Happy Holidays!

Current Read: Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Current Listen: Alexander Hamilton by Rob Chernow

Hello friends! Happy holidays! It's been a crazy time (just did my fifth performance of the weekend), so I thought I'd get you caught up on how my reading life is going.

First, a little while ago I finished Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. This is a nonfiction book about Savannah, Georgia in the early 1980's. This book was later adapted into a movie starring John Cusack and Kevin Spacey (two of my absolute favorites). The book portrays Savannah as a town that is very resistant to both outsiders and change, which, according to Berendt, is the perfect atmosphere for eccentricities to flourish. My personal favorite character (and I think most people's favorite) is the Lady Chablis, a larger than life drag queen who is a tourist attraction in Savannah with her outrageous personality and even more outrageous gowns.                                          
                                            

The book focuses on a murder that took place in Savannah in the early 80's. Jim Williams, quite the character himself, is accused of murdering his assistant, Danny Hansford, who may or may not have also been his lover. Berendt befriends Williams, giving him total access to the inner workings of his home, Mercer House, which is filled with invaluable objects such as an extensive Fabrege collection and is still a tourist attraction in Savannah today. Savannah is incontestably the main character of the story, and Berendt does a wonderful job of telling that story while also incorporating Jim Williams' four trials (the record in Georgia for the most trials for the same crime). This book completed the "book with antonyms in the title" portion of my reading challenge.

Next, I finally finished Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, one that has been on my reading list for a very long time. Now I can finally see the movie! The story takes place in a dystopian future in which humanity is fighting off an alien race. Ender is a young boy who is chosen at age 6 to be trained for military command at the Battle School. He must grapple with growing up in a world in which most children are not given the chance to do so. He struggles to maintain his humanity and empathy when everyone around him needs him to become an alien-killing machine.

This book started a bit slow for me, but as the story went along I became very interested in the way Card immerses his readers into this alternate future and into Ender's mind. It was difficult to read this book from the perspective of a teacher, since most of the "teachers" in this book are abusive and manipulative. The book was published in 1985 and has been really influential in the further development of dystopian novels written for young people.

Finally, last night I finished the final installment of the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children series, Library of Souls. I love, love, love this series by Ransom Riggs. Riggs began collecting old, strange photographs, and he uses them to create a story about children with supernatural abilities.                                            

The resulting story about Jacob Portman, a boy who discovers that he, too, is peculiar, is a wonderful adventure story filled with incredible characters that are for the most part based on these strange photographs. I plan to eventually read them again.

Alright. It's getting very, very close to the end of the year, and I have a few things left to read that are stressing me out a bit. I still need to read Let It Snow, but that one I've been holding off on on purpose. I have started Far From the Madding Crowd, and that's going better than expected so far. The problem is that it's really hard to focus on that when the last Lunar Chronicles book is also sitting on your shelf and will not renew from the library, so that's happening presently. I'll get it done, though, since it's break. Youtube is also still happening, and you can check out my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/eleanorrigby7390/videos

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday, and for now, that's all she read!

Rainbow and Robert

Current Read: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Current Listen: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Hello all! It's December, so things are getting intense in terms of me finishing up my reading goals for the year. It's looking like I will read at least 80 books this year. I'm at 76 after today, which is definitely the most I've read in a year since I've been keeping track. Some thoughts on what I've read:

Over Thanksgiving weekend I finished Landline by Rainbow Rowell, which was the last of hers I had to read! This was in the same category as her book Attachments in that it was for adults rather than teens. It is about a woman named Georgie who writes for a sitcom in Los Angeles. She knows her marriage is in trouble, especially when she has to cancel going to her in-laws for Christmas to attend a meeting about a new TV show. Here is where it gets weird. As she struggles to decide what to do, she discovers that when she calls her husband from her childhood landline she speaks to him as he was when they were in college. It's essentially a time traveling phone. It sounds totally bizarre, which is why I was so hesitant to read it.

But I should not have doubted her. Rowell is great at avoiding writing the flat, static characters that are so common in chick lit. All of her characters, major and supporting, developed and changed through the course of the novel. There was much crying and #feels, and it turned out to be a really great read. Not my favorite of hers, but everything she writes is really easy to relate to, even with the semi-magical premise.

Then today I finished the third Cormoran Strike novel by Robert Galbraith, Career of Evil. This is a series written by J.K. Rowling under a pseudonym, and I do not think that these novels get enough credit. They are just solid, dependably good crime novels. Cormoran Strike is a really great character (who I'm sure will get a movie at some point in the near future). All three of them have had great premises, complex twists and turns, and CREEPY suspects. In Career of Evil, Cormoran's assistant, Robin, is sent a severed leg in the mail with a letter referencing Blue Oyster Cult lyrics, lyrics that were tattooed on Strike's mother, a famous groupie who died under suspicious circumstances. Strike must sift through the list of enemies he has made during his career as a military policeman and private investigator while fearing for Robin's life.

Though I loved every second of this book, I do feel the need to give a trigger warning. This book heavily references domestic violence, rape, and sexual abuse against children. I KNOW. Some deep, scary stuff and some huge creeps for suspects. Just FYI. Probably not for everyone.

That's it for now. I'm halfway through Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which is very interesting reading, and I have both the last book in the Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children series AND the last book in the Lunar Chronicles series. There also might be some sort of haul post soon, since I picked up some things at the friends of the library sale and on black Friday. Happy reading to me! That's all she read.