Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

I listened to My Name is Lucy Barton a few months ago, and it was an interesting book. Interesting in that I didn't love it, but I got invested in it, and I couldn't seem to stop thinking about it afterwards. It was very well-written and beautiful, and very hard to listen to at the same time because of how honest and real it was. Anyway, I decided to listen to the sequel, which is not really a sequel because it doesn't continue what you read about in the first one, but it is about many of the same people you hear about in the first one. Lucy Barton grew up in a tiny rural town in Illinois, and that is where we find our characters in Anything is Possible, which is a set of short stories all kind of related to each other because they all revolve around Lucy Barton. Each one is about a different person, and each of these people knows her or knew her and each of their stories touch on her in some way, and each of the stories are so much more revealing and eye-opening than you expect it to be. It seemed like each person had a lot of shame and big secrets, bigger than you'd expect from people who are just like the ones you know. Some of the stories were so shocking or sad in how they revealed themselves, and they all made me feel for the person, fictional though they may be. It made me think of the quote about how you should be kind because you never know what loads other people are carrying. I am glad to have listened to it and I think I will be thinking about it later afterwards, like I did with Lucy Barton.

I have meant to read more of Strout's work for years (specifically Olive Kitteridge, since it's the Pulitzer Prize winner) and I hope I can get around to it soon. It sounds like it's a lot like this one (at least in format, short stories) and I would be very interested in it.

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

This was one of my read-alouds with the boys (mostly Dane), and it was so fantastic. Some of the books that we've read aloud together have been more interesting for Dane than for me, like Paddington. I liked that book, but I didn't love it (maybe because I never read it as a kid?), and I think that made a difference in my desire to read together because it felt more like we were doing a chore or something. (Although I made the mistake of grabbing another Paddington book from the library when I saw them on the shelf and now Dane wants to read that one next... darn.) But this book... I could not wait to read this one. And neither could Dane. As soon as we got to the magic part, Dane was so, so, very excited. We read about six or seven chapters each day we read, and the book is relatively short, so we finished it in only a few weeks. I love the story and I love the weirdness of it all. Dane is determined to make a potion now that will work like the magic things in the beginning of the book.

Unequal Affection by Lara S. Ormiston

I will read any Pride and Prejudice-related book that I can find, and I heard that this one was very good, so naturally I snatched it up. This is a re-imagining of what would have happened if Elizabeth Bennet had accepted Mr. Darcy's first proposal, instead of yelling at him and accusing him of being a terrible person. What if, instead, she had weighed the pros and cons, and accepted that she could not totally throw away the opportunity to marry someone who loved her and who was intelligent, honorable, and, of course, rich? The book goes from the original proposal and for the next month or so, as Lizzy eventually accepts Darcy, telling him that she does not love him but will try to get to know him and marry him anyway, and as they do get to know each other.

I thought the characterizations in the book were so spot on, and the events and people seemed totally believable. I realized there were so many things that I hadn't anticipated or imagined could happen, and which were totally believable in how they played out in this book. I loved the idea that that original proposal, and Lizzy's rejection and Darcy's letter he wrote back, started this train of self-reflection and change for both Darcy and Lizzy, making them both less prideful and assured of themselves and their own judgment. And without that gradual change in character, what would they be like? How could they come together and love each other without realizing what they each were doing wrong on their own? I thought Ormiston did such a great job of helping both of them come to those same realizations without that initial change in the original book. I also liked the relationship between Darcy and Lizzy in this book, how he becomes so vulnerable since he knows he's the one who loves her while she doesn't love him (yet). Darcy was oh so romantic in this book, maybe a little over the top at times, but it didn't bother me at all. I loved it. I really, really enjoyed this book and I would definitely buy it to have it to read again (add it in with my Jane Austen collection, haha).

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

I read this book several years ago and loved it. Loved it so much that I bought a copy of it and the second in the series, even though each are around 1000 pages and there are at least eight more books promised in the series. I feel like I would be happy re-reading this book any number of times over the next few decades each time he comes out with a book in the series. And I have recommended this book to any number of people--anyone who is remotely friendly to reading fantasy would be way interested in this book (although there are always those people who won't even try).

