A Whole Bunch of Books....part 2

So here we are in quarantine for the last two months and you would think I could get a lot of reading done right? Wrong! Before the quarantine, most of my reading was done during my commute. Now I have no commute, but I am not only working full time, I am also the daycare for my children, the home school teacher, and the janitorial staff. By the end of the day, I am exhausted. So here is another list of books I have read over the last couple months (or maybe a bit longer....).

The Notebook - Nicholas Sparks - Yes, I am one of those few people in the world who has not seen the movie, so when the book showed up in the box at book club, I took it. It was time to see if I was missing something. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think I missed anything by not seeing the movie. The book follows Noah who is still pining for Allie, years after meeting her as a teenager. One day Allie shows up, she is engaged and just had to see if there was still anything left with Noah. Of course there was and of course they spend the rest of their life together. The book has a sad twist that I'm sure everyone already knows, but just in case you don't, I won't spoil it.

The Painted Girls - Cathy Marie Buchanan - This is an historical fiction that takes us to Paris in the late 1800's. Three sisters, Antoinette, Marie, and Charlotte are living in poverty with their parents. Antoinette is working at the Paris Opera as a extra. When their father dies, the younger two girls also go to the Opera where they are paid to be trained for the ballet. Marie, who had been studying at a school and is the only one in the family who can really read, proves to be very good at ballet and is asked to model for Edgar Degas. Antoinette falls in love with Emile Abadie and is drawn into the seedy life of Paris where she at times works as a laundress, a prostitute, and even ends up in jail. Even Marie herself, cannot stay in the ballet after being drawn into Antoinette's drama. The story was sad, and sometimes hard to keep reading. The most interesting thing I learned after reading it is that the author intertwined the true story of Marie van Goethem posing for Edgar Degas, and a murder trial of Emile Abadie to create this story.

Adequate Yearly Progress - Roxanna Elden - The story of an inner city school from the teacher's point of view. Brae Hill Valley high school is chosen as one of the test schools for a new theory on teaching, where everyday there is a new directive from the board office making it harder for the teachers to get their jobs done. The story follows Lena Wright, an English teacher with a passion for poetry, Hernan D. Hernandez, a biology teacher who loves plants, Maybelline Galang, the math teacher who had an affair with Coach Ray, the football coach across the hall, which resulted in a child years ago, and Kaytee Mahoney, a second year history teacher who is still in the early glow of graduation and still believes in every child. This is an interesting read, though not a favourite of mine.

The Couple Next Door - Shari Lapena - This book was picked up at a Little Library on one of our many walks through the neighbourhood. I started this one after my husband took a different book away from me after I was struggling to read it and frustrated over how the story was playing out (maybe I'll write about that one if I ever finish it). This was a mystery/thriller. A couple, Anne and Marco, go to a dinner party at their neighbour's house and leave baby Cora home alone, checking on her every hour (it should be noted that these are attached townhouses, so it was literally steps away and they had the baby monitor with them). When the couple gets home, baby Cora is gone. We see a marriage crumble, get a peek inside the neighbour's life, and of course follow a mystery that is eventually solved. I wouldn't say it was a page turner, some of the characters were annoying, but it was a pretty good read.

Fantastic Beasts - The Crimes of Grindelwald - J.K. Rowling - I got this for Christmas a couple years ago and finally pulled it off the shelf. This is a fast read since it is a screenplay and all details are left out. I had to try to remember what had happened in the previous book as I was reading this one. It has classic J.K. Rowling charm and I always love being pulled back into her world of magic. If you are into Harry Potter, then this is a definite must-read as we learn more about the history of the magical world and the back stories of some of our favourite characters from the Harry Potter series.

In the Unlikely Event - Judy Blume - I was never a big Judy Blume reader growing up, but I saw this on the shelf at our office kitchen and grabbed it before the work from home started. This was a really good book and another one based on actual events. The story takes place in Elizabeth, New Jersey in the 1950's where three planes crash in three months. The crashes impact different people in different ways. The story closely follows Miri Ammerman and her friends and family. It is interesting to see how everyone is impacted and also how life continues to go on throughout the tragedies.

Now it's time I pick up another book and make some time during this quarantine for reading!