Same as last time: I’ve got a few hours of downtime at work. Stipulations for filling the downtime limit to Facebook, Instagram, personal emails, playing music (not in headphones)… so pretty much anything that isn’t watching TV, watching super long YouTube Videos, or anything that might prevent you from answering a question from a co-worker or answering the phone.
I, therefore, have upped my reading game. I read about a book a week, sometimes two depending on how much time outside of work I spend reading or if I’m busy doing something else (like blogging).
Last “reads” post was five weeks ago, as such there are five books below with reviews.
Please also note that these particular five books were all Amazon First Reads.
If you’re an Amazon Prime member with a Kindle account, at the beginning of each month you’re sent an email to a link with quite a few books, some adult, some YA, some kids and all different genres. You can pick any one from the list and it’s FREE. If you’re a Prime member and a reader and not taking advantage of this, feel free to comment with questions and I’m happy to help! You don’t even need a Kindle, you can read from the app on your phone.
Here’s a link to my GoodReads account if you want to read other reviews of books I’ve read (and reviews different (less in-depth) than the ones below).
Gulliver Takes Manhattan by Justin Luke Zirilli
I don’t think “couldn’t put it down” quite cuts it. This book was enthralling and fun with twists and turns. I didn’t know quite what I was getting in to, this is definitely an R rated book, and I loved it. Gulliver leaves behind his terrible ex boyfriend and going-nowhere job in LA to go live with his best friend and fraternity brother, Todd, in Manhattan. Gully’s a graphic designer with not much luck on the job front when he, on pure chance, meets a scout/manager and begins working as his assistant.
(Let the spoilers begin!) He’s having fun partying with his new friends, as Todd is a promoter, and also hooking up with these new found friends and sometimes with strangers. He gets himself in a pickle when he becomes interested in one of his new friends exes, who also happens to be a new talent for the company. As things heat up, his friend group find out and so does his manager. He loses his job and his friends and his boyfriend and has returned to having nothing, ’til gets recruited to live in a porn-house. He changes his look completely and starts racking in the dough. Will he ever be able to return to his friends? Will anyone find out, that shouldn’t, about his new career?
(I know I gave away some spoilers, but even with the above info, you should still definitely read this book.)
Guilty by Laura Elliot
I didn’t really read the synopsis of this book before I read it. It got enough good reviews and was in the “thriller” category so I went for it. Had I read the synopsis, I might have avoided the book altogether as my two biggest criticisms of the book are how painfully obvious who the culprit in the second part of the book was (which is also obvious in the synopsis) and that the first part of the book felt like a book on it’s own and that the second part made the book drag on as opposed to enriching it. I really enjoyed the first half, so if you want to read it and stop after Karl’s life is ruined, I recommend it.
Abridged version of the synopsis (not really any spoilers here):
Thirteen year old Constance Lawson goes missing. Her uncle, Karl, is painted in the media as a pedophile who took too much of an interest in his niece and the likely murderer by Amanda Bowe.
Amanda interviewed at the magazine Karl works at a few years back and he said some less than kind things about her after the interview that she hadn’t gotten a position for. The coverage destroyed his life. He lost his job, his family, his home, all because of the media’s, specifically Amanda’s, lies and insinuations.
-Six years later.-
Amanda’s son goes missing.
Gee, I wonder who did it. What’s their motive? …
The Designer by Marius Gabriel
Copper, an American woman, has followed her newly wedded husband, during WWII and the Liberation of Paris, to France to report. His comrade is often too drunk to take the pictures or to write the stories so Copper has been covering for him. Her husband is consistently unfaithful and one night, after a blatant affair and the brutal, alcohol-induced death of the friend, Copper leaves her husband and demands a divorce. She had met a designer, Christian (Dior), a few days earlier and when he finds out what happened her helps her find a place. She begins to pursue her journalism career and enjoying the fashion and bohemian world her new friend has introduced her to. She meets interesting people and writes amazing stories on the war and the world of fashion while lending an ear and occasional advice to Christian on his career and world.
This is not a typical WWII story of terror and distress, nor do the two main characters have anything more than friendship with each other. There is love, and action, and war, and protests, but mostly the book it about a woman who strikes out independently to pursue her dreams and her friendship with a gay man, in a time when being a single woman was frowned upon and being a gay man was a danger, and both of them navigating their own and each others worlds. It’s a beautiful story of friendship and independence.
The Bookshop on the Corner (Scottish Bookshop #1) by Jenny Colgan
This book was really cute and I was really enjoying it, til about three-quarters of the way through where whirlwind story changes made me feel like I was watching a movie from the 1920’s where people just fall in love out of nowhere at the end. Here’s my version of a synopsis
Nina Redmond worked in a library that got shut down and rather than join it’s new project to become a tech-hub, she decides to take all the books she’s rescued over the years and many more that the library is getting rid of to create a mobile library out of a van in a small village out of town.
*Caution, some light spoilers ahead*
She has an adorable romance with a train driver, Marek, as they leave notes and books and poems for each other on a tree near the railway. Before it gets too serious, her landlord, a grumpy and quiet Lennon, suggests she make sure he doesn’t have a family back home. She asks Marek, and he does. They break it off, he loses his job for slowing down the train for their visits, and he is voluntarily deported back home.
While her heart is still healing over the loss of this potential love and her naivety, she attends a party where her and her landlord, both of whom have been distant from each other, touch hands and she immediately feels a spark. Shortly after they end up, this modest, conservative to the point of mild prudishness woman and the man she all but hated a week ago began having trysts of love and passion. Then his soon-to-be ex wife shows up, they make a deal where she gets the barn on the property in the divorce (where Nina’s been living) so he offers Nina to live with him. End.
Everything was an adventure, her bravery of striking out on her own to do what she loves, her adorable almost romance that she ended for the right reasons, her search for herself after the scandal. Then, instead of her continuing this amazing story, it just kind of wraps up as quickly as possible. I will not be reading any more of this series.
Thin Air (Jessica Shaw #1) by Lisa Gray
This book was a thriller, and I can’t wait to read the next one. Jessica Shaw, a private investigator, is sent a picture of a missing girl from 25 years ago and she recognizes the victim as herself. Looking into her own kidnapping she heads to LA. When she learns of how her mom was killed so many years ago it’s oddly similar to a college student, Amy Ong’s, murder that’s currently being investigated by LAPD detective Jason Pryce. As she digs deeper and deeper into her childhood disappearance, the murder of her mother, and the murder of Amy, she digs up other secrets and struggles with her own identity.
I definitely recommend reading this book.
While I can praise this book for many reasons, a big reason was that all loose ends were tied up. All aspects of each character were explained and a full picture was painted. Even with all of the information, it wasn’t until closer to the end that I was able to figure out what, and why, had happened to Jessica Shaw Alicia Lavelle.
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