Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart

★★★★★

I was not expecting to like this book as much as I did, but I could not put it down!!  It tells the story of three sheltered sisters whose lives are turned upside down when there buggy is hit by rich factory owner.  It wasn't the most well-written or insightful book I have ever read, but it was funny and addictive and I haven't been that excited to finish a story in a long time - and for that it gets 5 stars.  Full of wit, charm, and family secrets this provided a much needed change for all of the heavy novels I have been reading lately!!

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (audio)

★★★

"Every man's island, Jean Louise, every man's watchman, is is conscience.  There is no such thing as a collective conscious."

I have been meaning to read this book for quite sometime - I can't remember a book in recent memory that has gotten so much press and was interested to see what Harper Lee had waiting for us. Due to her huge success with 'To Kill a Mockingbird' I was always curious why she never wrote another book. Reading this book put a lot of things in perspective and I later found out that this was actually a very early manuscript for 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' I wouldn't say that I necessarily enjoyed this book as a whole, but I did enjoy certain aspects of it - such as Jean Louise booking back at her childhood and her feelings of being torn between her adult home and the home of her childhood. Overall, the book seemed a little disjointed and slow, but it was worth reading for it's historical aspects and connections to the previous book.  What kept me going was Reese Witherspoon as the narrator of the audio book version and I couldn't help being constantly reminded of 'Sweet Home Alabama.'

The Bartender's Tale by Ivan Doig (audio)

★★★★★

I have to admit that it if wasn't for book club the month I probably never would have picked up this book.  This isn't normally the type of book I usually read.  I wasn't expecting to love it (or even like it all that much), but love it I did and it consumed my thoughts for the last couple of weeks.  Even when I wasn't reading it, I would find myself constantly thinking about the characters as I went through my day.  This is the kind of book that stays with you long after you turn the last page.  It was the tenth book in the author's Two Medicine Country series (none of which I have read), but the author provided enough background that wasn't lost starting towards the end of the series.

The Bartender's Tale is the story of a bartender and his son and the small town image where days went by a little bit slower and everything seemed a just a little less complicated.  The narrator is an older man named Rusty taking place sometime in the present.  He takes us back to the year of 1960 when he was twelve years old living with his father, Tom, as he ran Medicine Lodge, a small-town bar in Montana's Two Medicine Country.  Rusty's mother took off when he was a baby and, after spending his first six years with relatives in Arizona, he came to live with his father.  They live a simple life of having tomato soup for breakfast and fishing on Sundays.  Tom runs the bar while Rusty spends his time in the backroom reading and making paper airplane models.  But, this summer things are about to get a little more interesting.  The diner down the street gets new owners and their daughter, Zoey, becomes Rusty's new "partner in crime."  And then Proxy, a dance from Tom's past, shows up with her daughter Frances and everything Rusty thought he knew about his past is about to change.

This book was wonderful in every possible way.  I loved the description of small-town life in the 1930s.  The imagery and mood was spot-on and the author was able to capture it perfectly.  I loved the relationships between the characters.  Specifically between Rusty and his father, but also between Rusty and Zoey.  Rusty and Tom had such a unique relationship since there was not mother-figure involved.  Tom's love and concern for his son comes though on every page, even though he didn't always know how to handle a situation.  Even though Rusty was young, Tom confided in him and I could feel their mutual respect for one another.  They grew up with only each other and figuring things out as the came and as a team.  The dialogue was quirky and real and the audio version made this even more so.  I also loved the portal of the Rusty's age.  Looking back, twelve seems so young, but it's such as unique age where you feel like you own the world and are, at the same time, starting to see the world differently for the first time.  I so enjoyed Rusty's twelve-year-old perspective on the storyline, even though he was telling the story as an adult.  

The ending wasn't sad, but I found myself bawling after it was over.  I can only count on my hand the number of books that have made me cry.  It was a perfect way to end the story, but I grew to love these characters so much and wanted nothing more than to keep reading about their lives and dreams and interactions with each other.  I was sad to learn that the author had pasted away in April of last year, but I will definitely be reading more of his books in the future - especially the ten other Two Medicine Country novels.

The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg

★★★

"It is early morning; outside, the sky is dark and the trees move dramatically in the wind.  Soon a storm will come.  I want to live to see it.  This is the way of nature: to persuade us around one more bend, to beckon us to behold one more vista."

Before reading this novel, I did not know much beyond the basic details of George Sand's life.  Being a writer in the 1830s and 1840s is Paris, she lived an extremely unique life as a women ahead of her time.  Elizabeth Berg's books have been on my radar for awhile now, and I was looking forward to reading this historical novel for the Germantown Community Library Adult Book Club this February.

I usually love historical fiction - and who doesn't love a good story set in Paris? - but, I found the novel a bit slow and annoying.  The book was told through alternating time periods: one in the present and the other starting during George's childhood.  I've seen this done well numerous times, but it didn't seem to work well in this book.  There wasn't enough development in the various sections and I often found myself losing track of what time period I was in.  I also found the character of George Sand extremely tiresome.  I'm assuming a lot of the details are historically accurate, but she just seems flaky and I wasn't able to connect with her at all.  I found it ridiculous that she fell in love with literally every single man (and a women as well) that she met.  By the end, I couldn't even keep track of how many lovers she had and all of her love affairs started sounding the same.  It just didn't add up that someone who was such an intelligent and talented individual would act the way she does in the novel.

I wanted to like this book - and I kept trying - but I found myself struggling to finish it.  It had some wonderful writing, but I just couldn't get past how unlikable of a character George Sand was portrayed as.  I did, however, appreciate many historical aspects of the book.  I love reading about Paris - especially in the 1920s - so this gave me another unique view on Paris in a much earlier but somewhat similar time period.  I also loved reading about all of the interesting people that George Sand came into contact with - Frederic Chopin, Victor Hugo, and Franz Liszt to name a few.  Even though I wasn't particularly impressed by this book, I am interested in reading some of Elizabeth Berg's other novels.  From what I have heard, they are mostly contemporary and a lot different.

