My favorite day of the week, month, year, is the day I get to see my family and friends!
That’s my one-liner for One-Liner Wednesday.
Tag Archive: family
Seeking Sarah by ReShonda Tate Billingsley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Jerry Springer eat your heart out! Oh, the drama!
Okay, I didn’t mean to start with that. There were things about this book I liked. I love that we have a diverse character, though the cover picture doesn’t give that impression. On the other hand, the blurb grabbed me about a young woman that wants to find her mother who she previously thought had died.
What seems to be set up to be an exciting adventure learning why mom left, and possibly reconnecting, the main character, Brooke, is hooking/breaking up with a guy that shouldn’t even get a female. Even in the process of getting to know her mom, she takes every opportunity to jump to conclusions to be angry. I guess my way would have solved Brookes problems within minutes and there wouldn’t be a book but a short story.
I was lucky to get to read this book from Netgalley. I’d love to see what others think of this novel. It is different.
Today’s letter in the A-to-Z Challenge is F and the prompt for Stream of Consciousness is the word Fab used as part of a word or alone. Since I don’t see Fab as part of my story I’m writing, I’ll just stream a bit about how fabulous it has been to visit with my daughter and son today. They took off work yesterday, drove half the trip and stayed at a motel. They got here this morning It was windy which made getting out and enjoying the day outside nearly impossible. But Kali’s mommy took her out for a jog anyway. Kali was so happy and now is exhausted. By the way, my daughter was silly and wrote “Dorg” on the picture. LOL! We get to have breakfast with them before they take that long trip home. I’m so glad they got to come even for a short visit.
Meanwhile below is the first couple paragraphs I wrote in my CampNaNo project. Again, I went to a random word generator and picked up 20. But in the writing, I think I added more. Again, I know that this may sound confusing, like coming into a conversation not knowing much of anything. I just want to prove my combination of A2Z and CampNaNo. This book seems to be pulling from all the books about Haven I’ve done so far.
Finally after eating Dusty remembered. “I forgot to tell you that the spin and orbit of Haven have changed. We think that may be one factor why everything isn’t functioning at full force.” She glanced at the end of the table and noticed that Henry (Judy’s husband) seemed to have his head in the bowl.
When he noticed everyone staring he wiped his face and smiled. “This soup is so full of flavor!”
Robert (Anna’s husband) and Adam (Beth’s husband) laughed. “I don’t know how you stay so thin! You are eating all the time!” Robert said. “I have to watch my girlish figure!” Again the three laughed. They had been friends from the very beginning. They were half of the original six. Robert had known Anna back on Earth and they reconnected quickly. Henry, Anna’s brother, connected with Judy. Judy was the botanist and zoologist, a very serious scientist. Henry was funny. Smart and interested in everything, but funny. Judy needed that. The six were as faithful to their spouses as they were to each other. They all pursued their own intellectual passions so that when they were with their mates their time was fresh, new, exciting. They were family. There were no favorites, they worked to keep it fair.
Dusty held up her finger and the group quieted. They knew they had work to do. They just needed to figure it out. One thing was for sure, they weren’t going to leave it to fate. Still, as they sat there in human form, they realized that without being enhanced by Haven, by gene-poppers this would be a useless cause. One they would be sure to fail. They knew the first thing to do. They gathered out on the grass and held hands. There was a fraction of a second they thought they hadn’t factored in how different Earth was from Haven. But that thought didn’t last long. Suddenly there was the sound of a full freight train moving through. The temperature rose to the point they each thought they had a fever. Then they heard the voice. Dusty, Jade, and Mary had heard it in the cavern on Haven, Earth was speaking to them. Dusty indicated that they all change form, to dragon-up. They all knew that they would hear and understand Earth better telepathically as dragons.
__________
Lots more to write before I sleep. Hope you had a great Saturday, full of fab fun!
London Holiday by Miranda MacLeod
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What a fun little book! Need a beach read or a nod to fairy tales with a twist? This is it. Though it was a little predictable, I still couldn’t go to sleep until 3:00 in the morning as I wanted to see what would happen.
In our crazy cyber-gossipy world, a princess and a journalist fall in love, quite by accident. Fun and adventure happen, lots of London is explored.
Beyond these words, I am afraid I will ruin your discovery of this gem if I tell you more. This book was just a lightweight read to fill the moments between heavier books. I probably won’t read it again but I am now a fan of this author and will read more by her. Enjoy!
What do you do with a Friday that didn’t work out as planned?
I couldn’t take the trip to town, Flare. Body predicting cold snowy weather. Husband and son volunteer. But snow would be coming too soon. Canceled. But need groceries. Even as we discussed what to do flurries were gathering on the banister of the porch.
Yeah, the old snow never melted so this coming week should be interesting.
DH and brother drive to little town. Get necessities which in the case of the snow that had started celebratory pizza.
While they were gone my friends and I got together over the internet and laughed and talked for hours. Friends are great! They made me feel like this:
This evening while trying to figure out what to share here, Teddy came to visit with me.
“Mom, I’m bored.”
“Wanna play?”
“Nah.”
Then he marched off my bed to see what other mischiefs he could get into.
More snow expected over the next week. It is pretty. But worry about Kali and her outside times. Much deeper and she will disappear.
Friends, family, furballs, pizza. Who could ask for more? Snowed in? What do you do?
Happiness is a Collage by Gita V. Reddy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I don’t like short stories. Give me a long series any day. But this book was marvelous! It is a collection of stories of women who have paths of their own and how they deal with cultural, spiritual, educational issues and mix that with those mores of American feminism and ‘modern’ ways of life and these stories seem nearly as truth, not fiction.
