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In The Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende

 in Books by

 Summary

“During the biggest Brooklyn snowstorm in living memory, Richard Bowmaster, a lonely university professor in his sixties, hits the car of Evelyn Ortega, a young undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, and what at first seems an inconvenience takes a more serious turn when Evelyn comes to his house, seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant, Lucia Maraz, a fellow academic from Chile, for her advice.

As these three lives intertwine, each will discover truths about how they have been shaped by the tragedies they witnessed, and Richard and Lucia will find unexpected, long overdue love. Allende returns here to themes that have propelled some of her finest work: political injustice, the art of survival, and the essential nature of—and our need for—love.”

-From Amazon.com

Review

This was a book and an author that I have heard quite a lot about. I feel like I hear this name super often and people give such high praises. I’ve never read another book by Allende so I have zero comparison of this book to her more famous book The House of the Spirits. But for this book, honestly, I was kind of disappointed….

Lower Quality Writing?

I just felt like the writing was a little sub par. I will be transparent and say I was also read The Satanic Versus by Salman Rushdie at the same time which has very elite writing, so maybe my brain was confuddled, but, others who were reading this as part of my book club felt similar. The writing and story just felt, at a more in the weeds level, kind of below the quality that I was writing. The sentences and writing style was simple at the story just felt a little disjointed and all over the place.

Interesting Story with Potential

The story itself was quite interesting through. You had various stories going on with overlap and it wasn’t until the end that it all came together. You got to see characters change and see how they grew based on their previous life experiences. And the central event that held them all together through the story was interesting to see how it impacted the characters. So the story had such potential and overall as a read was certainly interesting.

But there was just parts of the story that felt a little strange or rushed. Like some of the relationship development felt almost comical, and not in a good way. The fact there was all this stuff going on in the story, in the middle of a huge snow storm…I don’t know it had this kind of Planes, Trains and Automobile kind of feeling to it. I can’t put my finger on exactly what I didn’t love as it wasn’t anything glaring.

A Representation of Latin American Struggles

I did love reading the stories from some of the characters past from Latin America. Hearing about Evelyn and what she had gone through really pulled at my heart. Just imagining someone going through what she went through and persevering and just being as strong as she was was beautiful. I did absolutely love the inclusion of that and how it was woven into the story and also kind of an integral part of the book. Also the little hits of magic realism, which while miniscule, did have a few moments.

Overall I think I would give this book 3 out of 5 teacups. It was definitely worth a read because of some of the characters personal stories but it definitely was not as good as I thought it was going to be due to all the hype, and I certainly wouldn’t buy it. This was a library book borrow for me.

If you have read this book, or other books by Allende, I’d love to hear your opinions because maybe this wasn’t her best piece of literature. I do want to give House of the Spirits a go when I can because I’ve heard a lot about that one too. And I’ll be very curious to hear from those in my book group (who have very diverse opinions) on what their thoughts were, and will be sure to update this post with some of their thoughts!

Happy Reading!

 

 

MyLibraryCardWoreOut is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. This in no way affects my opinion of the book(s) included in this post. 

Archangel’s Sun by Nalini Singh [Guild Hunter Book Review]

 in Adult / Books by

Summary

“The Archangel of Death and the Archangel of Disease may be gone but their legacy of evil lives on – especially in Africa, where the shambling, rotting creatures called the reborn have gained a glimmer of vicious intelligence.

It is up to Titus, archangel of this vast continent, to stop the reborn from spreading across the world. Titus can’t do it alone, but of the surviving powerful angels and archangels, large numbers are wounded, while the rest are fighting a surge of murderous vampires.

There is no one left . . . but the Hummingbird. Old, powerful, her mind long a broken kaleidoscope. Now she must stand at Titus’s side against a tide of death, upon a discovery more chilling than any other. For the Archangel of Disease has left them one last terrible gift . . .”

