Connie ’s Comments (group member since Nov 11, 2013)

Connie ’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

20.7 International Travel

The Fury by Alex Michaelides

Elliot Chase, an unstable man with an abusive childhood, had found a good friend in the ex-actress Lana Farrar. He narrates the story about Lana inviting her close English friends to spend a weekend on a small private Greek island. It sounds like the perfect place to relax except that the guests were reacting to betrayals, looking for love, harboring secrets, and wanting revenge.

Elliot tells us at the start of the book that this is not a "whodunit," but a "whydunit--a character study, an examination of who we are, and why we do the things we do." There are lots of twists and turns in this story as Elliot reveals the past and the present. Seven people are on the island, trapped there by the strong Greek winds called the "fury." Will they all survive the night? Alex Michaelides keeps us turning the pages.

+20 task (travel from England to Greece for a weekend)
+10 combo 10.2 The Dispossessed; 10.3 St Patrick's Day (pub in 2023)
+10 review

Task total: 40
Season total: 310

20.9 Beware the Ides of March

Loyalty by Lisa Scottoline

Lisa Scottoline combined fact and fiction as she wrote about Sicily in the early 1800s. "Loyalty" is a book about justice, injustice, family, ambition, power, and loyalty.

There are four main storylines about various families that weave together at the end. The first one involves the kidnapping of young boys from wealthy families. The lawyer Gaetano Catalano attempts to find the boys and the kidnappers at great personal cost to himself.

A second thread spotlights the twin Fiorvanti brothers who need to protect caravans carrying lemons as they travel to market. They hire former criminals to guard the caravans against bandits, and the men take blood oaths of loyalty to the family. The term "mafioso" meant "strong, bold, and daring" without the negative connotations that soon became attached to it. A lust for power leads to tragedy in the family.

The third storyline involves Mufalada who births a beautiful albino daughter--but the villagers think the pale child is cursed. Alfredo is featured in a fourth thread. He raises goats (who he calls his daughters) and makes cheese. Alfredo is harboring a dangerous secret.

Although I've read quite a few books set in mainland Italy, I had not read much about Sicily. I enjoyed the descriptions of the lemon groves, the fishing villages, the mines, the villas, and the Sicilian cuisine. Conditions were brutal and lawless in the early 1800s in Sicily, and the police were corrupt. It was fertile ground for the Sicilian Mafia to become established. The book combined historical fiction with mystery and suspense. Lisa Scottoline is a good storyteller who kept my interest.

+20 task (lots of conspiracy in the Mafia and by the kidnappers)
+15 combo 10.3 St Patrick's Day (pub 2023); 20.6 Fruit, Dish, Bottle, and Violin (more than 3 points of view); 20.10 World of Crime (set in Italy)
+10 review

Task total: 45
Season total: 270

10.5 Golden Broadway Shows

The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth

Twin sisters--Rose and Fern. Which one is "the good sister"?

Rose and Fern are fraternal twins who are very different. Rose is short and round while Fern is tall and slender. Fern has sensory processing problems, and works at a library. Rose is a married interior designer who spends a lot of time helping Fern, even when she doesn't need help.

Fern finds out that Rose would love to have a baby (not a spoiler, it's on the cover). She would like to pay Rose back for all her help in the past. Can Fern help Rose with her dream?

We learn about the sisters' lives from chapters in alternating points of view--with Rose's memories written in diary form. They were raised by a mother who had her own challenges. As the book progresses, the two sisters have some differences in their memories of the past and hidden family secrets are exposed. Fern meets a man who understands how her unusual mind works in some humorous "meet cute" scenes.

This is a book that's hard to put down as you try to grasp the truth about this dysfunctional family. There's some enjoyable humor in addition to the psychological suspense and mystery. The author has neurodiverse children so her depiction of Fern seems authentic. 4+ stars.

