May Read Wrap UPS

Remembrance by Rita Woods - 3 Star (Read 4/29 to 5/1)

This was a OUABC book for Feburary.

This was a magical realism book about a place on the Underground Railroad, that no one can find unless you are invited in.  It spans 1791 to present day and follows the lives of three women, and we find in the end how they are all tied together.
I really enjoyed this book, I didn't think I would.  But the writing and the story were beautiful.

Wild land by Rebecca Hodge - 5 Star (Read 5/1 to 5/2)
This was a OUABC book for March.
I almost didn't buy this book, the story sounded so meh to me.  A woman is on vacation and a wildfire happens and she has to save two children and some dogs...meh.  But then I opened it and I started to read it, I absolutely could not put it down, I read it on sitting!  It is beautiful and touching, and the characters are deep and flawed but real. And scenery is so realistic and immersive.  I highly recommend it.  I hope they make this a movie!

Rules for Moving by Nancy Star - 3 Star (Read 5/2 to 5/6)
I received this book as an Advanced Reader's Copy (ARC) through NetGalley. I received this copy free in exchange for my honest review.
Lane writes the advise column “Dear Roxie.” It seems she is fairly popular and there are ads up for her “live chat” all over. This makes Lane uncomfortable, but it was her employer’s decision not hers. Aaron is Lane’s husband, and it seems he is an alcoholic. They are getting a divorce, but haven’t told told the world in general yet. Lane and Aaron get in a fight over a work party he wants her to go to, she still refuses to go and calls him a Lyft. Later that night a policeman shows up to tell her Aaron has died in a car accident. In the aftermath, Lane tries to put her life back together.

This was an ok book for me, I only gave it three stars. There was just a lot going on. It felt like the author wanted to include so many issues, and as a result just mishmashes them all together without really exploring any. I wish she had just focused on Aaron's death and it's effects on Lane and Henry. Lane also really bothered me, I get bring introverted but man, she really had her head in the sand and focused on all the wrong details a lot. And then she would make decisions her character would never make and Star would acknowledge it but be like oh well she made a random decision, and we as readers all know it was just needed for plot movement. If the character doesn't fit the plot, maybe adjust the character?

At All Costs (Honor Harrington #1) by David Weber - 4 Star (Read 5/12 to 5/23)
This was my May BOTM club read, for sci-fi.  It was quite the tomb.  We meet Honor again, out gunned and the underdog.  But as always never count her out. There were some great growth moments in her personal life as well.  I'm not sure I really like the direction Weber went, but I feel he stayed true to Honor's personality in the situation.  I admit, a beloved character dies in the final chapters and I was heart broken.

The Herd by Andrea Barr’s - 3 Star (Read 5/23 to 5/28)
This was a OUABC book for April.
I really struggled with this book, and I almost gave up. This is the story of a high-powered woman that goes missing, and her close friends search for her and uncover lots of mysteries. I had a hard time connecting with the characters, which means the story was dragging for me. And the mystery didn't drawing me in. It was very meh for me.

Her by Harriet Lane - 3 Star (Read 5/30 to 6/2)

This book is told from two points of view, Emma and Nina.  When you first meet them, you think they have very little in common, and you are correct.  However they do have one thing in common, a single event from when they were teenagers, and event that was so minor to one she doesn't remember it.  While it was completely life changing to the other.
I found it interesting that the chapters mirrored each other, one chapter would be told from Emma's point of view, and the next would be the exact same events, but from Nina's point of view.   I found it a fun and interesting story telling style.  I found the mystery engaging, and it kept me turning the pages.  HOWEVER, once we got to the mystery it was a complete let down.  And the events of the final pages was heartbreaking and monstrous, and completely out of proprotion to the supposed crime committed.  This is why it got 3 stars, I wanted to give it 2 based on the ending, but the writing was so good up until the final chapter.

What the Other Three Don’t know by Spencer Hyde (Read 3/3/20 to 3/4/20) – 5 Star

I received this book as an Advanced Reader's Copy (ARC) through NetGalley. It will be published March 3rd, 2020. I received this copy free in exchange for my honest review.

17 year old Indiana, “Indie”, lives with her grandfather. Her Dad left 10 years ago, and her mom died in a rafting accident 2 years ago. She is very jaded and feels very alone. She lives in a small town in Idaho, and by small I mean population 300. Her grandfather is the mortician in the next biggest town Victor, population 2,000. In order to be in the senior journalism class, each student must do a 5 day trip with a group of 3-4 other students from the class, and then write a human interest story about another person on the trip. Indie is going on a rafting trip with 3 other students. Indie needs to write a good story so she can earn a scholarship and make it out of her small town.

On the trip with her is Skye Ellis, a Star athlete that now has a prosthetic leg. He is on the trip because his parents are making him. Wyatt Isom an artist with an abusive drunk for a father. He is on the trip because he wants to boost his GPA to get out of their small town. And Shelby Trumane a popular girl who post a ton of social media pictures. She is on the trip because her friend said it was an easy class. The river guide is Nash, he was the same guide for the trip her mother died on. Nothing on the trip however goes as expected and nobody is who they seem to be, in the end the challenges they face will change all their lives forever.

