This will be a short review. I didn’t like this book. Yawn… here is my book review of The Choice by Nicholas Sparks.
Usually I would put down a book like this, or more likely never start it. But I needed a read and this was all I had at the moment. I know Nicholas Sparks is beloved by many readers, but for me, this is not my kind of book.
Predictable to peril, sappy and silly, the story of two neighbors who fall in love, marry, have kids, endure a tragedy but live happily ever after was boring. I knew at every page what was going to happen next.
My apologies to all those Sparks lovers…I know he has millions of fans. But I need a more challenging read and don’t plan to read anymore by this author.
Chilling and a page turning, Lisa Jewell had me riveted to this book. Creepy yet not horror, and mostly quite believable. Here is my book review of The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell.
A few times in reading this book I was reminded of The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. It’s not exactly the same, but there were a few similarities. Mostly the fact that a stranger comes and literally takes over the house and family, eventually to peril.
Libby Jones, adopted as a baby, finally learns at 25 years old that she has inherited a house. The sole heir of a mysterious house that has witnessed murder, disappearance and intrigue.
Libby befriends a local journalist and together they begin to unravel the incredible tale of Cheyne Walk, a long abandoned mansion in the fashionable Chelsie neighborhood of London.
But Libby will be astonished to learn who her birth parents were, how they were manipulated by an unusual family who moved in upstairs and that she has a brother and sister she has never known. Her parents were murdered, no one was ever convicted and the siblings were never found. Are they dead? Where are they?
The Family Upstairs brings together three families, their lives and loves, their insanity and dark secrets.
****Four stars for The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
Holy Cow this book taught me so much. And the biggest thing it taught me is how important telling the truth in the beginning is. How important it is for government and science to gain and retain the public’s trust and be truthful. The truth was held back in the 1918 Influenza and it certainly was held back in 2020.
Fascinating in scope and presentation, Barry manages to present a hugely difficult topic in a way that any lay person can understand. The vast research done for this book, the amount of detail and insight is truly remarkable. Barry starts at the beginning and takes the reader (or listener in my case as I did this one on Audible) week by week as the virus spread from the United States around the world. Killing in the end at least 100 million people.
The 1918 epidemic was the first clash of science and a virus, at a time of war, a time of burgeoning medical science and a time of very poor leadership in the Whitehouse.
The what ifs are in the hundreds. But did we learn anything from this fatal time in our history? Apparently not.
Read it. It will truly help you understand what we are dealing with in the world today. Five stars for John Barry’s The Great Influenza.
The link below is an affiliate link, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a comission if you click through and make a purchase. Thank you.
A year end review of reading. I did it. I set a goal last July to read 75 books in a year. And I did it, I read 83 books. Nearly all these books I read on Kindle while we were traveling. A couple were on Audible and a few were good old fashioned paperbacks. I enjoy books in all three applications.
Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve found it a bit difficult to stay focused on a book. My mind wanders a lot. But I still was able to meet my goal, and I also wrote one book review blog a week over the past year.
I don’t think I’ll set a goal for next year. I’m just gonna read for the love of reading. We can see a year from now how that turned out.
Reading Wednesday
I love that our Reading Wednesday feature on this blog is one of the most popular things about My Fab Fifties Life. If I can inspire you to get lost in a book, my job is done here. And hopefully a year end review of reading can do just that.
Although I gave five stars to many of the books I read, below is a list of my most favorite of the 83. In fact in the list below are five that I can say are some of the best books I have ever read…and that is saying a lot.
For a year end review of reading I’ve put those five at the top, and then below that the rest are listed randomly. I hope you can find a favorite of your own amongst this list and I thank you for your continuing support of Reading Wednesday and My Fab Fifties Life.
The Immoralists by Chloe Benjamen – if you were told when you were a child the exact day you would die, how might it affect everything about your life? So is the question Benjamen explores in the brilliant and unique novel The Immoralists. I loved this story.
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn – Just after the end of WWII a young, unmarried and pregnant Charlie goes in search of her missing cousin in Europe. Her search will lead her to horror stories of the war and eventually to her true family and friends. I loved this book.
11/22/63 by Stephen King – I never read Stephen King so I was shocked to find that this story became one of my favorite reads ever. Not just about the assassination of JFK on 11/22/63, but an unequaled time travel book about the choices we might consider if we could go back and change history – would we do it and what would the consequences be. I loved this book.
The Testaments – by Margaret Atwood – Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale continues to rank as one of my favorite books of all time, even after 30 years. So it was with both excitement and trepidation that I waited for the release of the sequel (finally). It was worth the wait. Every bit as compelling and incomparable, even pulling in some subtle nods to the politics of the USA in 2020. I loved this book.
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd – Kidd’s bold re-telling of the story of Jesus once again shows her chutzpa as a writer, her creative ability and incomparable talent to take the reader on a well-worn journey with an absolutely fascinating new twist. I love Kidd’s work and The Book of Longings did not dissapoint. I loved this book.
It was hard for me to only choose five for the list above. Because there were so many good ones this year. Here are 14 more of the very best from the 83 books I finished this year.
I wasn’t sure I liked this book in the beginning. In fact I put it aside to read another book and eventually came back to it and started again. And I am glad I did. I really did enjoy this story.