+10 task (good)
+10 review

Task total: 20
Season total: 225

15.4 HDYGG

Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship by Michelle Kuo

Flowers:
reADINg wiTH patrick a teacher a StUdent and a life changing friendship - DIANTHUS, +5
readinG with pAtRick a teacher a stuDENt and A lIfe changing friendship - GARDENIA, +5
reading with patrick a teacher A student and a Life chAngIng frienDsHip - DAHLIA
Vegetables:
Helena - HEART OF PALM
Arkansas - ARTICHOKE
Herbs: 296 pages
6 - CHIVES
Plants this post: 6
Season total plants: 16
+15 points
+10 flower bonus

Task total: 25
Season total: 205

Rosemary wrote: "Post 115 Connie wrote: "15.3 HDYGG

So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men by Claire Keegan

Flowers:
sOlAtEiNthEdaystoriesofwoMeNandmen - ANEMONE
No Vegetabl..."

Thanks, Rosemary.

15.3 HDYGG

So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men by Claire Keegan

Flowers:
sOlAtEiNthEdaystoriesofwoMeNandmen - ANEMONE
No Vegetables
Herbs: 119 pages
9 - CHAMOMILE
Plants this post: 2
Total plants: 10

Task points: 15
Season total points: 160

10.4 Baby Boom

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

James McBride intertwines stories about the residents of Chicken Hill in Pottstown, Pennsylvania in the 1920s and 1930s. It was a ramshackle neighborhood of African Americans who had migrated from the South, and Jewish immigrants from Germany and Eastern Europe. They were all holding on to dreams of prosperity and equality.

The book opens in 1972 when a skeleton and a mezuza were found in an old well. Then, the Depression-era characters of Chicken Hill and their activities are introduced--which were entertaining, but I wondered where the story was going. The threads all came together in saving a deaf boy from the horrors of the Pennhurst sanitarium.

The book had wonderful characters such as Moshe, a Jewish theater and dance hall owner, and his wife, Chona, who ran the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store and always extended credit to anyone short of cash. African American Nate helped Moshe run his theater business while his wife, Annie, worked in the store. Nate's orphaned nephew, Dodo, had lost his hearing when a stove exploded. The state was trying to incarcerate Dodo in Pennhurst, a state school for people with disabilities where residents were abused and neglected.

Even though the characters came from diverse backgrounds, there was a group in the Chicken Hill community who had good, kind hearts. Their friendships transcended racial or religious differences. The story is told with a big dose of honesty about racial prejudice and antisemitism, but it is also full of humor and hope for a better future. The book is worth reading if only to meet Dodo and his sweet friend, Monkey Pants.

+10 task (author born in 1957)
+10 combo 10.3 (pub in 2023); 10.4 (earth)
+10 review

Task total: 30
Season total: 145

15.2 HDYGG
Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Elizabeth D. Samet

Flowers:
SoldiErs hEArT rEading literature through Peace and War at west point -SWEET PEA, +5
sOlDierS heaRt reAdiNG literAture through peace aNd war at west Point -SNAPDRAGON, +5
soLdiers heart reading LIterature through peaCe And war at west point -LILAC
soldiers heart reading literature through peace and waR At wEST point - ASTER
No Vegetables
Herbs: 259 pages
5 - THYME
Plants this post: 5
Total plants: 8
+15 points
+10 flower points


Points this post: 25
Season total: 115

10.9 Anniversary

All the Broken Places by John Boyne

"All the Broken Places" is John Boyne's sequel to "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas." While the first book was a YA story, this sequel is directed to adult readers. Gretel, the narrator, was twelve years old when her father was the commandant of Auschwitz, one of Hitler's death camps. At the present time, she is 91 years old and living in a luxury flat in London. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn of the guilt she is carrying for the disappearance of her nine-year-old brother, and her family's association with the atrocities at Auschwitz. Gretel spent years on the move after the war ended--going to France and Australia before settling in London. Psychologically her past was always with her, and it affected her own relationships.

