Books I read in July 2017

The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery ****

Someone at book club mentioned this book and I was pleasantly surprised that there was a book by her that I hadn't read.  This was a good book.  It's about a woman who has spent a lifetime cowed by her awful family and then she is told she only has a few months left to live to she shocks her family and does what she wants.

Left Neglected  by Lisa Genova***

This is by the same author of Still Alice.  Like it, there's a lot of neuroscience in the book.  A woman has an accident that leaves her with a brain injury where she can't see the left side of anything.  It was interesting.  I also loved the story.  It made me think and made me grateful for my life and the fact that I don't have a high falutin' career.

The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor ***

I had a little bit of a hard time getting into it.  Since I knew some of the characters wouldn't survive the Titanic, I didn't know which characters I should care about and which I should keep my distance from since they weren't going to make it.  I ended up thinking it was interesting read though.

The Things We Knew by Catherine West ***

This was for book club.  I liked the book fine...it's an easy read about a family that is sort of in disrepair and they have a house in Nantucket.  What's not to like?  When I got to book club, everyone spent the first 15 minutes talking about how dumb and lacking in substance the book was.  Hmm.  What does that say about me?

Don't answer that.

Miss Hickory by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey*

This one is a Newbery winner so I started it.  Didn't finish it.  The book is short, but so is life.  What isn't short is the list of books that I want to read.  So this one didn't make the cut.  It won the Newbery in 1947 and makes you wonder what the competition was.  Was there competition?  Maybe this was the only book published that year.  It's about a cranky doll whose head is made out of a hickory nut.  I browsed ahead and looked at the pictures and it seems a squirrel eats her head later.  Weird.

Emma was sort of shocked when I told her I wasn't finishing it.  "I thought you were going to read every Newbery?!?" 

Emma clearly has more stick-to-itiveness than I do.

Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark **

This was another Newbery.  It was OK but I didn't love it.  It was about a boy living in the Andes and on sort of a quest to discover his Incan roots.  It was all very mystical and left me wondering what exactly were his roots and what was the secret. 

First Comes Love by Emily Giffen ***

The language was a little dicey.  I need to remember that because I always forget and then recommend a book to someone else....

Also, the ending wasn't as satisfying as I would have liked. I do mostly enjoy Emily Giffen books though.  The characters are interesting and multi-dimensional.  The book was about two sisters who didn't have a great relationship and there was the underlying tragedy of their brother who died young and how that changed everyone.