And I just re-read it, since I am just reading books that make me happy this year, and I loved it even more again. Maybe even more than the first time because I knew what was coming up and I couldn't wait to get to it. And even more because I understood the world and the story from the very beginning, instead of having to figure things out as I went. I still think that Sanderson is one of the best world-builders I have ever read, and his character development is amazing. How does he do it? He is one of the most prolific writers ever, and he still does such a good job. I just love all of the main characters in this book--Kaladin, Shallan, and Dalinar--and they are all so distinctive, in their own ways. The whole storyline of Kaladin and the bridgemen is one of the best stories on its own that I've ever read, but there's so much more to the book. I keep thinking that I wish there could be a movie made of this, but there's no way that could ever happen because it's too massive. Re-reading this has made me even more excited to read the second and third ones now, because it was even better this second time around. This is definitely a solid five-star read.

How Children Succeed by Paul Tough

I feel like the main point of this book was basically: read Grit. Because your kids need grit. Half of this book was talking about Angela Duckworth and her research, and using several examples that she even talked about in her book too. Tough used some very vivid examples of kids who have grown up in adverse circumstances to illustrate the research he's writing about, and it was inspiring and interesting. However, I didn't have any solid takeaways about what to do with our kids, other than de-emphasizing academic skills (which, I feel is obvious, although maybe that's because I've already read Grit), and focusing on character strengths that most kids aren't getting these days. And, that it's good to be a high-LG parent, as in Licking and Grooming (as in what rats do to their kids) because that helps give them a solid emotional foundation.

I feel like I should have more to say about this book, but maybe since it was an audiobook I didn't get as much out of it. And, it just didn't seem like it had a ton of information in it. It was good, but I didn't love it and it didn't change my worldview or anything.

When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin

Oh man. This book was my book club pick for August, and I was a little skeptical about it. It's always a little suspicious when a book club pick is something I've never heard of or that doesn't sound familiar at all. The reason I'd never heard of this book is because it falls solidly in the "inspirational fiction" section of the library, which I basically never read in (although I definitely read my share of Mormon inspirational fiction as a teenager, based on whatever was at my house, haha). It's about a young girl who needs a heart transplant, and a man who could be her doctor although he's battling his demons of failing his wife who needed her own heart transplant. The subtitle of the book is "A Novel of the Heart," which is a nice double entendre, because he talks a lot about the physiological information about the heart and the emotional aspect of our hearts. I didn't hate reading this, and I got somewhat interested in what was going on in the story, but I got seriously bogged down by so many inconsistencies and strange things in this story. Here are some questions/problems I had:

-The girl had her parents die, her twin sister die, serious heart problems and needs a heart transplant, then she got hit by a truck, got mold in their house, and then a tornado smashed the house where they were staying. Seriously?
-The doctor, our narrator, talked about his childhood as background in alternating chapters at the beginning. He met his wife when he was like 6, and fell in love with her from day one. When he found out she had a heart problem, he decided at the age of 7 that he would become a heart doctor and fix Emma's heart. So he therefore spent all of his free time reading books about hearts and medical texts, from the age of 7 until he graduated from medical school. Again, seriously? What seven-year-old would ever do that or be capable of it?
-The book was set in rural Georgia and is a super-Christian book. Therefore, everyone is constantly praying to God. This is nice, but I've never been somewhere where people pray like this. Like, they say a super-long prayer at a restaurant and the manager of the restaurant comes and kneels behind their table to join in. Or the girl is about to go into surgery and her doctor kneels down and they pray together before putting her under anesthesia. It seems way over-the-top.
-The narrator stopped practicing medicine when his wife died and he basically ran away from everything. That was five years ago and since then he hasn't practiced medicine at all. Then this girl shows up and after wrestling with the decision for a long time, he finally tells her that he's the world's best heart transplant surgeon (of course) and she asks him to be her doctor. So he just goes into the hospital and does it. Aren't there issues about his license or medical insurance? That's not allowed for someone to just show up out of the blue and work as a doctor out of nowhere. It's not like doing CPR on someone until the paramedics show up. Come onnnnn.

All in all, I was too distracted by all of these plotlines that were totally unbelievable to get much out of the story. I wanted to read this book because I like book club and I haven't been able to go as often the last few months. But man, this was kind of a painful read.

