2016 Quarter 1 Books

[hestergray.livejournal.com]

Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson 5/5

Jenny Lawson is The Bloggess, and this is her second book.  In this one, she talks a little more about her mental illnesses (anxiety, depression, etc.), and she explains how it affects her and the people around her.  But it's not a depressing book.  Quite the opposite.  It's hilarious.  She always winds up in the funniest situations, and then has the funniest reactions to those situations.  That's her personality and writing style.  It's a wonderful book.

Winter by Marissa Meyer 5/5

The super duper long conclusion to The Lunar Chronicles!  I didn't really mind how long it was.  There was a lot of story to get through!  This is the fourth book, and there are a lot of characters now, and they tend to split up so there are a lot of story lines going on simultaneously.  It was a great conclusion to the series.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell 4/5

I wondered how much this book would feel like a Harry Potter book, since the original idea was a fictional series about a boy wizard inside the fiction book Fangirl.  The basics of the story are very similar to Harry Potter, a boy wizard orphan attends a magic school and there was a prophecy about how he would bring down the bad guy who is ruining everything.  But the rest of the story is very different from Harry Potter, and the writing is distinctly Rainbow Rowell.  Simon Snow is the wizard and he has to defeat the Insidious Humdrum with the help of his super smart friend Penelope and his roommate Baz.

Who Could That Be at This Hour? by Lemony Snicket 3/5

I enjoyed A Series of Unfortunate Events when I read it years ago.  This is the start of a shorter series in which Lemony Snicket explains how he first got involved in the secret organization that he talks about in A Series of Unfortunate Events.  It was short, and I liked it well enough.

Chestnut Street by Maeve Binchy 3/5

A sweet, comforting book.  It's basically a series of short stories in which at least one character lives on Chestnut Street in Dublin.  I like listening to Irish books and this one is so pleasant.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling 3/5

I enjoyed listening to this.  Mindy has some funny insights about life.  I don't have a lot to say, except that she's totally right about men taking a long time to put shoes on.  Like how it's a whole production that involves sitting on a chair.

An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor 3/5

This is a pleasant book.  Not much conflict.  A little amusing.  I just like hearing about life in Ireland.  The book is set in the 1960s.  Dr. Barry Laverty has just taken a job as an assistant to Dr. O'Reilly in the small town of Ballybucklebo.  Some of Dr. O'Reilly's methods are shocking to Dr. Laverty, but he soon realizes that Dr. O'Reilly knows what he's doing and is actually very smart for the way he does things.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo 3/5

I love tidying.  Even more, I love when places remain tidy so that I don't have to do the physical act of tidying.  I get immense satisfaction when everything has a place, and everything is in its place.  I could write a whole post about this subject.  I had heard so much about this book, I felt like I had read it already.  I also wondered that if I actually read it, would I get even more frustrated over the fact that I have so little control over how tidy the house is?  You know, since I am only one of six people living there.

Kondo sort of addressed that issue, saying that you can only deal with your own stuff, and communal areas will come later.  (When???)  But she also thinks that if one family member tidies up their stuff, then other family members will be inspired to do the same.  And why not?  That's what happened in her family!  Well, that's not going to happen in every family.  Particularly mine, I think.  But her book inspires me to do what I CAN do anyway.

I'm totally with her on needing to tidy a space first before I can work in it.  That was particularly true in college.  Before I could work on a paper or project, my side of the dorm room had to be tidy.

However, I'm not totally with her on needing to talk to inanimate objects and thank them every day.  I'm also not with her on how strict she is about throwing away papers.  In talking about manuals that come with purchases, she was like, "You don't need to keep the manual.  Usually you can just fiddle with the machine and make it work."  And I'm like, "Or you could keep the manual so you know what to do to fix it."

Also, what's with her idea of not keeping a set of sheets for a guest bed?  She said you shouldn't keep any if you only have guests once or twice a year.  But she didn't say her solution.  Am I supposed to buy new sheets every time someone is going to visit?  That's dumb.  I'll just keep spare sheets, thanks.

Overall, I like her philosophy.  I hate clutter.  I'm all about getting rid of things that I don't need or don't like.  If only everyone in my house felt the same way.  (Or at least the adults.)

Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott 3/5

This has been on my to-read Goodreads list for a while, and I'm trying to chip away at those when I have a chance.  This book is about Rose, who is 15 (I think?).  Her parents have died and she goes to live with her Uncle Alec.  She also has a bunch of aunts who live nearby, and cousins too.  Seven cousins who are all boys, with Rose being the eighth cousin.  This is a light book in which each chapter presents a small dilemma, and it's resolved by the end of the chapter.

This is Your Life, Harriet Chance! by Jonathan Evison 3/5

I picked up this book because I couldn't renew the book I was in the middle of.  I needed something else to listen to.  This was relatively short.  And I previously enjoyed a different book by Jonathan Evison.  I enjoyed this one too!  Harriet is 78.  Her husband passed away a few months ago, and now she discovers that he had already paid for an Alaskan cruise.  She decides to go on the cruise where she learns that her life was not exactly as she had thought it was.  The book consists of present-day narrative, with flashbacks to different times in Harriet's life.  The flashbacks are told in second-person, with the narrator talking to Harriet.  I think it's like the old TV show This is Your Life, which I've never seen, so I'm guessing.  It's a good story, told in a unique way.  I'll have to look for more by Jonathan Evison.  And now the book I was in the middle of is waiting for me at the library, so this worked out well!

Comments

[moredetails.livejournal.com]

Great list--this was fun to read. :) This was the first of two mentions of Furiously Happy, so I'm guessing it's new and everyone is snatching it up.

I haven't read Winter yet, for some reason. Maybe the length, or maybe I just can't seem to muster up interest, even though I enjoyed the other books. I'm not sure what my problem is. I'm glad to hear it's good. I think maybe I can't quite remember where Cress left off, because in my mind it seemed like conclusion enough. Like I am not interested enough to know what's going on with everyone.

Ooh, now you can read the next Mindy Kaling book, which I personally enjoyed more.

I didn't know that about you and tidiness! I'd definitely be interested in a whole post about it! And yeah....wth on the guest bed sheets?

[hestergray.livejournal.com]

Yes, Furiously Happy came out last fall! I was almost done with it for Quarter 4 of last year, but not quite.

I was mostly wanting to find out what happened with Cinder and Kai, since they were kind of secondary characters in Scarlet's and Cress's books. I hope you get around to Winter eventually!

All I can think about the bed sheets is that maybe in her house, all the beds are the same size. So if you already have like three sets of queen sheets that you use regularly, then you should just put one of those sets on the guest bed for when guests come over. Maybe she means to just not set aside any sheets that are only for guests. Maybe? But for our guests, there is a twin-size day bed with a twin-size trundle bed under it. They are the only twin-size mattresses in the house. So we kind of have to keep twin sheets around that are only for guests.

[moredetails.livejournal.com]

Hm...yeah, if you have extra sheets that fit, then that's still extra sheets "for guests" isn't it? :D That's probably it, but she sure says it weird!