#10 - Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

Yup - I picked up this book because I wanted to watch the Netflix series and can't do it until I read the book.  Overdrive audio had the files and it seemed like the perfect way to accomplish that goal. (sidenote: I have since watched the series and, trust me, there are serious and marked differences between the two)

I found most of this book really intriguing. I can't imagine having a past that I put behind me creep up out of nowhere and land me in prison for 15 months of my life.  And now that I've read this account I'm tragically afraid that it could happen to me.  Piper's account of her time in women's prison was at times funny and heartwarming.  It provided rare insight into what it is actually like for inmates in a minimum security prison, both the good and the bad.  It's amazing to peek inside the encapsulated societies that exist within the walls of the prison. I enjoyed the portrayal of the different inmates that befriended her along her journey and could only imagine how jarring it must have been to have given up her metropolitan life to be put in a completely foreign situation with people who could not be considered peers by any stretch of the imagination.

Goodreads rating: 4 stars

In progress: (nook) Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink
(audio): Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding

#9 - The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

Where to even start with a book like this? There are so many layers to unpeel that it seems trite to try to encapsulate them in one small review.  This was a book club pick for my work group but it was also one that had been on the top of my list since the 2013 top reads lists came out from my friends and Goodreads and it appeared on many of them.  So I took the perfect excuse to read it and ran with it.

This novel is full of "what would you do".  The setting is on an isolated island containing only a light house and a home where the main characters live.  It's hard to imagine what that kind of isolation can do to a person.  The location, Janus Rock, a nod to the Roman God of cross roads provides a tragic setting for what follows and the lighthouse becomes a character all its own and a metaphor for the little girl around which the story revolves.  

Heart breaking are the decisions that were made both at the beginning and the end and I found myself simultaneously mad at and sad for every single character in the book because the situation was impossible and handled poorly start to finish by everyone involved (including the little girl). How far would you go to provide healing for the person that you love the most? How far would you let your guilty conscience take you in the other direction? What is the real definition of family?

Again - didn't love the ending and thought it should have ended before the flash forward - but I am hard on the endings of books that I love reading maybe just because I don't want them to end.

Goodreads rating: 5 stars

#8 - Heft by Liz Moore

I loved this book.  Like, seriously, loved this book.  Except for one major nagging thing.  The ending.

Heft follows the story of three unlikely people to be linked in any way - Arthur Opp, a 550 pound shut in - Kel Keller, a high school kid who loves baseball - and Yolanda, a pregnant, hispanic cleaning lady.  How do these three fit together? In a sometimes funny often heart breaking turn of events.  I listened to this in audiobook format and just couldn't turn it off even at work.  The voice of Arthur came through just like a trusted friend telling a story.

Here's the rub.  **minor spoiler alert** The build up of these three storylines should have been a grand meeting where all of the forces collide and there is a moment.  I was waiting for that moment to arrive, however fleeting, like the 10 pages in "All The Light We Cannot See" where it comes together and then parts just as effortlessly.  In Heft, however, the book quits right before the blessing.  Now sometimes I can forgive an author for leaving me hanging but I was totally hooked and at the moment of literary climax only to be left at the edge. (feel free to insert sexual metaphor here).  **sigh**

Please read this (or check it out from Overdrive audio) regardless.  It's a lovely story and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Goodreads rating: 4.5 stars (damn you ending)

#7 - Byron Easy by Jude Cook

Many thanks to Netgalley, Jude Cook, and Pegasus Publishing for allowing me an advanced reader copy of Byron Easy.

This book is a marathon - not a sprint. The writing is brilliant and full and extremely dense and the main character has a completely phrenetic yet intriguingly beautiful way of looking at the world.  As you can probably tell from the jacket, this is not a feel good kind of book.  It's the story of a drunk, broke, depressed, wanna be author told in a combination of flashback and present tense that somehow works together to create the story.

Not everyone is going to love this and I can't say that I really loved it in the way I wanted to but there were moments of true brilliance hidden in these pages as well as madness and extreme self indulgence.

Fans of Kerouac and Vonnegut will be incredibly comfortable between the covers of this story.

Goodreads rating: right between 3 and 4 stars but the fact that this book took me a full month to slog through had me round it down.

#6 - The Gods Of Guilt by Michael Connelly

This is not my favorite of the Harry Bosch/Mickey Haller series but it was still enjoyable nonetheless.  Connelly has long been one of my guilty pleasures but I felt like there was very little in the way of the character development that I have come to love about these intertwined stories.

All in all it was a great way to pass the time as I was driving down and back from Kansas City for a fun weekend and a decent offering from a tried and true entertainer.  I especially liked the way he wove the real life movie of "The Lincoln Lawyer" into the fictional story of "The Gods of Guilt".

Goodreads rating: 3 stars

In Progress:
Kindle: Byron Easy by Jude Cook
Audio: Orange is the New Black by Piper Kermin

#5 - All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

A million thank you's go out to Scribner Publishing, Netgalley and Anthoney Dorr for allowing me the privilege of an advanced Reader copy of All The Light We Cannot See.

Gasp. I absolutely adored this novel.  Trying to describe this book would be woefully inadequate.  It is gorgeously written, each character fully explored, the back and forth in time of the story sequence is seamless and lovely.  The convergence of the storylines is exquisite, realistic, fleeting and lasting.  The whole experience of reading this book could be summed up in my new favorite phrase, gleaned from its pages.  Belle Laide.  Beautiful Ugly. Please read this book and support this brilliant author as soon as it becomes available on May 6, 2014.

Goodreads rating: 5 glittering, shimmering stars!