2017 Yearly Recap

Well, I'm pretty sure I will never, ever, ever, ever top this past year for quantity. I am pretty astonished that I read 132 books in one year. Of course, some 40 of those were audiobooks--which in and of itself is an accomplishment as well! I finally figured out how to download audiobooks onto my iPhone (which wasn't that hard, it took about ten minutes to figure out how to use the library apps) and it's obviously helped my reading a ton this year.

Without any further ado, these were my favorite books this year (and I have so many good ones to choose from this year! It's so hard to choose--I'll say three for each category and try to put them in order starting with my very favorite.

Best Fiction: A Man Called Ove, My Lady Jane, The One-in-a-Million Boy, Jane of Austin

Best Classics: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Blue Castle

Best YA/middle-grade: To All the Boys I've Loved Before trilogy, The Wednesday Wars, Counting by 7s, These Broken Stars trilogy

Best Mystery: Obviously--the Armand Gamache series. My favorites were: A Beautiful Mystery, How the Light Gets In. Also, I loved Murder as a Fine Art

Best Historical Fiction: Hattie Big Sky, Everyone Brave Is Forgiven

Best Nonfiction: Grit, French Kids Eat Everything, This Is Where You Belong

Best Memoir: Everything You Ever Wanted, Hillbilly Elegy, When Breath Becomes Air

Worst Book of 2018: Barefoot. It actually got a DNF from me.

This is going to be shocking--I'm actually going to try to read less in 2018. I feel almost a little burned out on reading SO MUCH this year. And I feel like I have lots of other things I need and want to do other than just reading. I want to just read books that make me happy in 2018--including some re-reads of old favorites from when I was younger or a teenager. So I will be focusing on just reading really good books that I already love--and a few other ones, like some biographies that I've been meaning to read for forever.

Book #132: The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny

As opposed to the last one, I really enjoyed this Armand Gamache mystery. It was super complex, it was partially based in history, and it was overall just much more compelling than The Long Way Home. I liked how there was partly a typical murder mystery with the original murder, but it was also a much more complex investigation into the enormous gun discovered in the forest and into the mind of a already-incarcerated serial killer. A few of the things that happened in the story seemed almost too coincidental--like how Gamache figured out that John Fleming (the serial killer) was connected to the gun so quickly--but I think she pretty much explained it by the end, so I give her a pass. Definitely a thrilling read, that's for sure.

Book #131: The Long Way Home by Louise Penny

This may have been my least favorite of the Armand Gamache books. Clara asks a now-retired Gamache to help her find her estranged husband, Peter, who hasn't come back on their year anniversary like they promised. The most interesting part of this story was how they used Peter's art as clues to find out where he'd gone and what he'd done. But some things really annoyed me about the story, particularly in the last fifty pages. Like, the whole story was unnecessary, and everything would have worked out just fine if Clara had just left everything well enough alone and sat tight (that applies for the whole story in general, and for the ending specifically). Also, the climax at the end totally was unnecessary and annoying to me. But, since this is number TEN of these books, I needed to read it to get through the series. I'm close to being done with them now, just a few left! I'm still loving Gamache's character and the complexities we keep uncovering about him.

Book #130: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

I don't know that I've read this book (novella? it's really short, so not even sure what it qualifies as) more than once in my life. I really enjoyed reading through this this December. I of course remembered the story, but I liked finding the surprisingly funny parts in the written version. I loved the overall message, which does feel very poignant while reading it. The thing that really stuck out to me while reading this, which I don't think much about when watching any of the many versions I've seen, is how humble and humbled Scrooge must have been to actually make such a drastic change in his life. Even after seeing such a blatant and didactic vision as he did, it would have still been difficult to upend your life so completely, and potentially embarrassing to show yourself to everyone who has known you for decades. Even though it was a positive change he was making, it still said in the book that "people laughed at him." I like how he didn't care and still did what he knew now was right. It's such an encouraging story with the potential for change. Maybe next year I'll read some of the other Christmas-y Dickens stories that go along with it--I was planning to but with our trips it just didn't happen.

Book #129: How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny

These books are NOT good to listen to as audiobooks--because they are TOO ADDICTING and it's absolutely painful to have to trudge along at the pace of the reader instead of being able to sit down and blaze through the last half of the book to find out what happens. I spent the last few days just wandering around looking for things to do with my hands while listening to this book. This book reads like it's the end of the series, the climax of all of the drama and intrigue and conspiracy that has been hinted at for the last few books--but luckily, it's not, because I know there are four more already out there waiting for me. This book does have a murder mystery in it: a quintuplet is murdered (one of the famous ones born in the 1930's--based on a real family), and Gamache has to figure out who did it. But while Gamache does spend a bit of time investigating this murder and does eventually solve it, most of this book is about the secret conspiracy that Gamache's boss, the Superintendent of the Securite, is involved in, and how Gamache is trying to stop it. The book starts with everything at the lowest of the low; it all looks like Gamache is falling apart and Francoeur is about to win, but Gamache slowly but surely pulls it together and you can see that he had it all under control all along.

I love how Penny does such a good job of giving you a tiny bit of information at a time, to give you a small glimpse into what Gamache knows and what he's doing, but not enough to let you figure it out right away. She's pretty awesome at what she does. I feel like this book could have been kind of annoying to read and pretty over-the-top (especially with the whole government conspiracy doomsday thing) but because of the beloved characters and relationships, it didn't feel that way. Not to me, anyways. I loved Beauvoir's journey in the last few books, and was happy about the happy ending he got (spoiler alert, but not really that much of a spoiler!). I liked how Gamache seemed the most flawed in this book than he ever has--he made some mistakes, yelled at his friends, got mad when he shouldn't--but that makes sense, right? He was under pressure to basically save the world, all on his own, and that makes people make mistakes. But he always comes back to being the gracious, compassionate, kind person that he is. I'm glad this series isn't quite over yet, and I can't wait to get to the next one.

Book #128: Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth

Austin motivated me to read this book by loving it and talking about it a lot the last year or so. I even (gasp!) bought a hardback copy on Amazon, which shows how committed I was to it (I almost never actually buy books unless I've read them before and know I want them). And it was worth it. I really, really loved this book and was inspired while reading it to make some changes in my life to develop more grit. (I don't know if I actually will go start a non-profit to give books to poor kids like I was imagining while reading this book, but that's the power of the concepts Duckworth talks about--to inspire such ideas. Now I just need more passion and grit to actually do it.)

