Dewey's Readathon Wrap Up and Review

I only read about 70 pages on Saturday of The Plain Choice. However, since then I have finished that book and started and finished Fruit of All Evil. I don't think I did too bad in challenge, as at least it got me motivated to finish two books in the next few days.

The Plain Choice wasn't really what I expected it to be, and I was disappointed in it. I felt that it focused too much on her early life before even becoming religious, and then not enough when she "joined" the Amish faith. Which brings me to the issue that it never says she actually joins the church, perhaps she does later on after they move for the last time, but it is never mentioned. Most of the later book focuses more on her daughter. It also in the prologue mentions her sister and what happens to her, but it never went really back to why her sister became that way or what happened afterwards (which I was expecting there to be some update on a little bit). I think it needed to be much longer as it was a pretty short book. I give it a 2.5 out of 5.

Fruit of All Evil was a little slow for me to get interesting. This is the second book in a series, but it is one of those that you don't really have had to read the first book in order to read this one. The main character Becca sells jams and preserves at a farmer's market run by her fraternal sister. Becca' friend from the farmer's market named Linda, who is going to be getting married, and suddenly her future mother-in-law is murdered. Becca want's to try to find out who the murder is as the wedding has been canceled. Linda's groom Drew wanted them to get married fast as he is in the military and going to be deployed soon on a secret mission. There is a long list of who wanted Drew's mother Madeline killed, as she wasn't the nicest of people.  One thing I think is a little weird is that Becca's sister isn't really involved in the sleuthing that much, which kind of surprises me. I think Becca is kinda mismatched with her boyfriend and think she will eventually be with someone else, or perhaps that is my wishful thinking. Overall, I didn't think this book was bad but not as good as the first one. I give it a 3.5 out of 5, as it did take my so long to get interested in this one, after that it picked up for me.

Grace's Pictures Book Review

I am reviewing this book for Tyndale publishing and received this book for free for an honest review. Grace's Pictures tells the story of a young Irish immigrant in the early 1900's to America. Her mother and stepfather are still in Ireland. It told of the thoughts and some stories of people arriving to a new land, which I thought was interesting. Grace with the help of an agency that tries to arrange jobs with newly arrived Irish immigrants gets a job becoming a nanny to children whose own mother isn't interested in them. Grace also is intrigued by photography and gets her own small camera to take pictures of New York City. This then lands her into trouble when some people think she took a picture of something she shouldn't have. Grace has a large distrust of police officers which goes back to her childhood in Ireland. However, she becomes somewhat friends with an Irish officer in NYC. I like those parts of the book, the part I didn't enjoy were the people who supposedly thought Grace was a threat, I thought that part of the story was usually in the background, almost to the point that I would forget about it. The few times they were in the forefront I thought it was not believable once they found out more information about Grace. I did have a hard time finishing this book, I would read a few pages but it down for quite a long time and then eventually pick it up again. I think this book would have been better if it just focused on the coming to america story. I never did quite understand Grace's fears of police officers as an adult, ok as a child I could understand.

I rank this book 2.5 out of 5

Whats On Your Nightstand?

  I guess that I must have missed last month, so this will actually be for both September and October. I have read several books, so I will start with those first.

Books Read:




For a few of the books I have done reviews, below are the links to them:

Emma
Born of Persuasion
For Every Season
Hopelifter

Below are the books that I have continued to read from last month, just started this week or will be starting this week:

What is on your list?

A Bride for All Seasons Review

 

 

 

I received a free ebook from booksneeze in exchange for my honest review. The book that I recently read was A Bride for All Seasons. There are four stories in this book by various authors. The brides are all mail order brides and the stories take place in the 1800's. I enjoyed each of the stories, although I liked "And Then Came Spring" by Margaret Brownley the least. The women character Mary-Jo had a hard time making decisions and then kept on changing her mind. But overall I did like the story. The other stories in this book; "An Ever After Summer" by Debra Clopton, "Autumns Angel" by Robin Lee Hatcher, and "Winter Weather Wedding Bells" by Mary Conneally were all good. Each man and woman had their own reasons for being or choosing a mail order bride. Marriage for a women was more much needed for security during the 1800's, and most people today would want to know the person they will marry beforehand. There was always one type of hitch in each story though, that the owner of the mail order company would tweek a few details in order to get the couples to choose each other. I do wish some of these stories were longer though, but it is to be expected that a book with multiple authors stories are shorter. I rank this book a 4.0

Review of Oliver Twist

I think there is so much to learn about society in reading Oliver Twist. The poor tale of Oliver in his upbringing, how some things have changed in the world while some have remained unchanged. There is still poverty in the world, criminals, people of higher power abusing their authority (in thinking they are above the law), etc. It does give one a lot to think about. I often thought perhaps if Dickens himself could see and relate to Oliver as he was writing this book, I guess this maybe answered if I read Little Dorrit. Everyone's life experiences shape who we are in same way, this can of course be either good or bad. Oliver Twist I think also shows the resilience of humans, as far as Oliver never giving up, even though he was not treated kindly by a great majority of people and didn't have much of a support system in several instances. In reading Oliver Twist I wanted to keep reading to see what occurred, and I enjoyed knowing the end of all the characters in such detail. This is a definate reread. I rate this book a 5 out of 5. This is my third book review for the Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge, second for Historical Fiction Challenge, and fifth book for Classics Club.

My next book to read is The Little Princess. I still plan on having movie reviews for Ivanhoe and Oliver soon.

Classics Club Group Check In #2

This is the second group check in so far, and the first for this year of 2013. I feel that I have been able to read more this year, hopefully I will be able to continue this. I have read four books so far, since joining the club in Aug. 2012:

1. Pat of Silverbush by L.M. Montgomery - Finished 10/8/2012
2.The Children by Edith Wharton - Finished Nov. 2012
3. The Cossacks and the Raid by Leo Tolstoy - Finished Dec. 2012
4. Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott - Finished Jan. 2013

Currently I am reading Oliver Twist and really enjoying it. I only have about 80 pages or so far to go, I am determined to read the rest of it over the weekend. In the past, I had tried to read Great Expectations but was never a fan and couldn't finish. Since I have various other works of Dickens on my classics club list, it is a good thing that I am enjoying Oliver Twist. My original goal of each book on my classic club list is to also watch any movies based on  the books. I have yet to watch Ivanhoe but hope to do so soon so then I can watch Oliver (my husband is a fan of both the book and film). I will end up doing reviews on the films to try to compare them to the books. Once I am done with Oliver Twist the next book will be A Little Princess, never read the book but watched the film growing up. If you enjoy reading books and finding new ones, I highly recommend joining the classics club!

Blogging for books....

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