If there were more story for each told here I would be happy. Nearly any of these stories can be full novels, that I would love reading. I love the education I pick up as I read of each of these life situations.
This wasn’t a long read. I think it was a couple of nights. With text-to-speech it was often hard to know when I had moved into another story, but other than that I enjoyed Gita V. Reddy’s writing. I think others will like it, too.
The Hope Chest: A Novel by Viola Shipman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book was personal for me. I recently lost a dear cousin to ALS. It was through her mother that I got my antique hope chest. It was one of those dome-lidded train trunks. My grandfather and brother lined that hope chest with cedar and the lid with velvet. With all that family involved in this chest, how could I not fall into the thought processes of the day? Girls grow up and have families. They get married. Become someone else’s. That’s not all bad. (I’ve grown to accept that a hope chest could just be hope of growing up and having a place of your own, not put the hope into another person.) But I had a wonderful family full of aunts and uncles and double the grandparents. No matter how life at school or home was, there were other relatives of love I could rely on.
My hope chest aunt taught me to knit. All the cousins, girl cousins, learned to knit slippers. My other aunt taught me to crochet and sew. Mom didn’t have the patience for all that but having a fantastic extended family gave me hope and taught me what I think everyone should know. That you can love past differences. The uncle attached to that aunt, taught me how to tie my shoes. That uncle and the uncle attached to my crochet aunt, taught me that even if you disagree so much with ideas the rest of the family hold, everyone will still love you. Just disagree with you.
My brother, who helped my grandfather fix up that chest, was killed in a car accident. That grandfather died of Parkinson’s. Even that chest disappeared in the many moves of my life. But the love of that family is still there. My cousins and I see each other on FaceBook daily. It is the only reason I haven’t left social media. It is my new hope chest. It’s in my heart. And so is the cousin who isn’t with us anymore, at least not where we can see her.
This book brought all that up for me. Sure, in ways it is a little hokey. But it wasn’t a stupid romance novel. It was about people who love or learn to love and help each other. The writer wrote characters I could believe. The mom was a little too strict with the little girl, seemed she wouldn’t let her be a little girl. But there are people like that. The woman with ALS seemed a little too perfect, though in pain and having the disease. The husband was every woman’s dream husband, so maybe not so real. Even still, when a book can reach into your heart like this one did and you see and smell the garden and the lake and feel the love, that’s a good book. Bring your Kleenex.
Thank you, NetGalley for letting me read this gem!
American Panda by Gloria Chao
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What a cute book! What a necessary book. I tagged this story with Feminism because there are cultures who need more individual growth and less tradition. I think everyone should read this book to see where one’s traditions and growth of personhood resides.
The author, Gloria Chao, does a marvelous job bringing us into her world, learning the traditions that she grew up with. It is wonderful seeing that change can happen. That individuals can find their own happiness.
My copy was the Kindle version borrowed from the e-library. If you can you should look it up. It is a light read to have so much to it. I might read it again, someday.
Waiting for a Miracle: Historical Novel by Helen (Wininger) Livnat
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I finished reading this a few days ago. I hate it when I finish before I am ready to sleep. I start the next book and forget to get back to the last book to review. But this one needs a review!
There cannot be enough books about the Holocaust. We need to look at it from every angle to make sure it doesn’t happen again. This book presented another point of view. It is from paternal journals handed down from the time of the first world war. The great-granddaughter is conveying the story. All the way to her own life.
All in all, it is well told. It doesn’t quite fit into my goal of reading books by strong women with strong women as main characters as Helen (Wininger) Livnat only tells her story at the end and it feels she left much of her own life out to give her forefathers the say of what happened in those horrid times. And that’s fine with me. She includes what is happening to the females at that time as best she can. The stories are coming from journals of the men so she’s telling what she inherited. None of it is fiction. We’ve read the histories, we can see the truth. We need to take warning.
It is always hard to give a rating to someone else’s life. So in that, I’m sticking with the five-star rating. There were errors, grammatical mostly–near the end, a ‘there’ that should have either been ‘they’re’ or ‘their’ (I can’t remember which now) is one example. In fact, the ending could use an editor’s eyes. But it didn’t take away from the truth and horror of the story or the warnings. And I think that there may have been some translation problems in that I think Russian was the first language. But I’m guessing.
Like I said, it is the story that is the important issue here. I think everyone should read this. It is enjoyable watching the families and the sons adjust and still love no matter what the outside world is doing. It is amazing what we can do when we do it for love.
Yes, there are a lot of tears. Even near the beginning. So have your Kleenex handy. But there are big joyous moments as well. Life and love bring us generations of stories and struggles. Well worth the read. But I’m repeating myself. I just want people to pick this up when they can and take it into their souls.
Children’s book: The Good Hour: A life-changing story for children and their parents with practical tips for better parenting by Doron Erez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
4.5 stars, really. Mostly because it felt rather preachy at times. But I don’t know how you would avoid it. I often want to get in people’s faces and yell at them for not enjoying their children while being tethered to their cellphones, this is nicely done.
The pictures are adorable. Most of the story, from the child’s point of view, is sweet.
I wish I had a million dollars as I would buy a million of these and give as gifts to cellphone-orphaned children of the world.
I know that we who didn’t have cellphones when our children were young have no right to judge, epecially if you have one of those phone attached jobs, but there needs to be a turn it off time. If you gave birth to a child and want to be part of the raising of said child should, spend the majority of your time with the child WITH THE CHILD. This book is kind and suggests merely an hour. Well, that’s a start.
Okay, my rant aside, this is a fun book and I think it could open communications up for parents and children and everyone will be rewarded by reading it.
Darswords 
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