I don't know that I can summarize this book in a coherent way, so here are some of the most interesting points I got out of it in bullet form:
- Talent isn't as important as effort. Many of us have potential (based on our talent), but whether we actually achieve anything depends far more on our effort. She says effort counts twice as much as talent when it comes to our abilities to get anywhere in our goals.
- We love the idea of genius and most of us actually have a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset. We don't want to fail and we don't want to get things wrong, even though we say to our kids that it's okay to make mistakes. We also somehow think that we are stuck with how smart we are, but, spoiler alert: that isn't true.
- "Grit" is the main quality that determines whether people will give up or quit on things, and it also is the main quality that determines how much people achieve and how successful they are. Grit has two main aspects: passion and perseverance.
- Passion means having one overarching goal/compass that guides your life (or at least your career), which all of your lower-level goals lead towards. You can develop passion through interest, deliberate practice, and having conviction that your work matters--to you, and to others.
- Three ways to cultivate a sense of purpose in your work: 1. Reflect on how the work you are already doing can make a positive contribution to society. 2. Think about how, in small but meaningful ways, you can change your current work to enhance its connections to your core values. 3. Find inspiration in a purposeful role model.
- Parenting for grit: be authoritative (aka, supporting but demanding.) Be warm, respectful, and demanding of high expectations. Make your kids do hard things and hold them to high standards. Extracurricular activities can help kids do something hard and learn those lessons about not quitting. When they are in high school, kids need to stick to extracurriculars for more than one year to learn how to stick to hard things. Create a culture of grit and perseverance in your family.

This book made me think. A lot. I felt a little worried while reading it, thinking that maybe I don't have much grit. But I think I might just be thinking that because I don't have a career to point towards or outside commitments. Do you even need to have grit if you aren't worried about becoming a world-famous violinist or becoming a CEO or achieving something spectacular like that? Would it improve my life other than being a good example to my kids? Duckworth does talk about having different high-level goals for your career and your family life, but since I don't have a career, I feel like I don't have a place to really achieve anything or succeed (like she is talking about in this book).

That makes me think--should I focus on developing a skill or something outside of my kids? I have lots of hobbies, but I don't try to excel very much in any of them. Reading, exercising, and cooking aren't necessarily things that I'm working hard at improving at, although I do them regularly. But I think I could take any one of those hobbies and improve in and make them into something that has purpose (like my non-profit idea, maybe someday). The main reason I felt like I don't have grit is because I don't have a strong passion about anything, other than raising my kids. Not that that's not an important passion, and there are lots of aspects to it in which I could improve, but it isn't quite what Duckworth is talking about. I just have a lot of things to think about, in doing something meaningful for myself and in raising my kids to teach them and help them develop grit.

Book #127: Frederica by Georgette Heyer

I read Frederica four years ago, and haven't read much Georgette Heyer since that time when I first discovered her. So I grabbed it to bring with me on our trip to Ecuador because I knew I wanted to revisit it--I had fond feelings towards this book, as being one of my favorites of hers, but I didn't remember a single thing about the story. So it was like reading it for the first time again and I totally loved it. The book is about the heroine, Frederica, who is the oldest of five orphaned children (although she's not a child, she's twenty-four) and who is determined to give them all the best chance they can in life despite having been orphaned and almost broke once their father died. She is a strong, smart, capable woman, and has plans to marry off her younger, beautiful sister to the best catch she can find, and then to live with her younger brothers and get them educated. She sees herself as a confirmed "old maid" and isn't bothered by it at all. All of these qualities lead to the enchanting romantic conflict in this story, when she asks the Marquis of Alverstoke for his help launching she and her sister into society for the season, and he agrees only because he finds their family slightly amusing. But this confirmed bachelor and rake eventually finds himself becoming more and more interested in these siblings, and falling more and more in love with the totally unaware Frederica, and there lies the interest in this story--will she or won't she eventually figure it out? I love that this story isn't just about the romance between the two of them--it's a very satisfying ending, but it's not the main point of the whole story. There is an interesting cast of other characters as well, including all of Frederica's siblings (especially her two youngest brothers, who play a big role in forcing the Marquis out of his selfish shell through their escapades), and a lot of interesting action, like the hot air balloon launch where things go awry. Definitely a fun book and definitely one of my favorites! I need to find some more of hers to read.

Book #126: The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

This may have been one of my favorite Chief Inspector Gamache novels yet. First reason: the setting. Gamache and his second-in-command, Beauvoir, are summoned to a monastery in the far north of Quebec to solve the mystery of a monk found murdered. The whole novel takes place within the confines of this beautiful, amazing church/monastery, and this setting is so well-described and so central to the story that you feel like you're there. Along with this, the monks are all interesting characters (and there are some comedic moments with different monks) and this setting raises many questions (not all answered) about religion and why these monks chose to live this life.

Second reason: the conflict between the characters in this book is so raw and deep that it was hard to listen to without being stressed out. I was trying to explain what was happening to Tommy and realized it sounded a lot like a soap opera--because I was trying to explain a lot of the backstory from seven or eight other books, it sounded overly dramatic and over-the-top. "Well, Beauvoir and Gamache were in a shootout with some criminals a few books back, and both got shot really badly and took a long time to recover. But then Beauvoir got addicted to the painkillers, and recovered, but it looks like he's about to relapse, because Gamache's boss, the Superintendent of all the police, is a super bad guy and he's trying to give him these painkillers to make him addicted again as a way to make Gamache mad. And Beauvoir is secretly dating Gamache's daughter and doesn't want him to find out..." But when you're reading the books, it definitely does not feel over-the-top or soap-opera-y at all. It feels very believable and real, particularly if you think about them as police officers and these being real threats in their line of duty. I was so MAD and worried about the way things were going while listening to this book, and so worried about Beauvoir and what was happening with him. But, I have to say, after the last book, when it seemed like she had Beauvoir totally healed from his addictions without any problems, I was kind of disappointed that she wasn't going to explore that line of conflict any farther. So, I guess I'm glad she didn't back away from that issue too fast before moving forward with it thoroughly. As long as it all turns out okay in the end, because Gamache and Beauvoir are too good of a team to be torn apart for good.

I just need to get to the next one ASAP to find out what happens!

