What are you reading? Happy Monday

Book Date now hosts It's Monday What Are Your Reading?  The meme that we use to share what we read this past week and what our plans are for the upcoming week.  It's a great way to see what others are reading and add to your own To Be Read List.


I'm currently reading - My Review of Ice Twins 3 1/2 

I read and reviewed 3 1/2 stars

I need to do my review, I enjoyed it. 4 stars

Book club choice for November

I recommended 4 books for Domestic Violence Awareness Month

My post link

I hosted Dianne Bondy in Bermuda for Yoga Workshops.  What a fun empowering weekend.

Have a wonderful week.

Review - Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Book Summary

“Are you happy with your life?” 
 
Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. 
 
Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. 
 
Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.”  
 
In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.
 
Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.
 
Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human—a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.


My Review 3 1/2

This was my first Blake Crouch book which I chose after a few reviews intrigued me.  I thought the beginning was great, fast paced and draws you right in. You meet Jason, his wife Daniela and son.  They are living a comfortable happy life.  Choices are made once you have children, not necessarily better or worst but different from the original plan.  Jason leaves home to go congratulate a friend which should only take an hour but in reality it takes a little over a month.

And while the thought of last night carries the emotional weight of a real memory, it has the fantasy lining of a dream, or a nightmare. Kindle 21%

The sci-fi wasn't a turn off for me but the similarities once Jason woke and tried to find his real home became tedious to read, recurring over and over with little changes. I am not a fan of time travel novels so maybe this was similar to that for me - Groundhog feel.  I do think the reality of a different life and the scientific plan is incredible but it just felt repetitive.  This lost the intensity for me and by mid way I just wanted to find out what happens.

I enjoyed the idea of original Jason choosing his career versus family man Jason and debating who has the better life.  Life is all about decisions and consequences and both were great choices.  What threw me for a loop and felt a little weird were the numerous Jason's.  I won't go into this further.

If you strip away all the trappings of personality and lifestyle, what are the core components that make me, me? Kindle 64%

I thought I appreciated every moment, but sitting here in the cold, I know I took it all for granted.  And how could I not?  Until everything topples, we have no idea what we actually have, how precariously and perfectly it all hangs together. Kindle 67%

I did enjoy some of the questions that arose, it had you take the time to sit back and reflect.

There was nothing drastic about the ending, it just was.  I understand choosing that way but I would have liked to hear more from Jason that stole 'his' life back.  It almost had a happily ever after feel which doesn't mix with the story line unless they are allowing the reader to makeup the 'what is next'.

"Every moment, every breath, contains a choice.  But life is imperfect.  We make the wrong choices.  So we end up living in a state of perpetual egret, and is there anything worse?  Kindle 95%

I enjoyed Blake Crouch writing style and at times he slides in what I consider to be a novel in verse, creative.

Recommended Books for Domestic Violence Awareness

I saw an advertisement giving awareness to Domestic Violence.  Sharing books is my way of participating with awareness.

I didn't realize how many books I read on this topic, they have me on the edge of my seat in a different way that Thrillers and Suspense books do.

I recommend all of these which I rated 4 1/2 stars.

My Review

Beginning of my review.....  The intensity in this book is non stop, shocking and many moments I realized I was holding my breath.  I am so impressed this is a debut, well done BA Paris.  I felt relieved at the end which isn't a good thing but my oh my, intense.  The summary says we all know a couple like Jack and Grace, I sure as hell hope not.  That thought is scary and very creepy, there are some things I will never overlook with friends now.  I will give a warning, this is probably the worst kind of mental manipulation abuse I have read, it can be very hard to read if you are not into emotional intense reads.  I found this harder to read them physical abuse.

My Review

Beginning of my review...... I would start out saying I was an emotional train wreck from beginning to end, deep breath.  This is one of the most emotional heart wrenching dark family horror stories I have ever read but with an alluring character, Alessa, she made it worthwhile. 

My Review

Part of my review............ Victoria has been in a verbal and physical abusive marriage and something so bad has happened she is now in a mental institution. The story is mainly told from her point of view, I never felt that she was crazy but couldn't wait to find out what really put her there.  She couldn't remember and her Doctor was slowly showing her pictures to assist with bringing back the memories.

