Angela Dieckman

Sad yet Hopeful

Revisado: 02-07-23

4.5/5: This was a great read (or listen as I did)! Martin does a wonderful job of filling in her characters so they feel known, including minor ones. While the bookstore is the central point in the story, WWII is the backdrop and the event that keeps the plot moving. It was interesting to learn how extreme the bombings were in London, that citizens slept nightly in tube stations and other air raid shelters in anticipation of nightly bombings. Londoners (and all of England really) suffered greatly in many ways and for years. I particularly liked the picture of the bookstore bringing so many different people together in a unique and strong community, one that ultimately saves one another in the darkest of times.

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Like Eating Your Favorite Dessert

Revisado: 01-01-23

5/5: If, like me, you love Fredrik Backman then you will probably LOVE this book. It is the other contender for my favorite read of 2022 (along with I'm Glad My Mother Died). This has so much charm and warmth and characters you want to know that it's like eating your favorite dessert. Tova Sullivan is a woman you both want to know and who is hard to know. She does not wear her heart on her sleeve, yet her heart has been tattered, even broken, making her exterior a bit hard but her heart very soft. When her son was 18 he disappeared, presumed dead at sea. Thirty years later, Tova, a widow, works at the local aquarium to keep busy which also helps her cope with her losses. What she doesn't expect is to develop a friendship with the aging octopus in residence at the aquarium. I love that Van Pelt tells the story alternating between Tova's point of view and that of Marcellus, the giant Pacific octopus whose days are numbered. Both are slightly curmudgeony, both pay very careful attention to details, both like order and both are longing for something more. As a newcomer to town begins to shake up both Tova and Marcellus' lives, we also get to see how family can sometimes be created out of need (not blood) and what real love looks like.

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Murdery & Science-Fictiony

Revisado: 01-01-23

4.25/5: This is tied for my second favorite book of 2022. It's an interesting mix of murdery/psychological thriller and science-fiction. Jen watches out the window as her easy-going teen son murders a man. When she awakes the next day, it isn't the next day, it's the day before the murder. And so the plot goes with Jen waking up to days and months previous caught in a time loop as all the intricate pieces of her life begin to come together in a new way that she didn't see before that fateful night. Along the way, Jen also begins to see her son, her husband and her dad with new eyes and not always for the better. The story both highlights that there's always more to the story/person than what you see or know and that we have implicit biases in how we see things and make decisions. I loved the concept of the time loop and I loved seeing Jen's life in reverse. I did find some of the writing a bit tedious and drawn out as the months and years piled on until the final piece was discovered. Even so, I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

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A Rich Story that Will Stay with You

Revisado: 01-01-23

4.5/5: This has been on my radar for a couple of years but something made me resist reading it while still being drawn back to that gorgeous cover. When I realized that it was narrated by Tom Hanks on Audible, that was the deciding piece. I was not disappointed! This is just a great, solid, well told story. It has excellent character development without over explaining (some elements are left untouched and it works in this book), the plot, while sometimes slow, fits the feel and pace of the story, and the ability to make the house (The Dutch House of course) a character as much as the others is brilliant. I loved that Patchett's main characters are both likable and not so likable at times, i.e. they are very real. Danny and Maeve are rich characters illustrating both a life that has been upended by an absent mother, a distant and often unaware father, a fierce sibling loyalty and a relationship with a house that binds all the characters together albeit unwillingly for most. I loved that it spans their childhood and well into their adulthood and even into Danny's fatherhood. This is one of those stories that you melt into and want to absorb and that stays with you for a very long time.

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My Favorite Read of 2022

Revisado: 01-01-23

5/5: This may be my favorite book I read in 2022. Don't let the title scare you off or trick you into thinking it's about mom-bashing. What it is about is the very complicated animal that is the mother-daughter relationship and how it can become toxic/harmful when trauma and selfishness are major players for the mom. McCurdy does a fantastic job of relaying her memoir as if she is reliving it out in front of all of us in real time. She digs into how she truly didn't realize how, as a few real examples, not normal it was for your mother to shower/bathe you into your teen years or teach you calorie restriction and monitor your food intake, or emotionally manipulate you into being dependent upon her. And yet, McCurdy is bonded to her mom, lost without her ever presence, and ill-equipped to deal with real life. I found myself cycling through so many emotions on behalf of McCurdy: sadness, disbelief, anger, curiosity, more anger, and finally hope. The death of her mother finally freed her, although unwillingly and unprepared for navigating even the most basics of living. There are glimmers of hope however as McCurdy engages (not always willingly or full heartedly) in therapy, leaves the world of acting and begins to find her own voice and her own person.

