A Whole Bunch of Books

I've fallen a bit behind on posting the books I've read. January became a very busy month and it seems so has February!

In January I wrote an exam for a course I was taking, we started a kitchen reno, went to Phoenix for 10 days, and had a birthday to celebrate (the big one turned 8!). Then in February, the kitchen reno continued and really there is no other reason for not updating than I didn't make the time. Oops! So here are a bunch of books I've read lately!

The Knot - Mark Watson - Well, what can I say about this one without giving too much away.....the story is about Dominic Kitchen, a wedding photographer. He grew up with a much older sister and brother. He and his sister were very close, while he and his brother were not. While his sister saw him as more of a friend, his brother thought he was a pest and not good enough. My assumption when I started the book was that the title referred to weddings, when really it referred to a feeling Dominic often felt in his stomach. That feeling had a lot to do with his sister. I am going to leave it at that, but I don't highly recommend this book. It dealt with a topic that I found uncomfortable, and even though the characters were likable enough, the topic was not.

Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination - Helen Fielding - I have to say I loved the Bridget Jones series. You should see my copy of the first one...I'm usually super careful with books, but this one is obviously well loved. So I thought I should try a different book by this author. I started reading it while on vacation and had the distinct feeling I had read it before. I still can't remember if I actually have, but the story felt very familiar. The story follows Olivia, a journalist often given fluff pieces when she really wants more meaty assignments. The problem is that Olivia has an overactive imagination and often begins to think there is much more to a story than there actually is. We follow Olivia from London to Los Angeles where she is to write a story on a new brand release. She meets a mysterious man and her imagination starts running wild. Soon she is in over her head. It's not a bad story, but definitely nowhere near as good as Bridget Jones!

The Birth House - Ami McKay - Once I finished with Olivia, I moved on to this book and I loved it! This is the story of Dora Rare, a midwife in a small village in Nova Scotia in the early 1900's. Dora is the first girl to be born into the Rare family for five generations. She is always seen as different and becomes close with the town midwife, Miss Babineau, eventually learning her craft. At this time, modern medicine is making its way to the rural parts of the country and doctors strongly believe they know best about delivering babies. Dora does her best to hold onto traditions and friends in the town rally around her. This was a wonderful story about rural Canada, and it wound it's way through WWI, a flu epidemic, and modernization of medicine. I highly recommend this one!!

The Children Act - Ian McEwan - This was a gift and sat on my shelf for awhile. The story follows Fiona Maye, a High Court judge in London as she struggles with her marriage to Jack and a high profile family law case. Jack drops surprising news on her and she throws herself into her work on a case about a seventeen year old Jehovah's Witness who wants to refuse a blood transfusion to battle leukemia. The story follows her rationalization for her decision and then we see what happens next in her life. It was okay, but I'm not sure I would recommend this one either.

Half Broke Horses - Jeannette Walls - This book is the story of Jeannette's grandmother Lily Casey Smith. Lily was helping her father to break horses by six years old, left home at fifteen to be a teacher (she rode her horse alone 500 miles to get there!), learned to drive a car and even fly a plane. She had two husbands, one she called a "crumb bum", and the second a good man who managed a huge ranch in Arizona. She also had two children. Her life was amazing, she was a very tough woman who survived all kinds of difficulties in her life. While this book is about Lily's life, the author does not sell it as a non-fiction, rather a historical fiction. If you have read Glass Castle, you will like this one!

Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower - Cynthia Cooper - This book is the story of the Worldcom fraud from Cynthia's perspective as the "whistleblower." I should point out, I am a fiction girl, but this one was recommended, and as an accountant who has heard about this fraud over and over in school, the book appealed to me. It was well-written and definitely a page turner. And you don't have to be an accountant to understand what was going on or to enjoy the story. I was left with mixed feelings on the founder of the company by the end and did wonder at his sentence, especially as the news recently reported his passing. It was a good story to remember how important morals and ethics really are.

So that's what I've read for the last couple months! Some I loved, some not so much. But what a great couple months of reading!