The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald

Man, it takes me ages to get through a book these days. I can't believe how long it took me to read this one. It was our book club selection for our meeting in the middle of October. I finished it today. Now I really need to get moving on November's book.

I loved the idea of this book. A book about books and the people who love them. It seems right up my alley. Maybe it was the fact that it was translated from its original Swedish, but it just didn't have the magic I was expecting.

The book tells the story of Sara, a young Swedish woman who comes to visit a Amy, literary pen pal in Broken Wheel, Iowa. The two women had been corresponding about books for a while and decided to meet. Amy was an elderly woman and by the time Sara arrives in Broken Wheel, Amy has passed away. So Sara is left living in Amy's house, and making her way in this small town on her own. She decides to use Amy's extensive book collection to start a book shop, something the town has been lacking prior to her arrival.

Broken Wheel is full of unique characters, many of whom Sara has read about in Amy's letters. Now she gets to know them in real life and she falls in love with the town. However, I feel this was one of the downfalls of the book. There were too many characters and it was hard to keep them all straight. I think a couple of side plots could have been done away with to make the book flow a bit better.

I do like the literary references throughout the book, and one of my favourite parts is when one of the townspeople starts referring to Idgie from Fried Green Tomatoes" as her friend. There are many references to Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, so that's automatically a plus in my mind!

It's a light, fun read, but wasn't as great as I was hoping.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

I came across this book as part of a class I did last spring. I bought it in May and have been reading it ever since. I just couldn't get into it.

It is the story of Marie-Laure a young girl raised in Paris who is being raised by her father in the days leading up to World War II. Marie-Laure is blind, but her father never lets that slow her down. He teachers her how to find her way around and take care of herself. As the war breaks out and they need to flee Paris, these lessons will be invaluable.

It is also the story of Werner, a brilliant young boy growing up in Germany. Orphaned along with his sister he falls in love with the radio and in their children's home they listen to a French scientist's radio broadcasts. Werner discovers a natural ability for building and repairing radios. This skill lands him in a special school and service for the German army in WWII.

Although quite separate, their lives are intertwined in ways they could never imagine.

I wanted to love this book. I tried to love this book. But I just didn't. I think part of what kept me from being drawn into it are the short little chapters and constantly changing voices and time periods. It can be hard to keep track of where and when you are in the story and who all the characters are. Especially when your reading is spread out over several months! But the writing is beautiful, the characters are interesting, I just feel like I had a hard time getting to know them in such short, spread out passages.

It has been a long time since a book has really drawn me in. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

I've heard good things about this book and I've been meaning to give it a try for a while.  So when I was looking for a book to load on the iPad for my trip to Windsor, I decided now was the time for me to read it.

I enjoyed it, but I wasn't blown away.

This is the story of Nick and Amy Dunne.  On their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy goes missing and Nick, Amy's parents and the police are left to figure out what has happened, where she has gone and whether or not she is still alive.

Of course, as most stories go, there is more to the story than originally appears and as the book progresses more and more secrets are revealed.  It makes for a pretty good page-turner.

The book is told in both Nick and Amy's voices in alternating chapters.  I found that to be a great device to keep me reading.  One of Amy's chapters would end on a suspenseful note, then I'd have to read Nick's chapter, then by the time I figured out what had happened to Amy, I was wondering what was happening to Nick.  And so I kept reading.

My main problem with the book is that the main characters were, for the most part, despicable.  There just isn't anything likable about them and you can't really find yourself cheering for either one of them.  It's hard for me to say more without revealing some major plot points, but I will leave it that neither of them are nice people.

Aside from that it is a well-written and suspenseful book.  If you are looking for an exciting summer read, this would be a good choice. It would be a great vacation book.  If you're a character-driven person, this may not be the book for you.

Now to see the movie and see how that compares.

Love, Anthony by Lisa Genova

I've been meaning to read this book for a number of years, but for some reason I never got around to it.  I recently saw it on a bargain table at the bookstore so I picked it up and began reading it a few weeks ago.  I wonder if I would have liked it more if I had read it a few years ago.

I was told this is a story about a boy with autism.  It's true, that is an important component of the book, but definitely not the main one, as I read it.

