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.