2015 Quarter 3 Books

[hestergray.livejournal.com]

The Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot

This is a cute, light-hearted love story.  Mel is a gossip columnist in New York City.  Her elderly neighbor ends up in a coma in the hospital and by default, Mel takes care of the neighbor's dog.  A young man moves into the neighbor's apartment temporarily.  Mel believes him to be her neighbor's nephew, but he is an imposter.  Oh, no!  Someone pretending someone else and it causes problems when he falls for the girl!  Happens all the time.  But really, I thought this book was cute.  Interestingly, it's told entirely through emails.  I thought that might bother me listening to the audio book, but actually, it was totally fine. 3/5

A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy

This book felt like a series of short stories, each focused on one or two characters who all end up at a bed and breakfast in Ireland during the same week.  I thought it was charming.  Each time one person's story ended, I was a little annoyed that I now had to learn about a new character, and what if I don't like the new character?  But each time, after a few sentences with the new character, I was already engrossed in their story and wanted to know more.  4/5

Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani

This story did not happen at all the way I expected it to.  It's like it didn't have a clear-cut plot.  Each time something happened where I thought that THIS was going to be the overarching story, it turned out not to be the main thing.  And it happened several times so that there seemed to be no main thing, but just a lot of little things in the life of the main character.  The main character is Ave Maria Mulligan, whose Italian mother ended up settling in the mountains of western Virginia.  Ave Maria is now 35 years old and she is the town pharmacist.  Her mother has died and left a letter explaining a big secret about her life.  This seems to cause a lot of other things to happen, but was really not as big of a deal as it was supposed to be.  After I finished this book, I found out that the movie is coming out next week, written and directed by the author.  And Ashley Judd is playing Ave Maria.  Not at all how I pictured the character.  I'm a little interested to see how the movie turns out, but I'm skeptical that this book would make a good movie. 3/5

The Boy Most Likely To by Huntley Fitzpatrick

When I picked up this book, I didn't realize that it's a companion novel to another book, My Life Next Door.  It has the same set of characters as the first book, but this one focuses on two different people.  It wasn't necessary to read the first book first, but I think some of the events and circumstances would have made more sense if I had.  This book focuses on Tim and Alice, but mostly Tim.  He has always been getting into trouble, being an alcoholic and a drug addict and getting kicked out of schools.  Now he's almost 18 and he's getting a better handle on his life.  However, his dad pretty much kicks him out of the house, so Tim goes to live in the apartment above the garage of his best friend's house.  He starts falling for Alice, his best friend's slightly older sister.  But then consequences of his checkered past show up to complicate things.  I really enjoyed this book.  The characters, the writing, the story - it was captivating.  4/5

Comments

[jobey-in-error.livejournal.com]

I loved your comments on the Maeve Binchy book. I haven't read that one, but you described exactly how I felt reading The Lilac Bus!

The Fitzpatrick book sounds interesting. It's going on the endless list of want-to-reads.

[hestergray.livejournal.com]

I have another Maeve Binchy book in my queue. I can't remember what it's called, but I have a feeling it will be interesting and comforting, if her books are all like that. :)