Welcome to the 2023 Southern Literature Reading Challenge! We’ll focus on books and authors from the southeastern region of the United States. Table of Contents: Definition of “The South” Definitions of the South are flexible, so I’ve decided to base my definition on the current makeup of the Southern Legislative Conference: That said, I’m not […]
Welcome to my weekly update for November 20, 2022! Well hello there! Long time, no see! My last update was on August 28. I wrote in that post that my husband and I were coming out of a quiet few weeks just hanging around Billings, Montana and we had a couple of busy weekends planned. […]
4 Stars. I honestly expected to find more hard facts in the book than I did. But Dr. Hall addresses that. Even when she found records of revolts led by women, they rarely contained more than a first name. So she decided to make “measured use of historical imagination” and fill in the gaps. That’s fair enough, especially since […]
3 Stars. I enjoyed the second volume of this series but it didn’t quite grab me the same way the first one did. It’s been years since I read the first one so maybe the time lapse and/or my shifting tastes are to blame. I feel the creepy old photos are incorporated a bit more seamlessly than they were in the first book; however, […]
2 Stars. I imagine that this book is a fantastic choice for a book club or assigned reading but I, as a solo reader, just found it confusing. The plot jumped around with little resolution, characters appeared and disappeared, and I couldn’t find an entry point to understanding it. To be fair, it’s written in an […]
5 Stars. In my zeal to read a new book by Sarah Addison Allen, I found that I had inhaled this book in two sittings. Oops. No savoring the prose here. But a friend had sent me an ARC so I feel the need to write a more reasoned review and I wanted another chance to take my time with the book anyway. So I’ve read this twice within […]
3.5 Stars. I don’t read a lot of poetry and don’t really feel that I have the tools to review it. All I can say is that I know what I like when I read it. I’m not someone who is going to devote a lot of time to dissecting a poem and wrenching every ounce of meaning from it. I had enough of that in school. I can’t even remember […]
Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl invited us to share a school freebie this week. I thought about this topic for a few minutes. I’ve been out of school more years than I care to count. But learning never stops, does it? So I decided to share a list of ten books that continued my […]
Welcome to my weekly update for August 28, 2022! Three weeks in a row with no real adventures to report. This must be some sort of record for me! My husband has had to work a lot of call shifts recently so that ties us down within 30 minutes of the hospital. We’ll be out […]
3 Stars. I’m still so upset that the last book ended the way it did. I tried to put that behind me, as Jacky herself does, but I’m a world-class grudge-holder. I was mostly able to enjoy this book for itself but I’m still rating it 3 stars instead of the 4 I would probably have given it if that nonsense from book 11 hadn’t […]
4 Stars. I don’t read a lot of contemporary young adult fiction because I don’t have a lot of patience for the drama. Lila starts off with plenty of drama. She came across to me as pretty self-absorbed. But she grows. She starts to see that yes, she’s had a spring of heartbreak by anyone’s standards. But it could be worse. She […]