63. The Line Tender by Kate Allen

listened to on Audible, borrowed from the libraryread BEAUTIFULLY by Jenna Larnia
Unabridged audio (7:20)
2019 Dutton
384 pgs.
Middle grade CRF
Finished 7/16/19
Goodreads rating:  4.29 - 541 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Not-quite-contemporary Rockport, Massachusetts

First line/s:  "The morning the great white came to Rockport, my best friend and I were sticking our fingers into the coin returns of every pay phone in town."

My comments:  This is my 2019 version of Bridge to Terabithia...at least that's how I feel during and after reading this.  I love the setting: Rockport, Massachusetts, which becomes almost like a character in the book.  I love the multi-generational  cast of characters, and the forays to Boston, the coast of Maine, and Cape Cod.  I don't know how Lucy handled everything that was thrown at her this summer before 8th grade, but she is one strong female character and I adore her.

Goodreads synopsis: The Line Tender is the story of Lucy, the daughter of a marine biologist and a rescue diver, and the summer that changes her life. If she ever wants to lift the cloud of grief over her family and community, she must complete the research her late mother began. She must follow the sharks.
           Wherever the sharks led, Lucy Everhart’s marine-biologist mother was sure to follow. In fact, she was on a boat far off the coast of Massachusetts, preparing to swim with a Great White, when she died suddenly. Lucy was eight. Since then Lucy and her father have done OK—thanks in large part to her best friend, Fred, and a few close friends and neighbors. But June of her twelfth summer brings more than the end of school and a heat wave to sleepy Rockport. On one steamy day, the tide brings a Great White—and then another tragedy, cutting short a friendship everyone insists was “meaningful” but no one can tell Lucy what it all meant. To survive the fresh wave of grief, Lucy must grab the line that connects her depressed father, a stubborn fisherman, and a curious old widower to her mother’s unfinished research. If Lucy can find a way to help this unlikely quartet follow the sharks her mother loved, she’ll finally be able to look beyond what she’s lost and toward what’s left to be discovered.

14. Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver

Audio read by the author, beautifully!

15 discs (16 hrs. 56 min.)

2012, Harper Audio, $30.95

437 pgs.

Written for adults

Finished April 14, 2013

Genre: CRF

Goodreads Rating: 3.79

My Rating 4.5

Acquired TPPL

Setting: contemporary Appalachian Tennessee

1^st sentence/s:  "A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture.  Or so it seemed for now, to a woman with flame-colored hair who marched uphill to meet her demise.+

My comments:  My rating is actually a 4.5. Why not 5? Because there's just a little too much scientific explanation in places. However, I'm glad I listened to the book instead of reading it, because I would have skimmed over those parts if I were reading and while listening was forced to listen to them - and they were interesting, thought-provoking, and worrisome. The added plus of Barbara Kingsolver's wonderful voice and accent made me upset when the book was over. I wanted more, more, more! At the beginning of the book I was quite unsure whether I'd like the protagonist, Dellarobia  It was a weird introduction to a character - someone sneaking off to cheat on her husband. However, the story was outstanding, and incredibly beautifully written. And tiny, red-haired Dellarobia was a superb character. Kingsolver is my favorite writer. I don't know anyone who can put words together like she does. Global warming. Monarch butterflies. Hardship and hard times in Appalachia. Mothering. Really good mothering. Interesting, REAL, well-fleshed characters. Honesty. Hmmm....I loved it.

Goodreads Review: Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at seventeen. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. As she hikes up a mountain road behind her house to a secret tryst, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders, and the media. The bewildering emergency draws rural farmers into unexpected acquaintance with urbane journalists, opportunists, sightseers, and a striking biologist with his own stake in the outcome. As the community lines up to judge the woman and her miracle, Dellarobia confronts her family, her church, her town, and a larger world, in a flight toward truth that could undo all she has ever believed.  Flight Behavior takes on one of the most contentious subjects of our time: climate change. With a deft and versatile empathy Kingsolver dissects the motives that drive denial and belief in a precarious world.