What I'm reading this week (2/4/19)

Last week I finished:

I'd been wanting to read Kristin Hannah's The Great Alone since it came out. I'd also been kind of scared of it. I knew it was going to be a serious read. But oh you all, was it dark. Absolutely depressing, with almost no points of light. There are graphic scenes of domestic violence, death, destruction of lives, an illegitimate baby, a catastrophic accidents, running from the law, one chapter after another of unrelenting sadness. The plot is this: Ernt never recovered from his service in Vietnam, and he takes it out on his wife and daughter. He moves the family to the wilds of Alaska hoping to turn things around, but he spirals even deeper into insanity and violence. His daughter, Leni, falls in love, there's an accident, and things come to a terrible head. The writing here isn't bad, but there are so many holes in logic, I kind of didn't trust the book after awhile. If you don't mind a dark story, it's definitely a page turner, but I know I won't be returning to it. The darkness just went too far. My rating: 3 stars.

Long before Reese Witherspoon's Whiskey in a Teacup became one of the big books of 2018, I knew I'd be buying a copy. I'd always wondered if Reese Witherspoon was the real thing, what she presented herself to be, and after finishing the book, I'd have to say she is. She's a sweetheart, and a southern sweetheart at that. This is a beautiful and charming book about being southern. She shares memories of her grandmother and grandfather, shares recipes for biscuits and other southern dishes, talks about her love of Dolly Parton and books and decorating for the holidays. It's a little bit free-form, and you never know what's coming next, and I loved it all. It's a nice jolt of summer in the middle of the Polar Vortex of the north. I recommend this one to Reese fans and fans of fun, pretty books. My rating: 4 stars.

In 2017 I read both West with the Night and Paula McLain's Circling the Sun, the memoir and fictional accounts of Beryl Markham. While I enjoyed the writing and story of Circling the Sun, I was quite uncomfortable with the whole notion of reimagining the life of a famous person--especially a person who'd already left an account of her life. McLain's latest book, Love and Ruin is the fictionalization of the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and journalist Martha Gellhorn. Caring less about Hemingway and knowing nothing of Gellhorn, I thought I wouldn't be as bothered by the fictionalization, so I listened to this on audio. But I still went away asking myself why an author chooses to re-tell life stories instead of either writing a straight biography or writing a novel with her own characters. I guess I'm just uncomfortable with the straddling of the two. But in short, this is the story of Gellhorn and Hemingway and their love affair. Theirs was an adulterous affair, splitting up Hemingway's second (I think) marriage and affecting his three boys. While Hemingway and Gellhorn gallop around the world--mostly together, sometimes separately--covering wars or fighting in them, they fall in love. When Hemingway's writing career goes off like a rocket, Gellhorn deals with jealously and a sense of losing herself. And things don't end well. It's a depressing story, but very well-written. My rating: 3.5 stars.

I finished two books of poetry this month that I'd been wanting to read for awhile, Stanley Kunitz's The Collected Poems and Gwendolyn Brooks' Selected Poems. Though they are very different poets, both books kind of left me cold. I swear I've read many poems by Kunitz in the past, but the only one I remember is "Halley's Comet," which ended up being the only poem the whole collection I loved. Likewise, the only poems I could list from Brooks' repertoire are "The Bean Eaters" and "We Real Cool" which ended up being the only ones from Selected Poems I enjoyed. Odd that it should happen twice in a row. Overall, I didn't enjoy either collection very much. I found Kunitz's poems very difficult, full of references I didn't understand. Many of Brooks' poems were long, and I have FEELINGS about long poems. Generally, I skip them. So, I'm glad I read more of both poets' work, but I likely won't return to either one. My rating (for both): 2 stars.

My Kindle read:

This is one of my favorite books, and I'm glad to know it holds up as well on a second reading. It's hilarious as heck.

 

 

I'm also reading:

I'm enjoying both of these. And the Tracy K. Smith poems are some of the best I've read in quite awhile.

 

 

My audiobook:

For my next audiobook, I'm glad to listen to something that hopefully won't be quite so difficult as my last several audios. I could go for something lighter and simpler.