MAY books

This is the last of my catch-up.... you would think I would be happy but I'm just vaguely unsettled.  I know for sure I've read more books than this I just can't THINK of what they are. I know it doesn't matter but for some reason it troubles me.  It's like my brain is going on overdrive trying to remember. 


1. 

Distant Shores: A Novel by Kristin Hannah / A / **

From AMAZON: "Elizabeth and Jackson Shore married young, raised two daughters, and weathered the storms of youth as they built a family. From a distance, their lives look picture perfect. But after the girls leave home, Jack and Elizabeth quietly drift apart. When Jack accepts a wonderful new job, Elizabeth puts her own needs aside to follow him across the country. Then tragedy turns Elizabeth’s world upside down. In the aftermath, she questions everything about her life—her choices, her marriage, even her long-forgotten dreams. In a daring move that shocks her husband, friends, and daughters, she lets go of the woman she has become—and reaches out for the woman she wants to be"

Well this is all dandy except I didn't expect Elizabeth to want to be someone who let her husband continue to walk all over her. She changed a lot of things but did not change how she communicated. This book was disappointing.  

 2. 

The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen / YA / ***

Another great coming of age story from Sarah Dessen. This story focuses on finding and being your truest self.  

3.

The Peach Keeper: A Novel by Sarah Addison Allen / A / ** 1/2

From Amazon: It’s the dubious distinction of thirty-year-old Willa Jackson to hail from a fine old Southern family of means that met with financial ruin generations ago. The Blue Ridge Madam—built by Willa’s great-great-grandfather and once the finest home in Walls of Water, North Carolina—has stood for years as a monument to misfortune and scandal. Willa has lately learned that an old classmate—socialite Paxton Osgood—has restored the house to its former glory, with plans to turn it into a top-flight inn. But when a skeleton is found buried beneath the property’s lone peach tree, long-kept secrets come to light, accompanied by a spate of strange occurrences throughout the town. Thrust together in an unlikely friendship, united by a full-blooded mystery, Willa and Paxton must confront the passions and betrayals that once bound their families—and uncover the truths that have transcended time to touch the hearts of the living."

This one was just ho-hum.  I wanted it to be a Joshilyn Jackson type novel but ended up being flat, predictable, and ultimately unsatisfying.

4.

Dear Life: Stories by Alice Munro / A / ***1/2

This is one of those books that the writing was beautiful but the words just did not speak to me.  It really isn't the books fault, it is kinda mine.

First of all, I didn't realize when I checked it out that this was a series of short stories.  You read books differently when they are non-related individual stories than you do a novel.  I initially spent several chapters looking for connections and similarities.  Reading the reviews later, I found that each story had a moment when a person is forever altered by a chance encounter, an action not taken, or a simple twist of fate.  Oh.  Well. Didn't catch that. Woops.

5.

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty / A / ***1/2

When I first started reading this book, I thought it may be individual short stories again like the previous book I read.  But each seemingly unrelated story slowly wound into each other until by the end they were completely intertwined.  Each narrator was a distinct individual and the ultimate coming together was entirely plausible. This isn't a book that I was just dieing to find out what happened next, but the writing was so good that by the end I was thinking, "Just how did she DO that?".