Book #125: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

I loved this book when I was in middle school and high school, and I can't believe I haven't read it since then. I loved how well you got to see into Anne's soul, and how she describes both the petty and the deep problems that she and her family faced in their time in hiding. I remember being so amazed by her easy discussion of sexual topics (or what she was learning about them), and how she fell in love and how she wrote about it. She writes so vividly about the fear they felt when there were break-ins or chances of being overheard of discovered. It is very obvious that she was just a teenager as she wrote this, how she feels so misunderstood and not included and poorly treated, and how she writes about how she hates her mom and dad sometimes, and how she makes some generalized, sweeping statements about the world and about her goals (which are so easy to make when you are so young and idealistic!). But it is also amazing to see how she grows, and what she learns over the three or four years of the diary. If this were a fictionalized version, the writer would have had Anne write about the day they were discovered and captured and how she was so afraid and what was going to happen to them--and I can almost imagine what she would have written. It always made me so sad to get to the end and remember that they were captured, and to realize that her goals and dreams about her future would never come to fruition. She said many things in her diary about "this is only the very beginning of a long, full life," and it's heartbreaking to realize that those things are not true. But it is also poignant that her diary has a life of its own now, many years after she died, and that her dreams of being a famous writer did come to fruition.

Besides those bigger, deeper thoughts about Anne's diary, I was interested this time in some of the minutiae. She mentions many times about how they couldn't flush the toilet during certain hours, like during the day when workers were in the building, and at night when nobody was supposed to be there, and how terrible it smelled. You never think about those small, really annoying issues that would bother them and make their life so much more difficult, because those really are overshadowed by the overwhelming fear and stress they must have been experiencing every day while in hiding, but those things still have a day-to-day importance. I also was really impressed by all the things Anne did to keep herself busy while they were stuck indoors inside their tiny hideaway for those years. She was very self-motivated and worked hard to study so many different subjects, and I think that was so impressive and showed her work ethic and determination not to be bored or to fall behind.

Book #124: How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids by Jancee Dunn

I heard about this book from a book blog I follow and it sounded funny and informative, and I needed an audiobook to get through while waiting for the next Inspector Gamache book, so I checked this one out. Dunn goes through many different reasons why couples have problems after having kids, and especially through her own relationship problems with her own husband after they had their daughter. Her husband wasn't helping out enough, and she was having rage and anger issues and they were fighting a lot. However, they sound like very normal, nice people (particularly her husband) and their issues were pretty normal to most couples, I'm guessing. They went to several different types of couples therapy, she talked to lots of experts and read lots of research, and manages to make her personal journey with her husband towards improving their marriage with the addition of their daughter into an interesting story and an informative lesson for other people having issues as well.

I didn't choose to read this book because I felt like we needed it--Tommy is the most helpful and engaged husband and father I know (and I'm not just saying that, he really is). But as I listened, I couldn't help feeling aghast at some of the assumptions that many couples have to work through, like the husband feeling like he needs to relax all weekend after a hard week at work and therefore the wife still needs to do all the childcare and housework over the weekends. First of all, I would never stand for that, and second of all, are you kidding? That is absolutely ridiculous to me, and I'm glad Dunn and her experts called that out too. She gives lots of ways to divvy up household chores and to spend your weekends so that everyone feels rejuvenated by the beginning of the next week, and I thought the ideas were good, but I'm also really glad that those issues are not ones that cause contention in our family--mainly because Tommy is all-in as a parents and co-worker in running our household. I also felt like this book, and others that I've read lately (like 168 Hours), made the weekend seem like this precious time where everything must be FUN FUN FUN and QUALITY TIME every minute with your kids or for yourself, but I disagree with that assumption on principle and really feel like it's not our job as parents to make everything super fun for the kids and that instead it's good for us to spend time working on the weekends (and definitely doing fun things sometimes, but not every single weekend). But overall, I thought this book could definitely be useful to people and I enjoyed listening to it.

Book #123: A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny

I was kind of feeling a book hangover after the last Inspector Gamache novel so I downloaded this one as an e-book to read over the last few days. These books are addicting. And I think the reason why they are addicting is because of the characters, not necessarily the plots. Whereas the last book, Bury Your Dead, was super complicated with three different mysteries intertwined, and had a really interesting theme with Gamache dealing with his failures and mistakes in a massive firefight with the Surete du Quebec, this book was back to being a pretty standard murder mystery with one story and one solution. A woman is murdered in Clara Morrow's backyard and Gamache and Beauvoir have to solve it, and after questioning lots of people they finally do. Some of the actions of minor characters in this story seemed a little bit unbelievable (like, why would the murderer come back to the town and hang around?) but it was still a good read. I liked some of the sub-plot elements more--like the development of Clara and Peter Morrow and how she has become more famous and successful as an artist than he is and how she finally realizes the depth of his jealousy and insecurity towards her success. And Beauvoir's descent into addiction to opioids after all the wounds he sustained during the fight, and his delusions he's holding towards Gamache after watching the video again and again. Those are the elements of the story that keep bringing me (and other readers) back for more, because you can't wait to see what's going to happen to these beloved and interesting characters next.

Book #122: Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary

I am really loving reading these Ramona books with Dane. And he keeps loving them too! I really enjoyed Ramona the Pest and this one, since they are from Ramona's perspective and since she is so full of personality, and yet so like an Everyman for five- and six-year-olds. In this book, Ramona faces first grade, with a new and somewhat staid older teacher, Mrs. Griggs, and figures out how to be brave in the face of her overactive imagination in the dark of her new room and other fears, like huge dogs. I actually teared up while reading one part--that's how realistic this book is with regards to kids this age and their emotions (in my opinion). There's a part when she tries to shock her parents by saying a bad word, but the bad word she knows is "Guts!" and her parents laugh and she is so embarrassed and angry that she just cries her heart out. I remember that feeling so well--that feeling of being so misunderstood and alone and like nobody loves you. And I was thinking about Dane feeling like that and wanting somebody to not laugh at him--and I know I've done things that have made him feel that way. I think I need to re-read these books every so often to get a glimpse into the mind of kids this age.

Book #121: 1984 by George Orwell

I can't believe I hadn't ever read this. It has been on my bookshelf for years and I think it's just been there long enough that I assumed I had read it--it falls into the category of books like Brave New World and Lord of the Flies that I feel like I've read because I've heard a lot about it and know what the main premise is. Like, who doesn't know the Big Brother Is Watching thing? But I didn't really know much more, so I'm glad I finally got around to this. It was super interesting to me, as well as pretty terrifying to imagine as being the future. The principle of doublespeak and the ability of The Party to change the past by constantly revising public records and having control over people's memories is pretty terrifying. I was super enthralled in the beginning while reading about Winston's job at the Department of Truth and how controlled everything was. But I think the most depressing part was the end, how they eventually did get in to Winston's head and fully changed him over to one of them. Obviously the warning to be careful in 1984 is pretty explicit. I thought this was a super worthwhile read, and I had a lot more thoughts about it but I don't have the time or energy to write them out right now.

