Lucky Us by Amy Bloom
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Let's just say I am glad that it was a quick read. The book was simply OK. There isn't anything real special about it. The characters were bland....Even desipte their hectic-ness.

I am not always a big fan of authors who incorporate letters/notes/correspondeces into their work. It seems kinda like a cop-out. Like, you just summed it up and didn't have any things else to add, creatively. I had to back track once or twice because I wasn't exepcting things to happen so fast and it came from a letter. I thought some of it would have been better in detail.

I can't wait to hear the discussion at my work book club in a few weeks.

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You Are One of Them by Elliott Holt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am not really sure how I feel about this book. Did I hate it? Love it? I think I just got through it Okay and will make the best of it. I liked the whole idea of the story line but felt kind of robbed... There seemed to be a lot left out or kind of rushed. The ending really wasn't a surprise for me. I kind of expected it. I think the whole book built up to it. A growing period for the main character. It was kind of a stepping stone into adulthood after all she had to go through. The world was not what she thought it to be.

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Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

By chance I brought this book for $1.99 (or less?)a while back and now it has become my GR monthly book club read as well as my work one. I read it super fast and really enjoyed it. It was simple and yet endearing. I never knew of such trains and it is heartbreaking to know that it had exsisted for so many years. I also really enjoyed that it started out on a street (Elizabeth) where I currently live. I, of course, googled it and found so many cool images (one I found later that was in the book at the end).

I highly recommend this book because not only is it an emotional read but it is a great historical insight.

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The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It started very slow but then I got into it once she (Eva) got into the past. I loved the way that it came to an end. A god ending seems rare. Of course there are many things that I over analyzed but all-in-all it was still a good read.

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Review: Time and Again - Jack Finney

Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 399
ISBN: 9780671242954
Format: Large Paperback
Read: June 2012
Recommended by: Jean (co-worker)
Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

I did enjoy this book but it moved rather quickly and then stopped and kinda dragged. The beginning happened so fast that I didn't even realize that he went back in time. I wish that part was more clear of how they did it. They just did!

I like the idea that they could go back in time and witness the past. I also loved that it was set in NYC because that is where I work and live so I knew of most of the places he spoke about. I also loved that it was illustrated letting the reader really picture what he "saw".

The book was simply OK. Many people loved it and maybe I just didn't get it but I didn't feel that it was all that great. It was definitely interesting but that is all. The characters had no real depth. I do, however, recommend this book to those who like to read about NYC history and time travel.

Outlander #1 - Diana Gabaldon

Genre: Historical Fiction
Published: 1991
Series: Outlander #1
Pages: 850
Rating: 5/5 Stars
ISBN: 0440212561
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Read: May/June 2012

I loved this book from start to finish. Of course there are many MANY coincidental things but I really don't care. I was so intrigued by the story that I couldn't really rely on that issue. Not even half way through the book I went out and brought the remaining books within the series (well, whatever was in paperback anyways).

This book brings in everything I love about reading: History, time travel, mystery, romance, murder and all else you can imagine. Sorry there are no faeries nor are there any vampires but that's what makes it so wonderful. It's so real and yet it's not. The characters were superb and how Diana Gabaldon came up with these wonderful characters is beyond me. I am super curious as to see how the story goes especially since there are 13 books (and counting) within the Outlander series and all of them are well over 800 pages!

Now back to my beloved characters....

I loved Jamie from the start. I loved his ruthfulness. His courage. His immortality. His Innocence! He was my hero from the start. Don't get me wrong I loved Frank when I first heard him speak but many pages later, after I got over his mourning and sorrow, I kinda grew apart from him. I love how both of these men love Claire. They both adore her. I believe their love and it didn't bother me that Jamie always showed up. It is crazy all the horrific and strange things that had happened to him and I am sure will continue on. I believe that Jamie (whether he likes it or not) is fairly immortal! God what he went through but I love his willingness and determination. He may have given in at some point but having a great woman behind you always works magic!


This is the best depiction of Jamie yet. YUM!

http://youtu.be/F_dVolYyDRo

Review: The Winter Sea - Susanna Kearsley

Genre: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9781611291285
Pages: 527
Format: Hardcover
Read: February 2012
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Work Book Club


It was hard to rate this because it too a great amount of time to get into. It goes back and forth from the present day and from the 1700's. It is a great little tale about a present day writer who travels to Scotland to write her new novel but gets sudden spouts of deja vu and begins to write about a woman Sophia back in the 1700's and as it turns out is her late ancestor. Carrie (the writer) begins to take the memories of Sophia and writes and all her writings and findings deem to be truth. It is a great story of history and love but it just took a lot to get through at first. There are so many characters and at first I was having trouble keeping up and it was until well in to the 200 page mark that I finally began to follow along and get more into it.

