This month my goal was to read few authors from my TBR list who always make me feel a tad guilty that I haven’t read them yet and whatever other books caught my fancy. Without intending to do this, I selected all-female authors, which felt especially right after the results of the election. Ultimately, it became a celebration of women who give voice to a group who is still sadly considered less-than by some, but never by these ladies.
Girls Just Wanna Write … and Be Read
A little change-up today as there will be no loved, liked and loathed categories this month. I recommend all the books I read in November.
You Oughta Know … These Authors
I constantly see these authors praised and added their books to my TBR. And kept adding their books to my TBR. Now I actually know what all the fuss is about regarding these lovely ladies. I’ve organized them from most loved to liked.
One Plus One by Jojo Moyes
Book Description: Jess’s life is a mess: an absentee husband, a bullied stepson and a genius daughter who needs to get to a Math Olympiad. To the rescue: A selfish tech millionaire whose house she cleans.
Book Review: Some of you are probably wondering why I didn’t choose Me Before You as that is undoubtedly her most famous and highly praised book. And that is exactly the reason why. It’s been built up to almost Godly like proportions in mind and there was no way it could live up to it, so I chose a different book. And I loved it! I absolutely understand why people love her writing. The characters are delightful, flawed humans and I loved every single one of them, including Norman, the farting dog. I laughed, I cried and I hugged the book afterwards. I’m still going to wait to read Me Before You, but only because I’m not in the mood to be an emotional, snot-nosed wreck right now. Moyes, however, is definitely going on my must-read list.
To Read or Not To Read: Read it. It’s a funny yet pointed look at wealth.
The Lake House by Kate Morton
Book Description: Detective Sadie Sparrow stumbles upon the Edevane estate and starts investigating the toddler’s disappearance from decades past.
Book Review: I very much enjoyed this novel and Morton’s writing style. You can tell she is someone who plots her stories very carefully. It definitely made me think about the choices (and secrets) we keep and how they affect not only ourselves but those around us in ways we might not expect or want. At the end, a piece of the story fell into place in a manner that would normally make my eyes start twitching in annoyance but not this time. I just smiled, which shows how much Morton made me care enough about the characters to forgive a little contrivance.
To Read or Not To Read: Read it. It’s not a fast-paced story but an engaging one that I couldn’t put down. I definitely plan on reading more Kate Morton books.
All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner
Book Description: Blogger Allison Weis lives a charmed life but her growing dependency on prescription drugs threatens the well-being of her family.
Book Review: Weiner wasn’t originally on my list but my library did not have any books by Taylor Jenkins Reid that were on my TBR. So I picked Weiner instead and asked Jana (yup, our hostess with the mostess) for a recommendation. She, of course, led me to a great book. I loved how I both rooted for and regularly wanted to smack Allison and those are my favorite kind of characters. She was raw and real. She was in deep denial about her addiction and blind to how she was hurting the ones she loved most. Recovery didn’t happen quickly or easily, not was forgiveness granted immediately. And that too was real.
To Read or Not To Read: Yes. Addiction stories sometimes hit a little too close to home because we all have problems that we don’t handle well, even if we’re not turning to prescription drugs.
Still Life by Louise Penny
Book Description: Chief Inspector Armand Gamache investigates a mysterious death in the quaint town of Three Pines, home to many interesting characters and potential suspects.
Book Review: I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Inspector Gamache and his merry band of investigators, minus Nichol. Girl lacks more self-awareness than a real Housewife. I assume she has some point to the series that eventually pays off, but she was a drag on the story. The flip side is Gamache is great, Three Pines is full of colorful characters, and I have a new series to enjoy.
To Read or Not To Read: Yes. There is a reason you see Louise Penny and Inspector Gamache in some many Show Me Your Books posts: they are good.
The Hypnotist’s Love Story by Liane Moriarty
Book Description: Ellen is a professional hypnotherapist who longs to meet a nice guy, but be careful what you wish for as her nice guy comes with a stalker whom she has already met.
Book Review: I expected to rate Liane Moriarty the highest when I started this little experiment. Obviously, I was wrong. This is by no means a bad book, nor is Moriarty a bad writer, but it didn’t meet my expectations — mostly because my expectations were wrong. The premise intrigued me and I kept expecting something crazy to happen to veer the book into darker territory. It never happened. (I do think her more recent books tend to be more that way). Just like the title says: this is a love story. I thought she was being sarcastic. News flash: she wasn’t. I found the characters to be generic and everything bad that happened was right as rain by the end. I like happy endings but earned happy endings.
