2016 September Books

[hestergray.livejournal.com]

I never got around to posting these two from September.  October has been a dud so far for books.  I've started a few, but now I'm kind of hooked on listening to podcasts instead.  So there might be no books in October.

Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris 3/5

I knew a little about Neil Patrick Harris before listening to this book.  Now I know a lot more, and he seems like a delightful person.  I knew he had hosted the Tony Awards one year, but apparently, it was four years.  I didn't realize he was so involved in lots of Broadway musicals and plays.  He even won the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical in 2014.  After playing Doogie Howser, he had a difficult time breaking into other roles, but I'm glad he persisted and was able to do so.

The City Baker's Guide to Country Living by Louise Miller 3/5

Overall, a pleasant book.  But also weirdly unexpected, with some plot holes that I could complain about.  Olivia (Livvy) leaves her job at a prestigious dinner club in Boston and goes to Vermont where her best friend Hannah lives.  Livvy ends up starting a new job as a pastry chef at an inn owned by an old woman named Margaret.  She also starts falling for Martin, the son of Margaret's best friend.  Based on the title, I was expecting Livvy to be like a fish out of water being in the country, but she really wasn't, so the first half of the book wasn't what I was expecting.  Then the story took a weird turn and the second half of the book became predictable and kind of cliche.

Even though the title says Livvy is a city baker, she didn't seem like a "city girl" to me.  She plays a banjo and grew up attending contra dances.  Her new employer, Margaret, gives her an old sugarhouse to live in, and Livvy thinks nothing of it.  It has to be heated by a fire furnace and there's a bathtub in the middle of the room.  (Although later they talk about how there's no indoor plumbing in the sugarhouse?  But she never complained about that.)  She has no cell service, and she doesn't find it at all frustrating or inconvenient.  She asks Margaret if she can get a landline in the sugarhouse.  Margaret says no, and Livvy doesn't even care.  Sometimes Livvy will have a thought like how she can't imagine growing up in a place that doesn't have any record stores.  But that's about as far as her city girl background goes.  The only thing that shocks her about small town life is how much gossip there is.

I still liked the book, but there were a lot of things that just didn't match up with what a character had said earlier.