2023 Summer Reading

Kristin Hannah 

When we came across the first line of this novel in a Writers Digest magazine, I knew I had to have it.  When it arrived, I knew I'd have to wait till school got out to start it because I wouldn't want to do anything else but read for the 500+ pages involved and no laundry / meal planning / yard work was going to stop me.  

I was right.

It took me less than a week all told to read this book as it enveloped me in another time and place (always a good thing for me).  I have only two thoughts here:

1.  How much can a person take?  I struggled to find an adjective to put after much . . . and just gave up.  How much pain and sorrow and anguish and grief and worry and regret and depravation and torture can one person withstand?  Reading about WWII continues to show me (at least) that there apparently are no limits to what the human spirit can endure.  

2.  Don't. Ruin. The. Movie.  I really hope they don't ruin this book with a bad movie.  There I said it.  

Stuart Turton

Harper's Bazaar describes this book (on the back cover) as a combo of Agatha Christie, Downton Abbey, Quantum Leap and Groundhog Day in a blender.  Agreed.

I would add in a dash of Choose Your Own Adventure (for the main character, not the reader) and there you have it.

The premise is simple and full of complications all at the same time.  We all know Evelyn Hardcastle (consult the invitation and roles at the front of the book as needed to keep all of these characters straight) will die a 11pm.  This will happen EIGHT times.  Our hero, Aiden Bishop, will inhabit a different "host" body each of those EIGHT days.  Each host comes with their own baggage, proclivities and limitations.  Aiden will know he's Aiden, but he must also play the part of host he's in.  He gets better at this as he goes along - and he better - his escape from Blackheath depends on him solving the murder in those 8 days or he's stuck there indefinitely.

Who should he trust?  How did he get there?  What even?  Excellent read even if the number of characters was a bit much for my summer reading brain to keep track of!

M. T. Anderson

Jane Kirkpatrick

All I could think about while reading this true story of Cassie Hendrick Stearns Simpson (who I had never heard of) was wow, what a life.  What sadness, what unfulfilled potential, what a waste.  Here was a groundbreaking woman - intelligent, provided for - rich even & talented - left completely unfulfilled by the choices she made.  She was always chasing more.  Not happy at home, not happy in marriage, not happy as a mother, not happy involved in causes.  Never really known.  Never fully realized.  

Captivating story, and I'm a sucker for books about time and place (I'm not sure I ever met a period piece I didn't like) but hard to recommend.   

She's a lost soul looking for connection for the entire book and just when she might find that depth to ground her and give  her purpose, she turns away from it.  Time and time and time again.  

Ray Bradbury

Collections of short stories are not my normal read, but when I found this one, I had to have it.  Ray Bradbury's love of space and future is well established and these stories are no different.  

They range from long to short these stories about colonizing other planets and while not famous stories, they are worth the read.

Walter Dean Myers

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Jumping out at me from shelves, this book caught my interest for a variety of reasons not the least of which was the cover art.  That cover did not disappoint.

I have no background in the original Dr. Moreau, but this extension(?) and reimagining of the original drew me in form page one and did not let me go.  As the story unfolds and the realizations began to dawn on me (no spoilers, promise) I was struck by the age old question, Is is better to be loved or feared?  

Dr. Moreau was feared.  By just about everyone in this book.  He cultivated that fear, used that fear, needed that fear.  Through his use of words, action, religion and medication, he held that fear close at all time.  In the end, what did fear get him?

His daughter, Carlota, was loved.  Again, by just about everyone in the book.  She did not cultivate that love, merely returned it by caring about those she came into contact with, even her father - even after she understands his "work" completely.  In the end, that love had much different results for her than the fear did for her father.

In the end Moreno-Garcia doesn't tell her readers which is better (and there are myriad other themes to delve into in the novel and layers to peel away) or even overtly state that question but it hangs in the air like so much else in the jungle home of Dr. Moreau.

Isabel Allende

One thing I know for certain, if Isabel Allende writes it, I will read it.  We were first introduced in a Masters level English class when I read House of Spirits, I have learned that despite my best intentions, if it's Allende, I can't put it down.  

This novel was no different.  

Spanning the life of a 100 year old woman from South America, Violeta is a compelling story with all the twists and turns you'd expect in a one hundred year old.  

"Remembering is my curse" (177) haunted me throughout the book - so much so that when I finished it, I had to scan back through to find the exact line.  What a way to say it.  She remembers so much from so many different periods of her life - happy and tragic and everywhere in between.  Remembering is my curse.  

From her time as a young woman with rural local teachers she observes, "teaching is learning." (73)

More teaching occurred later on in her life:  "The rural women taught me that courage is contagious and that there's strength in numbers." (271)

From Antonio Machado as Violeta continues her remembrances:  "There is no road, the road is made by walking." (286) 

All in all, a book I'll be processing for a long time.