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Second Quarter Reading Wrap-Up
Jul. 2nd, 2020 08:28 pmWe are at the half way point, so time for some book discussion. You can see my bingo card here, still no bingos, but I am getting close on a couple. I am definitely not reading as much I was this time last year, but I'm happy to say that I got out of my reading slump. According to Goodreads I have read 7 books since March, although one was a DNF, four of them I was able to use for bingo squares. There are a couple of other squares that I might be able to fill with books that I've already read, I read a romance novella earlier in the year that was 101 pages, which is just a hair over what is needed for the 100 pages or less square, but if I don't read anything shorter before the end of the year I am definitely using it to fulfill that square. I have also read a few romance novels this year, but nothing noteworthy, so I am saving that square til I read something I really love, which is silly, but I don't care. Anyways, on to the books.
*Cold Fire by John Passarella - I read my first Supernatural tie-in novel, you can read my thoughts here
*Without A Backward Glance by Kate Veitch - I kind of think of this as a year in the life of a very dysfunctional extended family, it deals with a lot of difficult topics, dementia, child abandonment, cheating, keeping secrets, and it does it in a way that isn't too overwhelmingly depressing, which some books that deal with tough topics can be.
*The Fortunate Brother - partly a murder mystery, and partly a look at life in a small rural town in Newfoundland in the 1980s. How the mystery wrapped up was a little too convenient for my liking, but I still enjoyed it. One note the author writes the dialogue in the local vernacular, so if you have never met someone one from Newfoundland it could take some getting used to.
*The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - this is a tragic fairytale. The author writes setting and atmosphere beautifully, and the whole has a feeling of both beauty and melancholy. Each chapter is like its own little story in the beginning, and you are not are sure how they are all going to connect in the end, but they ultimately do. The one drawback of this book was the romance between the two main characters, it wasn't developed enough for my liking, they fall in love with each other's skills, but you see very little of them actually getting to know each other.
*The Ghost of Belfast by Stuart Neville - this book won the LA Times Book Prize about a decade ago. It is about a man that is, quite literally, haunted by his past, and compelled to make it right. This book is really action packed, but also very violent, but the violence makes sense given the context of the story. There is hardly any morally good characters in this novel, but I still found it a really gripping read.
*Cold Fire by John Passarella - I read my first Supernatural tie-in novel, you can read my thoughts here
*Without A Backward Glance by Kate Veitch - I kind of think of this as a year in the life of a very dysfunctional extended family, it deals with a lot of difficult topics, dementia, child abandonment, cheating, keeping secrets, and it does it in a way that isn't too overwhelmingly depressing, which some books that deal with tough topics can be.
*The Fortunate Brother - partly a murder mystery, and partly a look at life in a small rural town in Newfoundland in the 1980s. How the mystery wrapped up was a little too convenient for my liking, but I still enjoyed it. One note the author writes the dialogue in the local vernacular, so if you have never met someone one from Newfoundland it could take some getting used to.
*The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - this is a tragic fairytale. The author writes setting and atmosphere beautifully, and the whole has a feeling of both beauty and melancholy. Each chapter is like its own little story in the beginning, and you are not are sure how they are all going to connect in the end, but they ultimately do. The one drawback of this book was the romance between the two main characters, it wasn't developed enough for my liking, they fall in love with each other's skills, but you see very little of them actually getting to know each other.
*The Ghost of Belfast by Stuart Neville - this book won the LA Times Book Prize about a decade ago. It is about a man that is, quite literally, haunted by his past, and compelled to make it right. This book is really action packed, but also very violent, but the violence makes sense given the context of the story. There is hardly any morally good characters in this novel, but I still found it a really gripping read.