The book raised lots of questions about guilt, complicity, moral obligation, and evil. Should anyone think that a twelve-year-old child had a real knowledge of what was happening in the camp, or any kind of power to change things? Are children guilty for the sins of their parents? Should people who lost loved ones in World War II or the Holocaust take vengeance into their own hands and hurt the families of the Nazis? Should Gretel have reported what she saw and identify the Nazis that worked at the death camp during the trials after the war--at a terrible cost to her own security?

John Boyne is a good storyteller as the book alternates between her past and her present situation where 91-year-old Gretel suspects that a neighbor's son is a victim of abuse. Bringing attention to herself could bring the whole new life that she created crashing down.

+10 task
+10 review

Task total: 20
Season total: 95

10.3 St Patrick's Day

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

Eugene Parkson came running home from the park with bloodstains and dirt on his clothes. The neurodiverse 14-year-old boy had gone to the park with his father, Adam, but his father never returned home. Eugene had double diagnoses of autism and mosaic Angelman syndrome, a genetic disorder, and was nonverbal. Where was Adam, and should his family call the police?

"Happiness Falls" is a riveting read because it is much more than a mystery/thriller. Narrated by college-aged Mia, it's also a family story about her twin, John, and her parents who must consider Eugene's needs in every decision they make. The mother, Hannah, is Korean so the book also has themes about race and how people perceive those who have trouble communicating when they are learning a second language. The brainy Mia also gets access to her father's notebooks and finds that he has been doing a study on happiness--and using their family in the study. That's not the only secret that Adam is hiding.

While this was a good mystery/thriller, it was the sections about neurodiversity and communication that were especially interesting. I was very impressed with the deep research that Angie Kim must have done to write this fascinating book. Readers that are just interested in reading a mystery might find that the tangents slow down the pace of the story too much. But on the positive side, all the medical, communication, and psychological tangents make a reader think about the challenges a nonverbal person faces with law enforcement officials as well as in their everyday lives. 4.5 stars.

+10 task
+ 5 combo 10.9 Anniversaries (400 pages)
+10 review

Task total: 25
Season total: 75

15.1 HDYGG

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

down and oUT in pariS and LOndon - LOTUS
Vegetables:
France - FENNEL
Paris - POTATO
No herbs
Plants this post: 3
+15 points

Task total: 15
Season total: 50

20.5 Surprised!

South Toward Home: Travels in Southern Literature by Margaret Eby

Margaret Eby, a Birmingham native, takes the reader for a tour of the Southern towns important to ten writers. She starts at the lovely home and gardens of Eudora Welty in Jackson, MS. The black author, Richard Wright, spent an impoverished childhood in Jackson, but became a well-respected writer when he was living in Chicago and Paris.

No book about Southern writers would be complete without William Faulkner and a trip to Oxford. She visits Oxford again to see Larry Brown's writing room and fishing spot, and Barry Hannah's favorite bar.

I never knew that Flannery O'Connor loved birds, and kept chickens and peacocks on a farm in Georgia. I've read Harry Crew's memoir about his childhood so there were not many surprises when a cousin showed Eby some important places in Crew's life in Bacon County, GA.

Eby traveled to Monroeville, Harper Lee's hometown, right before "Go Set a Watchman" was published. The old courthouse is now a museum with exhibits about her and Truman Capote who spent his summers in the Alabama town.

New Orleans was the hometown of John Kennedy Toole whose "A Confederacy of Dunces" was published eleven years after his suicide.

I had read six of the ten authors, and recognize that Eby chose authors whose hometowns are featured in their writing. They wrote about the type of people and situations they were familiar with. Their hometowns were in the Deep South, so readers would be getting a different look at Southern writers if she had gone to other parts of the South.

I enjoyed the book, although I had read some of the information elsewhere. Eby is a good storyteller as she writes about the authors' lives, their works, and the reactions of the folks who live in the writers' hometowns.

