In a Holidaze

🎄Now this is my kind of Christmas book! I received this in January, and waited to read it this month. Do you also only read Christmas books in December? I was very pleased to see that In a Holidaze isn't sappy or sweet, but current, with the right amount of spice & steam mixed in with yuletide fun.

The nicely written love scenes are hot & unique. This isn't your typical romance, so great to see! The Groundhog Day style repeating was well done, not too over the top. Dialogues between Maelyn and Andrew were fun and realistic.
In a Holidaze was my first, but definitely not last Christina Lauren. I will eagerly read more from this writing duo.
What non cheesy holiday books do you recommend?
Merry Christmas everyone! 🎄🎅🎁❄🦌🍬☃️🤶🏼🍗🌟🛷♥🎲🥞🍾🌨

I received In a Holidaze in a giveaway win, thank you 🙏🏻@laurenashleybecker!

Until next time,

~Kara

Non fiction November reads

For Non fiction November, I've got an assortment, including some fascinating memoirs.                                             

In The Book of Hope, the world's most famous living naturalist Jane Goodall looks at how we hold onto hope.

The amazing human intellect, the resilience of nature, the power of young people, and the indomitable human spirit are her 4 reasons for hope.
To tackle our climate crisis she says the head and heart must work together.
Our challenges are alleviating poverty; reducing the unsustainable lifestyle of the affluent; eliminating corruption; and dealing with the problems caused by growing populations of humans and their livestock.
Thinking and acting long term is essential, and millions of small daily ethical actions will make a difference, she says.
🌳
Listening to Hollywood Park was an enlightening, powerful experience.
I hadn't heard of author Mikel Jollett or the infamous cult, Church of Synanon, that he spent his first 5 years in. He tells his story of escaping the cult with his mother & brother and then trying to find their way with such raw, open emotion. Jollett's strong yet vulnerable voice details the poverty, violence, emotional abuse & addictions he experienced. Heartbreaking and fully engaging, Jollett is a talented poet you've got to listen to/read. Definitely one of the best I've ever read.
🌴
Almost as good as watching Matthew McConaughey is listening to him. 🥰
In his search for the meaning of life, he tells us stories & shares the lessons he's learned so far in Greenlights. His rapid fire thoughts come in the format of witty prescriptions and bumper stickers. This "love letter to life" is certainly unique, just what you would expect from McConaughey.
💚
80's teens know him, the cute actor in some of our favorite movies. Brat: An 80's story is on the lighter side for a memoir. Andrew McCarthy tells us how he got his start in acting, & about the Brat Pack. He doesn't go deeper than that though, and don't expect a tell-all.

I received all books in giveaways. Thank you @celadonbooks @goodreads and @readalotwritealot!

Until next time,

~Kara

🌳💡💚🌴🌳💡💚🌴🌳💡💚🌴🌳💡💚🌴🌳💡💚🌴🌳💡💚🌴🌳💡💚🌴🌳💡💚🌴🌳💡💚🌴🌳💡💚

Thriller month reads

 

For Thriller month, I'm featuring some great backlists, starting with The Chain.
This quick, easy read flows along like a rushing river, & you don't want to get off.
Imagine getting a call that your child has been kidnapped, & the only way to get her back is to kidnap another child. So goes The Chain. The masterminds twins behind it upbringing/traumatic childhood development into evil may be cliché, but it's captivating nonetheless.
"George Orwell was wrong... In the future, it won't be the state that keeps that keeps tabs on everyone by extensive use of surveillance; it will be the people. They'll do they'll do the state's work for it by constantly uploading their locations, interests, food preferences, restaurant choices, political ideas, and hobbies to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites. We are our own secret police."
⛓
What was really eerie in The Passengers is how close we are to having fully driverless cars. Several people find their self-driving car has taken over & told them they're going to die. With cameras in the cars, it's being broadcasted worldwide for the public to decide who to kill first, & who to save. Truly terrifying stuff!
🚘
The very real lifestyle choice many uni students make to get a sugar daddy to help pay bills is fascinating. Reading about how it all came to this for one & then got terribly twisted was interesting in The Arrangement. Questionable morals & obsessive behaviors make for a gripping read.
🍬
In Woman on the Edge, when the protagonist is at the subway, a hysterical mother forces her baby into her arms & then jumps. The crazy situation she's then in, trying to figure out how she knew her, kept me quickly turning the pages. Author Samantha M. Bailey does a wonderful job writing about the strong desire to have a child, & post partum depression.
🚇
Have you read any of these? Happy Halloween everyone!

I received all books in giveaways Thank you @thephdivabooks and @lafemmereaders620! 

Until next time,

~Kara

🕵‍♀️🔪🩸🌚🕵‍♂️🔍😨🕵‍♀️🔪🩸🌚🕵‍♂️🔍😨🕵‍♀️🔪🩸🌚🕵‍♂️🔍🕵‍♀️🔪🩸🌚🕵‍♂️🔍🕵‍♀️🔪🩸🌚🕵‍♂️🔍🕵‍♀️🔪🩸🌚🕵‍♂️

Jonny Appleseed

Many times while listening to Jonny Appleseed, I had to pause to consider what I just heard. Not the explicit parts, of which there are plenty, but the powerful prose that brought both smiles and tears, often together. This book was so poetic in many ways to me. It's like contemporary "poetry" told from an NDN Two-spirit Indigiqueer cybersex worker.

