Picture Book - Kamala and Maya's Big Idea by Meena Harris

Illustrated by Ana Ramirez Gonzalez

found at Ellsworth Public Library

read on 7/14/2021

2020, Balzer & Bray

32 pgs.

Endpapers:  solid royal blue

illustrations:  bold colors, edge to edge, not too much text

Goodreads rating:   4.03 - 1011 ratings

My rating:  4

Afterward/explanation with photos

1^st line/s:  " 'You know what should be out there?' Kamala asked her sister, Maya."

My comments:  Two sisters (Kamala Harris and her sister Maya) create, plan and organize a way to make a playground in the empty apartment courtyard where they live, even after gettin several "no"s .  Working together, almost anything can be accomplished. 

Goodreads:  One day, Kamala and Maya had an idea. A big idea: they would turn their empty apartment courtyard into a playground!

          This is the uplifting tale of how the author’s aunt and mother first learned to persevere in the face of disappointment and turned a dream into reality. This is a story of children’s ability to make a difference and of a community coming together to transform their neighborhood.

29. One Perfect Summer by Brenda Novak

listened on Audible

narrated by Erin Bennett -- Excellently

Unabridged audio (12:40)
2020
464 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 3/31/2021
Goodreads rating:  4.04 - 4218 ratings
My rating: 3
Setting: Contemporary Lake Tahoe, California, summertime

First line/s: "Gripping the steering wheel tightly, Serenity Alston navigated the winding freeway heading east toward Donner Summit."

My comments: Three women discover, through DNA testing, that they are sisters.  They had NO clue.  They end up finding each other, then spending a summer together in a cabin on Lake Tahoe where they not only get to know each other, but support each other in each of their individual difficulties with life.  Serenity, the eldest, helped to put her husband in Jail.  Regan, the middle sister has just had an affair with her married boss and iss suffering the consequences of that.  Lauralee, the youngest, mother of four-year-old Lucy, has just discovered that her husband not only had an affair with her best friend, but that best friend is now pregnant.  So, yeah, three up-and-down love stories and the description of how three women who had never known each other before become inseparable.  Just a little too sappy and disjointed for me.  Excellent narrator.

Goodreads synopsis:  When Serenity Alston swabbed her cheek for 23andMe, she joked about uncovering some dark ancestral scandal. The last thing she expected was to discover two half sisters she didn't know existed. Suddenly, everything about her loving family is drawn into question. And meeting these newfound sisters might be the only way to get answers.
           Serenity has always found solace at her family's Lake Tahoe cabin, so what better place for the three women to dig into the mystery that has shaken the foundation each of them was raised on? With Reagan navigating romantic politics at her New York City advertising firm, and Lorelei staring down the collapse of her marriage, all three women are converging at a crossroads in their lives. Before the summer is over, they'll have to confront the paths they walked to get there and determine how to move forward when everything they previously thought to be true was a lie.
          But any future is easier to face with family by your side

29. 10 Blind Dates by Ashley Elston

listened to Audible - TPPL eAudio
narrated by Sophie Amoss
Unabridged audio (7:51)
2019 Disney-Hyperion
336 pgs.
YA CRF Romance
Finished 2/11/20
Goodreads rating: 4.06 - 5417 ratings
My rating:  3
Setting:  Contemporary Shreveport, LA

First line/s:  " 'Are you sure you won't come with us?' Mom hangs out or the passenger window and wraps me in a fierce hug for the tenth time in the last ten minutes."

My comments:  A cute, predictable story about being a senior in high school with the whole world ahead of you.  There were touches of seriousness with the premature birth of her niece and the possibility of serious illness for her sister, but it was on of those that everything turns out just  great in the end.  A little too much of a huge, meddling family, a couple of pretty loud guffaws, and some serious eye-rolling in places lead to a perfectly acceptable read.