Book #120: Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

I love these Armand Gamache books! The e-book expired when I had only about four chapters left to go, so I had to listen to the audiobook and try to run through it as fast as possible to find out what happened next. It was painful to have to go at the pace of the audiobook after I had been reading it.

This book was pretty interesting in that it combined three different mysteries--one major murder that is the main case that Gamache is trying to solve, one ancient mystery about where a 17th century grave is located, and the case from the previous book about Olivier which Gamache is revisiting because of feeling like he missed something. At the same time, Gamache and his second-in-command, Beauvoir, are constantly reliving the recent firefight in which four of their agents were killed and they were both seriously wounded. All of these cases are interwoven so beautifully and they all climaxed around the end at the same time, so you find out what happened to all of them and whodunit for the two murder cases. I really enjoyed the complexity of this story and it totally sucked me in. I still just love Gamache's character--his inherent goodness and respect for others and his courage. Even though this book was about his mistakes--in the firefight and in the case in the previous book--he still holds up with grace and respect for everyone else. I hope all police officers actually have some Gamache in them.

Book #119: Loving My Actual Life: An Experiment in Relishing What's Right in Front of Me by Alexandra Kuykendall

I read about this book on a reading blog, when she said she really enjoyed this. And this was available as a short audiobook on our library's website, so I was willing to check it out. This book is pretty much the exact same thing as The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, but a Christian version of it, where she throws in lots of references to God and praying to know what God wants you to do. I thought some of the changes she made were smart, like implementing some quiet into her days and re-vamping her morning routine and her meal planning, but they were pretty small changes and many of them didn't seem to really be that interesting. I liked how she was trying to not make any huge over-arching changes in her life, but just trying to improve her existing life in small ways that reduced stress and made her "actual" life (she used the word "actual" a lot) a little better. I liked her writing, but I feel like this book wasn't worth all that much energy.

Book #118: Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie

I don't know that I've ever read Peter Pan, but I think I have at least once. It was very familiar, but that's because the Disney movie follows the plot of the book pretty closely, so I can't tell for sure. But I really enjoyed reading this classic--it was short and sweet and really funny at parts. I loved how Neverland so perfectly encapsulated a boy's dream world, with fighting Indians and pretending to be pirates and swimming all day, and how Wendy's Neverland involved her pretending to be the Lost Boys' mother and basically playing house all day, forcing the boys to nap after lunch and darning socks. I also loved the tongue-in-cheek tone throughout the book, and the personality of the nameless narrator (he at one point says he wants to say bad things about Mrs. Darling, but he won't, and eventually admits that she is his favorite, etc.). I loved the little hilarious details that made the London part kind of ridiculous, like Nana being a dog (I totally would have thought Disney made that one up) and Mr. Darling staying in the kennel constantly after the children disappear and even going to work in his kennel. That really was funny. I found out after reading that it was originally the play first--which makes the part about "I do believe in fairies" make more sense (which I know is part of the play, but it didn't flow very well in the book).

Book #117: Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks by Annie Spence

I'm a sucker for books about books, even though they sometimes end up being more meta than they need to be. In this book, Spence writes letters, some love letters and some break-up letters, to books on the shelves of her library that she works at. She talks a bit about the job of a librarian and the magic of recommending books to people, and the librarian's job of weeding the stacks of books that aren't being read or have an audience any more, and gives a lot of recommendations for books that readers might like. The letters about the books she loves were really great--she was able to write about and describe them beautifully and made me want to read each one. The letters to the books she didn't like were more kitschy and less interesting. I mean, the ones about books like Twilight, which she dislikes on principle, were fine, but there were at least five random books that they were getting rid of from the library (like, a book about the one-hour orgasm, or doing cat dissections) that she wrote about, which weren't really that funny. They should been taken out and she should have written more substantive letters about books she actually disliked for real reasons. I enjoyed listening to it, but it really would have been a better one to read. I would probably like to revisit it and read it, just to get through the books that she recommends because they sound awesome, and it was hard to really keep track of them while listening to the book. Her writing was very well-crafted and nice to listen to, and the narrator was good, but it would have been better as a read.

Book #116: Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary

I LOVED Ramona the Pest so we came back to read the first book that comes before that one. I felt like this one was less fun than Ramona the Pest. That might possibly be because the book is more focused on Beezus, so it's from a nine-year-old's perspective, and therefore is way less fun than a rambunctious kindergartener. Also, Ramona is totally wild in here, and rarely gets in trouble for her really naughty activities (like putting a doll in the oven and melting it). You want the parents to be a little more strict with her. But in Ramona the Pest, she is still pretty wild, but you get it from her perspective, and you can see that it's just hard for her to resist the ideas she gets in her head. It's fun and sweet to hear why she just couldn't help but pull the girl's hair. Anyways, I liked that one better. But I did like how this book had the theme running through it that Beezus was worried that she didn't always love her sister, and how it came to fruition in the end and was resolved with stories from her mother and aunt. I loved that part.

Book #115: 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam

I read this book a few years ago and enjoyed it enough that I bought a copy so that I could revisit it. And I've talked about it enough and mentioned it to enough people that when our book club ended up scrambling for a last-minute book replacement my friend thought this one could be a great one. Ironically, though, I didn't get around to reading it until last minute, so I only read about 2/3 of it and skimmed the rest. Since the message of the book is basically "you have time for anything you want to do, if you choose to make time for it," I was determined not to completely miss reading this, but I didn't get all the way through it.

I love the overall message of this book, and the way she sorts through the number of hours in a week to show that really, you can make time for things if you choose to, really helped to open my mind. However, I was glad we were able to talk about it at book club last night because there were lots of things I didn't love about it. She seems to think you should outsource any chores or jobs around the house you don't love (aka, all of them?) and she also doesn't seem to take into account how long it takes to get ready or personal care in all her accounts of how long it takes to do things. Also, it's easy to make a chart of what you're going to do with your time every day, but when you have kids, there's no way to predict how long some things will take (for example, I'm typing this with Lucy on my lap and being interrupted by Dane every 5 seconds, so it's taken way longer than it should have). But one thing she says in the book totally changed my worldview--she says, it's not that we don't have time to do most things, it's that it's not a priority. I could manage to spend more time getting ready every day and wear make-up and do my hair if I wanted it--but it's just not a priority. But I do manage to read for a chunk of every day, because it's something that rejuvenates me and makes me happier. But I would love to find another goal that I could also make a priority and use some more time in that way too.

