Book reviews

[19Sandy]

I am watching the winter's bone movie right now. Reading books really bothers my eyes now (yes I wear glasses but still reading hurts my eyes).

[iris lilies]

Speaking of Hillbillies, I am almost done with "Winter's Bone." I saw the movie a few years ago on a recommendation from this forum and I thought it was great. The book is extremely well-written and I highly recommend it, even if you've seen the movie.

Yes, that is a tough world like those in Appalachia.Thats the film that propelled Jennifer Lawrence into promenance.

[rosarugosa]

IL: I did go back to Stolen Child, which I finished last night and I really liked it. I think I was just so eager to read The Buffalo Soldier that I couldn't appreciate the other book in its own right until I had read TBS (SC was due sooner, so I felt like I needed to read it first). I read TBS and was able to renew SC, so all worked out well in the end! Next up is Trans-Sister Radio, also by Bohjalian and The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman. I try to read hardcovers at home and paperbacks during my commute since I'm lugging so much weight to/from work with pocketbook, tote bag & laptop.

[ToomuchStuff]

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance.

This is on the NYT bestseller list. Its an autobiograpjy of a young man who grew up in poverty, in a family that especially had poverty of ideas and values like many in generatinal poverty. His family is Scots-irish from Appalachia, and his grandparents got out of the mountains to follow the industrial job line into,southern Ohio.

His story is an interesting peek into values that both support and do not support middle class success. The main point of his own narrative is that he narrowly escaped hillbilly poverty, saved only by the steady presence of his grandparents, especially his grandmother, who expected hm to do well in school and who provided him with critical stability at a time when neither his mother or father could give him that.

But his grannie also instilled ideas of hillbilly honor that did not serve him well in his quest for a calm, middle class life nd success at Yale University law school. She showed him how,to physically overpower an opponent, and she scared the beejesus out of neighbors, family, and her communit because she carried a gun and was always prepared to use it.

So would you recommend it?

[iris lilies]

So would you recommend it?

Well, I thought it was reasonably interesting.

[iris lilies]

Today I was stuck in jury duty all day so
I read I let You Go by Clare Mackintosh.

It was supposed to be the new Girl on The Train, which was supposed to be the new Gone Girl.

Both of these latter novels were dull. I am going to give up on finding another Gone Girl.

The reason why I liked Gone Girl she much is that it was sly and unexpected. Not so with other myster and suspense novels.

[freshstart]

I liked Gone Girl's author's other books, not as much but they were better than average. Girl on the Train was the first book I read after the neuro incident when I'd been unable to read barely at all for a yr. Even with half a brain and taking a month to read it, I thought it stunk.

[rosarugosa]

IL & Freshstart: Try The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson. I liked it better than Gone Girl, which I thought was good but way overrated, or Girl on the Train, which I thought was just OK.

[freshstart]

I read the Kind Worth Killing and enjoyed it very much

[rosarugosa]

I read the Kind Worth Killing and enjoyed it very much

Did you read The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by the same author? I did not, but I want to hunt it down.