Gritty, graphic, and often TMI, Jonny tells his story of life on the rez and later hustling in Winnipeg. Like me, you may not know anything about this lifestyle, but after taking in this book, you are bound to experience a connection.
Author Joshua Whitehead details rez life with truth, humour, and memorable style.
Jonny's relationship with his kokum (grandmother) is among the most touching I've ever heard. Never any holding back of raw emotion and pain. There's a lot of power and respect in how he's unabashedly himself.
This audiobook is heartbreaking, humorous, and haunting. I can see how it won for the Canada Reads 2021 theme "One book to transport us".
Jonny Appleseed left me with an appreciation of the deeply poetic way we can connect with one another.
May we all be so lucky to experience it's many forms.

🐂🍎🌱

Until next time,

~Kara

The Heat Wave

Are you also a seasonal reader? Even though I received The Heat Wave last winter, I waited to read it this summer. 😊 Full of intrigue and tension, this story about a broken family returning to "the scene of the crime" had me fully captivated. The southern France setting was something I enjoyed, as we'll as the curious troubled mother daughter dynamic. Kate Riordan writes with the type of detail and careful emotion I like. After several chapters, I thought uh oh, Élodie is reminding me of Violet in The Push! 😲 These bad daughter characters will definitely with me. For those who read both books, what do you think, did you also notice this?

🌡🌊🌡🌊🌡🌊🌡🌊🌡🌊🌡🌊🌡🌊🌡🌊🌡🌊🌡🌊🌡🌊🌡🌊

I received The Heat Wave in an Instagram giveaway. 🙏🏼Thank you 👩‍⚕️@nurse_bookie 📚.

Until next time,

~Kara

If You Want to Make God Laugh

 

"As women, we're told our worth and our value, and the many ways in which we fall short of others' expectations; we're told why we're whores, and why society can't tolerate whores. We're reminded of the ways we dishonor the unwritten contract we didn't know we signed on the day of our birth: a contract in which we agreed to toe the line and know our place simply because we are the fairer sex."
🔒

The women in If You Want to Make God Laugh, Zodwa, Delilah and Ruth are characters we can all relate to in some way. Very different from one another, each has her secret, and they find themselves dramatically together for a common goal.

The South African setting post Apartheid and at the height of the AIDS epidemic was interesting and educational.
Racism, teen pregnancy, inequality, abuse, homophobia, and AIDS stigma were some of the several themes tackled.
This book certainly gives you a lot to consider, like want you would do in their circumstances, and what makes one "worthy" of motherhood.
I'm left wondering what happened to them all, such heartwarming characters they were. Plenty of drama, this is one I would surely love to see it on screen.

📒💭♀️🗯️🚺🇿🇦📒💭♀️🗯️🚺🇿🇦📒💭♀️🗯️🚺🇿🇦📒💭♀️🗯️🚺🇿🇦📒💭♀️🗯️🚺🇿🇦📒💭♀️🗯️🚺🇿🇦

I received If You Want to Make God Laugh in an Instagram giveaway. Thank you 🙏🏼@99_problems_and_a_book_aint_1 📘.

Until next time,

~Kara

My Dark Vanessa

Wow, Kate Elizabeth Russell wrote a powerful, uncomfortable debut that's difficult to forget. It was the wonderful talent of narrator Grace Gummer who read & portrayed Vanessa at 15 with such naïve youthfulness, and then jaded bitterness in her 30's.

To say that My Dark Vanessa is thought provoking is an understatement. It's such a scary scenario because we see how easily teenagers can fall prey to a master manipulator. Getting a glimpse into the insidious way a teacher grooms his student is a difficult lesson to take.

⚠️Contains spoilers.
I wish the announcement that Strane dies didn't happen at the half way point in the book. I thought it should have been left for the end. My interest unfortunately plummeted then and I wondered, what could be left? There was a lot of repetition of Vanessa's thoughts and feelings. But, that could have been her trying to convince herself it wasn't abuse.
Oh, I need to vent about her mother! How could she NOT tell the officials on Strane?!?!!? Why would she not take her daughter home immediately from the school, and why did she let her go through with that "apology"? She knew what was going on. Ugh, Vanessa needed someone to help, and it should have been her mother.

➡️End of spoilers.

While explicit and disturbing, the raw honest way we hear Vanessa tell her troubling story makes this awesome audio.

If you've read or listened to My Dark Vanessa, what did you think about her mother's reaction / inaction?

🦋🤎🦋🤎🦋🤎🦋🤎🦋🤎🦋🤎🦋🤎🦋🤎🦋🤎🦋🤎🦋🤎🦋🤎🦋🦋🤎🦋🤎🦋

Until next time,

~Kara

Things my Mother told me

 

"I think of the things I have never told my mother. I know there are some things she can never tell me either."