-From Amazon.com

Review

Oh man, Nalini Singh does it again with another absolutely incredible book! It’s been a while since I read one of her books and was behind on a few releases, so over the past weekend I made some impulse purchases and have been absolutely devouring them. 24 hours to get through this one!

A Beautiful & Intricate Story 

The Guild Hunter series is such a journey, getting to see all the main characters and even side characters, getting to see their life, their love and their pain. That is what I love about this series. While of course it is a romance story, there is just so much more than that! There is a story in each book and an overarching story throughout the series that keeps you turning pages.

Nalini Singh is a master with writing honestly. She writes with lots of beautiful adjectives, painting this ethereal picture of these creatures and places in her stories that you just feel transported there. It only take a few sentences to feel myself pulled into this world, experiencing what everyone is experiencing and just seeing both the beauty and horror.

Titus & The Hummingbird: The Perfect Balance

The Hummingbird, or Sharine, was always one of the characters I was so curious about. Her and her so Illium have wings in the book that are just this gorgeous indigo/blue color and I always wanted to know more about her. She was always referenced as this incredible artist and gentle and seeing her in this story was marvelous. You saw this wonderful progression of this woman who was perceived to be fragile who actually had warrior talents and was beautifully badass.

Singh always writes women who are powerful, kick ass, take no crap from men, yet have this beautifully sensual relationship with them and through that are just incredible. I’m always impressed how she manages to balance that fine line between the romance and keeping the woman strong and the men masculine.

Romance & Blood

This continued the story of all the reborn, following the destruction and mess created by the Archangel of Death and the Archangel of Disease. A lot of the story was following the clean up of so many of them and included the traditional Guild Hunter violence and gore that you all will be familiar with if you have read Singh’s writings before!

But in this one it was just so interesting to see with a character like The Hummingbird – a woman who was always presented as staying inside and being the artist who is now out in the thick of it getting down and dirty with Titus, the Archangel of Africa (who is just so very yummy!).

You got to see Titus go from an Archangel who was flippant with relationships and never promised anything more to him finding himself and questioning just so much. Seeing his transformation as well within the writing was just beautiful!

A Classic Nalini Singh Book! 

Every book that Singh writes I absolutely devour and love to read. I get capitated and transported into the world and honestly cannot put it down. This one was no different.

I absolutely give it the 5 out of 5 teacups rating, but definitely recommend you read it as part of the whole series and not a stand alone – although technically you could, just may be a little lost!

Happy Reading!

MyLibraryCardWoreOut is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. This in no way affects my opinion of the book(s) included in this post. 

Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl [Book Review] 1

 in Books / Food by

Summary

“When Condé Nast offered Ruth Reichl the top position at America’s oldest epicurean magazine, she declined. She was a writer, not a manager, and had no inclination to be anyone’s boss. Yet Reichl had been reading Gourmet since she was eight; it had inspired her career. How could she say no?

This is the story of a former Berkeley hippie entering the corporate world and worrying about losing her soul. It is the story of the moment restaurants became an important part of popular culture, a time when the rise of the farm-to-table movement changed, forever, the way we eat. Readers will meet legendary chefs like David Chang and Eric Ripert, idiosyncratic writers like David Foster Wallace, and a colorful group of editors and art directors who, under Reichl’s leadership, transformed stately Gourmet into a cutting-edge publication. This was the golden age of print media—the last spendthrift gasp before the Internet turned the magazine world upside down.

Complete with recipes, Save Me the Plums is a personal journey of a woman coming to terms with being in charge and making a mark, following a passion and holding on to her dreams—even when she ends up in a place she never expected to be.”

– From Amazon.com


Review

I’ve begun to totally fall in love with books that are about food. Any kind of book about food I’m now drawn to thanks to the book group I’m in reading a book by Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential. Food, and good home cooked food, has always been very important to me, and reading about the importance to others and their journeys is truly a joy.