Book #114: The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

This book starts out with Cecilia, one of the main characters in the novel, finding a letter her husband wrote to her "to be opened only in the event of his death." In it, he reveals his deepest, darkest secret which she had never before suspected, which immediately changes everything in their relationship. (I don't want to be totally spoiling everything by giving it all away and telling what the secret is, but if you read it and can start to put together the pieces of the puzzle it'll be pretty obvious pretty quickly.) The story also follows Rachel, an older woman whose daughter was murdered thirty years before, and Tess, who found out that her husband and her best friend have fallen in love with each other and they want to live together. This book is really about all of their relationships with each other and how they all can learn to forgive each other and themselves for things they've done.

I read What Alice Forgot earlier this year and really enjoyed it--more than I thought I would. It wasn't necessarily my favorite book in the world, but Moriarty has an awesome skill at the inner dialogue of characters and giving them such funny thoughts and voices. That skill really plays out in this book--I really liked all of the three main characters' thoughts and ideas in their heads. They say and think things that are so funny and real, and I liked how they even were thinking terrible, mean things that we would never say out loud, and learning things about themselves as they did it. I felt like Tess's storyline, about learning about her husband's almost-infidelity, was my least favorite, and it really didn't have anything to do with the rest of the book. You could have taken her out of the book altogether and it would have gotten along just fine. I just hate hearing about people cheating on each other, and that seemed terrible. I also felt like the ending, where Moriarty lays out all of these alternative endings/scenarios, was a little weird and almost depressing. The main strength of this book definitely lies with Moriarty's ability to write such believable, realistic, and funny characters, which was my favorite part.

Book #113: The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell

I chose this book for our family book club for October, and I even got Tommy to read it (and agree to lead our family discussion!). Helen Russell moved to Denmark from England with her husband and basically wrote this book about why Danish people are the happiest people in the world. She takes a different topic each month and interviews people and talks to them about how Danes are unique in that aspect (like, how they raise their kids or how they deal with their health), and how those things affect their happiness or the happiness of the country as a whole. She talks about their work-life balance, the country's safety net and welfare state, their relationship between the genders, etc. I appreciated that she doesn't just make it seem like a perfect utopia--like, everyone talks about Denmark's perfect gender equality, but it obviously isn't perfect, and she talks about the downsides of it too and the places where it's still failing. But I really liked learning about Denmark's culture a little bit more and seeing what they do there and what they take for granted as opposed to in our society. I wished there were more things that could be a little more applicable to us, since a lot of them felt like things that were more circumstantial to Denmark and not things we could take and apply to ourselves (like the welfare state and the homogenous society and even the possible gene that makes you happier). She does have a handy list at the end that you can get quick tips from for making yourself happier like Danes, although the main one is "Trust more" and I have no idea how you're supposed to do that, haha. I felt like this book could have been 100 pages shorter and still relatively informative and more interesting. It honestly felt too long and I felt like some of the time when she was writing she felt like she was trying too hard to be funny. There were lots--LOTS--of asides and witty comments and it seriously could have been toned down a little bit. Is that something about the British humor or something? I don't know, it just felt a little overdone in this book. I liked learning through this book though and I enjoyed it overall, though it probably wasn't my favorite ever (because of it feeling a little too long).

Book #112: The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny

This was a Inspector Gamache novel that our library didn't have on audio, so I actually had to read it--and thoroughly enjoyed it still. Each one of these books is so expertly plotted, and it's amazing how the characters are developed and how you get little glimpses into the truth, but just enough to keep you guessing and keep you reading. Penny does an amazing job of letting you know what all the characters are thinking, but only at certain times, so you may know when someone is lying at one time and not at another. I love how there is such uncertainty at all times. In this book, the murder actually happens in Three Pines again (whereas in the last one it happened at a fancy resort hotel somewhat far away but with many of the same characters present), and it implicates one of the main characters who is beloved by many of the town and the readers. It's less cut and dry than many of the other books, because usually the murderer confesses once Gamache makes it clear he knows what has happened. But the last chapter of the book ends after the trial of the accused murderer, and although all the evidence points towards this being right, there still is no confession. And I know (from reading the summary of the next book) that this story continues in the next book so I'm curious to see what happens next.

I am just so pleased with this series. I keep being surprised that I'm still interested in a 13-book series, because I feel like I don't have time for something that big, but it is so well done and so engaging that I am just flying through the audiobooks and wanting to keep going.

Book #111: Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling

I read Kaling's first book a few years ago and thought it was funny, a pretty run-of-the-mill comedian/actress memoir (of which I've read plenty at this point). I wasn't really planning to read her next one, but our library had it on audiobook and I needed something easy to listen to--and this was SHORT. Only 4 something hours. Not too bad! I honestly have nothing to say about it, except that she is definitely funny, I liked getting a little behind-the-scenes looks at getting contracts and working in the TV industry, and it was a fun book to listen to rather than read because it was all in her own voice.

Book #110: One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B. J. Novak

I was in need of an audiobook to fill some time in between Armand Gamache books (the library doesn't have an audiobook copy of the fifth book, so I just have to get around to reading the e-book copy I currently have checked out), and this one was available, and it was pretty short. I kind of thought this was going to be a memoir-ish type book, because that's basically what you always get from actors, but this was actually a collection of short (some, very very short) stories that Novak wrote. It was actually a very fun book to listen to on audio, because he is a great reader and he had plenty of other famous friends sub in and help do the other voices in his stories, including lots of favorites from The Office, like Jenna Fischer, Mindy Kaling, and Rainn Wilson. I thought some of the stories were very funny and well done, like the blind date between the woman and the African warlord, the rematch between the tortoise and the hare (the opening story, which was funny and thoughtful), and the one about the sex robot who became sentient and fell in love with the person who bought her. But some were really dumb and too short. There were over sixty stories, and many of them were one page or less, which makes you wonder why the editors didn't make him cut at least a few of those and expand some of the other stories. I feel like the less-than-one-page stories are more just funny than actually bringing anything to the table, and having like 30 of them in the book just took down the quality of the whole book, I thought. But overall, it was a funny read/listen, and a few of them even made me think too.

Book #109: Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

Oh, I LOVED the Ramona books when I was younger. And I thought this would be such a fun one to read with Dane, since it's when Ramona is in kindergarten. I just love how Beverly Cleary gets into Ramona's head, and how we get a look at how a kindergartener thinks. Ramona thinks like a kindergartener, and we get to think like her. I love, love, love that about this book. I love each of the different chapters about Ramona as well--like when she gets stuck in the mud in her new beautiful red rain boots, or how she gets sent home for pulling Susan's curls too many times, and her scary witch costume for Halloween. Kindergarteners are just so fun, and Beverly Cleary (I have to use both names, she's not just a last name person to me) really makes Ramona just fun. Dane was enthralled by Ramona too--particularly when she and Howie take the third wheel off her trike and make it a two-wheeler, and when Ramona loses her first tooth--and it was a total success. We are going to read Ramona and Beezus next (which actually comes before this one chronologically, but oh well).

