July book reviews

 July was a prolific reading month with my reading of 8 books.  It is probably because it is so hot here there is nothing much to do but read :)

Summer Island:  

Nora, now a successful radio talk host who gives sincere advice to those who call in to her program, but left her husband and children 11 years prior, has an affair exposed from her past and she is put on leave from her talk show.  Mortified at the events, she ends up drinking a little too much and getting into an accident.  The only one available to help her in her recovery is her daughter who has not spoken to her in 11 years and has returned all Christmas and birthday gifts during that time.  They go back to their summer house on the island and try to attempt to fix their relationship.  Intermingled with the plot are 2 brothers who were childhood friends of Ruby (the daughter) and her sister (Caroline) who is now married and the mother of 2 young children.  Kristin Hannah, the author, is a favorite of mine and I have read pretty much all her books.  I almost burnt down the house when reading Winter Garden as I forgot I had eggs and potatoes cooking to make potato salad.  Anyway, this is just as good as any of her other books.  Her recent novel, Four Winds, is also very good.  I read that probably the latter part of 2021.  Highly recommend anything by Kristin Hannah and would give this book 5 stars. 

Blood, Bones, and Butter:  

This is the memoir of Gabrielle Hamilton, owner of Prune, a very successful restaurant in New York City.  Lori had read it.  This was the month I decided to read out of my usual genre which included either a biography or a memoir so I decided to check this book out.  I had no idea who Gabrielle Hamilton was when I got the book but I so enjoyed reading her memoir.  She had a difficult childhood, young adulthood, career in the culinary industry including owning and running her restaurant.  She married an Italian man with whom she had 2 boys and spent the month of July every year in Italy with his large extended Italian family.  She wrote very well her experiences of her life.  Thoroughly enjoyed the book.  I was not familiar with her restaurant, so I googled it (what would we do without Google) and saw that it was temporarily closed.  She wrote a very extensive article, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/magazine/closing-prune-restaurant-covid.html, for the New York Times about closing her restaurant during the beginning of the Covid pandemic.  I had seen some other articles that perhaps Prune would be reopening, but could find nothing that substantiated it.  I'll let the reader learn why the restaurant was called Prune.  I would give the book 5 stars. 

The Latecomer:  

This is the story of Johanna and Solomon (Salo) Oppenheimer.  Their courtship, marriage, attempt to start a family, their ability to have a family through the help of in vitro fertilization with the subsequent birth of triplets.  Then the book switches to the triplets in their last year of high school and their college years.  Oddly the triplets are not close and resent each other and are glad to be out of high school, forging their own lives.  There were four eggs harvested at the time of the triplets birth.  After the triplets graduate from high school, Johanna decides to have the fourth egg as the fourth child in the family, this time using a surrogate.  The second half of the book tells of the "latecomer" (the fourth child) in her senior year with some unusual twists to the story along the way.  This was probably in the top 5 of the best books I've read so far this year.  Highly recommend this story.  Very well written, thoroughly enjoyed it.  Would give it 5 stars.

French Braid:  

I have read books from the author before.  This was unique in that it told a story of a family (Mercy and Robin Garrett and their 3 children) but it told it in separate stories focusing on one aspect of their lives at a time in that individual story.  For instance, a chapter was devoted to a family vacation they took back in 1959 and then another chapter would be of an event that happened in 2010.  Once I got the gist of it going back and forth like that and each chapter was an individual story, it made reading it a little more sense but I was confused for a chapter or two (the chapters are long, at least 20 pages each).  Each chapter was interesting but on a whole I didn't enjoy the book because there wasn't a consistent flow through it if that makes sense. I'll give it a 3 stars.

Hanging Woman Creek:  

I told Jack that I would read a Western some time this year as he enjoys reading that genre.  I have to be honest.  I didn't know any Western authors so I googled "Western authors" and Louis L'Amour's name came up.  I had heard of him.  I looked at all the books our e-library offered of his (quite a collection) but settled on this one since it was based out of Montana and I used to live there.  It tells the story of Pike and his friend, Eddie, who were hired to watch over a rancher's cows during the winter months but trouble comes their way in rustlers trying to steal cows from not only that ranch but other ranchers around the area.  Gunfights ensue with lots of loss of life.  There is a love interest in the story for Pike and to coin a phrase from popular fairy tales "they all lived happily ever after" though there is also sadness with the deaths of some key characters in the book.  It was an interesting read.  I'll give it 4 stars.

Two Little Girls: 

 

Lizzie and Dan have 2 daughters, Portia and Becca.  The story begins with Lizzie and the daughters finishing up a mini vacation they had together on a school break.  As Lizzie is driving them back home, she gets into an auto accident where the car plunges into a lake and she can only save herself and one of her daughters.  It take a couple of chapters to reveal which daughter is saved.  The remainder of the book deals with the grief of losing their other daughter as well as a bit of a thriller with perhaps the accident wasn't truly an accident but intentional.  I don't want to give away too much more of the plot to spoil it for anyone who might decide to read it.  It held my interest, it wrapped up the story at the end of the book, so I give it 4 stars.

A Beautiful Terrible Thing:

This is a memoir detailing a relationship the author had with a man who eventually became her husband.  He basically worshiped her for the years they were together but suddenly became cold and distant and his social media and other records indicated he might be having an affair, something he vehemently denied for a long time.  She finally found an email from an apartment broker who was trying to help him and his girlfriend find a place together and she started putting the pieces of the puzzle together.  She had just given birth to their daughter when this all began to unravel.  The author, Jen Waite, of course is devastated and she is trying to figure out what went wrong with their relationship, etc.  She finally, through research, decided he was either a sociopath or a psychopath.  She tells the story in sections before and after.  How their life was before she found out about the affair, and then after she found out and how she was dealing with it and then her trying to pick up the pieces afterward.  She eventually gets to a place of healing with the help of a therapist, her parents, family and friends.  It was an interesting sad story.  I kept reading it  because I wanted to find out what next happened, kind of like you drive by an accident and are prone to want to slow down and stare at what is going on.  I give it 5 stars for her bravery to write something so personal but 3 stars overall with my "enjoyment" of it.  

Out of the Clear Blue Sky:  

From the first few paragraphs of this book, I was hooked and almost had trouble putting the book down.  It tells the story of Lilie who has been happily married for 19 years facing her husband having an affair with a "gold digger" and the husband wants to leave the marriage and marry that woman.  Lilie's and Brad's only child, Dylan, is graduating high school and going off to college in another state come fall.  It is a delightful story told over the next few months of her dealing with the breakup, of her work as a midwife, of the story of the "gold digger" who enticed her husband away from her.  I truly enjoyed this book very much.  A good summer read.  I rate it 5 stars.  

So far, I have read 43 books of the 50 I challenged myself to for the year.  I think I'll reach the goal by the end of December if not sooner :) 

As always, let me know if you have any good books you would recommend.