My Review

Part of my review.......  I loved the 3 year span, Chapters about 2004 with her boyfriend, being swept off her feet to the destructive controlling relationship vs 2007 now living in fear that he will find her and this time, be successful in killing her.  Both time periods were gripping and effective to moving the story along.

Do you have any Domestic violence books that you would recommend? 

I'm currently reading and considering for Book Club

Book Date now hosts It's Monday What Are Your Reading?  The meme that we use to share what we read this past week and what our plans are for the upcoming week.  It's a great way to see what others are reading and add to your own To Be Read List.


I'm currently (considering it as my Book Club read)

Book Summary

When her father falls into a coma, Indian American photographer Sonya reluctantly returns to the family she’d fled years before. Since she left home, Sonya has lived on the run, free of any ties, while her soft-spoken sister, Trisha, has created a perfect suburban life, and her ambitious sister, Marin, has built her own successful career. But as these women come together, their various methods of coping with a terrifying history can no longer hold their memories at bay.

Buried secrets rise to the surface as their father—the victim of humiliating racism and perpetrator of horrible violence—remains unconscious. As his condition worsens, the daughters and their mother wrestle with private hopes for his survival or death, as well as their own demons and buried secrets.

Told with forceful honesty, Trail of Broken Wings reveals the burden of shame and secrets, the toxicity of cruelty and aggression, and the exquisite, liberating power of speaking and owning truth.

I reviewed - My Review 3 1/2 stars

What I think is next for me.

I'm considering this one also as a next read and for Book Club, what do you think?

Review - The Sinner Book 5 of Graveyard Series

Published - September 27, 2016

Book Summary

I am a living ghost, a wanderer in search of my purpose and place… 

I'm a cemetery restorer by trade, but my calling has evolved from that of ghost seer to death walker to detective of lost souls. I solve the riddles of the dead so the dead will leave me alone. 

I've come to Seven Gates Cemetery nursing a broken heart, but peace is hard to come by…for the ghosts here and for me. When the body of a young woman is discovered in a caged grave, I know that I've been summoned for a reason. Only I can unmask her killer. I want to trust the detective assigned to the case for he is a ghost seer like me. But how can I put my faith in anyone when supernatural forces are manipulating my every thought? When reality is ever-changing? And when the one person I thought I could trust above all others has turned into a diabolical stranger?

My Review - Book 5 of the Graveyard Series
3 1/2 stars

We have new covers and a slightly different feel to the story now.  I understand change must happen but for me the new just didn't work.  Amanda Stevens creates the creepy atmosphere brilliantly and that does capture you but the storylines no longer pull me in.

I was really hoping this was going to be the ending of the series but there is one more to wait for, The Awakening due out March 2017.  It sounds like it will be about Devlin who I really miss.  He became the love of Amelia but there were secrets, suspense around who and what he really was.  I feel like I have been waiting for 2 books now which is also a huge disappointment for me.  Amelia and Devlin had a connection, I would like to have an ending to it as she even wonders why he is still on her mind.

Another man, possible love interest is used in the Sinner, at first I didn't understand but The Sinner was using him to get to Amelia, this was well done and definitely bought a sense of fear but also pull to Amelia that she sensed as attraction but knew better to accept that.

He was all too aware of the changes inside me and sometimes still I would catch him watching me with those dark, soulful eyes as if to say, I know who you are but I don't know what you are and that worries me.  Kindle 21%

She gets pulled into an investigation when she comes across a body in the cemetery she is restoring.  The body looks fresh like it had just been put there and it was in a caged grave.  Some of the history about cemeteries is also a nice feature in the books and allows us to learn more about Amelia's legacy.

What part was I to play in all this?  I wondered.  As much as i had learned about myself and about my gift, I still sometimes puzzled over my destiny.  I could endure, if not embrace, my role in helping trapped spirits move on.. In time, I might even learn to accept my great-grandmother's legacy of tracking those supernatural beings she and Papa had called malcontents - entities with no other earthbound purpose than to create chaos among the living.  Kindle 79%

I really feel like The Visitor and The Sinner didn't progress enough which has frustrated me and lessened my reading pleasure with these books. I don't regret starting this series, the beginning ones are memorable and loved my time reading them.

My Reviews

 

The Abandoned  Prequel

The Restorer Book 1

The Kingdom Book 2

 The Prophet Book 3

The Visitor Book 4

Interview with Amanda Stevens