Book #108: Living Out Loud by Anna Quindlen

I bought this book at a library sale years ago, before Dane was even born, and it has sat on my bookshelves ever since then, untouched. I've culled my books numerous times, but I kept saving this one because I knew that I liked Anna Quindlen as an author and I kept meaning to read it. One of my goals for this year was to finally read some of the unread books on my shelves, and I got around to this one this week. And I definitely enjoyed it. The funny thing is that it's a collection of her syndicated newspaper column that Quindlen wrote when she was a reporter--and it's from the mid-eighties. Before I was even born. So it's definitely dated in many of its essays--she writes about Ted Bundy and AIDS and living in New York and being afraid for her life, etc. But I really enjoyed time traveling to what it was like being a young parent (she is in the same stage of life that I am now, in this book) at that time. I loved a lot of her essays on parenting and her reminiscences on her childhood, and how honest she was and how good at exposing herself without exposing too much. She talked about her mother dying when she was young, and how that affected her, and her fears as a parent. The one essay that I loved the most was about how vulnerable she feels because of the power she has over her children, how the two parents are the ones who have the power to make them happy or sad, and how she doesn't want to have that power and that responsibility, and how scary that is. It's something that I think about too, and which resonates with me. I thoroughly enjoyed this book--it was an easy read of short essays (since they were originally newspaper columns) and she is an excellent writer. I'd love to read more of her works.

Book #107: I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

Okay, I'm obviously on some sort of Sophie Kinsella streak lately because this is the third one I've read in the last week or two, haha. It's just so easy because I can read one in two or three hours, it doesn't take much concentration, and they're always fun and work out pretty well in the end. I read this one before and enjoyed it enough to re-read it this week. Poppy, the main character in this book, loses her engagement ring and her phone in the same night, and she finds a replacement phone in the trash can at the hotel where she was and uses it. She manages to fall in love with the guy whose phone it is while discovering that her fiance is kind of a jerk so she gets to break it off with him at the altar and stay with her true love. Haha.

I liked that Poppy was a normal, not-super-ditzy girl (like some of Kinsella's heroines are, in Shopaholic and Can You Keep a Secret?). I laughed out loud a few times in the scenes where she was feeling really dumb with her fiance's super smart academic family. She did still end up getting into some ridiculous situations, which seem kind of inexplicable and unrealistic--but I guess that's part of the genre. All in all, it was a fun read and worth it if it only takes a few hours to get through.

Book #106: A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny

Another Armand Gamache novel--another successful murder mystery. I really enjoyed listening to this one, about a murder that happened at a resort-ish hotel where Armand Gamache was staying with his wife to celebrate their wedding anniversary. The woman killed was there as another guest with her family, and they naturally become the prime suspects. Much of the plot is investigating the family's very messed-up dynamics, and examining how they treated each other and hurt each other in important ways. It was depressing to see how much they all were hurting at times--Penny is very good at letting us see characters' thoughts when it's helpful--and how they lashed out at each other. She is also good at showing that everyone has some reason behind their hatefulness, if they are indeed being hateful: they are usually hurt somehow by someone else. It makes all her characters more well-rounded and makes you feel more compassionate towards them all.

This book had a more dramatic finish than the last few, with Gamache almost dying in his attempt to save another potential victim. I have to say, I love how he manages to figure out each mystery without compromising or changing his standards. I love how he is solid and strong and emotionally in tune and in love with his wife. He seems like the best person everywhere he goes and is able to deal with all sorts of really damaged people. I think Gamache's character is the reason why this series is so popular and works so well.

I'm moving on to the next one, although our library doesn't have an audiobook copy, unfortunately... so I'll have to read it on the Kindle.

Book #105: The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emma Orczy

It's so sad to me that I haven't read this book in the whole time I've been keeping this blog! Same thing with To Kill a Mockingbird. These books are such classics and are some of my very favorites, but I have been reading so many new books the last few years and not as much re-reading, that I am missing out on some joy of these beloved books that I have read so, so many times before now. But, I pulled it out yesterday or the day before and got it started, and just thoroughly enjoyed this book. I don't think I love it mostly because of the nostalgic factor--we spent HOURS singing the songs to The Scarlet Pimpernel musical that we saw when I was maybe twelve--it's just a really excellent story. The romantic factor of a secret identity of a man saving people's lives with no benefit to himself--it's just awesome. And I love how you get to see most of it through Marguerite's eyes and get to see her transformation. Sure, maybe her newfound love for her husband comes on a little strong and out of nowhere, and I'm always slightly annoyed by how dainty and alluring and perfect and astoundingly beautiful women in fiction of this era are, but it fits along with the times and it's not terrible. Marguerite is actually the heroine of the story and shows how tough she is by trying to save her husband (although walking for a few miles is enough to render her incapacitated and bloody-footed... mm-hmm).

TOTALLY love this book. I just wish I could find a version on the stage of it these days so I can relive the amazingness of the musical. We LOVED it for a few years at my house.

Book #104: Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella

I read this book because when I was looking at the Goodreads page for My Not So Perfect Life I saw this book cover as another book Kinsella had written and it was like a deja vu bomb went off in my head. I used to have this book--when I was in high school--and I totally remembered reading it and enjoying it and vividly remembered the cover. But I had no memory of what was actually in the book. Our library had an e-copy so I checked it out and enjoyed this walk down memory lane.

In this book, Emma Corrigan is on her very first business trip and the plane ride home has terrible turbulence--so terrible she's convinced they're all going to die. So in her panic she begins spilling out all her secrets to the man sitting next to her on the plane, which ends up being a problem when he shows up at her work the next day as her boss, the owner of the company there for a visit. Ahh! There's the inevitable romance and all sorts of inexplicable awkward situations that I feel like are pretty common to Kinsella's novels, but it was definitely a fun read. It took only two hours, so I mean, what is there to complain about a book that you can read that quickly and check off the list with so little energy? Ha!

Fair warning: Kinsella loves the f-word and other swearing, and there's a little bit of sex, but part of me thinks it's because she's British and the whole cultural difference in what curse words are appropriate.