I wonder if I were the only one to have this issue...I guess when we meet for my book club we can thus discuss. Hopefully I will remember to put in this review of what was discussed.

HAPPY READING!

Review: the Dolphin People - Torsten Krol

Genre: Historical Fiction

ISBN: 9780061672965

Pages: 384

Published: December 2009

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Read: September 2011

I am still not too sure how I feel about this book. Maybe I can figure it out buy the time I finish this post. It is about a German family with 2 boys and whose Dad died during WWII so Mom had to marry his brother. They were going to Venezuela to live when the plane crashed and they had to swim to land where the ran into the Yayomi Indians and convinced them that they were the dolphin people so that they could stay with the tribe until they could find a way to escape. When the arrived there they met another German who was an anthropologist who was living amongst them for eleven years. He became the translator and help them create "lie" to explain their behaviors and such.

The story goes on just on how they tried to be one of the Indians and it was a very interesting story and very convincing. I love Anthropology so much so that I got my BA in it! I really do enjoy reading about Indians (more of the Maya but I can settle for others too). I also love to read about WWII so this had the best of my faves so maybe that is why I liked it as much as I didn't know I did! See, I know that I could pin point how I felt about this book after I finished the post! I just had to get it all down so I can sort through it. Just like the Archivist in me!

Review: Chef: A Novel - Jaspreet Sungh

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 256

ISBN: 9781608190850

Published: April 2010

Rating: 2.5/stars

I really do love book on India and surrounding countries. There is so much history and culture there and I have tackled many books on them but if I didn't I would never be able to really follow this book. Jaspreet Singh writes as if everyone who reads the book knows the things he speaks of like certain foods, and phrases, and clothing. Anything really.

It was a nice story with it's many twists and turns but nothing that really stood out. I think that if the writing was more written in a little more precise understanding then I would have loved it more but I really do appreciate that it was not written like that because then it takes away from it's culture and it's uniqueness. Do I make any sense? I read the book. I liked the book. I just didn't love the book. I did enjoy some talk about the wars and the cooking but I didn't really need to read the recipes.

My biggest complaint may seem like it is the writing but it's really not, it is more about how I just didn't fall in love with it. That may be one of the reasons but it truly is just how I wasn't entirely drawn in by it. There is a lot more to this book but I don't have really uch to say about it.

Review: 1916 - Morgan Llywelyn

It was a good read but I don't have much to say about it. I found it was very intriguing and it was interesting of how this one guy went through so much like surviving the Titanic, Bloody Sunday, and the Irish Rebellion but it was also very coincidental. I mean, maybe that did happen to one person but it was hard to believe but it is a book right? Maybe I should have read this book after I finished school because it took me so long to read it and I was just not as focused as I should have been. I still think I would have gave it the same amount of stars but I think I would have more to report.

Review: The Paperbark Shoe - Goldie Goldbloom

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: Trade Paperback/ARC

ISBN: 9780312674502

Pages: 384

Published: March 2011

Rating: 3/5 Stars

I really wanted to love this book. I did, but I didn't. I was up and down throughout the whole book. It truly was a great story about Australia during WWII and the effects on the Italian prisoners and I loved the whole story but there were things that just didn't hold me up. I kept saying "This is great" and I keep going and then I would hit a stump and be saying "how much longer?". I just kept staying unfocused and many points just weren't holding me.

I truly feel in love with Mudsey though and she was the best part of the whole book. I just felt so sorry and so proud of her. She just wanted to be loved and just wasn't getting what she truly deserved. But she said strong all throughout and even though she seemed so strong she had a "kid" moments which was amazing. If you are going to read this just keep in mind that it may fall off at times but it is still a good story.

Review: Between Shades of Gray - Ruta Sepetys

Genre: YA Historical Fiction

ISBN: 9780399254123

Pages: 346

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Format: Paperback / ARC

My husband found this book and I just needed to read it. It doesn't come out until March of this year (2011). The cover is beautiful as well as the story. The video below is a great piece of the story and is amazing of how Ruta incorporated real stories into her own. I knew a lot of Stalin's rule and I too believed he was just as bad as the rest of them , if not worse. Didn't he shoot his own wife?