Food & Career Journey

This book wasn’t just about food but also was about Ruth Reichl and her career journey of a woman who really didn’t know anything about being an editor, but wanting to make a difference to a magazine that she once loved. I found it comforting as a younger professional to read about someone well into their career feeling so lost and almost having to start again. But reading about Ruth pushing through a very cut throat kind of world, while managing to keep up with her family the best she could, was inspiring to say the least. It was tiring just reading about all the work she had to do!

A Journey of Food Expression

Reading about Ruth’s journey with Gourmet and how they transformed the presentation of food, as well as combatted the creation of the internet and dancing around how they could utilize it. I sometimes forget how new the internet is and reading about these companies who had to suddenly find a way to present their medium in a new way, and a way that would get eyeballs and was worth the money, was kind of interesting to see tackled. Finding ways to balance what publication released what, what articles were posted where, and how it was presented was such a unique insight.

I personally found it interesting to read about the cover of Gourmet and how important the cover of a magazine is. As a consumer I get drawn to certain covers and since I don’t necessarily follow or read a certain magazine religiously, I don’t read too much into what is on a cover. So reading about Ruth’s experiences of the feedback she got on the magazine, like Gourmet’s edition that had cake on the cover, was something I had never even thought about!

A Rich Read with Recipes and Stories of Importance

One “unique” part of the book was the fact that there were recipes in there! You were able to read about various meals and Ruth’s experience with them and then you got to get the recipe to be able to attempt to make it yourself. There were only a handful of recipes written out but they were the ones that were the most important to the story and had an impact on Ruth’s life in some way, or at least that was how it was presented.

I find recipes, or certain meals, have certain important to people or are intrinsically related to certain events. Save Me the Plums definitely pulled out a few that were important to both her story and the story of Gourmet.

Food as a Unifier – Especially after 9/11

The mention of 9/11 took up a section of this book and the horror of that day and the days that followed. It moved me to tears reading about how the food community pulled together after the tragedy and, while they were all hurting, began to cook food to serve to the rescue workers. Reading about Ruth’s experiences going down to the site to deliver the food, seeing how many other restaurants and cooks delivered, and the appreciation people had for something as simple as chili really was impactful.

It made you remember and realize how important food is to people. Food is memories and comfort. Food unifies people and people have been breaking bread to resolve conflict or make connections for millennia.

Save Me the Plums accurately conveyed the importance that food has to people and how personal food is. Food, and a good meal in general, doesn’t need to be super fancy. Something as simple as a piece of chocolate cake, or a bowl of chili, is all you need.

Absolutely a 5/5 teacup read!

Happy Reading!


Banned Books Week 2022 [#FREETHEBOOK]

 in Banned Book / Book Events by

Like always, I’m a little bit late to the party (I’ll blame life and totally not being on-top of it) but this week, 18-24 September, is Banned Book Week.

This week is so incredibly important, although fighting and acknowledging banned books is a constant thing. Especially now.

PEN America, “a nonprofit organization that works to defend and celebrate free expression in the United States and worldwide through the advancement of literature and human rights” [Wikipedia], has recently done some amazing research on what is currently going on.

According to their research:

  • From July 2021 to June 2022, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans lists 2,532 instances of individual books being banned, affecting 1,648 unique book titles.

  • The 1,648 titles are by 1,261 different authors, 290 illustrators, and 18 translators, impacting the literary, scholarly, and creative work of 1,553 people altogether.

The predominant reasons for them being banned are topics to do with LGBTQ+ and protagonists of color – not entirely shocking.

Fiction is primarily targeted as well with YA reads being the main focus.

I highly recommend checking out the really well written report from PEN America to learn a little more, by the numbers, about what is going on!

You can find some great things that YOU are able to do to fight against this. Every small action does matter, so please help in any way that you can.

Reading is so important and, since you are here, I would assume reading is important to you.

While book banning is a huge issue in the USA currently, it is something that happens worldwide and impacts people from all nations. So even if you are not US based, find what is happening locally and help out too!

To learn a little bit more about Book Banning, check out this great FAQ from PEN America!

