himself, discovers how things are done in the back country. In the process, he discovers how much he doesn't know, all in a farcical manner.

#23 The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken


My kids like this series and have been recommending it for a while. With the movie version coming up, I thought it would be good to read the book first. It's a good story but I wouldn't rank it as high as The Hunger Games.

28. Stolen Child, by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Stolen from her family by the Nazis, Nadia is a young girl who tries to make sense of her confusing memories and haunting dreams. Bit by bit she starts to uncover the truth — that the German family she grew up with, the woman who calls herself Nadia's mother, are not who they say they are. Beyond her privileged German childhood, Nadia unearths memories of a woman singing her a lullaby, while the taste of gingersnap cookies brings her back to a strangely familiar, yet unknown, past. Piece by piece, Nadia comes to realize who her real family was. But where are they now? What became of them? And what is her real name?

During World War II, Hitler encouraged German women to have as many children as possible to populate the newly conquered lands with what he considered to be the master race. However, he was stymied by biology, so the Lebensborn program was begun, where young Polish and Ukrainian girls who had the right blonde-haired, blue-eyed looks were taken from their families and placed with German families. By the time the war was over, many were so brainwashed (or had been adopted so young that they remembered nothing else) that they didn't want to return to their birth families.

This is the story of a 12-year-old Ukrainian Lebensborn girl who immigrates to Canada in 1950 after five years in a Displaced Persons camp. The people she calls her parents are not the ones she was born to, nor the German couple who adopted her, but they are her family now. As she adapts to her new life in Canada, she begins to remember things from her earlier childhood.

29. This Darkness Mine, by Mindy McGinnis

Sasha Stone knows her place—first-chair clarinet, top of her class, and at the side of her oxford-wearing boyfriend. She’s worked her entire life to ensure that her path to Oberlin Conservatory as a star musician is perfectly paved. But suddenly there’s a fork in the road, in the shape of Isaac Harver. Her body shifts toward him when he walks by, her skin misses his touch even though she’s never known it, and she relishes the smell of him—smoke, beer, and trouble—all the things she’s avoided to get where she is. Even worse, every time he’s near Sasha, her heart stops, literally. Why does he know her so well—too well—and she doesn’t know him at all? Sasha discovers that her by-the-book life began by ending another’s: the twin sister she absorbed in the womb. But that doesn’t explain the gaps of missing time in her practice schedule or the memories she has of things she certainly never did with Isaac. As Sasha loses her much-cherished control, her life—and heart—become more entangled with Isaac. Armed with the knowledge that her heart might not be hers alone, Sasha must decide what she’s willing to do—and who she’s willing to hurt—to take it back.

This book is really disturbing. Sasha Stone believes that her heart is her twin sister's, and that's why she's going against what she's always worked for -- her sister's heart is claiming what it wants, and what it wants is bad. You're never quite sure what the truth is, and whether to root for Sasha or against her.

#24 IGen-Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy- and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood by Jean M. Twenge

The author makes good points about the impact of technology (specifically phones) are having on the current generation.

#25 The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena


The author pulled out all the stops on this one. And in the process compromised the overall story. An okay read but not one of the better ones of this genre.

#26 The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck


This story focuses on the lives of three widows after the war - the choices they made and the consequences of them.

#27 Ready Player One by Ernest Cline


I love reading the book and then seeing the movie but this time I did it backwards. I found the movie and the book to differ yet both be entertaining. I felt there was potential to have more social commentary but that wasn't the primary focus of the story.

30. The Royal Maccabees Rocky Mountain Salvation Company, by Ron Carter

A con artist realizes that a group of Blackfoot Indians is buying moonshine with enormous gold nuggets and decides to con them out of their fortune. However, for all that he tries to think of himself as just out for his own good, his cons frequently wind up helping people. In spite of himself, a lot of people (including the Blackfoot) see good in him. A humorous, if somewhat strange, read.

31. So Far From Heaven, by Richard Bradford

SO FAR FROM HEAVEN is the story of the Tafoya clan, a Chicano family with a flair for misadventure. The Tafoyas include a physician philosopher, a radical daughter with a degree from Bryn Mawr, a clumsy, stupid son, and a governor of New Mexico.

The title comes from a quote by Manuel Armijo, governor of Nuevo Mexico in 1841: "Poor New Mexico! So far from heaven; so close to Texas."

The book starts with disgraced Texas executive David Reed driving through the night as fast as he can, headed west and nowhere, fueled by coffee and the strange notion that if he only goes fast enough, he will experience some sort of breakthrough -- which he does, when he swerves to avoid a jackrabbit, goes through a fence, and winds up with a concussion. After being rescued by Cruz Tafoya, a rancher/physician, David accompanies him to his ranch in New Mexico, where he regains his equilibrium (and his moral compass), all the while having nightmares about his former boss, Clyde Clifton Cotton, a land buyer who dabbles in oil, natural gas, sugar beets, housing developments, and whatever else happens to catch his fancy (always to the detriment of whoever he buys the land from). Meanwhile, New Mexico is undergoing change (the book was written in the early 1970s), including a radical grassroots movement that


This is one of my favorite books -- it's funny, heartwarming, and infuriating at turns, and definitely worth reading.