The Quintland Sisters: A Novel by Shelley Wood (Read 1/27/19 to 1/29/18)

I received this book from Goodreads in a giveaway, it is to be released March of 2019.

This is historical fiction of the lives of the Dionne quintuplets from the point of view of their nurse Emma Trimpany.  At four months of age they were made wards of the state for the next nine years under the Dionne Quintuplets' Guardianship Act, 1935.  The Ontario provincial government and those around them began to profit by making them a significant tourist attraction. Almost 3,000,000 people walked through the gallery (their home) between 1936 and 1943 and brought in more than $50 million in total tourist revenue to Ontario.  Their parents spent the entire time fighting for custody of the sisters. This book covers the years 1934 through 1939.

The story starts out with the babies birth.  Emma is a really easy character to listen to. She is very much focused on the babies and lets a little of the rest of the world go.  I like the writing style. It has a nice smooth flow, and makes it easy to get into the story.  Just the right amount of detail to set the scene, but also allows my imagination to fill in the complete picture. It drew me in from the first page and I had a hard time putting it down.  The story is so fascinating, knowing that it is true made me want to research as I read.  I found myself doing lots of google during and after in order to see pictures of the girls.  I really enjoyed the interspersing of newspaper articles, the research for this book is superb.  The entire story broke my heart from start to finish.

Raising Children with Grit by Laila Y. Sanguras (read 1/24/19 to 1/27/19)

This was a book from Early Reviewers. It grabbed me right from the intro.  “Grit is the combination of passion and perseverance.”  That is an amazing definition and exactly what I want to give my children’s.”  She goes on further to talk about studies and grit  and how grit can effect our children success more than anything.  ”That means that grit, a construct we can help our kids develop, has a greater impact on success than a fairly stable characteristic like IQ.” Wow, just wow.  Then I really knew I was going to find common ground with her because of this:  “If you love the notion recognizing faux achievements, then we should probably (respectfully) part ways because we are fundamentally so different that you will hat me by the end of the book.”  I fundamentally agree with her.

I am a fairly even mix between Authoritative (39%) and Authoritarian (35%) and I would say that is correct.  I try to be firm and “The Parent” but to allow for the ability to develop independence, granting greater freedoms the older they get.  I suspect the Authoritarian parts of my parenting style are what lead to some of the conflicts and issues with my children.  I’m also a free range parent, although I was under the misconception that it meant permissive.  It is described as “a common sense approach. Parents keep their children safe without protecting them too much from life.”  That is my exact goal and policy, although I don’t know that I am always successful at it.  I’m also a consultant parent, because I absolutely believe it is better for a child to make a mistake when the consequences are less than when they are an adult.

It is a small book, but packed with lots of helpful information and ideas.  I think this is one I will come back to time and time again for reference.

Pretty Little World by Elizabeth LaBan and Melissa DePino (Read 1/21/19 to 1/23/19)

This is a Mom’s Book Nook Book of the month. It is the story of three families that tear down their walls literally and combine their three individual homes into a single large home.  My best friend lives 3 houses down from me and we do lots of stuff including holidays together, but sharing a kitchen and living rooms sounds like the end of our friendship to me.

The wives are for,  2 of the 3 husbands are ok with the idea. The hold out changes his mind when he had a medical scare and the crazy commune idea begins.  It went about like how I expected, drama and weirdness, and not really working out.  But only one family was broken up, and that break up really had nothing to do with the commune.  I liked the writing, it was easy and light and the story moves at a good pace.  It felt predictable, but that is ok.  Sometimes it's nice to have a fun light book to read.

Bird Box by Josh Malerman (read 1/20/19)

So this has been on my TBR pile for a while, but it got moved up because of the Netflix movie release. I literally read this on one sitting.  This was so suspenseful and easy to read.  I had to know what happened to her housemates and if she made it to where she was going.  I could not find a stopping place. The writing was so fluid and vivid.  The details so sharp that even with the few given it creates an image that is intense and dark.  I really like the idea of limited imagery, because the characters are blindfolded, and really it much more visceral than that, and the writing invokes that darkness and suspense with an ease, I didn't find it scary, I found it thrilling.

** SPOILERS***

Watched the movie.  They changed so much, the way Malorie joins the house, who is in the house, her sisters name and death. The way she travels down the river. Although John Malcovich as Don/Douglas is amazing casting though, even better than I imagined.  They are on the River much longer than in the book too.

Malorie never would have made one of the kids look at the rapids, the one part where she had to pick the right river fork, she looked. Tom lived past the birth!  What?  Tom’s death so much more dramatic. The kids never disobeyed.  But the ending was perfect.

Bone Street Rumba Series by Daniel Jose Older

Half-Resurrection Blues (read 1/1/19 to 1/11/19)

This is a re-read so I can remember what happens before I read the next two in the series for my original review see http://adventuresofabibliophile.blogspot.com/2015/12/half-resurrection-blues-bone-street.html

This was a much slower read on the second round, I couldn’t seem to get into it as much as the first time I read it.  I also went on vacation, and strangely didn’t have time to read while away. 

Midnight Taxi Tango (read 1/11/19 to 1/14/19)

This picks up a few months after Half-Resurrection Blues, and Carlos is still a bit of an emotional mess.  There is some strange deaths in the park that he is investigating, and this takes him down a very complicated and twisty path of conspiracy and devious actions.  Older is including the points of view this time.  Kia’s and Reza’s viewpoints.  I like  Kia’s character I’m glad she is getting an expanded role.  We also get to meet Reza, who is my favorite character I think.  She has this bad ass attitude, that is absolutely not fake.  She just oozes coolness and is scary too.  It amazes me how well Older is able to switch between point of views for a seamless storytelling.  This could have been very jolted, but his skills as a writer really shine.  This story line goes off into a far more sinister and overreaching plot than the first book.  It was not as lighthearted, but really well done.  It has a lot of twits and turns but wraps up nicely, with room fo rate next one to fill in some blanks.

**SPOILER**

If Sasha killed Carlos originally, does that negate that Carlos killed her brother, so they can be together?  Or does it make things so messed up they will never be together?

Salsa Nocturna: Stories (read 1/14/19 to 1/17/19)

I found this when I went to see if there were more books in the series, it is marked as being book 2.5.  So I didn’t realize that this was a collection of short stories.  And per the introduction really a prequel to Half-Resurrection Blues.  Once you start to read it though, it’s ingenious the way each story can stand alone, yet when read in order make up a much larger story. I had planned to do a blurb for each story, but realizing that each story makes up the part of a bigger picture, I erased my comments.

Battle Hill Bolero (read  1/17/19 to 1/20/19)

I think on this one Older had too many narrators.  I couldn’t get into the story as much because it was made up of too many threads and not enough connections.  I felt like it dragged, although it took me less time to read than some of the others in the series.  But it did wrap the series very nicely.  I’m glad it had a satisfying ending.