What Are We Currently Reading?

[grommit2]

Finished The Women by Kristin Hannah.
Kristin authored one of the best books ever, The Great Alone.  The Women has some distinctive, compelling and powerful episodes. Its core message is that women who served in Vietnam were ignored and unsupported after their tours were over.

[Bookish Jen]

I just finished "The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us" by Rachel Bergstein. I loved this book. Bergstein really showed how Ms. Blume, once a suburban housewife went on to be one of the most iconic (and yes, controversial) writers of young adult literature and how she affected readers, writers, and books for tweens, teens, and adults. I can't recommend it enough.

And right now I'm reading "Mastering the Universe: The Obscene Wealth of the Ruling Class, What They Do with Their Money, and Why You Should Hate Them More" by economist Rob Larson. This book is quite enlightening and it's also really pissing me off.

[andromeda331]

11 hours ago, grommit2 said:

Finished The Women by Kristin Hannah.
Kristin authored one of the best books ever, The Great Alone.  The Women has some distinctive, compelling and powerful episodes. Its core message is that women who served in Vietnam were ignored and unsupported after their tours were over.

It really doesn't surprise me. Men or women returning home were ignored, forgotten and told to forget about it.  They were all messed up and no one where to go for help. It really sucks how badly they were treated by well everyone but especially the government.

[Anduin]

I just finished the Magicians, by Lev Grossman. What a strange book. I'm not sure how I feel about it. But I know one thing, the protagonist is mopey as hell. Wake the hell up, you're living your dream! Try to bloody appreciate it, will you? Anyone know if he gets his act together in the sequels?

Also, what exactly does Grossman think about the Narnia books? Love them? Hate them? It must be one of those.

[scarynikki12]

I don't know if anyone has read Paris Is Always A Good Idea by Jenn McKinlay. I finished it a couple days ago and I really enjoyed it. I was ready to give it 4 stars on Goodreads until the final line which I hated and dropped it to 3 stars. I'll get to that.

So the premise is Chelsea's father is getting married seven years after her mom passed away from cancer, Chelsea's opposed (I'll get to this too), she eventually realizes she's allowed her life to come a halt and decides to recreate the year long trip she'd been on when she got the news of her mom's cancer. She's doing a three week version in Ireland, France, and Italy and hoping she can reconnect with the three men she dated. If there's a renewed spark, great, but it's ok if there's not. She also has a coworker who joins her in France and then Italy to try and get a rich guy to donate to the book version of the American Cancer Society.

I liked the basic story and I liked how the characters played out. Rock solid premise and execution.

HOWEVER.

Now I'm picky about what I give a 5 star rating. For me a 5 goes to the books I love so much I not only make sure to own a copy but I will also purchase a second for when I travel. They get reread regularly and I end up having them almost memorized.

My 4 star rated books tend to be the ones I enjoyed so much I'll definitely be rereading and will own but not a second copy. 

My 3 is for books I genuinely enjoyed and will recommend (with caveats when necessary) but won't necessarily own and may reread but rarely. 

So, the reason this book didn't hit the 5 star rating is because of the instigating subplot of Chelsea's dad getting married again. Here's the thing: her dad comes to her and reveals his engagement to a woman he's known for literally 2 weeks and then the whole book Chelsea is presented as being unreasonable for thinking they were rushing things and not jumping for joy. Chelsea does accept the wedding will happen pretty quickly, and a part of her concern does come from the place of thinking of her mom as still being her dad's living wife even though she's been dead seven years, yet everyone is all "who cares if we've only known each other two weeks (three months by the time the wedding happens)? We're in love!" Why the hell couldn't they just write it as her dad's been in this relationship for over a year and Chelsea just refused to accept him moving on? At least then the characters and book acting like she was the bad guy in her family would have some validity to it. If anyone I knew in real life came up to me and revealed they were about to marry someone they'd know for two weeks I would absolutely be trying to talk them into a year long engagement at the least. Chelsea's reaction was perfectly normal AND reasonable so no 5 stars.

Now, the very end of the book, and I mean literally the last line, further dropped my rating to a 3. The book's almost five years old but I'll still spoil bar it just in case:

Spoiler

Chelsea calls her dad's new wife Mom. What the fuck?? To be clear, Chelsea is twenty nine, this woman has been in her life for three months, and they hardly know each other both because Chelsea hasn't made an effort to get to know her AND because a full third of that time she was on the other side of the world. In the final paragraphs Chelsea has a realization that Sheri (new wife) really is great and that's all that was needed! There is literally no reason for Chelsea to start calling her Mom. Her dad makes a comment earlier in the book about Sheri had never been married before and was looking forward to having daughters but, again, Chelsea and her sister are full grown adults in their twenties. I'm an advocate for the role of step-parents being recognized for its importance in the raising of children but that doesn't apply here. Also Chelsea doesn't spend the book wishing for another mother or anything where it would kind of make sense for her to grab on to this second opportunity. Maybe this is just a me thing but I cannot ever imagine a full grown adult calling the new spouse of their parent Mom or Dad. I think Chelsea establishing a good relationship with Sheri to the point where she comes to see her as family makes sense but that's it. I don't know what the writer was trying to do here.

Whew, rant over.