Book Club

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  • frogmella
    frogmella Member Posts: 1,111
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    I hope you have a lovely holiday, Bubba, and don't worry about the book club - we will look after it for you!

    I finished How to be a Good Wife by Emma Chapman last night. As I said before, it started slowly and I wasn't sure I was going to like it. But then it got going and it was really good. It was a tense read and even at the end it leaves you reeling. The story is about Marta who is married to Hector. From the outset it feels like something is amiss in their marriage but you can't tell what. Then she stops taking the medication he has been giving her and she starts seeing things, or is she remembering things? Really creepy and I felt very sorry for her as she struggled with these visions. So I award **** , not five due to the slow start!!

    Paolo Nutini was really good, fully recommend it.
  • bubbadog
    bubbadog Member Posts: 5,544
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Just wanted to post my review of the book I just finished before I went away so:-

    Coming Clean: A Memoir by Kimberly Rae Miller
    This is the true story from Kimberly who's father has a serious paper hoarding addiction to the point the house they live in is filled to the ceilings with papers and documents. The story goes through her life trying to deal with her fathers addiction and after her mother has a medical trauma she becomes addicted to buying stuff from television shopping channels so Kimberly has to try and deal with both of her parents addictions. The Story goes from Kimberley as a young child to an Adult, I thoroughly enjoyed this book because it shows the real destruction hoarding can do to a family rather than what you see on these television programmes. I recommend this read it is a real eye opener.

    Rating:- ****/*****
  • frogmella
    frogmella Member Posts: 1,111
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Hi bookclubbers, I hope you are all enjoying your current read! I am enjoying Perfect, although, as Tubby said, it is not a "jolly" read! I should have Burial Rites to collect from the library so I need to get down to some serious reading! Stupid work just gets in the way!!
  • Tubby
    Tubby Member Posts: 177
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    I feel like I have been letting the side down this week but like fromelia, work has got in the way. I am striving to finish The Goldfinch but I have not quite got there yet. I am not sure whether I like it or not. It was riveting to start with but the lead character takes a lot of liking and I am getting a bit sick of him.....
    Hopefully I will post a couple of reviews this weekend but I have Tom Jones to go and see too :D
  • frogmella
    frogmella Member Posts: 1,111
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Ooh, have fun Tubby! Will you keep your hat on?? :lol:
  • Tubby
    Tubby Member Posts: 177
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    I reckon I will be keeping my hat and coat on! Thunder storms threatened and it is an outdoor stadium :o
  • frogmorton
    frogmorton Member Posts: 30,089
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Thunder's here already Tubby :?

    Hope you have a good time anyway I bet you will ;)

    I've just finished Dorothy Koomson's Rose Petal Beach? Very good book indeed.

    I don't know whether it's been reviewed before??

    Frogmella it's outrageous that work gets in the way of a good read :lol:

    Bubbadog now that book sounds interesting! Very good indeed. The poor girl! What a life she sounds to have had :(

    Love to you all

    Toni xxx
  • frogmella
    frogmella Member Posts: 1,111
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Hey, Toni! Good to see you on here!

    Well, I went to the library yesterday to pick up Burial Rites, or so I thought. It has been "in transit" for quite a while now and I found out the reason was that it got diverted to a Book Group! How rude!!! So they have ordered me a different copy so I should get it soon.

    The book that actually was there was Dreams of Gods and Monsters, the third instalment of the Laini Taylor trilogy that I have been reading. It is massive! I need to crack on with perfect and get on with that one sharpish!!
  • frogmella
    frogmella Member Posts: 1,111
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Perfect by Rachel Joyce
    I finished this today. I didn't find it as gripping as Harold Fry but I did like the stories within it. Whether Diana really had the accident, just how cheeky Beverly was, the snobbishness of the other mothers, the mystery of Diana's backstory. It was just a bit sluggish at times. Maybe it was meant to be with the plot about the extra two seconds and all!!
    I reckon ***/****

    Got to get started on Dreams of Gods and Monsters next.