Goodreads synopsis:  Sophie wants one thing for Christmas-a little freedom from her overprotective parents. So when they decide to spend Christmas in South Louisiana with her very pregnant older sister, Sophie is looking forward to some much needed private (read: make-out) time with her long-term boyfriend, Griffin. Except it turns out that Griffin wants a little freedom from their relationship. Cue devastation.m
          Heartbroken, Sophie flees to her grandparents' house, where the rest of her boisterous extended family is gathered for the holiday. That's when her nonna devises a (not so) brilliant plan: Over the next ten days, Sophie will be set up on ten different blind dates by different family members. Like her sweet cousin Sara, who sets her up with a hot guy at an exclusive underground party. Or her crazy aunt Patrice, who signs Sophie up for a lead role in a living nativity. With a boy who barely reaches her shoulder. And a screaming baby.
          When Griffin turns up unexpectedly and begs for a second chance, Sophie feels more confused than ever. Because maybe, just maybe, she's started to have feelings for someone else . . . Someone who is definitely not available.
          This is going to be the worst Christmas break ever... or is it?

9. Angels Burning by Tawni O'Dell

Listened to Audio Book on Chirp
narrated  by Susan Bennett
Unabridged audio (10:25)
2016 Gallery Books
288 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery/Police Procedural
Finished 1/14/2020
Goodreads rating:  3.94 - 1536 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: contemporary rural west-central PA

First line/s:  "The last time I was this close to Rudy Mayfield he was leaning across the seat of his dad's truck trying to grope my recently ripened breasts."

My comments: This is the story of two families in a west-central Pennsylvania town.  One we get to know because she's the chief of police. 50 year old Dove Carnahan  is investigating the murder of a 17-year-old girl, Cameo Truly.  These are the two families, and although they intertwine, the two stories run parallel to each other and are both very fascinating and full of mystery.  I love that the protagonist is 50 years old, still appealing, very very smart, and witty to boot.  I totally enjoyed the story, which was well read in a voice that might've been just a little too young for the protagonist...but totally worked for me.

Goodreads synopsis:  “Compelling, fast-paced.” —Library Journal, starred review
          “Stellar.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
          “A page-turner.” —Kirkus Reviews
          From the New York Times bestselling author of the Oprah Book Club pick Back Roads comes this fast-paced literary thriller about a small town police chief who’s forced to dig into her own shadowy past as she investigates the murder of a teenage girl.
          On the surface, Chief Dove Carnahan is a true trailblazer who would do anything to protect the rural Pennsylvanian countryside where she has lived all fifty of her years. Traditional and proud of her blue-collar sensibilities, Dove is loved by her community. But beneath her badge lies a dark and self-destructive streak, fed by a secret she has kept since she was sixteen.
          When a girl is beaten to death, her body tossed down a fiery sinkhole in an abandoned coal town, Dove is faced with solving the worst crime of her law enforcement career. She identifies the girl as a daughter of the Truly family, a notoriously irascible dynasty of rednecks and petty criminals.
          During her investigation, the man convicted of killing Dove’s mother years earlier is released from prison. Still proclaiming his innocence, he approaches Dove with a startling accusation and a chilling threat that forces her to face the parallels between her own family’s trauma and that of the Trulys.
          With countless accolades to her credit, author Tawni O’Dell writes with the “fearless insights” (The New York Times Book Review) she brought to the page in Back Roads and One of Us. In this new, masterfully told psychological thriller, the past and present collide to reveal the extent some will go to escape their fate, and in turn, the crimes committed to push them back to where they began. 

91. Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter

listened to Audio, not sure where (!*!) but also own Kindle
read by Kathleen Early
Unabridged audio (20:00)
2015 William Morrow
548 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished 9/20/2019
Goodreads rating:  3.99 - 142,952 ratings
My rating:  2

First line/s:  "When you first disappeared your mother warned me that finding out exactly what had happened to you would be worse than never knowing."

