March 2023 in Books

I'm a little late with this month's recap.  As you can see there was a lot of reading this month.  I attribute this to the fact that I got a lot of reading done while down in Tampa with Ellie for hockey, and the fact that her season ended, so I've had a lot more time in general this month.  Also, many of these were very quick reads.  Here are the recaps:

My Ántonia (Great Plains Trilogy, #3) - Willa Cather - fiction - four stars - This was one of the classics that I read this past month and really enjoyed.  It's the story of Jim Burden, a boy who grew up in Virginia but was orphaned when his parents die.  He's sent to live in Nebraska with his grandparents, arriving at the same time as an eastern European family settles in the area.  Their eldest daughter Ántonia and he become friends, and he narrates their lives growing up as well as those around them.  This was kind of like a grown up Little House on the Prairie tale.  Just about life and the struggles of making a living in what is often an unforgiving country.  There wasn't necessarily a major plot arc, it was just about life and wholly enjoyable.  This is apparently the third in three books Cather wrote about the Great Plains and life there, I'm hoping to read the other two soon.

Maureen (Harold Fry #3) - Rachel Joyce - fiction - five stars - The third, and shortest, of the Harold Fry books.  This one takes play 10 years after Harold took his walk.  Harold is much older and a little less able to get around.  Maureen, still a bit prickly, is struggling.  She's learned of Queenie's garden, and that there is a statue dedicated to her son there.  It eats at her and she finally decides she needs to go and see it for herself.  Queenie lives a pretty localized life, so this journey - a long drive, overnight in a hotel - is a stretch for her.  Things of course don't go according to her very precise plans, it's humbling, but also breaks down the very high walls that she's built for herself over the years, and allows her to mourn and heal.  Loved this one, this whole series is a must read.

Black Cake - Charmaine Wilkerson - historical fiction - five stars - This is one of those dual storyline books.  Byron and Benny, once the closest of siblings, have been estranged since Benny left home Thanksgiving weekend years ago after a family argument.  Now their mother has passed away, and she has left a recording for them, to explain her history and to try and bring them back together.  Loved this one, some really interesting twists, some that I saw coming, and few that I didn't.  Amazing book.

Stone Blind - Natalie Haynes - fiction - five stars - This is a retelling of the Medusa myth.  I love reading these kinds of books because you learn so much more about the characters than the 'main' stories they were part of.  In this case, Medusa's back story.  All about who her parents were, her other Gorgon sisters as well as the other types of children her parents had.  Many of these stories have a feminist twist to them as women weren't treated well in myths - they are rarely heroes, but victims.  Haynes paints Perseus as a bit of a whiny idiot who stumbles into heroics and has to be aided all along the way.  The story of course has a tragic end of Medusa, but I love how it opened up her story.  Excellent read.

Evolve or Die: Hard-Won Lessons from a Hockey Life - John Shannon - memoir - three stars - I love hockey related books, but this one was a disappointment.  Shannon has been involved with hockey for many years, as a producer/sportscaster, mostly for Canadian outlets, so he's not as well known here in the states.  He has great stories to tell, but I felt like we only heard a fraction of them.  This books was more focused on his career progression.  If you're interested in sportscasting and the nitty gritty of program development, etc. this would be really interesting, for me, it was pretty meh.  Add to that the fact that I just didn't care for Shannon's personality much, he's definitely got an ego.  I also found the book a bit repetitive, there were some chapters that were focused on his career, but he also had some focused on topics/individuals, some of those chapters ended up repeating things he talked about previously.  Only OK.

Lord of the Flies - William Golding - fiction - four stars - This is one of those books that somehow I managed to graduate from High School without reading....everyone in my family (husband, daughter, brother, sister) are surprised that I had not read this one yet.  It's about a group of children from Britain who are being evacuated due to a war.  Their plane crashes on a deserted island, and they must figure out how to survive.  It starts off with a relatively organized society, but quickly devolves.  An interesting people's natural instincts.  This was kind of a shallow look at the topic, but definitely leads to much discussion, it makes sense that it's a book that kids study in school.

