Monday, February 22, 2021

Monday Mini-Reviews: Cold Weather Fiction

 It's another snowy Monday here in my neck of the woods.  We spent the weekend doing a home improvement project - putting in flooring in our basement exercise room. This room has needed some work since we moved in (fourteen years ago) and finally we are taking care of it.  Just like with any home improvement project, this one seems to take a lot of time.  While I didn't do any of the flooring, I provided food for the day and ran to get things they needed from the hardware store.  

We also watched the state wrestling finals on TV and celebrated my mom's 75th birthday with a little lunch at her house.  And today I drove on snowy roads to get back to school. 

I am sharing two books I read this past week that would be worth picking up:





The Midnight Library by Matt Haig - the premise of this book is interesting.  Nora is caught between life and death in the midnight library where she can choose any of the books on the shelves that contain alternate forms of the life she might have chosen for herself.  Although she finds a few lives that she enjoys there is always something that pulls her back to the midnight library in search of a different story.  This is a fast read that was much hyped to me. I don't think it lived up to my expectations but that is likely because I had heard so much about it already.


The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson - Johnson covers big topics like racism and motherhood in her debut novel.  Ruth's husband has been talking about having children, and finally Ruth confesses that when she was seventeen she gave birth to a baby boy that her grandmother gave away.  Now Ruth is going back to her hometown, finally confronting her past and trying to determine what happened to the baby she gave up.  There are some secrets that come to light, but what I most noticed about this book was the character development and the way this family is fleshed out.  I'm hoping we get to see more from Johnson in the future.


I've just started Kristin Hannah's new book and although I'm hopeful that I will get through more this week, I also know that I want to savor each and every page.

1 comment:

(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea said...

I was disappointed by The Midnight Library. I do want to read: The Kindest Lie and Four Winds - waiting my turn on the list.