Book #103: My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella

Could anything be easier to read and lighter than Sophie Kinsella? I am pretty sure the answer is no. I read a few of her Shopaholic books when I was in high school and then a few other ones through the years, but I'd heard this one was cute and thought it would be a great light audiobook to listen to, and it was. Kinsella is great at creating relatable, slightly hilarious main characters, and this book is no exception. This book is about Katie Brenner, who works in London at a branding agency, and her attempts to create a perfect life for herself through her Instagram photos. But when she gets fired from her job and moves home to the country to help her dad start up a glamping site, she begins to question a lot of things about her decisions.

I thought this book was super contemporary--as in, it definitely seems very 2017. The Instagram perfect life is a major theme in the story--and that's such an everyday issue. And there was a ton about glamping too. I wonder how much of this book may seem outdated in a few years--but obviously that's not an issue now. I liked this one, although after a while I was wishing I could have just been reading it instead of listening to it, because I could have powered through this book in two hours instead of having to listen for ten. I liked how Katie's relationship with her boss Demeter changes over the course of the book--although it seems surprising how close they were at the end--and of course the romance was cute too--although I was less interested in the romance in this book, since it definitely seemed secondary to the storyline of Katie's job and her wrestling with what she wants to do.

This was cute, fun, not too long--definitely a fun chick lit read. Obviously a little different from The Brothers Karamazov.

Book #102: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

I read this a long time ago, and I'd seen the movie adaptation at some point, but it had been so long that I didn't remember any specifics of the story and had forgotten who the murderer was. All I remembered was the basic premise: that someone is killing people on this island one by one, and nobody can figure out who it is. So this was a fun book to revisit. This is apparently one of Agatha Christie's best-known novels (if not THE best-known) and I can see why--it's creepy and suggestive enough to get your heart rate up a little bit, and totally throws you off because there's no way to really figure out who did it. This is apparently a faux pas in the mystery-writing world; apparently you are supposed to drop hints here and there that the reader can look back on and say, "Ah! That's what that meant!" when they find out the ending. But not so in this book--you have no idea who it was until the epilogue. But I didn't mind that about this one; the story is so shocking and out-of-the-ordinary that you don't expect it to work like any other ordinary murder mysteries.

Definitely worth a read for anyone. It's short, fun, and exciting.

Note: I have a hard copy of this book, but I forgot about it when I started reading it (for book club this week), so I downloaded an e-book copy from the library. I'm glad I read the e-book because it helped me to not skip ahead and try to get a hint of who did it! It made it more satisfying at the end. For this book that really mattered.

Book #101: The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny

I am really enjoying this Inspector Gamache series of books. It's awesome that our library has most of them as audiobooks, because I couldn't commit to a series of thirteen books to read, but I'm always searching for books to listen to since not everything is on audio and now I have a huge series to fill up my workout time.

In this book, another murder happens in Three Pines. (Sidenote: isn't this unlikely, that the murders keep happening in this tiny, so-called peaceful village? The murders per capita rate must be extremely high compared to the rest of Canada! But this is where the suspension of disbelief is important. That doesn't bother me enough to detract from my enjoyment of the series.) This one happens during a seance the villagers hold at the old, haunted Hadley house--one of the group falls dead from a heart attack caused by fright during the seance. It comes out later that the heart attack was caused by a drug slipped to the murdered woman--and who did it? Inspector Gamache figures it out again, with his trademark intuitive, emotion-sensitive style. But this book is also focused on the betrayals headed towards the unsuspecting Gamache by his best friend. The reader knows what is happening, but Gamache has no idea who is leaking terrible stories about him and his family to the press, and it's torturous to watch as it unfolds. I'm curious to know what will happen for him in the next book, since the climax of the story involves this coming to light.

Definitely a fun book to listen to, and Penny has a huge talent of telling a story and creating these characters I love, who seem real and have personalities of their own. I'm looking forward to the next one soon too.

Book #100: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

First, a quick summary of this classic: there are three brothers and sons of Fyodor Karamazov, Dmitri, Ivan, and Alexei. Fyodor is the world's worst parent and a pretty horrible person, and everyone knows it. The three (motherless) brothers have grown up thanks to servants taking care of them and other people basically raising them to adulthood. However, they're all grown now, and have all returned to their home town where their father is for short stays, and are becoming reacquainted with him and with each other. There's a lot of deep discussions about right and wrong, about their Karamazovian natures, etc. Then Fyodor is murdered and Dmitri is the immediate suspect, and the second half of the novel is describing the arrest and the trial and the aftermath of the accused patricide.

This book took me a LONG time to read. This is one of those books that is the equivalent of five other books--because of its length, but also because of the difficulty of reading it. It was about 775 pages long, so much shorter than War and Peace or Anna Karenina (the two books I keep comparing it to, since they're both long Russian classics I've read as well), but it felt longer than those because it was heavy. All the summaries and reviews I read of this book talk about how it is a "philosophical treatise on morality" and "a passionate philosophical novel set in 19th century Russia, that enters deeply into the ethical debates of God, free will, and morality." This basically translates to whole chapters being long, LONG monologues from different characters without there being even normal paragraph breaks. Ten whole pages will go by with no dialogue and hardly any new paragraphs--which makes for slow, slow reading. I was determined not to skim and skip things (which happens automatically for me sometimes, when faced with entire pages with no distinguishing breaks), so I moved much slower than I usually do. Add in the fact that it's heavy stuff, talking about our agency and what is right and wrong and debating the existence of God and Christianity--and that makes it even slower. Additionally, the plot was difficult to stay engaged with, and many of the characters (other than Alyosha) were not sympathetic. However, it was easier to follow which character was which and not get confused about who was who, which was nice.

I don't say all of that to say that I didn't like the book. I did, but not as much as War and Peace or AK. I wish I had read this with a class where I could have discussed it and gotten some insight into why things were significant. I read the Sparknotes for each section of the book as I was going, and that helped a lot to give me insight into things that I missed the importance of as I was slogging along through the book. The philosophical elements that I enjoyed thinking about was how much of an effect our natures have on our actions (everyone was always talking about their "Karamazovian natures") and Ivan and Alyosha's disagreements about right and wrong. Ivan believed that if there's no God, there's no afterlife, and everything is permitted and nothing is wrong. This belief, which he talked about a lot and discussed with many people, blows up in his face and ends up driving him insane when the repercussions of it strike him finally. Alyosha was my favorite character, and obviously Dostoevsky's as well--he was angelic and beloved by all and always trying to do good for everyone. I didn't quite understand the need for the character of Father Zosima, the elder at the monastery who was Alyosha's mentor in his attempt to become a monk, and I thought it was super weird how an entire section, out of nowhere, was dedicated to his life story and his beliefs about everyone being responsible for everyone else's actions (I get that it was supposed to be in response to Ivan's atheism, but it seemed super weird). I kept thinking, "This would NEVER be allowed in a book being published today."