To Read or Not to Read: Sure, especially those seeking more of a straightforward romance story. For all my complaining, this is not a horrible story but not a great story when you expected something deeper and more thrilling. Every time Patrick got annoying or whining or angry I thought now he’s going to kill his stalker! Woot! Woot! Those thoughts felt rational while reading, but I now feel like a jerk as I type them. So there you go: I am a jerk reader who likes it when bad things happen to characters. I also like it when they prevail too.
Girl Power Books
These books features some pretty kick-ass woman whether they’re falling in love or saving the world. Or doing both. We women are great multi-taskers.
The Reader by Traci Chee
Book Description: Sefia hunts for those responsible for her father’s murder and her aunt’s kidnapping using an odd rectangular object her father was hiding.
Book Description: The idea of a world where people don’t read (they don’t know how) appalled this avid reader. There was a certain amount of set-up in this book, which wasn’t bad but it isn’t until the last third where things start moving into place. I like Sefia, who like most YA protagonists has endured a lot, yet remains a strong, young woman. She doesn’t have the chip on her shoulder the way Katniss did, but she does have the same grit and determination. And what reader doesn’t love someone who teaches herself how to read and write, with her first words being: “this is a book”.
To Read or Not to Read: If you love YA and fantasy (magic exists in this world), then yes! I really like where this series appears to be heading.
Nine Women, One Dress by Jane L. Rosen
Book Description: Nine women are connected by one special black dress that changes their lives.
Book Review I borrowed this book pre-election and almost returned it unread because I wasn’t in the mood for “fluff” afterwards. And boy, am I glad that I read it. The idea and execution reminded a bit of Love Actually, although the people really don’t connect (much) beyond the one dress, but it leaves you with that same feel-good high. I needed to be reminded of the power of love and how it connects everyone, regardless of skin color, religion, sexual orientation or age. I only wish we could have spent a bit more time with the Saudi Arabian sisters.
To Read or Not to Read: Yes. This is a fluffy, feel-good book that occasionally surprises you with some sharp insight and depth. This is a great book to read if you are traveling over the holidays and want a good book that will have you smiling and in good spirits by the time you reach your destination.
Who Runs this World? Girls Do!
And don’t you ever forget it! Next month, I’ll read my normal mix books without a care about the gender of the author but this was a grand experiment. It makes me deeply satisfied to see so many phenomenal women writers who write about strong, flawed woman who are more than Mary Janes or damsels in distress. They lead, love and kick butt.
And never forget …
I am a dangerous creature. How about you?
As always, I’m linking up with Jana and Steph for Show Us Your Books. Be sure to check out what everyone read last month!
Tanya
You already know that I love the Louise Penny books – they definitely really hit their stride around Book 4 and keep getting better!! I also really adored One Plus One. I love Kate Morton’s books but I haven’t read The Lake House yet -hopefully I’ll get to it in 2017. Nine Women One Dress is getting added to my list!!!!
That’s good to know and makes me even more excited to continue the series because I love it when I find a new series to devour. One Plus One was fantastic. I loved it so much!
That is such a good idea! The election definitely influenced my reading, but unlike you I first had to channel it into fluff books while my brain recovered and then I started trying to read more books about diversity and strong women. Adding The Reader to my TBR.
LOL! It’s funny how the election affected people differently, even when they come to same point eventually. 😀 I think you’ll really enjoy The Reader!
Nichol nearly ruined my first Gamache experience. I will go back for more though.
I almost always feel Kate Morton’s books could benefit from a 100-150 page cut. I’ve read and liked them all but there’s some pacing issues/extraneous info there!
It makes me happy to hear that I wasn’t the only annoyed terribly by Nichol. I really wanted to slap her! But like you, I will go back for me Gamache too. I had always heard that Morton’s books were long and meandered a bit. Otherwise it might have driven me nuts. For whatever reason, I also think the slower pace actually calmed me down. LOL!
I love how you set up this post! I liked One Plus One almost as much as Me Before You, and One Plus One is definitely the one I’d pick to reread. I’ve never read anything by Weiner, despite seeing her books quite often, I might need to change that! Nine Woman sounds really cute, and I just saw it was already on my TBR list 🙂
I absolutely adored One Plus One! It was such a great book and I completely understand why Moyes earns so many rave reviews. And yes, it is a very re-readable book. I really enjoyed my first Weiner book and will definitely read more of her work. Nine Woman was really cute and I had a big smile on face throughout it.