This is the story of Beth and Olivia, two women on journeys to figure out where their lives are headed after their marriages each break up.  The demise of Olivia's marriage was related to the death of her son, Anthony, who was on the autism spectrum.  Beth's marriage ended due to her husband's infidelity, and she is rediscovering her passion for writing in her healing.  She writes a story about a boy named Anthony, who is on the autism spectrum.

The journey each woman is on is painful and lonely.  It hit a little close to home and made this book less enjoyable for me.

However, I was fascinated with the sections of Beth's book as they appeared in this book.  Lisa Genova is a neuroscientist so this book is well researched and well written.  I feel it can help give some insight into what a child on the autism spectrum faces on a daily basis.

It is a great book, just not a great one for me right now.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

This is a bit of a hot book right now and is my selection for my book club for this year.  It won't be on our book club schedule for a few months yet, but I wanted to give it a read early to see how I felt about it.

Rachel is a woman who rides the train from the suburbs into London every day.  Taking the same trains every day, looking out the windows, she starts to see some familiar scenes each day.  One area she likes to keep an eye on is the street where she formerly lived with her husband before their marriage ended.  A few doors down, a new couple has moved in.  She often sees them out on their terrace and has invented a history for them.  One day she sees something amiss at their house, and when she reads in the news that the woman who lives in that house has gone missing, she feels she needs to get involved.  But not only has she invented a history for these people, Rachel is also an alcoholic who often has blackouts where she can't remember anything that happens to her for a period of time.  So can her information be trusted?  Will her desire to help only cause problems to the investigation?

This is a fun, fast-paced book with some good twists and turns.  It's not going to go down in history as one of the great thrillers of all time, but it is a fun, exciting read.  It is being called the next Gone Girl, but I can't really comment on that, because I haven't read that one.  It's a quick read and I think you'll probably enjoy it.

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

It has been a long time since I finished a book in a day.  But with this short little book I managed to get through it today while Becca was napping.

This is the selection for my book club's meeting next week and it was an absolute delight.  I had no idea what the book was about, but I fell in love with it right away.

The book is a series of letters that passed back and forth between Helene Hanff in New York and Frank Doel, a bookseller in London.  Helene sees an advertisement for his shop in a magazine and begins what becomes a 20-year, transatlantic correspondence.  In the process a friendship develops between the two, along with his wife and other members of the shop's staff.  She sends gifts to help them through the post-WWII rationing in England and often plans visits which always fall through for various reasons.

Both correspondents are fun and witty and their letters are delightful.  Their discussions of antique books are fascinating (especially when her dislike of any sort of fiction is shattered by reading Pride and Prejudice).

It is 97 pages long, with some of those pages being short letters.  It is a very light, very quick read.  I highly recommend it for an easy, fluffy read.  You won't regret it.

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

I have mixed emotions about this book.  I didn't love it as I read it, but the more I think about it now that I'm done, it's growing on me.

This is the story of Efrieda and Yolandi, Mennonite sisters from Winnipeg.  Now grown women, Elf and Yoli live very different lives.  Elf is a world-renowned concert pianist, Yoli is the author of a somewhat successful series of rodeo books.  Elf has a very successful, happy relationship, Yoli has a string of broken relationships and shame about the fact that she "sleeps around".  Elf is suicidal, Yoli is determined to save her.

This is the story of their sisterhood.  Looking back on their childhood in a strict Mennonite community, Yoli (the narrator) looks at their lives and what brought them to where they are today.  Elf has made several attempts to take her own life, and each time Yoli is by her side, encouraging her to fight on.  So when Elf asks Yoli to take her to Switzerland to help her end her life legally, on her own terms, Yoli is torn.

This is a story of love, of sisters, of mental illness, of the difficulty of living when you don't want to live anymore.  And what is love, to allow your sister to go, even to help her die, or to ask her to keep living for your own sake?

Miriam Toews own father and sister committed suicide, so this book has a lot of her own story in it, which makes it more difficult to read at times.

But with all that being said, there are times when this book is laugh-out-loud funny.  Yoli is a very funny character and her way of expressing herself was humourous, even in the sad situations in which she found herself.  She is a very likeable, endearing character.

I'm glad I read it, but I don't think I'd ever read it again.