My comments:  Well.  I'm not sure how to begin this review.  There were a few pros but lots of cons.  What should I start with?
The cons:
     -It was super repetitive.  Endless "thinking aloud."  Super slow in many places.  Dragged in many places.  If I'd been reading aprint copy of the book I'd probably have ditched it.
     --It was really hard for me to like Claire, one of the two protagonists, from the very beginning.  Spoiled, pretty much clueless because she wanted to be, right down to the end of the book and her dec isions about what to do with her future (nothing.)
     --an incredble amount of graphic violence, torture, all toward females.  A little I can take, this was overwhelming.
     -- so many chapters of diary entries from dear old dad.  Became pretty boring hearing over and over his reminisces about the pretty daughter.
The pros:
     -- a decent mystery Kept me guessing.
     -- I listened to this being read aloud and the reader was terrific.  That ups my review by a star.
I'm pretty sure this will remain a memorable read, but not for the reasons that people might like.  So violent.  So sadistic.  It's scary to think about such sickness and real crazies in our world.  However, my rating is based on my "cons" above, not on my thought about the state of our world.

Goodreads synopsis:  Twenty years ago Claire Scott's eldest sister, Julia, went missing. No one knew where she went - no note, no body. It was a mystery that was never solved and it tore her family apart.
          Now another girl has disappeared, with chilling echoes of the past. And it seems that she might not be the only one.
          Claire is convinced Julia's disappearance is linked.
          But when she begins to learn the truth about her sister, she is confronted with a shocking discovery, and nothing will ever be the same...

36. Dead Letters by Caite Dolan-Leach

read on my iPhone and Kindle
2017 Random House
352 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished  4/15/18
Goodreads rating:  3.59 - 4848 ratings
My rating:  3
Setting:  Contemporary upstate New York

First line/s:  "A born creator of myths, my sister always liked to tell the story of how we were misnamed."

My comments:  The story was pretty decent. A good mystery, no surprises but interesting to watch them play out. The characters were, for the most part, pretty unlikable. Major alcoholics, narcissists, self/centered idiots. I know you don’t have to like the characters to have a good book, but in this case it would make the book that much more enjoyable.!

Goodreads synopsis: A missing woman leads her twin sister on a twisted scavenger hunt in this clever debut novel of suspense for readers of Luckiest Girl Alive and Reconstructing Amelia.
          Ahoy, Ava! Welcome home, my sweet jet-setting twin! So glad you were able to wrest yourself away from your dazzling life in the City of Light; I hope my death hasn't interrupted anything too crucial.
          Ava Antipova has her reasons for running away: a failing family vineyard, a romantic betrayal, a mercurial sister, an absent father, a mother slipping into dementia. In Paris, Ava renounces her terribly practical undergraduate degree, acquires a French boyfriend and a taste for much better wine, and erases her past. Two years later, she must return to upstate New York. Her twin sister, Zelda, is dead.
          Even in a family of alcoholics, Zelda Antipova was the wild one, notorious for her mind games and destructive behavior. Stuck tending the vineyard and the girls increasingly unstable mother, Zelda was allegedly burned alive when she passed out in the barn with a lit cigarette. But Ava finds the official explanation a little too neat. A little too Zelda. Then she receives a cryptic message from her sister.
          Just as Ava suspected, Zelda's playing one of her games. In fact, she's outdone herself, leaving a series of clues about her disappearance. With the police stuck on a red herring, Ava follows the trail laid just for her, thinking like her sister, keeping her secrets, immersing herself in Zelda's drama and her outlandish circle of friends and lovers. Along the way, Zelda forces her twin to confront their twisted history and the boy who broke Ava's heart. But why? Is Zelda trying to punish Ava for leaving, or to teach her a lesson? Or is she simply trying to write her own ending?
          Featuring a colorful, raucous cast of characters, Caite Dolan-Leach's debut thriller takes readers on a literary scavenger hunt for clues concealed throughout the seemingly idyllic wine country, hidden in plain sight on social media, and buried at the heart of one tremendously dysfunctional, utterly unforgettable family.

38. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - Maggie O'Farrell

Audio CD read by Anne Flosnik
2006 Houghton Mifflin
2007 Blackstone Audio
245 pgs.
Contemporary realistic fiction with forays into the 2nd quarter of the 20th century
Finished June 30, 2016 on my second trip this summer north to Maine
Goodreads rating: 3.80 (17,700 ratings)
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary Scotland

First line/s:  "Let us begin with two girls at a dance.  They are at the edge of the room.  One sits on a chair, opening and shutting a dance card with gloved fingers.  The other stands beside her, watching the dance unfold:  the circling couples, the clasped hands, the drumming shoes, the whirling skirts, the bounce of the floor.  It is the last hour of the year and the windows behind them are blank with night.  The seated girls is dressed in something pale, Esme forgets what, the other in a dark red frock that doesn't suit her.  She has lost her gloves.  It begins here."

My comments:  This was a really good story. Well written, well read.  Iris, a 30-something with a complicated love life, discovers she has an unknown great-aunt - Esme - that's been hidden away in an asylum for 61 years - since she was 16.  And there was absolutely no reason for it.  The story unfolds in many ways - in the memories of both Esme and her now-senile sister Kitty and in the current day happenings of Iris and Esme. The reader had a wonderful British/Scottish lilt and the story was quite mesmerizing. (It did leave me with a real sense of anger about mental-health issues and the little regard society had for women just a short time ago in our history.)

Goodreads synopsis:  In the middle of tending to the everyday business at her vintage-clothing shop and sidestepping her married boyfriend’s attempts at commitment, Iris Lockhart receives a stunning phone call: Her great-aunt Esme, whom she never knew existed, is being released from Cauldstone Hospital—where she has been locked away for more than sixty-one years.
          Iris’s grandmother Kitty always claimed to be an only child. But Esme’s papers prove she is Kitty’s sister, and Iris can see the shadow of her dead father in Esme’s face. 
          Esme has been labeled harmless—sane enough to coexist with the rest of the world. But she's still basically a stranger, a family member never mentioned by the family, and one who is sure to bring life-altering secrets with her when she leaves the ward. If Iris takes her in, what dangerous truths might she inherit?
          A gothic, intricate tale of family secrets, lost lives, and the freedom brought by truth, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox will haunt you long past its final page.

PICTURE BOOK - Secret Tree Fort by Brianne Farley

Illustrated by the author

2016, Candlewick

HC $16.99

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 3.73

My rating:  4

Endpapers:  Simple.  Pale green with individual leaves flicked in.  A great outdoors-in-the-yard kind of feel

Title Page:  Older sister curled up in comfy chair reading.  Younger sister creating a block masterpiece on the floor.

Illustrations:  charcoal, pencil, and ink.  Colored digitally.

1^st line/s:  "It's a beautiful day!  Go play outside!"

My comments:  Ha!  The first pages definitely remind me of me and my own sister.....  And, it's dedicated to "my favorite sister." This book is cute, clever, and imaginative - a little Where the Wild Things Are meets Bink and Mollie.  And, unlike what really happened with my own sister, it has a wonderful, perfect ending.  Great picture book.

Goodreads:  Even a bookish big sister is drawn in by the promise of her imaginative sibling’s spectacular hideaway.
          I have a secret tree fort, and YOU’RE NOT INVITED!
          When two sisters are ushered outside to play, one sits under a tree with a book while the other regales her with descriptions of a cool fort in a tree that grows ever more fantastical in the telling. What will it take to get the older sister to look up? The promise of a water-balloon launcher in case of attack? A trapdoor to stargaze through? A crow’s nest from which to see how many whales pass by or to watch for pirates? Or the best part of all, which can’t be revealed, because it’s a secret?

MOVIE - Mustang

Nominated for Best Foreign Film, 2016 Academy Awards
PG-13

Wide release 11/20/15

Viewed 1/19/16 at the Loft with Sheila

RT Critic: 97   Audience:  89
Critic's Consensus:  Mustang delivers a bracing -- and thoroughly timely -- message whose power is further bolstered by the efforts of a stellar ensemble cast.

Cag:  5/Loved it

Directed by Deniz Gamze Erguven (a female!)

CG Cinema (at the end of the credits it said FRANCE, GERMANY, TURKEY

In Turkish with subtitles

Actors were AMAZING!

My comments:  It took place in Turkey and was in Turkish.  It told a great (though sad) story.  The acting was superb.  Getting a chance to glimpse a little bit Turkey once again was fantastic.  Watching it with a friend: extra special.  Loved this movie!