Very fun way to write this! Nine Women, One Dress is on my radar, as are All Fall Down and The Lake House. I’m hoping once things settle down I can find my reading mojo again.
Thanks, Michael! Nine Woman, One Dress is a really great book when you need something a bit fluffy, but not dumb. Hope your life calms down so you get your reading mojo back!
i absolutely adored One Plus One. I also loved Me Before You – and The Girl You Left Behind. Honestly, those 3 books right there are SO different that I feel like you can’t even compare them you know? I think she is a great writer, though I haven’t read any of her older books.
I haven’t read The Hypnotist’s Love Story – it’s on my list, but I loved Big little Lies & What Alice Forgot. I also liked The Husband’s Secret. I’ve only read one of her older books.. the last anniversary? and I was kind eh on it. It was okay, and I think I rated it 4 stars, but looking back it’s absolutely my least favourite.
I’ve only read two Kate Morton books and lordy she is a good writer and weaves everything perfectly but they are SO long and slow paced that they always drag for me. i say always like i’ve read a bunch haha.
added The Reader to my list! and Nine Women, One Dress – that sounds adorable.
Me Before You is, of course, familiar to me and on my TBR but The Girl You Left Behind is new and I’m adding it to my TBR now! It makes me feel really good to hear that you loved What Alice Forgot because I’m reading it for Erin’s 6.0 Challenge and after The Hypnotist’s Love Story, I was a little nervous about it. Morton’s books are definitely slow-paced, which normally might bother me, but for whatever reason, it didn’t this time. Like I said to Steph, it actually helped me mellow out since instead I was still mentally screaming from the election. 😀 I really think you’ll love Nine Women, One Dress … it seems like a Kristen book to me!
I will have to read One Plus One! I’ve been trying to get my hands on Me Before You but my library has a wait-list for it. I did see the movie last week and it was really good!
Oh, I hope you like it. I was surprised by how much I loved One Plus One. I’ll be honest, it got reread before I returned it to the library – it was that good. It will probably be another month or so before I’ll read Me Before You but I’m sure I’ll love it too.
I’ve never watched Love Actually but Nine Women, One Dress makes me think of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants just from the title/description.
I’ve never read/seen The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants but know enough about the book that I can see how you would draw that connection. It’s a really fun book.
I keep hearing that about that Moriarty book, so I’ve been putting it off.
One Plus One is probably one of my favorite books of the year. I ADORED that one.
Okay, maybe that is just a bad Moriarty book that I had the great misfortune to pick as my first Moriarty book. I adored One Plus One too, so so good.
I really liked All Fall Down too. It was definitely a little more real than normal chick lit.
Agreed. It didn’t read like typical chick lit to me either.
I love female authors! I want to read ALL of Jojo Moyes’s books after reading Me Before You (and After You, though that one was kind of meh–too hard to follow up Me Before You).
I’ve seen a lot of mixed review on After You but I can see how Me Before You would be hard to follow-up. One Plus One is really great, although a lighter story than Me Before You. 😀 To be fair, I still cried, if I recall correctly but I wasn’t a snot-nosed wreck either. 😀
I love that you decided to read all women authors this month! I’ve only read one Jojo Moyes and one Kate Morton book, but The Lake House and One Plus One are definitely going on my list to read soon. I also think that All Fall Down and Nine Women, One Dress and The Reader all sound books that I’d love as well! I really need to get on the Still Life train and read it soon! So many people seem to love it!
Give them all a read, Ashley (nothing like peer pressure!). They are all different, yet so good. Inspector Gamache is really great. Nichol will drive you nuts but Gamache is fantastic.
I love that this month had a theme near and dear to you!
Nine Women, One Dress sounds pretty darn good! So does that YA one!
It was a lot of fun. I’m going to have to do it again. Nine Women, One Dress is really good. Just thinking about it makes me smile. And I really liked The Reader too and I’m anxious to see where the series goes.
So glad you liked the first Inspector Gamache! I am really enjoying the series as I make my way through it slowly, I’ve found that I can’t binge through a series or an author in books like in TV, I have to take my time. I also enjoyed The Lake House, & Kate Morton’s other books, but I feel the same that I wouldn’t read them all at once, She definitely has a style.
I can’t wait to dive into the next Gamache book. I can’t binge on books the same way either. I need a little bit of space most of the time. I really like Morton’s style but don’t think I could read all her books at once either. The slower pace would probably annoy me.