This was such a well written novel! I enjoyed it so much. I liked the characters and the setting, and it was fast moving but deep, a really nice blend. Breakfast club, but camping!

The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow (Read 2/17/20 to 2/23/20) – 4 Star

I received this book as an Advanced Reader's Copy (ARC) through NetGalley. It will be published February 25, 2020. I received this copy free in exchange for my honest review.

Earth is invaded by the Ilori when Janelle Baker was 15. Janelle is now 17 and she lives in an Ilori prison camp, and she is a librarian of sorts. She loans and finds books for fellow prisoners she calls her patrons. Which Janelle has to do super secretly, because if she is caught sharing books she could be executed by the Ilori. Janelle’s Dad works for the Ilori on the half-solutions program, a monthly mood-enhancing vaccine that turns humans into obedient Ilori servants. Jaenelle’s mother has become a drunk. Commander M0Rr1S is a labmade Ilori, he is the head scientist working on a vaccine. The Ilori plan to cleanse Earth of its pollution for their own habitation, for the true Ilori and make their new colony a truly immersive experience, a vacation planet. M0Rr1S loves human music, and is searching the basement for more of it when he finds Janelle’s library. This kicks off an adventure full of mistrust and earned trust, and finding common ground between species that are never meant to live next to each other. I really enjoyed he characters, and yes it was dystopian sort of, it wasn’t the end of the world. I felt like Dow wanted to write about hope, hope that the world could be different if we set aside some of our prejudice and hate. This was a good book, and I hope there is a sequel.

This Won’t End Well by Camille Pagan (Read 2/14/20 to 2/15/20) – 5 Stars

I received this book as an Advanced Reader's Copy (ARC) through NetGalley. It will be published February 25, 2020. I received this copy free in exchange for my honest review.
This book is told in the format of letters/emails and journal entries written by Annie. Annie’s fiancé Jon has left for France for a month, and requested no contact so he can “get his head on straight” six months before their wedding. Annie is a chemist who just left her job because a co-worker sexually harassed her and is banned from the sanitation chemistry field for 2 years. Jon is a French teacher. While she is unemployed she is cleaning houses to make ends meet. Annie’s mother suffers from depression and Annie lives with her.
Annie is very pessimistic/realist, and her one-liners are very witty. Reminds me a bit of Fredrik Backman, whom I really like his writing g style. It even reminds me a bit of Holly Banks Full of Angst, where there isn’t really anything but daily life happening, but the characters perception and commentary is very enthralling for the reader and we are definitely engaged in the mundaneness.

A Witch in Time by Constance Sayer (Read 1/30/20 to 2/10/20) - 3 Stars

I received this book as an Advanced Reader's Copy (ARC) through NetGalley. It will be published February 11, 2020. I received this copy free in exchange for my honest review. 

Helen Lambert has been set up on a blind date with Luke Varner. It’s going so so. Then he asks her if he looks familiar to her and goes on to tell her this isn’t the first time they have met. They they have met in 1895 in France, 1935 in LA, and 1970 in Taos. Now it is 2012 in Washington DC. Then he says she called her and asked him to do something, and he did. And strangely she remembers doing so.  Then we begin to see flashbacks to Helen's previous lives, and Helen needs to figure out how to end the curse that keeps having her reenact her same first mistake of loving the wrong man.
This was a good book, the first 3rd was really slow and I had a hard time getting into the story, but then it really began to pick up and sprinted to the finish. I really liked all the characters, and the premise. There were some hard scenes especially in Nora’s early life. But overall it was a solid read.

The German Heiress by Anika Scott (Read 1/25/2020 to 1/29/20)

For BOTM this year we decided to do prompts and everyone choose their own books rather than everyone reading the same book.  January's prompt was Historical Fiction, and I chose this book.

I received this book as an Advanced Reader's Copy (ARC) through NetGalley. It will be published April 7, 2020.
Net Galley's description was that this book was "for readers of The Alice Network and The Lost Girls of Paris, an immersive, heart-pounding debut about a German heiress on the run in post-World War II Germany."  BOOM I was sold!

The book takes place after 2 years after WWII had ended in Germany. Clara Falkenberg has false documents saying she is Margarete Müller, but in reality she is an heiress to a pre-war iron working empire. She is in hiding because she is wanted for war crimes for her and her families support of the Nazi’s. Clara is trying to return to Essen to find her best friend Elisa and Elisa’s son Willy. The path she ends up following is full of twists and intrigue, and an ending that hits all the feels and surprises you too.

The opening of the book paints such a bleak picture of post WWII Germany. That is something we rarely think about. We think about the Yay Nazi’s defeated, but what about the other Germans. The ones that weren’t in the military and weren’t necessarily Nazi’s but had to find a way to survive when the Nazi’s were in power. Did they get saved by Adolf’s defeat or were they punished for crimes they had no choice in? Wow this was just a wow book! I’m not sure I even have words, it was so well written and the story was so compelling. None of the characters turned out to be who you thought they were. The depth and breadth of the character development was fantastic, and as any good book should, made me feel all the feels.