Anyway, the story is heartbreaking from beginning to end. I loved the epilogue and I just wish I could have read it in itself. Maybe there will be another book? Who knows? But this story was so sad and also courageous. It is a bout a young Lithuanian girl (about 15) and how her, her mother and brother were taken from their homes and cent away during WWII. They were not Jewish but were considered Fascists and criminals because of their rankings in society. The people who were taken away were librarians, teachers, doctors, lawyers and the like. They were sent away to farms and camps to build for the Soviets. It is a very good story and beware because it is very emotional.

I am thinking I need to read something a little more upbeat! All these sad books are killing me!!!!

Enjoy the Video.

Ruta Sepetys discusses her upcoming novel, Between Shades of Gray from Penguin Young Readers Group on Vimeo.

Review: The Kitchen House - Kathleen Grissom

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 369

ISBN: 9781439153666

Format: Paperback / ARC

Rating: 5/5 stars

What can I say? I absolutley loved this book. Every page was jammed packed with intensity and you just didn't want to stop reading. The only thing I didn't like was that it had to end!

The Kitchen Hosue is written in two voices. Belle who is a slave and Lavinia who is an Irish girl who was with her family along a ship coming to America. Her parents died and her and her brother were split up so she went to live with the captian of the ship but she lived with the slaves. I loved all the twists and turns. I was an emotional wreck at some points and otherrs I was angry and happy. It was just a great book to read. I would love to go on and on about the book but you just have to read it but not my copy because mine is autogrpahed by the author and it is one that I want to cherish.

I was lucky enough to chat with the author on Goodreads via TNBBC
Go check it out and chat away!

The Kingdom of Ohio - Matthew Flaming

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: Hardcover / Library

ISBN: 9780399155604

Pages: 336

Rating 3/5 Stars

I have many mixed feelings about this book. I loved the historical aspects of old New York especially about the building of the Subway because I used to work in the NYTM Archives and I currently work for the MTA so it's kinda cool to associate them. I worked on collection of images that were just of the construction of the subway so I really could picture that in my head. I loved the whole thing about Edison, Tesla and Morgan. I have been to the Morgan Library and it is really something else!!!

The love story was nice but nothing too stand-outish. I really can't explain it. Their relationship started off very strangely and I just never really felt connected to either of them. The whole book sorta dragged a lot for me. At some points I just wanted to get to the point already and get to the ending but it seems like it never really came. I took me quite some time to get through the book. As I said I did enjoy it it just wasn't really engulfing.

Jamilia - Chingiz Aitmatov

Genre: Fiction

Format: Trade Paperback

ISBN: 9781846590320

Pages: 96

Rating: 3.5 Stars

I found this book in the hallway of my building and as I was waiting for some of my recent book purchases to get to me from the mail, I decided to read it since it was so short. Of course I read it in a day and a half (I would have read it in a day but I had to make room for my work on my thesis). I did like it. I don't believe it is "the most beautiful love story in the world" as said by Louis Aragon but I do think it was a nice poetic and artistic view of love and it was a nice little story. I enjoyed the beauty in the songs that they sang and I loved the innocence and youthful playfulness of the characters. It was definitely a good find and one that I will keep with me for some time.

The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: Paperback

ISBN:9780330449601

Pages: 645

Rating 4.5 Stars

I loved this book so much but the only reading why I give it 4.5 stars and not a total 5 is because it was very coincidental and very predictable but it was such a great and wonderful story. It was such a touching story and I thought at first I would not like it but I found myself pushing everything aside just to keep reading. I knew what the ending was as soon as all the characters starting appearing. As I said, it was very predictable, but I still wanted to hear it for myself. I absolutely love Eliza's stories and want to have my own copy of them, complete with Nathaniel's sketches! I also love how they are like her real life stories.

I love all the characters but I didn't like how everything was way too coincidental. Everyone knew one another, even if it was 80- years ago. Somehow they have all met. I know some of it can be possible but it was just too many people knowing too many people. For example: Christan and Nell. Really? That was a stretch. I hated the story of Nick and Leo. Not because it didn't belong, it may well have, I just hated to read such a horror.

I really could go on forever but who wants to read what I write??? Go out and read what Kate wrote! She also wrote a book before this entitled The House at Riverton also known as The Shifting Fog. Her new novel The Distant Hours will be released in November 2010. But as I am a crazed book-er, I would have to wait until that one is on Paperback just to buy it to make my collection purdy! I will get to The House at Riverton soon after my thesis is through (if that ever happens).

