I can’t decide if it’s odd that I enjoyed a book named Truck or if it makes perfect sense. When he goes and fixes up his old truck throughout the book and starts talking technical he loses me sometime after “impact wrench” and “headlights” and before “diamond plate” and “carburetor bowl”. But then there is the whole loving an old rusty pickup truck thing and since this lives at my house. I could relate.

The book also includes such essentials as fried chicken, spirea, gardening,  deer hunting,  and of course a girl.

Would I recommend it? Yes. I didn’t love all the parts but it was funny and so very Wisconsin I couldn’t help but like the whole.

This was a historical fiction about a Native American woman traveling west with a company of men  a la Lewis and Clark.   I find reading about this time period and the whole Lewis and Clark, can we get there from here? travels  pretty fascinating to read about, add to this a pregnant female main character with a half breed translator husband who drinks and beats her, then bring two very  young boys along on the trip and the fascination level goes even higher. Unfortunately most of it was of the can’t look away from a car crash type.

Would I recommend it? I can’t decide. On one hand I liked the setting, and main character, on the other I wasn’t a big fan of the general flow of the book. Everyone is speaking different languages and few are speaking their native tongues and so much of the conversation is choppy. I’d say this makes it  accurate but not enjoyable to read.

Ever see a movie and then realize you saw all the good parts in the trailer? Well, I read a lot on this book at one point because I was thinking about choosing it for my book club to read, turns out I read about all the good parts in the reviews. Chalk that up to reason number 37 I don’t like to read about a book first!

In this book a woman goes back to her Mennonite roots after a bad accident and divorce, which is good because her mother is the best part of the whole book. She’s funny in a lets have a conversation on if marrying a pothead or your first cousin would be worse while standing in a checkout line sort of way.  I’m going to risk going into more detail than I’d like in my little reviews and tell you  my big problem with the book. It starts out humorous, author seems able to laugh at the fact that her husband left her for a guy she met on gay.com. Then you hit some serious chapters where you find out that he was bipolar, abusive, they had been on and off (divorced and remarried!) for fifteen years,  he had been in a previous relation ship with a man and gay.com “Bob” had been calling the house. That is not funny.  I was almost offended by the fact that the situation was originally put in such a humorous light. You could call it making lemonade from lemons, but I think sometimes lemons that have gone bad shouldn’t be made into lemonade.

Would I recommend it? No. Got to the library/bookstore. Read chapter one about first cousin Waldemar. Then resist the temptation to read the rest of the book, and put it back. That first chapter is really good, some of the rest of it is good, but it’s not cohesive and really once you debate between first cousin and pot head for potential husband material it’s all down hill from there.

Look at this cover, I love it!

The little Alice, the two different fonts, the girl in the mirror, seriously how can you NOT choose a book for it’s cover when it looks like this one!

Even more exciting than the cover (which is much better in person without my poor photography skills messing with it), the book was great! As I’m sure you have already guessed it is a historical fiction about the real Alice from Alice in Wonderland.

I was hooked when the first chapter started with this:

“Off with their-legs. That was the curious notion I had as a child.

That certain people-queens, generally-lost their heads was understood to be a historical fact.

But in my world, legs were missing with alarming regularity as well. The men in their long academic robes, the women in their voluminous skiers; everyone skimming, floating, like puffs of cotton in the air – that is the first, and most vivid memory of my childhood.”- Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been

In case a great cover and awesome writing isn’t quite enough to sway you the author includes historical facts she worked from in the back. I love that!

Would I recommend it? Definitely!

They say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover,  I say that’s where the title is and you have to start somewhere.

When I read a book I hate reading the dust flap, the reviews, the summary’s, anything that tells me what is going to happen. If I do read one of those I always have that info lurking in the back of my mind while I’m reading. For instance had I read the whole dust flap of this book I would have read something like this:

“Lexi Laney and Clare Hart grew up together swimming in the surf, riding remote bike trails, and having wondrous adventures across picturesque Nantucket. And when it was time to share intimate secrets and let their girlish imaginations run free, they escaped to their magical private hideaway: Moon Shell Beach.

But nothing stays the same. With the complicated pressures of adulthood, their intense bond is frayed, hurtful words are exchanged, and Lexi flees Nantucket to a life of luxury while Clare stays behind.

Ten years later, a newly divorced Lexi returns to make amends with those she left in her wake. Living at home with her father and dating a gorgeous carpenter, Clare still simmers with resentment toward her glamorous friend. And when Lexi opens an upscale clothing boutique next door to Clare’s chocolate shop, their paths are fated to cross.

Their emotional reunion is beset with major challenges: Lexi’s return sets off a series of startling events that fracture the status quo and set the town gossips’ tongues wagging. And as Clare’s life takes an abrupt detour, Lexi wonders if the happiness and peace they once knew on Moon Shell Beach will, in the end, prove to be as fleeting as time and the tide. In the turbulent adult world, awash in failed loves and romantic disappointment, can childhood dreams still come true?

Irresistible reading, Moon Shell Beach explores the evolution of a tumultuous lifelong friendship, the power of forgiveness, and the rewards of believing in miracles.” (-product discription from the hardcover copy)

Then I start a book waiting, waiting for Lexi to leave, knowing she’ll come back, expecting loves to fail, waiting for Clare’s abrupt detour and having no surprise when Lexi opens up her clothing store. I hate reading like that. I like to let the book unfold as I go with minimum information before hand, and no idea what is going to happen next. I firmly belive that’s the way books are meant to be read. It is one of the reasons you may have noticed a minimum of plot details on this site, if you want to spoil the surprise of your next  book feel free to check out Amazon and their plethora of reviews and editorials. Here you will find general impressions, writing style and hopefully just enough of the content to know if it might be something you’d like to pick up. Of course reading books this way I have run into some doozys.

Speaking of doozys, it wouldn’t matter if anyone told you what was going to happen in this book it is, predictable, predictable, predictable. Made all the more irritating by the fact that the author has periods of really great writing that would then dissolve into cheesy predictable mush. Did I mention it’s predictability?  Before you go off thinking I’m all difficult with my non-predictability needs let me also say this. There are cheesy books I love, there are predictable books I love, but there’s got to be a little something extra in those books, and this one was didn’t have it.

Would I recommend it? No.   As much as I hate being wrong I must concede that sometimes people are right and you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover…but only sometimes!

“…You put the lime in the coconut …”

I thought I had seen this movie so long ago that I would have forgotten it  even though it was one of my collage roommates’ favorites.  But that coconut song, which is in the movie ,has been stuck in my head for days!  I don’t think I can actually give this book a fair review because ” ..I said DOCTOR…” between the limes and the coconuts and hearing in my head the narrator of Pushing Daises reading it “...she drank them both up…” I was completely distracted. Clearly this book should be narrated by a woman’s voice, and clearly my head was addled by the “…and call me in the morning…”‘s

This is reason number 15 we no longer have a TV. Movies and TV shows ruined what I think may have been a perfectly good book. As a rule I don’t watch movies of books I have loved. But this is one of the first times a movie and a completely unrelated TV show have ruined a book for me!

Would I recommend it? Ummm no, but my view is completely skewed, don’t trust me on this one.  I have to get it back to the library even looking at it sets off the singing in my head.

“…then you’ll feel better…”