Great, until the End

BLACKBERRY WINTER                     By: Sarah Jio                       3 Stars

To be fair, I was really into this book, until the end. Let me set it up for you a little bit. The author is a journalist and the protagonist is a reporter. Unless I am giving way too much credit to those professions, aren’t they supposed to pay attention to facts?  Beyond that, doesn’t an editor specialize in paying attention to details too? Why then did the facts in this mystery not end up fitting together?

Claire is a present day reporter who recently lost her unborn child. Vera is a maid at a prestigious hotel in 1933. Blackberry winter refers to a late winter storm in May, which happens in both storylines. Besides the storm on the same day, Vera also lost her child after she came home from work to find her three-year-old, Daniel, missing from their apartment.

Claire feels a connection to Vera and wants to find out what happened to her child in an effort to help herself heal from her own loss. Their lives intertwine with many similarities that help the story unfold. Even with Claire and her husband’s lack of communication (which always bothers me in books and movies, at least their reason makes sense while they both grieve in their own way) I found both characters to be endearing and wanted things to work out with a happy ending for both.

So, the book was great, then I get to the end where things start falling into place, only to be frustrated that the details don’t connect and even more annoyed that the people who should notice the facts don’t fall into place seem to miss the obvious. It might just be me, this book is a Reader’s Choice nominee at my library and others I have talked to have loved it. Perhaps they didn’t notice that the details didn’t fit, or perhaps it didn’t bother them.

In reality, the main detail that annoyed me did slightly change for the better, but the answer still didn’t fit with the story characters and more research could have been done to make everything work. Instead the book just ended, and a little too sugary-perfect I might add. Either way, pick up the book and decide for yourself what to think.     

Keep Your Eyes Wide Open Before Marriage and Half Shut Afterwards

HOW TO AVOID FALLING IN LOVE WITH A JERK: The Foolproof Way to Follow Your Heart Without Losing Your Mind                                         By: John Van EPP, Ph.D.                                                4 Stars

I have to be honest; I scanned most of this book. Not necessarily because it was boring or for any other reason, but because I have too many books and too little time. Luckily, the author uses helpful tip boxes throughout the chapter and makes a list of the most important information to remember at the end of each chapter.

The book centers around the author’s own Relationship Attachment Model which highlights the following points: Know, Trust, Rely, Commit, and Touch. Basically, you don’t trust someone more than you know them, rely on someone more than you trust them, commit to someone more than you rely on them and don’t have sexual relations with someone before all of the other points are already safely established. Overall, you should be about equal on all points. Quite a few of the Goodreads reviews I looked at thought the sexual relations portion was preachy, but I think it just makes good sense.

Relationship advice is given to include things like watching how your person of interest treats family, friends, strangers, you, their dog…and combining that information to establish a pattern of how you will be treated. Other good points mention include what you should look for when considering relationships such as views on money, religion, family planning, and more.

It is a good read with my favorite quote being repeated a few times: “the good doesn’t always last, and the bad usually gets worse.” I hope I can apply the tips to my relationships and to myself so I am not the one who is considered the jerk.      

Luck of the Irish

ORPHAN TRAIN                          By: Christina Baker Kline               4.5 Stars

I enjoyed learning about an era in our American history that I was not previously aware of. The book starts with Molly, a foster child who is in jeopardy of being sent to juvie after stealing a worn tattered book that she thought no one would miss. To avoid this fate her boyfriend is able to arrange community service through cleaning the attic of an old lady by the name of Vivian.

As the story progresses we learn that Vivian started out as Niamh (pronounced “Neev”), an Irish immigrant who is sent on an orphan train from New York to Minnesota. These trains were a precursor to foster care and the main purpose was to provide orphans with stable families and adoption, or at least allow for an education.  

Most of the characters were one and two-dimensional to progress the story, but Molly and especially Vivian, are characters that are hard not to find endearing through the enfolding of their back stories. My only hang up was based around the language. I prefer authors who can portray character types without constantly throwing the f bomb and other language at me. Fortunately, it was only found with Molly’s story and I only remember it at the first and a little bit toward the end.

I love books where I feel engaged with the characters as well as learn something at the same time (yes, I like to learn). This book covered both of that with the story of the parentless and how their lives could change through the orphan train system. Some children were lucky. They went from having no future to having a family and a pleasant life. Unfortunately, some other children were little more than slaves in their new homes or were placed in homes with unloving families. Christina did a good job of tackling what could be a heavy topic and turning into a better future for the orphan train passengers.

