This is the 17th book in this series and my 7 year old was captivated by it! The evil wizard Astrid is putting together ingredients for a spell to bring back dinosaurs and take over the world. Drake and his friends are up to the task to stop her, but the cliffhanger ending had me reaching for the next book… which our library doesn’t have yet! It was just published in March, so we’re eagerly anticipating their purchase.

“I think you have to have faith in people before they earn it. Otherwise it’s not faith, right?”

“But loving somebody isn’t perfection and good times and laughing and making love. Love is forgiveness and patience and faith and every once in a while, it’s a gut punch. That’s why it’s a dangerous thing, when you go loving the wrong person. When you love somebody who doesn’t deserve it. You have to be with someone that deserves your faith and you have to be deserving of someone else’s. It’s sacred.”

Hands down: this is the best audiobook I’ve ever listened to. This book is perfect for that format! This story is told in interview-style – lots of people telling you about their memories of their band from the 70s and it quickly flashes back and forth between the characters. In the audiobook, each character has its own narrator and they are perfect. I felt like I was really listening to Daisy Jones & the Six. In fact, I wasn’t sure 1) if some of these actors were actually the band members and not actors at all; and 2) if this band actually existed. I looked it up and learned that this is completely fictional, but Taylor Jenkins Reid really had me going for about 2/3 of the book!

I avoided this book for a long time because for some odd reason, I thought it was about Charles Manson. I have no idea where that came from! But have no fear: Charles Manson doesn’t appear in this book at all. It is full of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, which is totally not my thing, but it worked in this novel. I didn’t think that it was too graphic, but I still didn’t want to listen to it with my kids around.

“Her body is reacting to something here; something living, breathing, woven into the DNA of the building, as much a part of it as its walls and floors.”

There have been a lot of locked-room mysteries recently and I think this is my favorite so far. Set in the Swiss Alps in a renovated TB Sanatorium, Elin and her boyfriend visits her brother and fiance to celebrate their recent engagement. But they’re quickly trapped there due to an impending snowstorm and the fear of avalanche. Soon, staff members start disappearing and the person responsible must be at the hotel with them. Luckily, Elin is a detective on leave and, while communicating with the local Swiss authorities by phone, takes the lead in the investigation.

I was on the edge of my seat and constantly guessing who the culprit was. I had a few top contenders (one was correct) but had no idea about the motive. I love it when thrillers surprise me and this one had me glued to the page until the very last scene. I’m also wondering if there’s going to be a sequel?

“I’m not what anyone thinks I am. I never was. I didn’t have the mouth to put it into words, to say what was wrong, to change the things I felt I needed to change. And every day it was difficult, walking around and knowing that people saw me one way, knowing that they were wrong, so completely wrong, that the real me was invisible to them. It didn’t even exist to them. So: If nobody sees you, are you still there?”

This was a gorgeous book set in Nigeria. It opens with a mother finding her 20-something son, Vivek Oji, dead at her front door. We slowly find out what happened to Vivek as the book unfolds and we meet a group of young people quietly and desperately searching for their own identities while living under oppressive circumstances.

I decided to give this book 3 stars on Goodreads. I wanted to give it 4, but felt like there was too much gratuitous sex. There were several scenes that felt integral to the story and just as many that felt unnecessary and over the top. Perhaps I’m a prude – I can live with that!

“The poet must not only write the poem but must scrutinize the world intensely, or anyway that part of the world he or she has taken for subject. If the poem is thin, it is likely so not because the poet does not know enough words, but because he or she has not stood long enough among the flowers–has not seen them in any fresh, exciting, and valid way.”

I read this book slowly, just a few pages at night before falling asleep. I am a complete poetry newbie so I appreciated how the author broke it down and explained even the basics – like iambic pentameter. Oliver infused beautiful poetry throughout in order to show examples of the principles she was discussing, which made the whole process even more enjoyable.

And even still – I don’t think I really understand poetry. Especially not free verse! So I suppose I’ll just keep reading, little by little, and see what makes a mark.

“You will never find interior solitude unless you make some conscious effort to deliver yourself from the desire and cares and the attachments of an existence in time and in the world.”