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Small Town Murder with Some Twists

Revisado: 01-01-23

4/5: I like a good psychological/murdery thriller and this fits the bill. Overall, the writing could have been better, less forced and more concise, but the plot was solid with some great twists and the characters were easy enough to want to follow. Margot has never been able to close the chapter of her childhood friend being murdered when they were six because the killer was never found although plenty of town speculation was made and still exists twenty years later. When Margot returns to care for her uncle, her journalistic drive and curiosity won't allow her to let it be. Then another girl goes missing and Margot cannot focus on anything but finding her friend's killer and perhaps solving the case of a serial killer. It's an easy read and, for those who like this genre, an entertaining one.

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Hearbreaking but Thought-Provoking

Revisado: 01-01-23

4/5: This story is simply heartbreaking on every level imaginable. Although it is fiction, it could very well be true and has elements that are very relevant to our culture today and how we are grappling with sexual orientation and identity. Perfect Peace is born a biological boy but his mother, for many complicated reasons, decides to raise him as the daughter she desperately wants (having already given birth to six boys and tricking her husband into having a last child so she can have a daughter). Emma Jean (the mom) is a very complex character, made so by her own traumatic childhood, her severe lack of understanding consequences of actions, and sheer exhaustion from a hard life and the constant desire to feel enough and have something she perceives as her own (such as a daughter). So, the terrible decision is made and the lie is perpetuated, keeping everyone in the dark except the midwife who delivered the baby, until Perfect turns eight years old. Perfect's life and identity are upended when Emma Jean reveals they were born a boy and will now return to being a boy. Perfect faces much cruelty both from within his family and in the community but also finds some strong allies and slowly begins to figure out who they are. This is a very critical and heartbreaking (yet effective) view of how gender is interwoven into our identity and that of our families and communities.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

What Would You Do?

Revisado: 01-01-23

4/5: This was a very intriguing book following eight characters navigating a new world where everyone can know the length of their life via a box with a string that appears simultaneously on everyone's doorstep around the world (all those over 18). Some choose to look and know, some choose to never look but as the power of this knowing seeps into the culture it becomes a dividing force. Limitations are put on those with short string, i.e. short stringers, because presumably having a short life equates having less capabilities and more liabilities. The world is thrust into division on a national level as everyone struggles on a personal level to decide if they want to know and to grapple with what knowing the length of your life means in the real, day-t0-day application of that knowledge. Erlick certainly elicited my own pondering of whether I would want to know the length of my life and how I would handle others making similar or very different decisions than my own.

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Inside View of Bletchley Park

Revisado: 01-01-23

4.5/5: Excellent WWII story of women code breakers told with a twist of betrayal, madness (literally), and intrigue. The three main female characters come from very different backgrounds and world views yet they are united by the secrecy, comradery and continual togetherness of their job at Bletchley Park. This book is a good telling of the goings on of Bletchley Park, what life might have been inside that compound and the fierce secrecy that each took an oath to uphold. It is also peppered with the real life stuff of love, loss, friendship, finding one's purpose, loyalty, and being pushed to the limit.

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Emotional and thought-provoking

Revisado: 08-17-22

3.5/5: Full disclosure that I did not realize this was Part 3 of a series, so perhaps there are pieces I am missing that would have changed my review. However, I do feel this story stands on its own and can be read as its own story. Also, I was NOT a fan of Olive Kitteridge (One of Strout's other books and a Pulitzer Prize winner) mainly because Olive was just so dreary and unbearable as a character; it is rare I abandon reading a book but I did so with that one. This one, though, seemed intriguing to me so I set my apprehensions aside and gave it a go. Overall, I am glad that I did as this book gave me lots of moments where I paused and pondered what was written and its universal truth in the real world (like do we ever really know another person, why do we seem to be drawn to some people even when there are lots of reasons why we shouldn't be, is the extent to which we know and connect with others dependent on the extent to which we know and connect with ourselves). At times, however, I found myself frustrated by the main character, Lucy, whom I felt had experienced enough of life to maybe make some different choices with regards to her ex-husband. Having said that, I understand that Strout was painting a picture of the process some go through in discovering their fuller selves and understanding another better, both which often dovetail with one another. So, I kept hanging with the story with that understanding. This is a very emotional book, not because there isn't a plot or things happening in it (there are), but because Strout frames everything that happens through the lens of what Lucy is feeling, experiencing and concluding about herself and about William. So, in that sense it's a very deep thinking type of book that has pinches of humor, some family drama, many sweet moments and some cultural dynamics thrown in to make it interesting.

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