Books I read in January 2019

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan ***

This book felt like one of those books where the author really had a few different books and mashed them together into one.  I didn't mind so much in this one though because the story was compelling enough and I was rooting for the characters--even the gangsters.

Also, I told Mark they had abysmal morals in this book and he said, "Well, they're gangsters."

So there's that.  The book started with a 12 year old girl and followed her into young adulthood.  It mostly took place in NYC during World War II and even the characters who weren't gangsters had abysmal morals.  It was definitely not G rated and there were whole scenes I skimmed.  I liked it though.  I liked he interesting view of what it was like to be a a young woman in the workplace during World War II.

Goldfinch by Donna Tartt **

I didn't finish this book.  I really enjoyed it for quite awhile.  I listened to the book and it was a long 32+ hours.  The author went into great detail all the time which I enjoyed when I was enjoying the characters and which I purely hated when the tide turned.  The main character moved to Las Vegas to live with his cocaine using dad and step-mom.  He was friends with a crass Russian/Ukrainian kid whose dad beat him.  The teenage boys mostly drank alcohol and spoke crudely and I stopped listening.  The woes of listening.  If I'd been reading the book I would have just skimmed/skipped that part until it got to a different part of the story.

Venetia by Georgette Heyer ***

This was a light hearted Regency era novel that was funny and a tiny bit unexpected and just enjoyable.

The Rumor by Elin Hildenbrand ***

I like Elin Hildenbrand books even though they aren't PG.  For this one, I discovered that the skip 15 seconds ahead button did wonders since I was listening and couldn't skim.  This one was about two friends living on Nantucket and their families.  A lot of the characters were heading for absolute train wrecks and so it was a little stressful but I also liked some of the characters a lot and some of them were more characters I liked to hate and then some were characters I liked at first but then they bugged me.  So read the book and then talk to me about it because it brought out some opinions.  (Just skim/skip parts.)