I read this during my early morning quiet time over the last month or so. Each chapter was relatively short, so it wasn’t an overwhelming task to read one or two each morning. For me, this was one of those take what you need books – I don’t identify as a Christian and still found a lot of nuggets to tuck away and chew on.

In his preface, Merton writes, “On the other hand, there are perhaps people without formal religious affiliations who will find in these pages something that appeals to them. If they do, I am glad, as I feel myself a debtor to them more than to the others.” I was thankful for that invitation and felt at home in the midst of his pages, despite not subscribing to all of his underlying principles.

“Tell them to walk in the shade. To listen with their eyes, to see with their skin, and to feel with their ears, because life speaks to us all and we just need to know and wait to listen to it, see it, feel it.”

“she understood that, while life offers no guarantees, sometimes it does offer gifts;”

I know I’m a little late to this one, but I’m so happy to have finally read it! And friends, I didn’t want it to end. This was a beautiful novel set in Mexico. It moves throughout a longer period of time but the most significant moments for me were during the Spanish Flu, which felt familiar given what the world has gone through over the last year.

I loved the Morales family – they had me laughing, crying, and everything in between. Simonopio, the infant found in the woods and covered by bees, captivated me. He was born with a cleft palette and never learned to communicate with words, but found his own way to connect with others and became a loved and integral part of his adopted family.

“It’s a particular kind of pleasure, of intimacy, loving a book with someone.”

“But I can’t go out with a guy who’s written eleven and half pages in three years. That kind of thing is contagious.”

I was addicted to this book! Casey is 31, living in a potting shed in Boston, drowning in debt and sorrow, and working as a waitress while trying to finish her novel. I found her immediately likable and interesting and was cheering her on throughout. And it was nice to read a book with a happy ending for once (don’t worry, I don’t think this is much of a spoiler)! This was set in 1997 and I loved being reminded what life was like before cell phones and the internet – when you called someone and just hoped they were home or you called around to find them. In some ways, it felt like historical fiction!

This story is told in one day. Moss adeptly takes us into the heads of a group of people vacationing around a Scottish Loch. The author impressed me by showing off a wide-range of internal dialogues: those of an elderly woman fearful of dementia, a stay at home mom undone by trying to decide what to do with one free hour (been there, done that), a teenage boy just trying to get away from his family, to name just a few. The whole day climaxes to a disaster in the evening (this isn’t a spoiler, there’s a heavy-handed hint at the beginning), which I found dissatisfying and incomplete (Even though this doesn’t always bother me, see my thoughts on Leave the World Behind.
I appreciate all of the Post-Brexit-and-2016-US-Election books coming out lately. This was clearly a response to those two elections – how deeply hate seeps into those around us.

If you’re in the mood for character studies and following the internal dialogue of people who are different than yourself, then you’ll probably enjoy this book. If you’re in the mood for a well-paced novel with a satisfying ending, then this book probably isn’t for you right now. Sadly, I fell into the latter category this time.

“Illness isolates; the isolated become invisible; the invisible become forgotten. But the snail….the snail kept my spirit from evaporating.”

“My bed was an island within the desolate sea of my room. Yet I knew that there were other people home-bound from illness or injury, scattered here and there throughout rural towns and cities around the world. And as I lay there, I felt a connection to all of them. We, too, were a colony of hermits.”

“A last look at the stars and then to sleep. Lots to do at whatever pace I can go. I must remember the snail. Always remember the snail.”

Sorry for all of the quotes, but this was such a beautiful little book! When the author contracted a viral bacterial disease on a brief European holiday, her life changed forever. Before her illness, she lived an active life on a farm in Maine. There are times throughout her illness, which has a cyclical nature that is expected to continue throughout her life, that she can barely turn her head. One day, a friend gifted her with a wild snail in a flowerpot and this snail brought the author an infinite source of wisdom.

This book brilliantly intersperses fascinating nuggets of information about the life of snails with Bailey’s own self discoveries. This was a captivating reading experience because it was part memoir, part field journal, and part scientific research – a wonderful combination!