    It won't be long until we have to think about a BOTM for July. I was thinking about opening it up by posting a new thread on the chit chat forum. Any objections? I know bubba is keen to get some more members and maybe that would help? Oooh the responsibility while she is off sunning herself! :lol::lol::lol:
  • frogmella
    frogmella Member Posts: 1,111
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    I collected Burial Rites from the library today and also picked up Mr Mercedes, the new Stephen King while I was there. I am sure you all realise by now that I am a massive Stephen King fan!! I have read all of his books except for The Black House, which I have started a few times but never got into! So I am set for books for a while now.

    I am really enjoying Dreams of Gods and Monsters, if you like fantasy/twilight I reckon you would like this trilogy. Really good.
  • Tubby
    Tubby Member Posts: 177
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    OK....I am out the other side of that one! I have been reading The Goldfinch and I didn't think it was ever going to end! I had a few moments where I considered not finishing it but I eventually ploughed on to the end. The story was fundamentally very good but there was far too much description of characters who I wanted to slap. I really am not interested in drug addict teenagers and young adults.
    The premise was based on a young boy who was caught up in an explosion at the main museum in New York. His mother was killed and he sat with an old fella whilst he died. In the confusion of the explosion, the young boy took a painting, 'The Goldfinch' because he was mesmerised by it. The story then follows the tribulations of the boy and the painting over the next fifteen years or so.
    The main characters for me, however, spoilt the story as there was nothing to like about them. I always feel that although we may meet characters who are unsavoury, there is usually something to identify with. There were some fantastic lesser characters but the main ones, I felt, just needed taking over someone's knee - metaphysically of course and being taught what they should be grateful for!
    This is not a book I will read again but it does have some merits and you may like it of you can tolerate the spoilt brat main protagonists.
  • frogmella
    frogmella Member Posts: 1,111
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Didn't like that one much then, Tubby?!

    It is that time of the month again, we need to start thinking about BOTM for July! I am going to put a new thread on the chit chat board and see if we get any more interest too!
  • frogmella
    frogmella Member Posts: 1,111
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Dreams fo Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor
    This is the third instalment of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy. I have really enjoyed the series. It is a fantasy story. The basic premise is that there are more worlds than this one and there are some portals between them. On one of the other worlds live chimaera and angels. The angels are generally less than angelic while the "beasts" are not very beastly! There is resurrection, magic, war etc.
    I award ****/***** for the whole series.

    Any one got any ideas for BOTM? DD on my other thread mentioned that she is reading Morgue Drawer Four. Have a look and see what you think or if you have any better ideas!

    Right, I have Mr Mercedes and Burial Rites to read. Best get on with it!!
  • LisaW
    LisaW Bots Posts: 37
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Found out about Book Club from another thread. Wasn't easy to find, I had to search for it.

    I'd like to join, please. Should warn you that I am an inconsistent reader. Sometimes I go through a book in a few days, other times it takes weeks. But, I will try my best to contribute.

    At the moment I am reading The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney

    "No one ever really paid close attention to the faces of the missing children on the milk cartons. But as Janie Johnson glanced at the face of the ordinary little girl with her hair in tight pigtails, wearing a dress with a narrow white collar—a three-year-old who had been kidnapped twelve years before from a shopping mall in New Jersey—she felt overcome with shock. She recognized that little girl—it was she. How could it possibly be true?

    Janie can't believe that her loving parents kidnapped her, but as she begins to piece things together, nothing makes sense. Something is terribly wrong. Are Mr. and Mrs. Johnson really her parents? And if not, who is Janie Johnson, and what really happened?"