Someone Else's Shoes - JoJo Moyes - fiction - four stars - Nisha Cantor's, the spoiled, rich wife of a mogul, and Sam Kemp's, a frazzled mother trying to hold her family together, lives become intertwined when Sam accidentally takes Nisha's bag from the gym.  Inside the bag are six-inch high Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes which Sam. has no choice but to use since she's wearing flip flops from the gym and has a day full of pitches to clients.  Wearing the shoes changes her posture and attitude that day, and begins to change her life.  Meanwhile Nisha finds out that she's out on the street as her husband has locked her out of the hotel suite they were living out of, has frozen all her accounts, and is preparing to file for divorce.  There's a lot going on in this book.  There are so many different plot lines/threads going on, but Moyes weaves them all together in a very enjoyable way.  The characters are likable, and I loved the way everything came together.

The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale, #2) - Margaret Atwood - fiction - five stars - This 'sequel' to The Handmaid's Tale was written decades after the first book.  I'm really glad that it was written by the initial author in her time as opposed to some 'sequels' that show later in the style of the original author, or are someone's pulled together version of an unfinished story left by the author.  This book delves into how Gilead ended, told by three different voices:  Aunt Lydia, on of the main antagonists from the original story who we find has been biding her time trying to end things from within; and then two teenagers, one living in Gilead, and one in Canada.  The one in Gilead was an adopted daughter to a commander, and just before her wedding decides she wishes to become an Aunt.  The one in Canada is the daughter to a couple who are active in the anti-Gilead resistance.  When they are discovered and murdered, she goes on the run with the resistance.  The stories eventually come together as one.  While I have only watched a couple episodes of the Hulu series (since I don't have Hulu) on plane trips, it's clear that this new book incorporates some of the plot lines from that series.  In that sense it's interesting that it's in some way art imitating art imitating art, but overall I really enjoyed it and I liked how it answers questions left after the first book.

Whale Done (FunJungle, #8) - Stuart Gibbs - juvenile fiction - five stars - Our whole family loves this series, and this was another good one.  Teddy ends up going to California with Summer for several weeks in the summer because his home (staff trailer) was burned during a fire at FunJungle.  While in Malibu, a mystery, in the form a beached whale that explodes just before NOAA is to perform the autopsy.  Teddy starts to investigate, along with Doc who is also on the trip for some FunJungle business, and his friend from NOAA.  In the background, Teddy and Summer's relationship is experiencing some bumps.  Fun and enjoyable as always, great series for kids.

Essex Dogs (Essex Dogs, #1) - Dan Jones - historical fiction - five stars - This is the first book I've read by Jones, and I really enjoyed it.  It's the first in a new series from him about the Hundred Years War.  This is another of those wars/time periods I know very little about.  The story follows a small company of men from Essex which has been together for quite a while.  As they land and then proceed through France the group is fragmented coming together and breaking apart at different points.  The leader struggles with physical ailments as well as fatigue....you get the sense that this maybe their last adventure.  If you're looking for a particular plot line, there doesn't really see to be one here, but for me that didn't matter much.  Much of the book is focused more on character development, the loss of their band members and their backstories as they move throughout the country somewhat aimlessly, as they are directed.  In many ways this book seems to set the scene and introduce the characters for what comes next in the series.  Looking forward to the next book.

Killers of a Certain Age - Deanna Raybourn - fiction - five stars - This was a quick, fun book.  The whole time I was reading it, I was kind of imagining it as a movie...with Helen Mirren and a bunch of older actresses in it.  It's fun and funny, and I just really enjoyed the characters.  It moves quickly, and while some folks might think it's not very realistic, honestly which books about bands of assassins for hire isn't?  In this story, the women are the first all female kill squad for an international group, The Museum, which started out as a Nazi hunting organization back in the day, but now tracks down and kills baddies in all different categories.  The women have just retired, but now find themselves on The Museum's kill list.  They need to determine why, and then stop the threat.  Loved it.

All the Broken Places - John Boyne - historical fiction - five stars - Loved this book.  It was really interesting because in some ways is the sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a juvenile historical fiction book.  This book is adult historical fiction, but builds off that book, telling the story of Gretel Fernsby, the sister of Bruno.  It's another dual timeline story, although the two storylines are really not related.  Gretel lives in a very wealthy area of London.  When a new family moves in downstairs, she strikes up a friendship with the little boy.  It's perhaps this that jogs her memory of her past and we start to learn about what happened to her and her mother following the war.  In the meantime, we learn about her current life and how she tries to help the family downstairs.  There were a couple of very big twists that I did not expect at all here.  Such a good book.

It was really hard to pick a favorite this month, but maybe Maureen or All the Broken Places.  I'm currently reading Dust Child, and next up is the classic I chose for this month, Wide Sargasso Sea.  Would love to know what you have been reading!