I'll Take You There by Wally Lamb

Reading Wally Lamb's work makes me nervous. Some of his books are on my lists of all time favourite reads (I Know This Much is True and Wishin' and Hopin'), some have been kind of mediocre for me (She's Come Undone and The Hour I First Believed) and I absolutely hated one (We Are Water).  After my disturbing experience with We Are Water, I was hesitant about reading any more of his work. However, when the synopsis showed that this book revived the characters from Wishin' and Hopin', I bought the book, hoping I'd love it as much as I loved Wishin' and Hopin'.

I didn't. But it wasn't as bad as We Are Water. So I put this one in his mediocre category for me.

Felix Funicello, who was a young boy in the first book, is now in his 60's and is a professor of film studies. He is divorced, and the father of a grown daughter, who is a writer in New York City. While preparing for his Monday night film club at a local theatre (restored to it's original beauty from its beginnings in the 1920's), he encounters the ghosts of Lois Weber, a pioneering film director and Billie Dove, an actress from the 20's. They present Felix with film reels, which hold the contents of his life. He is to watch these films, relive some painful parts of his past, and learn from them.

The book is a look at the struggles women have faced over time, what we have learned from our past, and how far we still need to go. At times it read like a feminism textbook. Some of the conversations seemed forced and unnatural. But it is important to consider how women at different levels of society have been treated over the years, and what our daughters will still be facing in the years to come. Aside from that, I was disappointed in the lack of the humour I experienced the first time I met these characters. But on the whole it is a good read, and I recommend it.

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

I am a big fan of classic literature, but have somehow made it to this point in my life without having read anything by Jules Verne. The kids and I have been wanting to read this book for years, after hearing Doc and Marty talk about Jules Verne in Back to the Future 3. So we started it as our before bed read a couple of months back. One chapter at a time and we finished it earlier this week. We all loved it!

This is the story of Phileas Fogg and his servant, Passepartout, who embark on a journey around the world to settle a bet between Fogg and some of his friends. The book was published in 1873, so the idea of travelling around the world in so short a time was absurd. But Fogg was convinced he could do it, so he and Passepartout set off, leaving London behind them. Their adventure took them all around the world, using all kinds of means of travel, from elephant to ocean liner. They encounter lots of interesting characters in their journey, who add a lot of excitement to the trip. There is also a case of mistaken identity, which makes you wonder if Fogg truly is who you think he is. The ending was very exciting and had us on the edge of our seats. We couldn't wait to hear how it ended.

The language is a bit old fashioned, as you would expect from a book published in 1873. I had to paraphrase a few times, but on the whole we just loved it. Up next, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. 

The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

There seems to be a lot of buzz about this book right now so I picked it up a while back with a gift card. It was on every list of the best books of 2016, and was recommended to me by the reading sites I use as something that would interest me.  So, I decided to read it.

Ugh. I did not enjoy this book. Granted, I was reading it during a very busy time for me (getting married and moving and trying to fit two houses into one) so maybe I wasn't in the best frame of mind to read right now. But I'm not sure there would ever be a time in my life when I would enjoy this book.

It is the story of the Plumb family, mainly focused on the eldest child, Leo, but including the stories of his siblings Beatrice, Jack and Melody as well. Their father had set up a trust fund (which they nicknamed "The Nest") for them that ended up growing beyond any of their expectations. There were each due to receive their share when the youngest child, Melody, turned 40. But a few months short of her 40th birthday, Leo was involved in a serious accident and "The Nest" was used as a legal settlement to avoid a big scandal. The rest of the family had been counting on receiving their share of the money soon, and had each gotten themselves into some financial trouble, counting on this money to come to their rescue.

The result of this is a bunch of entitled, unlikable characters. There are very few redeeming qualities in any of them. Beatrice is probably the most likable of them all, but none of them seemed to be all that interested in working for what they needed, everyone was hoping for a huge sum of money to mysteriously fall into their laps. It made it very hard for me to be interested in reading it at all, so it took me months to get through the book. The final third of the book moved along quickly, and I got through that quickly, but it took me months to get through the first two-thirds.

I'm still not sure where all they hype surrounding this book came from, but a lot of people seemed to like it. I am not one of those people!

I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh

This book will be our book club selection (my choice) for October. I picked the book up after receiving some rave reviews about it one night while shopping in Indigo. A staff member and some other shoppers had recently read the book and loved it, so I picked it up.

These ladies couldn't say enough about how quickly they read the book, and how they couldn't put it down. I enjoyed the book, but it took me several weeks to read it and there were times when I needed to put it down.

The first page of the book involves an accident in which a young boy is hit by a car and killed. He is walking home from school with his mother, who briefly lets go of his hand. That is enough for him to run out into the street on a rainy night, right into the path of an oncoming car. Jenna Gray's life is changed in an instant and she needs to leave her life in Bristol, England to start a new life in Wales away from the memories of the accident.