Once and For All by Sarah Dessen

I've never even heard of Sarah Dessen, but apparently she's a super-famous YA author specializing in fun romances? And apparently I'd added this book to my to-read list and then at some point requested it at the library and it got automatically downloaded to my audiobook library without me remembering about it, haha. But I started it and definitely enjoyed it, enough that I want to listen to more by her (although our library doesn't have many of her books on audio). In Once and For All, Louna (pronounced Luna) works at her mom's wedding planning business and has become kind of cynical about the potential of everlasting, "true love." She is also still reeling from her previous relationship and how it ended. But she ends up getting thrown together with a new co-worker named Ambrose, who is incredibly annoying, but who she begins to get to know and understand a little better. And... you can guess how the book ends.

It was cute and fun and well-done, which so many YA novels are not. I rolled my eyes at some extreme cheesiness (but I was never the type of girl to hug my boyfriend and cry because the night was ending and I didn't want to say good-bye). And not to mention a way-too-obvious bet between the girl and her soon-to-be love interest, which seemed wayyyy too planned. But overall I felt invested in the love story and couldn't wait to hear what happened next. Definitely a fun read (listen).

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

I feel like I put Judy Blume up there at the same level as Beverly Cleary in the realm of children's book authors; I loved her Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing as a kid and many of her others. But I didn't know much about her reputation as an author who addressed many taboo subjects such as sexuality, menstruation, etc., in her children's and YA books. I guess the ones I read didn't really talk about those things? Or I just didn't notice when I was a kid? But anyway, this book is one of her books that she wrote for adults (I didn't even know she'd written for adults) and it was only published a few years ago (I didn't even know she was still alive). Obviously I hadn't ever thought that much about Judy Blume.

In the Unlikely Event is about the town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, over the course of two or three months in the winter of 1951-1952 when three planes randomly crashed in their town one after the other. It is written from the perspective of a number of different people living in the town or affected by the crashes, but it is mostly about Miri Ammerman, a fifteen-year-old girl who is in love for the first time, and her reactions to what was going on. This is a novel with all fictional characters, but it is based on real events; three planes really did crash into one town during that winter, and Judy Blume was living there as a young woman about the same age as Miri. Knowing that made it all feel more real: the fear, the horror, and paranoia and rumors that the town was dealing with as they worried about what would happen next and why these planes kept crashing.

I really enjoyed listening to this book and I really got interested in it, much more than I anticipated I would. I think one of the best parts was the many narrators, how we got to hear from almost every character's perspective, even the ones that seemed like they would only be a minor characters. I thought Miri seemed like she was a little too perfect to be real--her comfortable, familiar life got blown up during the short period of this novel (and not just by the planes--everything changed for her), and she really didn't ever seem to act as upset as I would think would be warranted by a fifteen-year-old. But that is a really minor complaint compared to the strength of the rest of this book. It was a great story, despite a few twists that I really disliked (I hate any sort of adultery plotline, and there was a kind of minor one in here), and it was flawlessly written. It's so nice to read/listen to something that doesn't have awkward dialogue ever in it. I'm glad to have listened to it.

An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L'Engle

This book came with my Wrinkle in Time set as the fifth book in the quintet, although I didn't know it existed. I read all of the first four many times as a kid but I had never even heard of this one. And now I know why... it really wasn't that good. It kind of is the last in a different series as well, which I haven't read, which meant that I didn't get a lot of the references and kept waiting for them to be explained (but they never were). This book is about Meg and Calvin's daughter, Polly, who comes to live with her grandparents in their old house, for some unexplained reason, and she meets this boy there from some previous encounter (which is never explained, since it's from the other series) and she somehow stumbles into a time-travel series where she keeps accidentally going back three thousand years into the past and interacting with the People of the Wind who live there. But about 2/3 of the book is just her accidentally going back to the past for a second, then talking about it with her grandparents and asking them what they think, and talking about it some more. It really moved slowly and I didn't love it at all. Oh well, there it is. I still love the others.

Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne

Like everyone on the planet, I know about Winnie the Pooh. I've seen the movies and the shows and read plenty of the Disney Winnie the Pooh picture books. But I had never read the original book by A. A. Milne, and I decided that was time to change. I chose this for a read-aloud to read with the boys, thinking Graham would like this more than some of the others we've read. He didn't necessarily get that engaged in it, but that was probably because it was a little hard to follow for a three-year-old. I thought it was so cute and funny, and Dane definitely got it, but there were some parts that I would imagine would have been a little difficult to follow if you were just listening instead of reading it on your own. There were some really funny parts, misunderstandings between the characters or confusion, and I enjoyed reading these very familiar stories--all of which I've seen versions of--in their original form.