Landline and Other Top Reads of 2017

In December, I finished 10 books:

A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (audiobook)
The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King
The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan (reread)
I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella (audiobook)
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
The Crown by Kiera Cass
The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer (audiobook)
Fever by Deon Meyer
The Man Who Changed Everything by Basil Mahon

This brings my total for the year to 140 books!

My Five Star reads for 2017:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour
Behold the Bones by Natalie C. Parker
The Silver Witch by Paula Brackston
Winter by Marissa Meyer
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Origin by Diana Abu-Jaber
Bad Blood by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Maggie Stiefvater
Duma Key by Stephen King
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
The Blonde by Anna Godbersen
Just After Sunset by Stephen King
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Mongomery
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
The Reader by Traci Chee
Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Teach Like a Champion 2.0 by Doug Lemov
Landline by Rainbow Rowell
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Of these thirty, it is hard to choose a favorite. I am a little in love with Leigh Bardugo right now, and super entranced by the worlds and characters she creates. Yet none of her titles above stands out as a clear winner.

I think I would have to go with Landline by Rainbow Rowell. Unlike Bardugo, Rowell sets her stories in the very ordinary world. She populates her tales with very ordinary people. And that is why I love them so. Landline in particular felt like visiting with people that I personally know. Which is a little strange, given that the story is based on a phone having magical powers. (I won’t explain the phone thing, you will have to read it!)

While I have read a lot this year (thanks in part to having a long drive to work again filled with audiobooks), I have not been as prolific with my own words. I did finish a draft of Variations, the contemporary young adult novel set in a school of the arts, but haven’t finished revisions yet. This is at the top of my priority list for 2018. I also have a YA paranormal story lurking in the dark recesses of my brain, waiting not so patiently for its turn to hit the page.

What did you accomplish in 2017? What is on your to-do list for the new year?

The Wife Between Us and Other November Reads

In November I finished sixteen books:

Come Sundown by Nora Roberts (audiobook)
The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross
The Rule Maker by Jennifer Blackwood
Blue Smoke and Murder by Elizabeth Lowell (audiobook)
The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen (ARC)
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell (audiobook)
The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan (reread)
Teach Like a Champion 2.0 by Doug Lemov
Landline by Rainbow Rowell (audiobook)
The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt
The Crystal Scepter by C.S. Lakin
The First-Year Teacher’s Survival Guide by Julia G. Thompson
Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas
Mosquitoes Don’t Bite Me by Pendred Noyce
The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee (audiobook)
The Duchess by Danielle Steel (audiobook)

I received an Advanced Readers’ Edition of The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen from the publisher (St. Martin’s Press) as part of a Shelf Awareness giveaway. This book is scheduled for release in January 2018.

This is the story of Vanessa, a woman who has recently split with her husband, Richard. Her ex is moving on without her, seemingly happy and content with his new, soon-to-be bride. Vanessa is fairing less well. She seems to be struggling with depression, with alcohol, with grief for the relationship she has lost.

Vanessa is obsessed with Richard and his new relationship. She is unable to move forward with her new life away from Richard.

To avoid spoilers, that is almost all I can say about the plot of this novel. There are numerous shifts and twists as the story moves forward, some that work very well, some that I struggled with a bit more.

While I really enjoyed the first half of this novel, and fell into the characters and their individual issues, I hit a stumbling block at the midpoint. There is a huge turn at this point, which there typically is in a novel. This turn was a reveal, a piece of information that changes the context of everything that came before it and sets the stage for everything that comes after.

My problem was that this piece of information was one that the narrator had for the entire story, and did not share with me, the reader. This can work in a story if there is a good reason for the narrator to keep the secret. In this case, I saw no reason for the secret, no benefit to the narrator in keeping me in the dark. Instead, I felt that I had been deliberately tricked. And not tricked by the narrator. I felt the presence of the authors at this point in the novel. I felt that they had deliberately mislead me.

This feeling of being tricked by the authors pulled me out of the story. I had a very hard time connecting with the characters in the second half of the novel. I was hyper-aware of the authors standing over the shoulders of the characters, nudging them down certain paths, telling them what to do.

Possibly because of this feeling of the authors standing over me and the characters, the resolution of the story felt both clunky and too neat and tidy at the same time. I felt that the authors had placed marks for the characters to hit at the end, and then manhandled the characters into those perfect positions.

Trust, betrayal, and manipulation are themes that run through this story. So maybe it was an intentional choice of the authors to make the reader struggle with all of those things in the second half of the novel.

I guess I really should have seen all of those feelings coming. The back of the book does say “Assume nothing. Read between the lies.”