Full of twists and turns, the book throws a major twist in at the halfway point which completely changes everything. It definitely gets more exciting from that point on, but there are still times that are very disturbing, including a domestic violence subplot that I struggled to read.

All in all it is a very thrilling read, there are great surprises and interesting characters. I hope the rest of the ladies in the bookclub enjoy it too.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by JK Rowling, John Tiffany & Jack Thorne

It's no secret that we are pretty big Harry Potter fans around here. We loved reading the entire series together so we were pretty excited when we heard about this new release. We pre-ordered it and started reading as soon as it arrived.

Some people were surprised by the fact that this book was actually the script of the play currently running in London, England. I feel that was pretty well publicized when the book was announced, but maybe it wasn't. I found the play format made it hard to read aloud. But we were able to get used to it after a few days.

The story focuses mostly on Albus Severus Potter, the son of Harry and Ginny Potter, and the friendship he develops with Scorpius Malfoy, the son of Draco Malfoy. Albus struggles with being the son of the "boy who lived" and Harry doesn't know how to reach out to him. Albus struggles at school and can't quite fit in anywhere. When he hears Amos Diggory talking to Harry about the death of his son Cedric, Albus gets an idea of how he can make a difference and the exciting adventure begins.

There are elements of time travel, alternate realities, and return visits to some memorable scenes from Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire.

I didn't love the story but the kids did. It was great to see some of our favourite characters again, and to meet some great new ones. We are curious about how some of the magic will be done on stage and we'd like to see a production someday to see how that works. But all in all it was a fun visit back to the world of Harry Potter and I'm glad we read it.

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce

A few years ago I read The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and absolutely loved it. It was the beautiful story of a man who gets a letter from an old friend who has let him know she is dying of cancer. He decides to walk to see her, believing she will hold on until he gets there. The only problem is that he lives in the south of England and she lives in the north. It's quite a long walk, and a personal journey that unfolds. It has become one of my all time favourite books and definitely my favourite in recent years.

I later heard that a parallel book had been written, telling the story of Queenie Hennessy, the woman Harold is walking to see. I was so excited to read it that I apparently bought two copies at different times! However with the kids and school and my reading for book club I never got around to reading it. Plus, I loved Harold Fry so much I was a bit afraid to read this one because I was afraid that this might not be as good and would ruin the original story for me. So I put off reading it for a long time. But last week I finally picked it up and I read it quickly and loved it. Maybe not quite as much as Harold Fry but a lot.

Queenie Hennessy is getting settled into a hospice in Berwick-Upon-Tweed in the north of England when she feels she needs to send a letter to her old friend Harold Fry to let him know about her poor health. When she hears her letter has spurred him to walk across the country to visit her, she realizes she needs him to know the truth about some things that happened in their shared past. With the help of one of the nuns from the hospice she begins to write to Harold, with the nun transcribing on her typewriter. Most of the book is her letter to Harold, but mixed in are some funny and heartwarming scenes from inside the hospice. There are some fantastic characters who live there, all anxiously awaiting Harold's arrival, taking hope and strength from his decision to walk.

It is interesting to read the same story again from Queenie's perspective. Things that Harold didn't know when he was walking are introduced, things Queenie needs to confess before it is too late for her.

It is a beautiful story of friendship, love, the hurts we hide and the pain everyone faces at different times in their lives. I love these two stories so much and recommend them highly. Definitely begin with Harold Fry and then read this one. I hope you'll love them too!

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

I have this thing where I have a hard time giving up on a book I'm not enjoying. I have only done it a few times in my life and every time I do it, I feel like a quitter. I feel like the book has got to get better. Sometimes my perseverance pays off, sometimes it doesn't.

I have been reading this book since about March. It was a selection for my book club and I just couldn't get into it. When the meeting came and went (and I was still stuck in chapter 5) I set the book aside to focus on the next month's selection. And then the next month's and on we go. But this summer I was determined to finish this book. Thanks to our train ride to Toronto, I was able to finally finish it. It wasn't worth it.

I don't have a lot to say about the book. I found it confusing and boring. I didn't really grow attached to any of the characters and some of them annoyed me. It is the story of Willie Upton who returns to her hometown of Templeton, NY with her life in shambles, just as a mysterious "monster" is pulled out of the town's lake. She finds out that her mother has been lying to her throughout her life about who her father is, and she decides to find the truth once and for all. It just didn't make sense to me that her mother would finally tell her she'd been lying all these years, but still refuse to tell her who her father is, making her dig through generations of family history to try to find it for herself. The family history was confusing, the family trees included did little to help and it just bored me.

But I finished it, and that is a lot of reading time I'll never get back. Someone posted a meme on facebook recently that said, "Life is too short to read bad books". I really feel I need to take this more seriously. I don't have a lot of time for reading, so why should I waste time? When someone chooses a book for my book club, I like to read it before the meeting. I want to see why they've chosen it. But I never want to take months to finish a book again.