The Alienist by Caleb Carr [Book Review]

 in Adult / Books / Fiction / Older Readers by
This post contains affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure here.

Summary

“The year is 1896. The city is New York. Newspaper reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned by his friend Dr. Laszlo Kreizler—a psychologist, or “alienist”—to view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy abandoned on the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge. From there the two embark on a revolutionary effort in criminology: creating a psychological profile of the perpetrator based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who will kill again before their hunt is over.

Fast-paced and riveting, infused with historical detail, The Alienist conjures up Gilded Age New York, with its tenements and mansions, corrupt cops and flamboyant gangsters, shining opera houses and seamy gin mills. It is an age in which questioning society’s belief that all killers are born, not made, could have unexpected and fatal consequences.”

-From Amazon.com

Review

This was such an absolutely phenomenal read and I honestly fell in love with it within the first few pages. If you have a stronger stomach and don’t mind some graphic gore (and if you do mind it, honestly, you know it’s coming and can skim over it without losing much of the story), this is absolutely, absolutely worth the read!

Like Sherlock Holmes on Steroids

From the moment you start this book, you feel transported into this Sherlock Holmes type world. Based around 1896, you really feel as if you’re in New York City that is developing, still full of immigrants who are arriving by the day, stories of Indians and the Frontier, and just the general feelings and struggles that people faced. This was a traditional style murder mystery book but with just so much more. Carr is a master at weaving bits of history together into a story that really helps you feel as if you are joining the main characters on this journey to solve the gruesome murder of a young boy prostitute.

The world that Carr was able to weave with both the creation of the city, the language used by characters and the general scene setting really makes you feel as if you are there! The group doing the investigating had a main two – Moore and Kreizler – who definitely gave a Sherlock and Watson kind of vibe.

Graphic & Gore

Now this book, I would say, isn’t for the faint of stomach per se. The book is incredibly violent – about the murder of a young boy prostitute and is filled with detailed accounts of the state of various bodies and mutilation’s, as well as talks of gay child prostitution. There’s lots of topics and aspects of the book that are scandalous and taboo on so many levels and can make you feel a little sick to your stomach.

But, depending on your constitution and how you can handle these things and your willingness for an experience, you will have just that – an experience. You get to have similar feelings to the characters when they come across various bodies and situations – feelings of repulsion, disgust and horror. To me, this added a lot to the book and the whole experience. But to be honest, I did have moments where I had to take a breath, re-center and then push on as it was just so realistic. Think if Criminal Minds had a lovechild with Bones, Saw and Sherlock Holmes. You will kind of end up with The Alienist!

Investigation Methods & Madness Galore

You really got to see how investigations took place during the turn of the 20th century with there still being so much corruption, a lack of established methodology. You got to read about the suggestion of using fingerprinting – which was not an established method yet – and how useful it was to seeing the treatment of Alienists, also known as a psychiatrist, and how distrusted they were. It’s was a very interesting contract to modern day how it is all accepted, and seeing the struggle that Dr. Kreizler went through in his profession and throughout the investigation.

A Wild and Wonderfully Murderous Ride

This book was beyond incredible and I loved every single moment of it. I haven’t read a book this fast (within less than a week) in a very long time. I made time to read this book because I wanted to know what was going to happen next and what new turn was going to happen. There were some really amazing quotes, scenes and revelation in the book, one of my favorite being the following:

“Mrs. Piedmont unlocked the room and then we entered. The first thing that struck me was that the cats didn’t follow us in. As soon as the door opened their mewing stopped, and then they sat at the threshold, looking momentarily concerned before they shot off down the stairs. With their departure I turned to survey the chamber, and quickly caught a track of something in the air: the smell of decay.”

I am absolutely going to be checking out the TV show and if I find the time, other books be Carr as both the story and writing were superb!

Have you read The Alienist? What were your thoughts?

Happy Reading!

 

MyLibraryCardWoreOut is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. This in no way affects my opinion of the book(s) included in this post.