Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from September, 2016

Featured Post

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel | Thoughts

   Published : 2021   ||    Format : print   ||    Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the story of her family through the other protagonist, El

Give me a nice spooky book | The Book Update

I seem to be going through phases of a lot of reading/blogging followed by radio silence. Right now, I may be seeing the start of a reading/blogging phase because things have calmed down somewhat at work and we have plenty of leftovers to tide us through this week so my evenings can be chore-less too. Of course, now that I have gone and said that, something is bound to come up. Finished reading Sh*tty Mom by Mary Ann Zoellner: I was looking for a fun read with this one and I got just that. See my review for more. Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero: Oh, where do I start with this one. I loved loved this book. There's so much going on in it but in a real-life way. There is a lot about teen pregnancies and drug addiction, but also plenty about being Mexican & American, writing poetry, and wanting to go to college. This is a must-pick! The Trouble with Women by Jacky Fleming: This is a quick but very relevant book that I picked on NetGalley. It takes a very sa

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

One morning you wake up with more life behind you than in front of you, not being able to understand how it happened. Fredrik Backman's books belong to that category of comfort books that you can always depend on to be a pick me up, make you smile, or even convince you to like your annoying and grumpy next-door neighbor. He is great at writing characters you don't want to understand but end up empathizing with anyways. He is also great at writing the same characters from the opposite perspective - where you end up disliking them. Britt-Marie first appeared in My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry , and boy, I was convinced that you couldn't meet a more annoying character anywhere else. And then Backman goes off and writes this book which portrays Britt-Marie in a totally different light. This is where I would like to say that A Man Called Ove is still my favorite Backman book. I wasn't a huge fan of My Grandmother... but this book comes close to

Books and Apples | This Week's Five

1. Friends and Family We've been having a lot of people over lately. Last week, my sister-in-law's family stayed with us for a bit. They had flown in to attend a wedding, which was a few weeks ago. Now they are exploring the place and more before they return back to India in less than a month. Next weekend, several of the husband's friends from school and their families are visiting us. It's promising to be an interesting reunion. Needless to say, with all the friends and family over, it has been a very busy month so far! 2. Library On Friday, I stopped by the library and picked a cartload of books. All print, gasp! I am trying to squeeze more print books into my reading life, at least quick or short books. Ebook reading is what I am quicker with nowadays but it's just not the same as holding a print book, breathing the pages in, and actually seeing some differences between pages. Anyways, the pile is below. I'm already halfway through Gabi (why isn'

One for geeks and one for parents, both fun | Quick Reviews

I'm not sure how I ran into this book. But as soon as I did hear of it, I wanted to read it. There is a lot of awesome geeky stuff out there, in books, movies, and on TV, and I generally enjoy many of them when I do read/watch them. So, when I saw this book, I wanted to see what more I can add to my list, and also what people generally thought of the ones I do like. I was also looking for where to start with certain series like Doctor Who and Star Trek. (I am big about starting a series in order, even where it's not necessary.) The Fangirl's Guide to the Galaxy definitely had a ton of recommendations but not much of it was new to me. The recommendations were also not very diverse. They were all mostly women/girl-friendly but beyond that? Meh. Some of it is probably not the author's fault because there isn't a whole lot out there that can be considered diverse. I liked what the author did with this book - there are several recommendations on how to be mo

God Help the Child by Toni Morrison

What you do to children matters. And they might never forget. This summer (which is almost at an end, though you would not say that looking at the heat index), I wanted to read more authors that intimidate me, so that I can stop saying that (1) they intimidate me, and that (2) " I have been meaning to read this author since forever ". One of those authors is Toni Morrison, whose The Bluest Eye and A Mercy already grace my bookshelves. But I chose to read God Help the Child instead because my ebook hold came through from the library and ebooks are what I mostly read now. I don't have any previous Toni Morrison experience to compare this book to but many have mentioned that this isn't her best. However, I enjoyed this read. I didn't love it but I liked it enough to say that I want to read more of her books. When God Help the Child begins, Bride's boyfriend Booker walks out on her. " You not the woman I want ," he said. Words that can hurt