RT Summary:  Early summer in a village in Northern Turkey. Five free-spirited teenaged sisters splash about on the beach with their male classmates. Though their games are merely innocent fun, a neighbor passes by and reports what she considers to be illicit behavior to the girls' family. The family overreacts, removing all "instruments of corruption," like cell phones and computers, and essentially imprisoning the girls, subjecting them to endless lessons in housework in preparation for them to become brides. As the eldest sisters are married off, the younger ones bond together to avoid the same fate. The fierce love between them empowers them to rebel and chase a future where they can determine their own lives in Deniz Gamze Ergüven's debut, a powerful portrait of female empowerment.

38. The Silver Star - Jeannette Walls

audio read by the author (it was okay, but I've heard better, no offense Ms. Walls)

2013, Simon & Schuster Audio

7 unabridged cds

288 pgs.

Written for adults, but I think it's almost more YA

Finished 9/9/2013

Genre: HistFiction (1970 America-smalll town CA, but mostly rural VA)

Goodreads Rating: 3.64

My Rating: Liked it (3) 

TPPL

My comments:This is my first Jeannette Walls, and I enjoyed the story. Bean, the 6th grade protagonist, was a feisty, gutsy first person narrator. I'm not sure why this is billed as an adult novel, though, I would definitely consider it a young adult novel.  Sure there are some heavy-ish issues, but minor compared to some of the current YAs out there.  I enjoyed the 1970 spin on things (the mother sure seemed bipolar, but that would not have been the terminology in 1970), though other than the integration issues, it had a very contemporary feel (did anyone homeschool...or call it homeschooling...in 1970?)

Goodreads Review: It is 1970 in a small town in California. “Bean” Holladay is twelve and her sister, Liz, is fifteen when their artistic mother, Charlotte, a woman who “found something wrong with every place she ever lived,” takes off to find herself, leaving her girls enough money to last a month or two. When Bean returns from school one day and sees a police car outside the house, she and Liz decide to take the bus to Virginia, where their Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that’s been in Charlotte’s family for generations.

An impetuous optimist, Bean soon discovers who her father was, and hears many stories about why their mother left Virginia in the first place. Because money is tight, Liz and Bean start babysitting and doing office work for Jerry Maddox, foreman of the mill in town—a big man who bullies his workers, his tenants, his children, and his wife. Bean adores her whip-smart older sister—inventor of word games, reader of Edgar Allan Poe, nonconformist. But when school starts in the fall, it’s Bean who easily adjusts and makes friends, and Liz who becomes increasingly withdrawn. And then something happens to Liz.

69. The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown

audio read by Kirsten Potter (she was great)
Penguin Audio, 2011
$39.95 TPPL
9 unabridged cds
10.5 hours
336 pgs.
Rating:  4
NYTimes Review (from 1/16/11) excellent plot summary
The Reading Lark book review - I love her format, and I agree with so much of her thinking!

First line/s:  We came home because we were failures.

Setting:  Contemporary rural Barnwell, Ohio, a small college town and hour from Columbus (I think)
OSS:  Three very different sisters return home at the same time and show us, the reader, why they hate and love each other.

The three sisters told the story as "we," which I suppose was very clever and difficult to write, but which I didn't really like.  The father, a Shakespearean scholar, professor, and fanatic, and  his wife, a stay-at-home mother who was a free spirit in her own right, have raised three daughters in a home with lots and lots of books and no television.  They go to a "hippie/granola" school, then to the small college where their father teaches.  They are all bright, and all tainted in some way - as we all are.  Named for Shakespeare heroines Rosalind (Rose), Bianca (Bean) and Cordelia (Cordy) love each other fiercely, but while comparing themselves to each other run amok.

I enjoyed the book without really liking any of the characters...well, I did like Cordelia.  Everyone has flaws.  They had lots...and they overcame them all so that the ending is a lovely, tidily wrapped up package.  It's nice to know that you can like a book without really liking its characters.  Lots to think about with that, alone!