It has been over a week since I read this book and I can’t think of anything in particular to say about it. Seems like a bad sign.

I remember thinking the writing was good.

She also Wrote Bel Canto maybe you should read that instead, I read that three years ago and I still remember parts of it!

Would I recommend it? Nope, can’t even remember it.

I’ve heard Garrison Keillor on the radio many times and enjoyed listening to him. I don’t think he’s the greatest things since sliced bread but good for a chuckle if you are stuck in the car. So I thought I’d try a book of his.

I don’t think I’ll try that again.

The rambling pointlessness of it was not enough to counter the wry humor and I kept hearing his voice reading it in my head, which would have been fine except that he talks really slowly, even in my head! By the time I made it to the grade finale at the end I was too irritated to really enjoy the scene that had been set up.

Would I recommend it? No. Sometimes the spoken word should stay the spoken word.

Sometimes I debate with myself if anyone else would like the books I read.  Was it good? Was it bad? Was there enough good stuff to make it worth it? This time I didn’t have that problem.

I won’t even bore you with the details.

Would I recommend it? No

And what’s with the new trend in not capitalizing anything on the cover of books? I hate that.

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.