The Lotus Eaters - Tatjana Soli

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: Hardcover / Library

ISBN: 9780312611576

Pages: 386

Rating: 3/5 Stars

We read this book for our October book club read at work and I think we all had the same feelings: it was OK. Nothing so fantastic about it. We were all wondering where all these "great" reviews were coming from. I did love how the beginning was the end and you had to keep reading to find out how it got to that point but a lot of it was"really?" I just could imagine a woman going to Vietnam and taking pictures with no real inclination of what war can be, how to load a camera, and let alone culture shock. I understand that she needed adventure and needed to find out what happened to her brother (who died earlier) but I just don't understand...

I did really like the story but there were just things that were hard to believe but then again I don't know Vietnam like others may have. I was the youngest in my book club and they all remembered it and I wasn't even born yet! I did love Linh though, he was by far my favorite character. Helen was OK, and Darrow was unpredictable. At first he was supposed to be this standoffish guy who was a bad-ass per say, but then he was poetic and lovable. I dunno I really did enjoy the story and probably would have gave it a higher rating but because of the above I just couldn't.

The Alienist - Caleb Carr

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: Mass Market Paperback

ISBN: 9780553572995

Pages: 597

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Well, I have finally finished it. I took me pretty much a whole month to read. Not only because it was a large book, but I had a rough couple of weeks and I am working on my thesis, so time really isn't on my side but with that aside I really did enjoy the book. Maybe it would have gotten a higher rating have I not been so exhausted reading (or not reading it for that matter) but this is what it is.

This story is gruesome and mind bending. It is about a crazy killer who does some horrible mutilations it his victim's and brings together many different types of people into a secret investigation to find it's killer. There's a reporter, 2 detective's (who are highly educated and are the first to do fingerprinting), a female cop (which really didn't exist back then), an amazing psychologist (who was very eager and willing to do anything to find out why people are the way they are) and of course Teddy (who was in the police force at the time). There are many other characters in the book that brought their own great personalities and I think it was perfect. Everything in the book needed to be there and it did for a great read.

I love to read about old New York and to feel what it is like to live in the 1800's. Carr did a great job bringing in the characters and historical aspects. I really did like how Carr incorporated so many great things into his book.

Shanghai Girls - Lisa See

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: Softcover/Library

Pages: 309

ISBN: 9780812980530

Rating 4/5 Stars

I don't know why I can't give it 5 stars but it came very VERY close to it. There were so many times where I wanted to throw my book across the room because I was all too excited or angry with something in the book. Not in a bad way. I love when that happens. I was so animated throughout the whole book. I constantly made faces, whether happy or sad or whatever. There were so many twists and turns and a lot of unexpected things that happened but there were also a few things that I knew were coming. I love to read historical fiction. It paints a picture of a history that you were not a part of but of how it changes the way we know things and how it shapes our lives.

I loved this book and I am very excited to find out that there may just be a sequel which is good because the ending drove me nuts! It was such a cliff hanger! It is a nice marketing strategy but I hate that! I hate when you are left with nothing and are forced to wait until many months later until the next installment comes along but at least I got that. I would have rated the book lower if I had not known about the impending sequel.

I have Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love but have yet to read them but I do hear so many great things so I am excited about getting to them in the near future.

The Auschwitz Violin - Maria Angels Anglada

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 109 (ARC)

Format: Paperback / Advanced Uncorrected Proof

ISBN: 9780553807783

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

I received this book from a fellow Goodreader. She won an ARC on the site and since I love stories of WWII and also love the violin (just the sound I don't play) I asked if she would swap with me and she did and even offered another book called Days of Grace by Catherine Hall. Since this fellow GR'er has similar taste as me I have no doubt that I wouldn't love it.

Well, this book is about a women who inherited her uncle/father's violin after he passed away and the story is of how he created this violin during his time in the Auschwitz Camp. It is a touching and lovely story I just wish there was more to it. I wish it was more of a story rather than events. It was wonderfully written and beautifully translated but I just wish there were more of a story. It felt real and maybe it was. I kept thinking that she just told us what happened without an more than that. I was hoping she who elaborate or even exaggerate. Overall, it is a beautiful story and a very fast read and it's s a new story in comparison to others that you may encounter in your WWII reads.