Reading Time

I have noticed that when works gets busy my reading time goes out the window. Usually, it's just because I am too tired at the end of the day to read too much without falling asleep. I was so excited to be able to have 7 hours of uninterrupted reading time when I flew to California last week. It almost makes me want to spend more time on a plane...almost. Unfortunately, the red-eye back to North Carolina was not as conducive to getting reading done.

Where and when do you have the most reading time?

Great Quotes

"Perhaps that is what all human relationships boiled down to: would you save my life or would you take it?"

- Toni Morrison
Song of Solomon

Review - Unfinished Desires - Gail Godwin

From the inside flap:
It is the fall of 1951 at Mount St. Gabriel's, an all-girls school tucked away in the mountains of North Carolina. Tildy Stratton, the undisputed queen bee of her class, befriends Chloe Starnes, a new student recently orphaned by the untimely and mysterious death of her mother. Their friendship fills a void for both girls but also sets in motion a chain of events that will profoundly affect the course of many lives, including the girls' young teacher and the school's matriarch, Mother Suzanne Ravenel.

I enjoyed this book until it got to the 'chain of events' - really one night - that changed everything. I thought the the book lost a little something after that. There is a lot going on in the book - it jumps from the present back into the early fifties and has multiple narrators. I thought the most interesting character was Mother Ravenel and enjoyed the book the most when she was narrating. I was not as fond of the Tildy character - she seemed like a spoiled brat most of the time. It could be that that was the point.

Worth a read.

Title: Unfinished Desires
Author: Gail Godwin
Publisher: Random House
Rating: 3.5/5
Source of book: Library

Review - Hot Springs - Geoffrey Becker

From the inside flap:
Vibrant, sexy, and quite possibly crazy, Bernice is determined to reclaim the child she gave up for adoption five years ago. She convinces her new boyfriend, Landis, to help carry out her plan, but once the abduction is accomplished Bernice - whose own mother was given to manic episodes and strange behavior - is plagued with doubts. Will Landis stay with her, given her volatile personality and his own drifter lifestyle? Will she and Landis both end up in jail for this crime? And, most importantly, will she fail at being a mother?

I am not quite sure what led me to pick up this book to read. The cover is kind of weird and it's probably not something that I would usually be interested in. I am so glad that I found it! The premise was, and still is, very interesting to me. I really liked how the story unfolded from each of the character's perspectives and how the pieces came together. The book reminded me that no person is one thing or one event but really the culmination of all of the things that happen along the way.

That being said, there were two things that bothered me about this book. First, the narrator is different in each chapter. We hear from Bernice, Tessa, and Landis but we never hear from Emily. I would have loved to have a chapter narrated by her to see what she was thinking throughout this situation. Second, I was not really satisfied with why the police weren't called when Tessa and David realized that there daughter was missing. There was an explanation towards the end of the book but I still wasn't really convinced.

Kept me entertained.

Title: Hot Springs
Author: Geoffrey Becker
Publisher: TinHouse Books
Rating: 3/5
Source of book: Library

Add It To The List...

Here are the books added to the list this week -
The Postmistress - Sarah Blake
Very Valentine - Adriana Trigiani
Wench - Dolen Perkins-Valdez
The Ticking is the Bomb -Nick Flynn
The Privileges - Jonathan Dee

What did you add to your reading list this week?

Review - Among the Missing - Dan Chaon

From the inside flap:
In this haunting, bracing new collection, Dan Chaon shares stories of men, women, and children who live far outside the American Dream, while wondering which decision, which path, or which accident brought them to this place. Chaon imagines today's family instinctively trying to stay together, only to find itself lost in the throes of a chaotic, modern world.

It's been a while since I've read a book of short stories. I am so glad that I picked up this book. I think that Dan Chaon creates an amazing array of characters in each of his stories. My favorite story was Prosthesis. The narrator, Suzanne, takes an encounter in a library with a man with a prosthetic arm and turns it into a reflection on her life.

" What if they'd never met? It made her stiffen a bit, because it seemed so governed by chance, so improbable. How many small, offhand choices had let her to the college where they met, had led her to the room where they first looked at one another, had led her to be sad and in need of someone who thought she was beautiful?"

This was a very satisfying read!

Title: Among the Missing
Author: Dan Chaon
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Rating: 3.5/5
Source of book: Library

Great Quotes

I love quotes. For me, they provide endless inspiration and meaning. They can remind me of people, places or things from my past. I have kept a quote book since I was a senior in high school. From time to time, I will share some of my collection with you.


"When it comes to life, we spin our own yarn, and where we end us is really in fact, where we always intended to be."

- Julia Glass
Three Junes

Review - Treasures - Nora Roberts

It turns out that this book is actually two books - Secret Star and Treasures Lost, Treasures Found. I will review them separately.

Secret Star
From the back of the book:
He was standing face-to-face with a dead woman...and she was holding a gun. Lieutenant Seth Buchanan's homicide investigation was thrown into turmoil when Grace Fontaine turned up very much alive - an in possession of one of the huge blue diamonds known as the Stars of Mithra. Seth never let his feelings get in the way of his job...but it was becoming increasingly difficult with no mystery more compelling than that of Grace herself.

I'll admit I didn't have high hopes for this book initially. I chose to read it because I was taking cold medicine before bed and wanted something that was 'easy'. Even in my altered state, I knew that this book was ridiculous. Did it pass the time? Sure. Was it marginally entertaining? Um....kind of. Did it grow more and more ridiculous as the pages went by? Yep. If you are able to suspend all reality when you read a book - this one is for you. If not, I would not waste your time.

Treasures Lost, Treasures Found

From the back of the book:
Kate Hardesty had inherited a dream: a pile of mysterious charts and notebooks mapping the way to sunken treasure. Determined to complete her late father's explorations, she returned to the island where she grew up and hired deep-sea diver Ky Silver - the man she'd left behind four years ago. But working with Ky meant more than searching for gold...it meant finding a priceless treasure Kate hadn't been looking for.

After the last book, this one could only be better. I guess it could have been worse but thankfully, it wasn't. Since I currently live in North Carolina, I am really a sucker for a story that takes place in the state and especially on the Outer Banks. As I read this book, I kept thinking "I've read this before" - I couldn't find the book title on any of my book lists so it may just be that the story is familiar. This book won't change your life but it will provide an escape from your daily life...unless of course you are a university professor that is looking for a shipwreck and buried treasure on Ocracoke Island then this book is your life.

Title: Treasures
Author: Nora Roberts
Publisher: Silhouette Books
Rating: 2.5/5 (Secret Star 2.0/ Treasures Lost, Treasures Found 3.0 so I took the average)
Source of book: Grandma Skip