Circling the Sun my Paula McLain (audio)

★★★★★

"There are things we find only at our lowest depths.  The idea of wings and then wings themselves.  An ocean worth crossing one dark mile at a time.  The whole of the sky.  And whatever suffering has come is the necessary cost of such wonders, as Karen once said, the beautiful thrashing we do when we live."

I loved Paula McLain novel The Paris Wife so I had very high expectations with her new novel that came out in July.  Circling the Sun tells the story of Beryl Markham - the first women to make the record breaking voyage across the Atlantic in 1936.  I was expecting the story to focus mostly of Beryl's journey of becoming a pilot, but it instead told of her childhood and earlier life as a horse trainer.  And what an interesting life it was!  

Raised in Kenya with her father after her mother moved back to England as a young child, Beryl's unique upbringing allows her to become a strong women in a world primarily dominated by men.  It also leads her to make some very unhealthy choices as far as relationships are concerned.  Baryl drove me crazy throughout most of the novel.  Even though we have next to nothing in common, I grew to love her characters and respect - at least most of - the tough decisions that she was forced to make.  I sometimes forgot how young Beryl actually was during the majority of the novel and was at awe at how much she was able to accomplish as a young women during her lifetime.  

A wonderful novel by and extraordinary writer telling the unique story of a women almost forgot by the past.  The author's note was also extremely interesting to read and learn on the truth of Baryl's story and what happened to her after the novel ended.  This one was  worth the wait!

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

★★★★

"So how, children, does the the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build us for a world full of light."

There is not too much that I can say about this book that hasn't been said before.  An instant best seller, still #8 on the New York Times Best Seller List almost a year and a half after it was published, and the winner more awards that I can count - including the Pulitzer Prize and the Goodreads Choice Awards to name a few.  

This novel is essentially about childhood and war and growing up in a world torn by war.  Marie-Laure  lives with her father in Paris. When she was six years old, she became blind and her father teaches her to learn to navigate the streets by building her an exact replica of their neighborhood.  She is twelve years old when the Nazis occupy France and her and her father flee to the country to live with Marie-Laure's great-uncle for the remainder of the war.  Werner is an orphan growing up in a small mining town in Germany.  He grows up with his young sister listening to the radio and dreaming of bigger and greater things than spending the remainder of his life as a minor.  When the Nazis begin to recruit for the Hitler Youth, Werner sees this as his only opportunity out.  He quickly gains a reputation as being the only one who can fix new instruments critical in the advancement of the Nazis.  As he receives one special assignment after another, Werner slowly realizes that cost that his work has on human life.  Work that will also one day lead him to Marie-Laure.

'All the Light We Cannot See' is a beautiful story of two children who grow up during the war.  Two children that grow up during unspeakable times having to make unspeakable decisions way beyond their years. The novel alternates between Marie-Laure in very short chapters, making the almost 600-page novel go by much faster than expected.  The imagery was wonderful and was, essentially, what makes this book such a masterpiece.  It was also what made it hard for me to rate this book as amazing instead of simply wonderful.  The writing was almost too beautiful - I kept thinking that I was missing something.  It was almost like reading literate poetry.  Breathtakingly beautiful, but a little hard to follow throughout an entire novel.  Especially since the chapters were so short and the development of each character's story was woven to intricately with the other.

I did really enjoy this book, but I don't think I was able to appreciate it in it's entirety.  I tend to read way to fast and so I wasn't able to grasp as much of the detail as I would have liked.  I think this may be one of the few books that I will have to re-read someday!

This book was #6 on my top ten list of 2015.

Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler

★★★★★

"America, I think, is about poor people playing music and poor people sharing food and poor people dancing, even when everything else in their lives is so desperate and so dismal that it doesn't seem there should be any room for any music, any extra food, or any extra energy for dancing.  And people can say that I'm wrong, that we're a puritanical people, an evangelical people, a selfish people, but I don't believe that.  I don't want to believe that."

"It's all been worth it.  Every fight, all those years of childish experimentation, the occasional heartbreak, the paltry checking account, the used, old trucks.  To have lived with another human being, another person, this man, as long as I have and to see him change and grow."

This was an incredible book and I'm so glad that I picked it up!  The book is essentially a love song to life - to friendships, to family, to love, to forgiveness, and to small-town rural Wisconsin.

Hank, Leland, Kip, and Ronny were all born and raised in the small Wisconsin town of Little Wig.  They have been friends since as long as they remember.  They each went their separate ways after high school, but they soon find themselves all back in town and husbands and fathers and still trying to figure out their place in the world.  And then there's Beth, who plays a special part in each one of their lives. Shotgun Lovesongs is a truly remarkable book and a tribute to American live and is filled with rich storytelling and finding hope against all odds.

This description says it all: 'There is conflict here between longtime buddies, between husbands and wives — told with writing that is, frankly, gut-wrenching, and even heartbreaking. But there is also hope, healing, and at times, even heroism. It is strong, American stuff, not at all afraid of showing that we can be good, too — not just fallible and compromising. Shotgun Lovesongs is a remarkable and uncompromising saga that explores the age-old question of whether or not you can ever truly come home again — and the kind of steely faith and love returning requires.'

This book was #5 on my top ten list of 2015.

We read this for the January 2016 selection of the Germantown Community Library Adult Bookclub.

My Antonia by Willa Cather

★★★★ 1/2

"The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through by fingers...I kept as still as I could.  Nothing happened.  I did not expect anything to happen.  I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more.  I was entirely happy.  Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge.  At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.  When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep."