Landlines and Lifelines

I’m back to share more from my bookshelf with you today.  When last we left our heroine, she’d put herself on the wait list for Rainbow Rowell’s Landline because she’d pulled it out of her TBR jar.  And then she waited.  And waited.  And finally, the day came when the email arrived saying her book was ready to pick up!

I started Landline on May 9th (remember this is 2016 we’re talking about – because our heroine is behind on her blogging) and finished it on the 14th.  I really enjoyed this book.  Rainbow’s books are always so well-written and enjoyable.  And, they are all so different. This book reminded me more of Attachments and less like Fangirl or Eleanor & Park. I love her complex but relatable characters and this storyline. Well worth a read!

After finishing up Landline it was time to pull another book from my TBR jar.

And out of the TBR jar came…one of my wildcard free slips.  So, since I had checked out Feverborn (read my review of it here), I went ahead and counted that as my wildcard.  Then I decided that since I was on such an awesome reading streak, maybe I should try to read some of the books I have sitting at home.  So, I picked up a book that had been luring me – A Café on the Nile.  I started it on 5/24.  The author is a member of The Explorer’s Club, which I am fascinated by, and the book is set in Egypt.  What could be better?

Well, yeah.  Notsomuch.  I tried.  I really did.  My reading slowed down to a snail’s pace.  So slow in fact that I think I’d pretty much given up reading.  So, after a couple of weeks I decided to give something else a try.  Maybe I just wasn’t into this book?

So, I picked up another book on my bookshelf at home – Beyond Desire.

I started it on June 8th and attempted to read it for about a week.  This book was supposed to take place on the Orient Express, it was supposed to be steamy, it was supposed to be good.  Well, I ended up taking a break (more on that next time) and then picked this back up around the 29th of June.  Finished it on July 7th.

Once I picked it back up, re-energized, I enjoyed the story and it kept my attention. I enjoyed the journey by Orient Express and eluding the followers and the search for clues about the bracelets. I think this book would have been much more enjoyable without the sex scenes. They were ridiculous, and overburdened with words like transmogrified, termagant, profligate. I also found that I occasionally had a hard time following whose thoughts and feelings she was describing because they flipped back and forth. I think Thea Devine’s writing would be better served with more attention to how the erotic scenes fit within the whole of her story.

If there’s one thing that these last two books taught me, it’s that my reading appetite is voracious, when given a good book.  When given a book that isn’t doing it for me – I’d rather not read.  But, I have found over the past months that reading for me is indeed a lifeline – I need it.  It keeps my brain working and my creativity flowing.  It keeps me well-fed.

More next time on the books I cheated on Thea Devine with.

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