Review: The Amateur Marriage

The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler

My new favorite novel by my longtime favorite author. This is the most beautifully written novel I have ever read in my whole life. Hands down. Anne Tyler is gifted in her ability to poetically tell the stories of ordinary people in normal lives, that don't necessarily have huge climactic moments that leave you on the edge of your seat.

To be honest, nothing monumental happened in this novel, but it was literally a story of two entire lives.

This story follows two people who met and married very young, lived their lives, raising kids, running the families grocery store, losing a kid as a runaway, reconnecting with the estranged daughters child but not the daughter, divorcing, one remarrying, and ultimately ones dying.

Pauline and Michael are my favorite on page couple, and they don't even get their happily ever after. The way Tyler wrote them is simply marvelous. I found myself laughing and crying all in one sentence.

This novel is pure poetry and I couldn't put it down.

Review: Lost in The Forest

Lost in The Forest by Sue Miller

This book surprised me. It was recommended to me based on my recent selections from the library app on my phone. I was impressed. I love how simple and sweet the writing is, truly expressing the beauty of ordinary life.

This book instantly starts with a tragic twist of events, forcing a father to take charge and take in his children temporarily. We start in the fathers point of view, and I am glad we did. He was a good lens in which to introduce this family and their life together.

I was instantly sucked in to the way Miller found the beauty in the ordinary. Then, something unexpected happened.

******SPOILER   DON'T CONTINUE IF YOU DON"T WANT TO KNOW A CRITICAL PLOT POINT*****

So I try not to put in spoilers but this one I just had to include. One of the children that we see first through the lens of the parents, takes center stage part of the way through the novel in a shocking turn of events. She is sucked into a physical affair with an older man, a much, much older man. One of her mother's best friends husbands to be exact.

I read this part very intently, unsure what to think. This was so real, and so sad. I am so glad that a author told this story and did it justice. Too often these stories go untold and they are sad and I think damaging to the teenagers involved. Beautiful job, Sue Miller, tackling a tough topic and shining.

Cheers! 

Review: Kissing The Maid of Honor

Kissing The Maid of Honor by Robin Bielman

I was getting ready to go to a rehearsal dinner when I found this book on a facebook group I am a part of. Now this wedding I was attending was huge, the kind of wedding that most of us think only happens in movies. The rehearsal dinner alone would have cost me a years salary. The groom is my husband's cousin, and his side of the family rented an entire ranch for us to stay at. I had a whole weekend to relax and enjoy it, sitting poolside and staring out at the rolling hills.  On this lovely weekend, I read this fun and perfectly fitting book.

It was a beautiful wedding weekend both on and off the page.

This book was sweet. Oh the troubles of high school crushes gone wrong. Being a woman who married the man that she kissed as a teenager (and it went terribly wrong), I can relate to this character. (This kiss, no joke, was why my now husband and I didn't get together then as opposed to nearly ten years later) I totally related. I loved how authentic this author wrote this fun little scenario.

Sela and Luke are characters that I instantly wanted to root for. I particularly LOVED seeing them take care of one another. To me, there is nothing more beautiful in a relationship that nurturing, and Bielman wrote it beautifully and truthfully.

The only problem is I found myself wanting more. I found myself in a few scenes saying "Wait, that's it? Tell me more! Tell me more!" This book could have been at least fifty to a hundred more pages in length and I would have been satisfied.

However, what she did include in this book was great. Fun and excited especially since I was so lucky to read it while relaxing on a ranch during a big crazy wedding weekend.

I recommend this book for anyone looking for a nice romance novel.

Cheers!

Review: Just for the Summer

Just for the Summer by Janna Rutland

This fun little romance novel was easy to become invested in. The story was both believable and interesting: a woman who meets face to face with the man who adopted her child. 

The entire novel reminded me of the feeling you get when you are at the top of the roller coaster, ready to make that first decent.  I knew ultimately Dani would have to tell Matt her secret, I just wasn't sure when. As my progress bar on my kindle kept inching towards 100%, I began to get anxious!

With the constant point of view changes between Dani and Matt, it's easy to understand the two's feelings and emotions which to me gave a comfortable "everything's going to work out in the end" feeling. You trust both characters to be good people who will make good choices. 

I particularly enjoyed the way Rutland accurately writes in the child's voice of Sam. This one is hard for people to write in sometimes and have it come off as accurate as she has. It's one thing to hope for a happily ever after for the adult characters you come to love while reading, but it's another all together to hope for one for a child. Sam's character is an instant hit. 

On the subject of voice, I also enjoyed Dani's. I felt she was a very strong and well developed character who was easy to identify with.  

One line that truly stuck with me was: "He wouldn't exist if I had thine through a the pain and grief." I feel this line, as well as several others suggest the theme: everything you go through brings you to where you are today. Another notable theme was that of second chances.  