We are introduced to Vale, a young woman living in New Orleans but raised in Vermont. Vale is estranged from her mother, but when her mom Bonnie goes missing during the 2011 Tropical Storm Irene, Vale returns to Vermont and her roots.
Returning home for the first time in eight years, Vale rediscovers the poverty stricken region of Heart Spring Mountain, home to three generations of women before her. Through her search for her mother, Vale will find lost family history and secrets, understanding of pain and love from the past, and a love of her own. Vale will see for the first time the connection her ancestors have with the mountain, how it shaped them and thus her own life and the life of her missing mother.
Beautifully written story of family ties, fractures small and deep, and healing.
****Four stars for Heart Spring Mountain by Robin MacArthur
Spectacular. I love Erik Larson’s writing and although my favorite is still Devil in the White City, The Splendid and the Vile was remarkable.
I listened to this book on Audible and I recommend it for that….it is a very detail oriented story of Winston Churchill’s life and leadership during WWII and for me, the perfect kind of story to be performed on Audible.
This book could easily have been called Churchill Myth and Legend. I learned so much about this remarkable man; his idiosyncrasies, brilliant mind, clever strategies, courageous leadership and remarkable oratory abilities – all strengths that helped him keep England out of the German’s hands. The entire world owes much to Winston Churchill still today.
Listening to this book during the Covid-19 outbreak I found so many parallels to the current world crisis. Two different kinds of war. I kept coming back to the fact that wars can often be won by sheer will…but only if a true leader can keep the spirits of the nation high through courageous oratory and patriotism…none of which I see from the leader of the USA.
The Splendid and the Vile is astonishing in its scope, extraordinary in its historic detail and noteworthy in its ability to bring Churchill right into your living room.
*****Five stars for The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
Gates, co-founder of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is a talented writer and her eloquently told stories of people she has met through her work around the globe is an inspiring read.
As a world traveler myself, I have witnessed stark poverty, extreme sexism, lack of education and powerful caste systems. I look upon these things and feel helpless at what I can do.
Gates looks upon them and develops data and brings the issues to our attention, in her determined and candid narrative.
Through the inspiring stories she tells, including many personal stories of her own background and marriage, the overall message is clear – if you want to lift up a society you must start by supporting and lifting the women and girls.
Ann Patchett is definitely one of my favorite authors. I have loved several of her books; State of Wonder, Bel Canto, Commonwealth and now The Dutch House.
I really love how the story is told by Danny, and his point of view of his sister Maeve and how their lives unfolds. The tight bond of the siblings and their exile from their childhood home defines everything about their lives and is the premise of the book.
Maeve, the older and protective sister lacks initiative although she is brilliant. She deals constantly with poor health. Danny, the younger looks to Maeve throughout his life, and has difficulty finding his own peace from the events of their past.
The story unfolds over five decades, wrapping around one house, and how that house and decisions made by people associated with it define the lives of Maeve and Danny – for better and for worse.
A central character, the evil step-mother, I found downright chilling. Patchett’s development of that women reminding of someone I used to know. Frightening. Another character, the real mother, I found less believable and not as plausible.
Patchett is a wonderful storyteller and I enjoyed this book as much as all her other novels I have read.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Five stars for The Dutch House. Read last week’s review of The Testaments.
From time to time I have moments that catch my breath when I think of a few near death experiences I have had in my life. The four moments that occasionally remind me of how lucky I am to still be kicking around. Three of these occurred in a car and one on a horse – inches and seconds from disaster.
In her memoir I Am, I Am, I Am, O’Farrell looks back on her own life where she can count 17 separate incidents of stepping too close to her own death. Several instances the reader can easily relate to, while others seem unfathomable to most of us.
But the part of the book that caught me somewhat off guard was the story of O’Farrell’s adult life struggle to keep her own daughter alive. A day to day process that involves constant monitoring of every item her daughter eats, breaths, touches…as O’Farrell and her family deal with a child with severe immune-system disorder.
This is the first time I have read O’Farrell’s work although she has numerous memoirs and novels. I enjoyed this story dispite it’s sometimes gut-wrenching detail.
This book kept popping up at shops around Myanmar while I was visiting there last month. I had read Orwell in high school (1984 and Animal Farm) but never any more. But I picked up this paperback and decided to check it out.
First of all it was clearly a pirated book. Although the cover looked like a Penguin Classic Book, the inside was printed poorly on cheap paper and within the first few chapters it began to fall apart. Oh well, I just kept trying to hold the book together.
Written in 1934 the book is a fictional tale of the waning days of the British Colonial period in Burma (now Myanmar). This is a time when Burma was ruled by Britian from Delhi as part of British India.
Orwell himself spent time in Burma, so the book (his first) is based on his first hand experience there.
The book uses serious racist language that today is completely frowned upon, and reflects the true superior British societal approach to the people of Burma. The debasing effect the empire had on the native people of the time is frankly, disgusting.
But I’m glad I read it. Even though Britian eventually revoked it’s colonial rights through out the region as well as in other regions, the deep scar Britian left is still today part of life in Myanmar and in other countries like India. Colonialism was and is a blight on people of the world and Burmese Days spells it out in a sad and honest tale of the people who were there.
⭐️⭐️⭐️Three stars for Burmese Days. Read last week’s review of Remarkable Creatures.
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