+20 task
+ 5 combo 10.9 Anniversaries (240 pg)
+10 review

Task total: 35
Season total: 55

10.1 Rewind to Winter

Seven Guitars by August Wilson

"Seven Guitars" opens after the funeral of Floyd "Schoolboy" Barton in the late 1940s. His friends gathered in Louise's backyard when they returned from the cemetery. Floyd was a blues musician who just had his first hit record. The rest of the play lets us know why things went downhill so quickly.

"Seven Guitars" features four men, all with some musical ability, and three women. The women have been disappointed in love. The black men can't achieve success in a white man's world. They can't find good jobs, and they get harassed by the police. All the men need money, including those that need to get their instruments out of the pawn shop so they can play at a dance. While all the characters have had hardships in their lives, they experience real joy when they are creating music. But they can also turn on each other when oppression creates anger.

This is an effective tragic play, and it would be an even more rewarding experience to see it in person. Hearing the blues, the broadcast of the Joe Louis-Billy Conn fight, and the sound of the rooster crowing a warning to the group would draw the theater patron in even more.

+10 task
+10 review

Task total: 20
Season total: 20

Thanks, Rosemary.

So the task is now cutting out books about explorations that take longer, and we restricted to just short, vacation stays?

20.5 King John to Henry VIII

Then and Now by W. Somerset Maugham

+20 task (set in 1502)
+10 oldie (pub 1946)

Task total: 30
Season total: 580

Thanks, Anika.

Does this include books with subtitles? There is usually a colon between the title and subtitle.

Planning Ideas:

10.1 Restart to Winter
✓ Seven Guitars by August Wilson
✓ King Hedley II by August Wilson

10.2 The Dispossessed (The _)
✓ The Women by Kristin Hannah

10.3 St Patrick's Day (three in title, 3rd in series, pub year ends in 3)
✓ Happiness Falls by Angie Kim (2023)
✓ The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters (2023)

10.4 Baby Boom (born 1950-1959)
✓ The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (born 1957)

✓ 10.5 Golden Broadway Shows
The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth (good)

10.6 Modernism (pub 1910-1939)
The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes (1913)
Miss Pinkerton by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1932)

10.7 Strange New Worlds
All Systems Red by Martha Wells

10.8 Elemental (water, earth, fire, air)
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride

10.9 Anniversaries (page # ends in 2,5,1,0)
✓ All the Broken Places by John Boyne (400 pages)

10.10 Group Reads
The Mapmaker's Daughter by Katherine Nouri Hughes
The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton

20.1 The National Gallery (art or visual artist)
✓ Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans (photography)
The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
The Curse of Pietro Houdini by Derek B. Miller

20.2 The Virgin of the Rocks (MPG Nature)
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

20.3 The Madonna of the Cat (character with cat)
✓ Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (Bathsheba's cat on pages 5 and 23)
The Best Cat Ever by Cleveland Amory

20.4 The Fighting Temeraire (list of boat books)
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje

✓ 20.5 Surprised! (punctuation)
South Toward Home: Travels in Southern Literature by Margaret Eby

20.6 Fruit, Dish, Bottle, and Violin (at least 3 POV)
✓ The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
All That Is Mine I Carry with Me by William Landay
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

20.7 International Travel (by main character)
✓ The Fury by Alex Michaelides
One by One by Ruth Ware
Strangers by Anita Brookner

20.8 Fancy Meeting You Here
Finn by Jon Clinch

20.9 Beware the Ides of March (conspiracy)
✓ Loyalty by Lisa Scottoline (Mafia)
The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene (1943)

20.10 World of Crime (Crime, thriller, or mystery set where English is not official language)
The Fencing Master by Arturo Pérez-Reverte (1988, set Spain)
The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas (1991, set France)
Maigret in Holland by Georges Simenon (1931, set Netherlands)

30.1 Go for the Green

20.10 Boxing Day

Two Trains Running by August Wilson

+20 task (A poor black community in Pittsburgh is the total focus.)
+5 combo 10.4 Leap year (110 pages)
+5 combo 10.8 Fairytale of New York (pub 1993)
+10 Not a Novel (play)
+5 oldie (1993)

Task total: 45
Season total: 550