 

A SHINE OF RAINBOWS (DVD)                    4 Stars

I love Saint Patrick’s Day. Green is one of my signature colors; add the happiness of gold, rainbows and luck, it is impossible to resist. This year on St. Patrick’s Day I decided I needed a celebratory movie to watch while I made some goodies to share. As it was a last minute idea, all of the initial movies I looked at were all checked out or required travel, which wasn’t part of my plans that day. Then I came across A Shine of Rainbows.

A Shine of Rainbows has Aidan Quinn, a brother from Legends of the Fall, as the husband of a dear lady who decides to adopt a boy who is down on his luck. She takes him to Ireland to raise as her own since she has been unable to have children. It is a feel good family story where the mom becomes the parent he always wished for, while the dad doesn’t quite feel the same. It is great for almost any age and will make you want to visit Ireland with the beautiful green landscape which is hard to tear your eyes away from.

After researching a little more I did find out that the movie was adapted from the novel of the same name by Lillian Beckwith. The book looks like it is out of print and none of the libraries in my area carries it. I am trying to see if I can have it sent from somewhere else through interlibrary loan. The Goodreads reviews sound like the book is as good as or even better than the movie, so if you find it in a garage sale someday you might want to pick it up.

For the Love of Food

THE GIRLS’ GUIDE TO LOVE AND SUPPER CLUBS           By: Dana Bate        2.7 Stars

Chick lit is hit and miss for me. The Confessions of a Shopaholic series is a personal favorite of mine, but most of the other ones turn out just ok. I can’t totally pinpoint why I prefer some and not others, so I do feel bad when I criticize the authors who don’t quite catch my attention. Sorry Dana Bate, but I have to add you to my just alright chick lit list.

As a general overview, we have Hannah. She is a girl in her mid-twenties who has a horrible boyfriend, a horrible job, basically horrible everything. I started reading this book when I was not having one of my finer moments, so I was actually glad that everything went wrong for Hannah. However, that soon changed and I could barely stand her or any of the characters by the end.

Eventually Hannah and her boyfriend part ways and Hannah moves into a basement of a town house owned by someone who works with congress (the book is set in Washington D.C.). Hannah’s parents and ex-boyfriend never understood her love of cooking, so this new starts means she can finally hold the underground supper clubs she has been so enamored with.

Tragedy soon ensues when Hannah’s apartment floods and she has nowhere to hold her club, except her landlord’s place, who is conveniently out of town and left her his house keys. Hannah doesn’t feel too bad about trespassing since her supper club isn’t exactly legal either. She doesn’t have a license from her health department to charge people for food among other problems, like her landlord is running for a community political office and his platform is none other than these possibly illegal underground supper clubs.

Of course disaster after disaster happens to build up drama for the book. My biggest problem with this drama is it doesn’t feel like bad luck or an addiction or impulse that is hard to avoid, it is because the protagonist just dives in without thinking anything through. She has another option to hold the supper club, but after one failed try to use it, she just gives up and continues with trespassing. On top of that, she complains that her parents treat her like a child, but in fact she does spend most of the book acting like a child who doesn’t have a backbone and will take whatever is given her without any thought of how those actions might have consequences. She needed some serious lessons on how to take control of her life and make a plan (legal) to work toward her goals.

After her break up she meets her landlord and another guy through the supper club. None of the guys are really that intriguing. In fact, like Hannah, whose last name is Sugarman, her landlord’s last name is Fischer. As if it wasn’t enough to have a cook/baker with that last name, her landlord is constantly talking about ships, and the sea, and seafood and uses phrases for anything that will fit into that area. The characters (and the language) just seem too forced into the stereotypes.  

I think I might be done with what I didn’t like about the book. What I did like was the food. I loved the themes and the menus that went along with them. The recipes in the back are always a nice touch, but I was disappointed that Hannah’s famous cinnamon rolls and carrot cake recipes were missing.

All in all, not one of my most favorite, but if I were lying on a beach somewhere and just looking for a mindless read with a little entertainment, then the book would have been much better. So perhaps if you are a foodie, or even a want-to-be-foodie, and just desire to have a little fun, this might be the perfect book for you.