I just finished a book I borrowed on a whim mostly called “The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing” by Lara Love Hardin and it was great. Highly recommend.
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I just finished that as well for my book club and also really liked it.
Me too! I don’t remember if it was one I originally read about here.
I also really loved The Rose Code and The Alice Network by Kate Quinn. I hightly recommend both!
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The friend who recommended it has said I should read others of hers too - thanks!
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I found The Women to be a very quick read.
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Read James last week. Everett has an interesting take on how we talk amongst ourselves, but Jim’s “revelation” broke the frame for me. I hadn’t read Huck Finn since HS, so I re-read it immediately after finishing James to see how the new story meshed with/enriched the background of the original. It didn’t, but I’m sure that’s not what Everett intended. In any case, juxtaposing Twain’s storytelling mastery highlighted that James is a thought-provoking treatise on race* rather than an attempt at fine literature and needs to be read standalone or it becomes very thin in comparison.
*Not that Huck isn’t, but Twain did it so much better IMO.
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I finished The Women last night. I read it in 5 days, so it was a quick read and I enjoyed it. However, when I mentioned I was reading it to D earlier this week, she commented that she had found it a bit cheesy. I found myself agreeing by the end. There were some serious and important underlying themes beneath the cheesy part, so I don’t want to discourage anyone.
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I enjoyed The Women as well. Fast read, thoughtful topic, and I teared up at the end. Guess I don’t mind a bit cheesy 
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I think this gels with what I said about this before - I loved the research into the role these women played in the war, a got annoyed at the love story plot (which, if you’ve read the Great Alone, was predictable. Same reaction to that book -loved all the stuff about Alaska, got annoyed at the cheesy love story). I would recommend both these books, but be wary of cheese.
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I love a Hallmark movie, so I liked the end of the book though it was a little predictable and cheesy. I also teared up in the last chapter.
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I was looking forward to The Women due to its setting and subject matter. While it was a fast read for me in the sense that the plot moved quickly, I was disappointed in the romance part of the story, at least how it was portrayed. I also found several things a bit unrealistic. For example, how her friends across the country several times dropped everything and immediately flew across the country for her? I had to suspend disbelief too many times. In the end, the book seemed to be written more to appeal to the masses (as are most of her novels) than to be a realistic portrayal of women and their role in the war. That said, it did at least bring up some valid points about how women who served in Vietnam were treated upon return.
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I haven’t read The Women because I’m not generally a fan of the latest wave of popular historical fiction (with a big exception for Hilary Mantel). Those of you who have read it, might find this article of interest. Kristin Hannah’s The Women: The bestselling Vietnam novel is terrible.
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I can’t read the article; there’s a paywall. Can you copy and paste it??
That article is spot on (altho I’ve never read Colleen Hoover, but am familiar enough to understand the reference). Thanks for sharing!
I read a mix of genres. I do really like historical fiction but try to read novels that are out of the mainstream or set in a part of the world that is unfamiliar to me. I sometimes read “mass appeal” historical fiction novels if the setting/plot seems interesting but I generally find them to be just average.
Some that I really liked are The Cellist of Sarajevo, A Constellation of Vital Phenomenon, City of Thieves, and The Book of Negroes.
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I LOVED City of Thieves. Have not read the others you mention.
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I loved both Anthony Mara’s books, A Constellation and The Tsar of Love and Techno. But I started and DNF his last one, Mercury Pictures Presents. Maybe I’ll give it another shot.
I liked The God of the Woods
Kills Well With Others, the sequel to Killers of a Certain Age, was very entertaining.
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I’m on the library queue for “ Kills Well” , I loved the first book.
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I went to author event for Alice Austen’s debut novel, 33 Place Brugmann, at Parnassus Books on Thursday. Started the book yesterday and really enjoying. It is historical fiction with some suspense set in pre-WW2. The author was very engaging describing how she had actually lived in the building when her now grown son was a baby, so she had used the building as one of the characters with all its sounds and nuances. Back to it on a rainy Saturday!
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