That Just Happened!

Niffenegger, Audrey.  The Time Traveler’s Wife.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2004).

A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare’s passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger’s cinematic storytelling that makes the novel’s unconventional chronology so vibrantly triumphant.

An enchanting debut and a spellbinding tale of fate and belief in the bonds of love, The Time Traveler’s Wife is destined to captivate readers for years to come.

From the Publisher’s Website

Um, I know I am probably the last person to read this book (except for MPW’s cousin Lindsay who just got this book the other day).  I know everyone before me has extolled the virtues of this novel.  Buuuuut, I don’t see the harm in doing it again, because it was just that good.  I got this book as a Christmas gift from my friend Mille, but I have been putting it off because I heard it was such a tear-jerker.  I finally sat down to read it (or lay down as the case may be. I usually read in bed at night) and I couldn’t put it down. 

I thought it was pretty easy following the dates and the ages of Henry and Clare.  I liked how the Reader knows what is coming, as do the main characters, but it is written in a way that is so hopeful.  Perhaps there is a reason for all of this and changes can happen?

I don’t want to say too much because for those who have yet to read it, saying anything about it gives something away.  I will say, this book was tinged with sadness.  From the very beginning you can feel your heart strings being pulled in all directions.

A Must Read.  Thanks Mille for the wonderful gift!

Meacham, Leila. Roses.  Hachette Book Group (2010).

Spanning the 20th century, the story of Roses takes place in a small East Texas town against the backdrop of the powerful timber and cotton industries, industries controlled by the scions of the town’s founding families. Cotton tycoon Mary Toliver and timber magnate Percy Warwick should have married but unwisely did not, and now must deal with the deceit, secrets, and tragedies of their choice and the loss of what might have been–not just for themselves but for their children, and children’s children.

HachetteBookGroup.com

I loved it!!!  Oh my goodness at the end of this book all I could do was exhale.  Don’t let the size intimidate you; it may be a chunkster, but it reads like a novella.  This really was like Gone With The Wind (as if Scarlet had never been written).  Absolutely fantastic!  It is on my list of top 15 books I have ever read.  (Don’t judge me, I like reading about other people’s problems).  I read this book in 4 days and it kept me on the edge of my seat/bed.  I hated putting it down.  I don’t want to say anything else about it because it is going to give it all away.  Maybe I was just in the mood for a little drama and that’s why it appealed to me so much.  This is a MUST READ for anyone who loves Southern Belles, hard women, harder men and a lot of star-crossed lovin’. 

Must Read.

I read this towards my Twenty Ten Challenge.

Baker, Tiffany.  The Little Giant of Aberdeen County.  Hachette Book Group. (2009).

When Truly Plaice’s mother was pregnant, the town of Aberdeen joined together in betting how recordbreakingly huge the baby boy would ultimately be. The girl who proved to be Truly paid the price of her enormity; her father blamed her for her mother’s death in childbirth, and was totally ill equipped to raise either this giant child or her polar opposite sister Serena Jane, the epitome of femine perfection. When he, too, relinquished his increasingly tenuous grip on life, Truly and Serena Jane are separated–Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town on the farm of the town sadsack, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation at the hands of her peers.

When Serena Jane flees town and a loveless marriage to Bob Bob, it is Truly who must become the woman of a house that she did not choose and mother to her eight-year-old nephew Bobbie. Truly’s brother-in-law is relentless and brutal; he criticizes her physique and the limitations of her health as a result, and degrades her more than any one human could bear. It is only when Truly finds her calling–the ability to heal illness with herbs and naturopathic techniques–hidden within the folds of Robert Morgan’s family quilt, that she begins to regain control over her life and herself. Unearthed family secrets, however, will lead to the kind of betrayal that eventually break the Morgan family apart forever, but Truly’s reckoning with her own demons allows for both an uprooting of Aberdeen County, and the possibility of love in unexpected places.

Publishers Web Site

As you may remember, I won this book in a giveaway hosted by Darlene @ Peeking Between the Pages (Thanks, Darlene!).  I was so excited to receive it in the mail (because I love  getting mail!) and I emailed Darlene right away to tell her I had the book in my hot little hands and it was next on my TBR list.  Well, that was true, but it has just taken me a while to post my review, so here we go.

I really, thoroughly, truly enjoyed this book.  I thought it was so well written and it definitely pulled at my heartstrings (the two that are left, that is).  Truly is so misunderstood due to her size, but she has a wealth of feelings that lay just under the surface.  We see them start to break through when she starts dabbling with “witchcraft” and it starts to affect the people in her town.  The Reader really sees Truly walk on a path of self-discovery, but the path has some surprising twists and turns.  I like how Truly is not perfect.  She has flaws and makes mistakes, but she loves dearly, which makes her so relateable.  Although she was ostracized from society, this is not a story about an underdog.  For the most part Truly is very accepting of the way things are and does not try to change until she moves in with Bob Bob.  There is no spectacular, magical ending where all her troubles go away and she just loses the weight and is as pretty as her sister.  Truly is how she is and that won’t change, but the way she feels about it does.

Themes in this book were family, love, and self-discovery. 

I would say this is a Must Read.