If you want a sweet love story with a real life conflict that the characters must overcome, this novel is a good one for you. 

In fact, I plan to buy a few more of her novels in the near future. 

Review: Ladder of Years

Ladder if Years by Anne Tyler

This book was a lot of fun! As usual with AnneTyler it was an overly ordinary story with not big moments of excitement. No more than in any other normal life that is.  

The characters were fresh and fun. I enjoyed all the quirky traits of Tyler's characters. 

This book revolved around one year in the life Delia Grinstead: wife, mother, sister, and daughter in law. 

This year for her is a unique one because at the start of the novel her and her family visit the beach for their annual vacation. Then, quite suddenly, Delia decides to leave her family and impulsively and with no plan, hitch a ride out of town and begin her life again. 

That's all. Just simply rent an app attempt, buy a few new dresses and get a job. 

The novel tells of her day to day life as her new self and her journey back home. 

So ordinary yet so unique and interesting.

She is by far one of my favorite authors. 

Review: Wife in Name Only

Wife in Name Only by Hayson Manning

I have just finished this book a few hours ago and instead of writing the review immediately I instead chose to listen to the entire soundtrack to Mamma Mia. Maybe twice.

Thank you Manning for reminding me just how much I adore the music of ABBA.

Anyways. Book review time.

First of all these characters are BOLD. I had no idea anyone could think so sexually until I got to know these characters.

The whole basis for the story is that Zoe and Rory were married and happy until they gradually drafted apart as Rory became more and more engulfed in his work. It's a classic husband and wife problem: man measures his relationship success with how much he can provide and how much career success he has while the wife bases her relationship success on their quality time.

So here they are in a failed marriage where she has run off to an island somewhere and started a honeymoon resort. He's stayed in the big city waiting for her to come home because he fails to see the problem.

Then he comes to her resort to help her with some PR that they both need. And they get stranded alone together.

They were a total mess! The whole book was one big pile of frustration leading up to the ending. "I love you I hate you I love you I hate you." What a mess. Most of us have been there. Ugh I just wanted to shake them both. I guess that made them more believable. If they had patched things up immediately we just wouldn't have a book now would we.

This novel is very sexual. That is not my style so I won't talk much about that. Just know of that's not your thing you've been warned.

It is written from a very different voice than I've ever read. And it's so different than my own. It was very conversationally written and modern. You could get a sound for the way these two quirky characters voices and thought processes. I enjoyed it.

Last but not least, the Mamma Mia/ABBA references. Zoe is always listening to ABBA. She explains that it is her happy music which is a result of her mothers enjoyment of the music which I completely understand. However, I found so many similarities between the musical and this book.

Listening to the title track "Mamma Mia" I kept nodding and saying "yep, yep that fits too". How about the jealous number "Lay All Your Love On Me" that I swear could have been Rory's theme song. And then there's "Honey Honey" which I could imagine being sung by Zoe. I'm sure I could go on and on but I won't. These references most defiantly are what made me most excited about this book.

Over all this was a challenge for me. This fits in the category of books that aren't in my comfort zone. It was overly sexual, spoke in a voice foreign to me and I couldn't completely envision myself in the place of these characters. However I had a great time getting to know them and trying something new bits kind of line when I go out to eat with my in laws who often convince me to try something new that seems weird but turns out to be good after all.

If romance novels are your thing, I recommend this one!

Review: Interview With The Vampire

Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice

Over all I am excited about this series. I am not a fan if Vampires necessarily however I had read Rice's memoir previously and therefore knew what aspects of her personal life were written into the novel both intentional and unintentional.

I would strongly recommend her memoir, "Called Out Of Darkness" as a prequel to this book or for further reading if you are already a fan of her work.

The imagery was so vivid throughout. There was a strong masculine feel as it was written in the first person as an interview of the vampire Louie.

The descriptions are so intense that any scene involving blood made me squirm as if I were really seeing the images. It was not grotesque however though extremely dark. It is a reselling of a damned immortal life, of course it is dark.

There are love interests but none are conventional. The entire sense of gender is obscured as there are sexual and/or Intimate moments between characters of all genders. From reading her memoir first I can see from her personal detachment from gender how this would come so natural to Rice. She wrote it in a way that felt natural as a reader as well.

The entire sense of life and death are different through the lens of an old world vampire. The same is true for the idea f religion. Though I can clearly see the vampires search for a higher power as a predominant theme throughout.

I will admit this book was a bit harder to get into at first but I stuck it out. In the end I enjoyed the story. I have begun to read book number two: The Vampire Lestat which I have found Much more interesting seeing as I now know the story through his partner Louie.

Over all I am impressed with this novel and even more impressed with the idea of all the books as a whole.