    I think it's a movie too, if any one wants to watch it instead:)
  • Slosh
    Slosh Member Posts: 3,194
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    I have just finished re-reading the Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker. This series of books is set during the first world war but is far from the standard book on this theme as the battlefields of France while forming a foundation to the experiences of characters in the book are not in the foreground, although there are some graphic descriptions. The main thrust of the books is the work of a pioneering psychologist, Rivers and his work with patients suffering from the emotional trauma of their experiences, including the war poets, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. It also deals with themes of sexuality, conflicts of loyalty in war time, and not surprisingly death. It is based on real characters and events, and at the end of each book is information on the historical facts and background to each book.
    They are books that benefit from re reading as each time you pick out more subtlies in them.
    5 stars
    He did not say you will not be storm tossed, you will not be sore distressed, you will not be work weary. He said you will not be overcome.
    Julian of Norwich
  • frogmella
    frogmella Member Posts: 1,111
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Welcome, LisaW and Slosh! Thank you for your review, Slosh , those books sound really good - will have to add them to my ever expanding library list! Also thanks to LisaW for giving us a pre-completion review of that book too! Look forward to seeing what you think when you finish it! Don't worry about being inconsistent - there is no need to even read the BOTM if you don't fancy it! I have missed a few when the library doesn't have it in. I think we often get more out of reading the reviews of other people's reads when they have finished them!
    I know Bubbadog (whose baby this is) normally likes new members to choose the BOTM so, as there are now two of you, have a think and maybe one can do July and then one can do August? It can be a book you have read and think is brill or just one you want to read too. Bubba will be back from her hols soon to make the final decision!
  • Slosh
    Slosh Member Posts: 3,194
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Gosh, what a responsibility! I will give it some thought.
    He did not say you will not be storm tossed, you will not be sore distressed, you will not be work weary. He said you will not be overcome.
    Julian of Norwich
  • LisaW
    LisaW Bots Posts: 37
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Thanks Frogmella. I do have a few books I could suggest for BOTM. When Bubba is back, let me know if suggestions are needed. How does this work online? For those who want to just read the book and write up our thoughts? Come to think of it, I have a book I'd like to re-read as there were parts of it that I'd really like to see others opinions on.
  • frogmella
    frogmella Member Posts: 1,111
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Essentially we all get on with our "normal" reading and then write a review when we have finished that book. When we read a BOTM we usually wait until the month end to review to avoid spoilers. We usually bold up the Title and author then write a review and finally award a star rating out of 5 so:
    Title by Author
    review
    *****

    If you want to go ahead and make BOTM suggestions that would be great - Bubba will be very pleased to see some fresh ideas on here for when she gets back!

    I have been coming up with suggestions recently just from e-mails from booksellers and Lovereading (a good website if you like books BTW).
    It will be good to get some ideas from someone else!!! :lol:
  • Tubby
    Tubby Member Posts: 177
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Just a quick post in reply to Frogmelia's earlier comment - I have read Morgue Draw Four and it was excellent!
  • frogmella
    frogmella Member Posts: 1,111
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Thanks Tubby! I will deffo add it to my library list!
  • bubbadog
    bubbadog Member Posts: 5,544
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Howdy everyone! I'm back after a fantastic time in Crete, weather was a-maz-ing! in the 30's everyday got a very good tan! Anyway no more gloating. Back to business! Spoke to a couple of Brits on holiday who suggested a couple of Authors who may be worth looking into for some of you, Dan Brown who I'm sure you may of heard of and Victoria Hislop who writes books bringing in Greek life into them, I was told her books have a lot of history of them. So hopefully they may interest some of you.
  • bubbadog
    bubbadog Member Posts: 5,544
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Skeletons by Jane Fallon

    I totally enjoyed this book, it held my interest from the 1st page to the last and I didn't want to put it down in parts. The main character Jen was living the dream life in her mind, perfect husband and family and she loved her in-laws she felt contented, until little by little it starts to fall apart and she finds it hard to put the pieces back together. The writing was excellent and you feel for Jen having to keep secrets and not knowing what to do for the best. I'm going to check out other books by Jane Fallon and see if any of her other books take my interest as this book did.

    RATING:- *****/*****

    Started reading Safe House by Chris Ewan on holiday and I'm enjoying the book so far, another book that you find hard to put down because you want to know what is going to happen next!!
  • bubbadog
    bubbadog Member Posts: 5,544
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Welcome to Slosh & LisaW sorry I didn't see you until I looked back over what was going on while I was relaxing in Crete! And yes it's that time of the month again! And LisaW you are very welcome to choose the Book of the Month for July. :D
  • frogmella
    frogmella Member Posts: 1,111
    edited 30. Nov -1, 00:00
    Welcome home, Bubba. I hope you think I have looked after things ok?? :wink: Good to hear you had a good holiday.

    I have read a couple of Jane Fallon's books. I think her first one was good.

    I am really enjoying Mr Mercedes - another page turner from Mr King!

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