.

After her breakup, Anjali tries to lose herself in others, and everything reminds her of Jack. Good memories are mixed with bad. She searches for comfort in family and friends.

Several times I felt that author Tanya Atapattu really got the feelings of heartbreak down. That is exactly what a breakup is like.

Atapattu's writing style is casual with humourous bits. There's a big of steam , which may be alarming. But it works to further illustrate the differences between Anjali, a modern woman living in Bristol, and her old fashioned Sri Lankan mother.

I enjoyed hearing how Anjali felt on her trips to Sri Lanka, and those memories of her childhood with immigrant parents trying to fit in.

This novel explores themes of mental illness, sexuality, discrimination, and traditional vs modern world values.

~

When Anjali finds out that Jack, her boyfriend of ten years, has been cheating on her, it throws her world into chaos. Heartbroken, she fills the emptiness by embarking on a series of flings that her traditional Sri Lankan mother would (mostly) disapprove of.

Yet she can no longer avoid her mother or Shanthi, her distant older sister. And so begins her real journey, one that will make Anjali confront a past she's been desperate to forget. But maybe the past can also be the bridge to her future . . .

Set in Bristol and Sri Lanka, Things My Mother Told Me is a warm, moving and funny story about love, loss, family, cultural divides and the voices we hear in our heads. It will stay with you long after you've turned the final page.

~

Although not a new release, I surprisingly don't recall hearing about it on Bookstagram. It's a backlist to check out, because I think it would appeal to so many of you!

I received Things my Mother told me in an Instagram giveaway, 🙏🏻thank you @bookwormdownunder !

Until next time,

~Kara

A Mother's Lie

From the intriguing prologue, to the satisfying epilogue, A Mother's Lie is the kind of read that keeps me up, reading just a few more pages than intended.

Beth is the successful type who appears to have it all with her lucrative hedge fund company. But Beth is really in a race against her past, always looking over her shoulder. She ensures her 15 year-old daughter Dana's hidden pocket in her school uniform vest contains a backup phone & cash. When her ex-husband comes to her quite undone, things go off the rails fast. Her grifter parents bring alllll the drama. Just wow. 🤯 You hear about families like this, and author Sarah Zettel created a believable unbelievable one.
It's told from both Beth and Dana's points of view, which is ideal.
The pace of this thriller was good, with enough continually happening to keep me invested.
This was my second book by Sarah Zettel, the first being The Other Sister. For those who have also read both books, what did you think, how does A Mother's Lie compare?

👩‍👦🤥👩‍👦🤥👩‍👦🤥👩‍👦🤥👩‍👦🤥👩‍👦🤥👩‍👦👩‍👦🤥👩‍👦🤥👩‍👦🤥👩‍👦🤥👩‍👦🤥👩‍👦🤥👩‍👦👩‍👦🤥👩‍👦🤥

I received A Mother's Lie in an Instagram giveaway, 🙏🏻thank you teatime_with_a_book! 🍵📚

Until next time,

~Kara

Dear Haiti, Love Alaine

 

💋What a fun audio book this was to listen to in February. Drama, adventure, and a wee bit o' romance 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨, Dear Haiti, Love Alaine had everything I like. Along with 17 year-old Alaine, I even learned more about the interesting Haitian culture. Listeners hear about how Alaine, who lives in Miami, got suspended and sent to Haiti through her diary entries, emails, postcards, and letters. Alaine is a smart & sassy wannabe reporter, with a distant journalist mother who she equal parts emulates and is frustrated with.

This fantastic debut novel was co-written by sisters Maika and Maritza Moulite, and narrated by the skilled Bahni Turpin. I was captivated by Turpin's portrayal of the characters and all those accents and dialects. I looked forward to hearing each diary entry "The Life and Times of Alaine Beauparlant."
All of which makes this awesome audio.

💝Happy Valentine's Day!💖

🇭🇹🥰📒🧳✈️🚢❤️🏝️☀️😘🥥🌺😍🌴🌹

I received Dear Haiti, Love Alaine in an Instagram giveaway, 🙏🏻thank you Jynell @thisreadingnurse.🤗

The Other Mrs.

We hear a lot about how Bookstagram made me do it. I discovered that myself by becoming interested in some thrillers fondly featured by so many of you. Since reading some truly thrilling books, I get it, and have added this genre to my favourites.

In The Other Mrs., we see a couple in a troubled marriage and a troubled teen, "forced" together in a creepy house in a small island town. Add mysterious deaths, disturbing personalities, and of course twists, and you've got this mystery thriller.
Truthfully, there were some unbelievable moments, repetitive thoughts, and an odd fascination with bangs, but overall, an easy escape read. I appreciate those, when I need a break from strong emotion.

This was my first Mary Kubica book, and I'd be interested in knowing from fans, what's your favorite of hers?

All the best dramatic stories are brought to the big screen, and I can't wait to see what Netflix does with this.

I received The Other Mrs. in an Instagram giveaway. Thank you @jessicamap and @wherethereadergrows!

Until next time,

Kara