A Book Review ~ Including My Favorite Read of 2016
Continuing on with my book reviews from the remainder of the 11 books I read in 2016. If you missed the book review on the first 6 books you can read it here. If you’re looking for a good read I promise there are a few here that you shouldn’t miss. Others I wasn’t so crazy about – but you might be. If you choose to read any of the books I review here or in my previous book review please leave me your comments and thoughts!
Sweet Bitter by Stephanie Danler – **** I’ll give this book 4 stars because for what it is, I enjoyed it. Doubtless I am a bit old to have much interest in a coming of age book – yet having experienced a coming of age myself, it was a fun read. Tess, who in my mind could be the author, a 22 year old coming from a provincial past to the Big Apple to discover herself, takes the reader on th journey with her.
Tess simply wants to become someone but she doesn’t who or how to achieve this dream. When she lands a job at a posh NYC restaurant as a “back waiter” her knowledge for food, wine and people is awakened. She develops a self destructive appetite for sex, drugs and rock n roll. Finding herself in the middle of a love triangle with Jake, the sexy, bad-boy bartender and Simone, a highly competent, sophisticated front server, often leaves her broken and wanting.
Too much coke in the bathroom stalls, plenty of after hours drinking with other restaurant employees and no lack of drama had me turning the pages and ready to finish Danler’s debut novel. All in all it was an enjoyable read. If you haven’t “found” yourself yet in life, I wouldn’t recommend going about it as Tess did – but to each his own!
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman – *** Justice for one – tragic loss for another. This book caused me to think about people and why they often times make decisions as they do. When the main characters Tom, a war vet brings his young wife Isabel to a remote, uninhabited island where he’s landed a job as lighthouse keeper my interest was piqued at the idea of life in such a locale. However, when Tom and Isabel decide to keep a baby that washes ashore in a boat with it’s father deceased alongside her I immediately wonder how one can justify such an action.
(Spoiler alert) It wasn’t hard to figure out that trouble would no doubt accompany this decision and cause the demise of their relationship. Nor was it a challenge to predict that when the law got involved and the baby’s real mother surfaced that things would get nasty. I made myself finish this one because it’s not very long and I detest not finishing a book I start. I did not see the movie – although I’m sure the scenery may be breathtaking.
Circling The Sun by Paula McLain – **** A fictional autobiography of Beryl Markham, a pioneering aviator who became the first woman to fly solo, east to west, across the Atlantic. At the age of 18 she is the first woman to become a licensed horse trainer in Kenya where the majority of this book takes place. Uprooted at a young age and planted in British East Africa, by a neglectful mother and a race-horse trainer father she is, one could say, “a wild child”.
Beautiful, headstrong, and independent Beryl Markham fiercely makes her own way through a man’s world of horse racing and piloting. There is one man for whom her heart beats fast, Denys Finch Hatton, the man she calls her “soulmate”. He is the one who introduces her to flying and subsequently to making her solo voyage in her Vega Gull airplane. My attention was held through her failed affair, a vile divorce, looming poverty, her affairs with horses, majestic wilderness, her romantic liaison with Hatton and a lion attack.
I more enjoyed McLain’s book “The Paris Wife” about Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley, set in Jazz era Paris, but I’m happy to have learned about Beryl Markham in the way McLain presents her.
The Nightingale – by Kristin Hannah – ***** I LOVE this book. It may be a bit bizarre but the whole Nazi regime, how they came to fruition and what they did interests me. Not because I like it – it makes me cringe and cry, yet I am drawn to knowing about it. Reading the Diary of Anne Frank was my first exposure to such things and I’ve been intrigued ever since. Don’t judge!
As we are transported to France during World War II we find the story of Isabelle and Viann, who are sisters but not friends. The result is an epic love story and family drama that portrays two young French women who are plunged into unimaginable chaos by a country at war, yet who must find the courage to face the forces of destruction in order to keep their families together.
As the Nazis invade France, Viann 14 and Isabel just 4, loose their mother and are left in the care of their distraught father, who cannot care for them. Viann marries, Isabel is shipped off to the first of many boarding schools. A tale of two sisters, who struggle to find, accept and love each other in war torn Europe. German occupation, the marking of Jews, a Nazi occupying a room in Viann’s home and her husband shipped off to war – Viann becomes a passeur- a person who aids in the escape of others, mainly children.
Isabel joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty, shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she’s captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less gut wrenching. Both based on real people who performed such duties during the war – I was captivated by what it must have been like. Truly I cannot imagine. This book was a page turner for me – thus it’s 5 star rating!
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr – ***** Another book set in war torn Europe – about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Doerr won a Pulitzer Prize for this novel. His way of describing physical detail and intertwining the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner kept me on the edge of my seat.
The book jumps back and forth from war torn Europe to pre war times and the chapters are short. The shortness of the chapters definitely make it an easy read, but who wants to put this book down? I stayed up many a night until the wee hours needing to know what happened next! All The Light We Cannot See is my favorite read of 2016.
Stay tuned for my Sunday Stingers – Oil and Honey Edition posts…I’ve got some great info coming on the use of honey and essential oils. Having recently undergone minor foot surgery I hope to be back on my feet and in the kitchen soon ~ this means sharing some delicious recipes with you! See ya’!