All in all, I am glad I read this. I have had this book on my shelf for YEARS and YEARS--I bought a secondhand copy while I was at NCSU, so at least six years ago--and I've always felt lame that I've never gotten around to reading it. I'm trying to work through the books on my shelves that I haven't read yet, and this was a major one. I don't honestly know if I'll want to read it again, though. It really dragged for me, and I don't know if the interesting insights were worth all the pages of blabber it took to get them.

But hey--book 100!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CHECK ME OUT!

Book #99: Where I Was From by Joan Didion

I read this book in 2011, before I started keeping this blog. And I got the idea for a "family book club" (from a friend who does it with her sisters), and this ended up being the first one we picked for our family discussion. Although only a few of us ended up reading it, I'm glad to have revisited it again--it reminded me of what a great writer Joan Didion is, and how I feel like her ideas are so much deeper and more thought-provoking than my thoughts usually tend to run. This book is basically different essays dissecting Didion's relationship to and understanding of California, her home of her childhood. She writes about the many contradictions of California as a whole, as the supposedly picture-perfect place but with many issues hidden beneath the surface that I think surprised her as she grew up and became aware of them. She writes a lot about different ways the federal government has supported and then pulled out of California, such as the railroad and the aerospace industry, and about the growth of the prison system, and the Lakewood Spur Posse gang issues of the 1990s. I really enjoyed her discussions of the pioneers who first came to California in the 1800s, and thinking about the difference between her pioneer ancestors/heritage vs. our Mormon understanding of ours.

All in all, it wasn't probably the best book club choice for our first book. But it was still fun to try and discuss with my mom and Camille, and I'm excited about the next one we chose. I think this is a fun experiment. We'll see how it continues.

Book #98: Mystery Ranch by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Dane is loving these Boxcar Children books. This one was not my favorite--there wasn't really a mystery that the kids solved (the ranch definitely did not deserve the title of Mystery Ranch, haha), and there wasn't even very much of the charming independent living stuff where they explain how they built a campfire or made their own house in a boxcar or a barn, like in the other ones. But it was a lot shorter than the others, which was a bonus--I was able to get through two chapters a day with Dane instead of just one.

It is funny how unrealistic the Alden kids are, now, looking back at these books as an adult. It is super, super unlikely that any kids would excitedly volunteer to go take care of their great-aunt for the summer, whom they'd never met and of whom they didn't know anything except that she was extremely cross. And it seems very unlikely that they would get that great-aunt to be happy again simply by showing up and cheerfully making her lunch. But, of course, those elements don't bother me at all--it's just something to laugh at now. It's just surprising to me that I truly never noticed that before when reading all of these books as a kid.

Book #97: The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood

I really enjoyed listening to this book. I was worried it was going to be too sad--you know going into it beforehand that it's about a father of a young boy who died--but it wasn't. It was definitely sad in parts, but mostly, it was sweet. The story revolves around Quinn Porter, the boy's father, who is told to finish his son's Boy Scout commitment to take care of a 104-year-old woman's yard for the rest of the summer. He gets to know this woman, Ona Vitkus, who seems at first to be crabby to the extreme, but who warms up to him and they eventually get to know each other and like each other. Mixed throughout the main plot are lots and lots of flashbacks in both of their lives, transcriptions of the interview the boy did with Ona about her life, and lists of Guiness Book World Record holders, which the boy was obsessed with. Before his death, the boy had convinced Ona to go out for a world record of Oldest Licensed Driver, and she gets Quinn involved in her attempt to find her birth certificate and get her license renewed. And she also helps Quinn to get to know his son in a way he never did before he died.

There isn't all that much that happens in this book--a short road trip, a burglary, Quinn working and trying to get a job--but the plot isn't as important as the flashbacks and the character development, particularly in the case of Ona. I loved learning about her life and beginning to care about her as a person, and imagining how her life has changed and developed over more than a century of life. I also loved Quinn's character, how he is an itinerant musician and obviously wasn't a super-involved dad, but how he is trying really hard to care and to make up for his mistakes in the only way he knows how. I also loved the boy, who is only there in memories and flashbacks, but is the main impetus for Ona and Quinn and Belle's (his mother) actions, and who brings them together even in his absence.

All in all, a really great story. It made me want to keep listening and do dishes for longer just to have a chance to keep going.

Book #96: A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny

This is the second book in the series of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache (Still Life being the first) and I actually read this one instead of listening to it. Our library has ten of the series on audiobook but not this one for some reason. I enjoyed reading this one, about a newcomer killed in Three Pines at a curling match the day after Christmas. Like the first one, I had a good guess of who the killer was in this book, but it doesn't disappoint me to know whodunit by any means. I feel like these books are more about the characters and the interest created by the character of Armand Gamache, instead of just figuring out who committed the crime. I really like Gamache as a person, like his relationship with his wife and his team especially, and am infuriated by any people who don't like him (like the inscrutable Agent Nichol, who is so messed up it's hard to even see where she's coming from). The only thing I didn't like about this book were the obvious dark hints about bad things coming for Gamache in the future (betrayals! No!), and the really sad relationships between mothers and daughters in this book. The murdered woman was a terrible person, and the way she treated everyone, but especially her teenaged daughter, was super depressing. I hate imagining any children growing up in a toxic home like that, even in a fictional world. But I thought this story was well done and I enjoyed it. I am going to listen to the next one soon.

Book #95: The Yellow House Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Dane and I just finished this one today (it was something he wanted to do for his birthday) and he just LOVES this series. I'm sooo happy he likes it, but I'm wanting to move on to reading him something else too. We could be reading Boxcar Children together until he moves away to college, but I want to read some other books together before he goes to kindergarten. I'm trying to convince him--maybe we will read one more and then try to move on to something else, haha.

This book was a follow-up to the Surprise Island book. It's funny to be reading them in order like this, because as a kid, I never put them in any particular order when I read them so I don't think I ever figured out the overall storyline (at least of the first few). There was a yellow house on the island that they weren't allowed to go into, and in this book, they find out what the mystery was and try to solve it by finding out where their grandfather's old friend Bill went forty years earlier. Dane got super into the story and really liked talking about going to find Bill. I liked the details about their camping/canoeing trip they took--Warner loves placing the children into situations in which they have to fend for themselves.