I like Jojo Moyes and this one’s already on my to-read list. I just added The Lake House to my to-read list. I read Kate Morton’s The Secret Keeper and really enjoyed it and saw that I had a bunch of her books on my to-read list, but not this one. I think I’m done with Liane Moriarty for now, after reading another one of hers this past month and only finding it “meh.”
I really loved One Plus One and think you’ll enjoy it too! The Secret Keeper is on my TBR and I can’t wait to work my way through Morton’s book. I’m reading one of them for Erin’s 6.0 Challenge but can’t remember which one! LOL! I’m also reading What Alice Forgot for Erin’s Challenge too, which may be my last Moriarty if it underwhelms me the way did Hypnotist’s Love Story did.
I LOVE this idea. Kate Morton is one of my favorite authors for sure, so I loved seeing The Lake House on there. I still haven’t read that one, but I am excited to read it!
Thanks, Olya! I really enjoyed The Lake House, even more than I expected. Knowing that her books were long and slow-paced, I wasn’t sure but I’m a big fan now.
So glad you liked The Lake House! I enjoyed it as well and I think you’ll enjoy The Secret Keeper too. I am currently reading a Kate Morton novel myself: The Forgotten Garden.
The Secret Keeper is on my TBR and looks really good. I’ve pretty much put all her books on my TBR. Can’t wait to see what you think of The Forgotten Garden.
I am definitely a dangerous creature! That’s awesome you read all female authors this past month. I need to try some of these! The only Moyes book I’ve read IS Me Before You, which I loved, but I do want to try out more from her.
YAY! Another dangerous creature! I really loved One Plus One and definitely recommend it to everyone!
I freaking LOVE how you came up with a “theme” (and the theme you tackled.) I might steal/borrow this idea from you because I am curious about many of these authors that are so popular, yet I haven’t read them either.
Go for it, Erin! I was actually feeling all cocky while commenting on Show Us Your Books posts because I could now say that I had read Moyes, Moriarty, Penny, Weiner and Morton. 😀 I’m definitely going to do it again myself!
I picked up The Reader not too long ago thinking it would be something I will enjoy, as a big fantasy (and YA) fan. I’ve yet to get to it yet, but I have a lot of reading time planned over the holidays so maybe I’ll check it out.
Definitely check it out, Kerri. I really liked it and hope you will too. It was a bit of a slow build but worth it. Sefia is great and I also loved that she is not caucasian since most YA heroines/heroes are.
I am so glad you liked Jennifer’s book! Her more recent ones are better, I think. She seems more confident in her storytelling. One Plus One is my favorite Jojo Moyes book! Now that I think about it, I meant to binge read her this year and read not one single book of hers. Weird.
Thanks for the great recommendation. I’m looking forward to reading more of her books. It surprised me how much I loved One Plus One but it is a terrific book. There are so many authors I want to binge but it’s hard because are simply so many great books and not enough time in the day!
wow, you read a lot of great books this month! just added the lake house to my TBR. I totally feel the same way about not wanting to read books that are overly hyped *ahem* me before you *ahem* but somehow I got sucked in to reading it and it actually turned out to surprise me. I had to eat my words on that one!
I really enjoyed The Lake House. Morton does write long, slow-paced books, which I knew going into it. If I didn’t know that – it might have bothered me because I prefer faster-paced books normally. And it oddly helped me mellow out a bit. 😀 And yes, hyped books can be the worst. They might actually be fine but they are hyped so hard that it becomes impossible for the book to live up to it.
I’ve read 4 of these books and I have Louise Penny on my list for up-next.
I adored One Plus One. I didn’t like Me Before You.
I support your reasoning 🙂
It’s so funny because I saw Louise Penny/Inspector Gamache books in this Show Us Your Books link-up at least 3 times (and that’s a conservative number). It made me a feel a bit cocky to be able to join the conversation. LOL! One Plus One is fantastic and I will sing that from the mountain top. There is a part of me that fears I might hate Me Before You. Because sometimes I just like to be contrary!
I love Liane Moriarty! I enjoyed the Hypnotists Love Story! Also, I’ve heard good things about The Lake House, will have to add that to my list for 2017!
— Dara || http://www.peoniesandhoneybees.com
I’ve heard so many great things about Liane and I’m anxious to read another story. The Hypnotist’s Love Story really wasn’t my typical type of read but I believe her more recent books are more aligned to my tastes. I really enjoyed The Lake House. It is a slow read (typical of Morton from what I understand) but it always kept my interest. I hope you enjoy it!