Book Review: Nanny Returns - Emma McLaughlin

 Nanny Returns - Emma McLaughlin

Ten years after the fateful night when Nan was fired, she returns to New York with her husband, HH.  Finally settling in to build a permanent home and get her consulting business off the ground, Nan's plans are derailed by HH's sudden desire to start a family-and her surprisingly strong resistance to the idea.

2/5 stars (it was OK)

So I didn't really feel like a sequel was necessary.  I felt like the first book had a happy ending and gave us hope for Nan.  This book totally ruined that hope.  Nan doesn't seem like she grew up at all.  She gets sucked into the family that fired her.  I think I would have rather read a book through Grayer's perspective and what his life has been like since Nan was fired.

Book Review: Hate List - Jennifer Brown

Hate List - Jennifer Brown

Five months ago, Valerie Leftman's boyfriend, Nick, opened fire on their school cafeteria.  Shot trying to stop him, Valerie inadvertently saved the life of a classmate, but was implicated in the shootings because of the list she helped created.  A list of people and things she and Nick hated.  The list he used to pick his targets.

Now, after a summer of seclusion, Val is forced to confront her guilt as she returns to school to complete her senior year.  Haunted by the memory of the boyfriend she still loves and navigating rocky relationships with her family, former friends, and the girl whose life she saved, Val must come to grips with the tragedy that took place and her role in it, in order to make amends and move on with her life.

3/5 stars (like it)

This story was not about the shooting itself but about the recovery from the shooting.  We start out with Valerie going back to school her senior year and through flashbacks we see life before the shooting.  We get to know Nick through Valerie.  We get to know him not as the person that decided to shoot everyone but as the unpopular kid that got bullied and how Val saw him.  We also get to know the people that did the bullying before the shooting and after.  I thought the story was well told and the ending was fitting.

Book Review: The Program - Suzanne Young

The Program - Suzanne Young

Sloane knows better than to cry in front of anyone.  With suicide now an international epidemic, one outburst could land her in The Program, the only proven course of treatment.  Sloane's parents have already lost one child; Sloane knows they'll do anything to keep her alive.  She also knows that everyone who's been through The Program returns as a blank slate.  Because their depression is gone--but so are their memories.

Under constant surveillance at home and at school, Sloane puts on a brave face and keeps her feelings buried as deep as she can.  The only person Sloane can be herself with is James.  He's promised to keep them both safe and out of treatment, and Sloane knows their love is strong enough to withstand anything.  But despite the promises they made to each other, it's getting harder to hide the truth.  They are both growing weaker.  Depression is setting in.  And The Program is coming for them.

3/5 stars (liked it)

I didn't like Sloane at first but grew to like her.  What I didn't understand is why suicide was such an epidemic among young adults.  But other than that the book was good.  Sloane is in the program and as she loves her memories, which happens slowly, we see a little change in her.  We follow her after she leaves the program and meets some people she knew before but doesn't know now.  I will definitely read the next one.

Book Review: Authority - Jeff VanderMeer

Authority - Jeff VanderMeer

After thirty years, the only human engagement with Area X--a seemingly malevolent landscape surrounded by an invisible border and mysteriously wiped clean of all signs of civilization--has been a series of expeditions overseen by a government agency so secret it has almost been forgotten: the Southern Reach.  Following the tumultuous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the agency is in compele disarray.

John Rodriguez (aka "Control") is the Southern Reach's newly appointed head.  Working with a distrustful but desperate team, a series of frustrating interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, Control begins to penetrate the secrets of Area X.  But with each discovery he must confront disturbing truths about himself and the agency he's pledged to serve.

2/5 stars (it was OK)

This book was very confusing and didn't really answer any questions.  I didn't care for Control and really was sick of him by the end.  I really would have rather had this book been from the Biologist's point of view like the first book.

Book Review: Talking as Fast As I can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, And Everything in Between - Lauren Graham

 Talking as Fast As I can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, And Everything in Between - Lauren Graham

In this collection of personal essays, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood revelas stories about life, love, and working as a woman in Hollywood--along with behind-the-scenes dispatches from the set of the new Gilmore Girls, where she plays the fast-talking Lorelei Gilmore once again.

In Talking as Fast as I can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, "Did you, um make it?"  She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood ("Strangers were worried about me; that's how long I was single!"), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway ("It's like I had a fashion-induced blackout")

In "What It Was Like, Part One," Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelei Gilmore.  The essay "What It was Like, Part Two" reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her.

Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she's aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls ("If you're meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you've already set the bar too high"), and she's a card-carrying REI shopper ("My bungee cords now earn points!")

Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cozy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and - of course - talking as fast as you can.

4/5 stars (really liked it)

So I decided to listen to the audiobook since it was read by Lauren Graham.  So glad I did, it was made the book so much better.  I love how she reflects on every season of Gilmore Girls and makes fun of her hair.  I loved the little bit of behind the scenes for the show and how she even started on the show.  Overall a great book.

Book Review: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

It begins with a boy.  Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother.  Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend.  Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works.  He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch combines vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher's calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art.  It is an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.

3/5 stars (liked it)

This story spans several years.  It starts out with thirteen year old Theo.  We see his relationship with his mother and how close they were.  Then they are bombed in a museum and his mother dies.  He gets away with a painting, The Goldfinch, which becomes a center of the whole book.  Theo moves in with a rich family, then ends up living with his estranged father in Las Vegas.  While in Las Vegas he meets a strange boy named Boris.  I really like Boris and wish we could have had some of the story with his point of view.  After loosing his father, he moves back to NY and lives with an antiques dealer.  Then several years pass and Theo is grown up.  He's engaged, but not truly happy.  We meet old friends and things wrap up with the painting.  I didn't feel like the book had a true ending.

Book Review: Hold Still - Nina LaCour

Hold Still - Nina LaCour

I am a girl ready to explode into nothing.

That night Ingrid told Caitlin, I'll go wherever you go. Ingrid was dead and Caitlin was alone.  Suddenly Caitlin has to dela with a completely unfamiliar life--a life without the art, the laughter, the music, and the joy she shared with her best friend.  When she finds the journal Ingrid left behind, Catilin gets a chance to learn about another side of her friend; and the journal becomes her guide as she deals with forging new friendships, finding a first love, and learning to live without the one person who knew her best.

3/5 stars (liked it)

The book started out with Caitlin dealing with Ingrid's suicide.  We get to know Ingrid and Caitlin throughout the book by seeing what they were like together.  We also meet new people as Caitlin does too.  We see how the death of Ingrid didn't just affect Caitlin, but other kids their age, parents and even teachers.  I really like how we see how Caitlin deals with things and how even at the end it's not happily ever after but life is a little more bearable for her.