30-33 Down

Does anyone else remember The Great Space Coaster?  Or am I completely dating myself?

Speed Reader, Speed Reader

How about that 1980s video quality?

I’ve had a lot of airplane and airport time over the past week so I had time to sit and dive into my reading list.  33 down, 17 to go.  Now Good Reads can stop telling me I’m X% behind in my goal of reading 50 books this year.

Even though I read everyday, most days during the week it’s in small snippets – 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there.  So having 2+ hours on a plane is a “treat”.

30:  Let’s get one book out of the way – The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones.  I did not enjoy this book.  It’s an odd story of a family who is preparing for a party and there’s a train accident and the passengers make their way to the Torrington’s country home.  At the end of the book you don’t know if the accident actually occurred and have no idea who the passengers were.  It was like a bad play that never got to the point.

Moving on…

31:  Bride of New France by Suzanne Desrochers.  A great story!  Taking place in 1669, it follows a young orphan (Laure) through her time in Paris’ infamous Salpetiere, a home for orphans, prostitutes, and forgotten men and women, boys and girls.  Laure learns needlework and dreams of becoming a seamstress and to one day marry.  The King of France needs French women sent to a new colony (Canada) to marry the Frenchmen who have been sent to settle the colony.  This is the story of a strong young woman and her journey and the new life she is forced to live.   Desrochers is a PhD candidate and this novel is the product of her research.

32:  The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin.  Another great novel.  Yes, this takes place on an apple orchard but it’s not a story focusing on apples!  It takes place in the Pacific Northwest before roadways and railways connected it to the rest of the country.  William Talmadge is a reclusive orchardist who finds solace in the land and the trees and fruit he cares for.  He grew up with tragedy and is just trying to live his life and keep to himself.  Two teenage girls show up on his land – they are very pregnant and are on the run.  Talmadge eventually takes them in but then the men who are after the girls show up and once more, tragedy strikes but out of tragedy comes more relationships and more life lessons.

This is a very well-written story and one where you care about the characters from page 1.  Side note – this was my book on a 2+ hour flight to Dallas.  And I was in the 2nd to last row of the plane, in a middle seat.  And the people on either side of me were talking to each other – over me.  I’ve become a master at tuning people out!

33:  I See You Everywhere by Julia Glass.  This is the second book by Julia Glass that I’ve read and  I have one more sitting on my bookshelf.  Three Junes was the first book of hers that I read and I really enjoyed it.
I See You Everywhere took a while to get going but once it was rolling, the story just kept picking up and developing.  It’s the story of two sister who are very competitive and polar opposites.  The story flashes between present day and the past – snippets of their up-bringing, and the challenges they face as adults.  Just to warn you, it’s heart-wrenching and sad.  No tears, but I closed the book and felt a little emotionally exhausted.  Sign of a good book?

Who is one of your favorite authors?