Winter Street by Elin Hilderbrand

4 Stars

Winter Trilogy - Book 1

This was not the book I was expecting but I quite enjoyed it!

I was expecting a heart-warming romance, typical of the season, but what I got was a family story filled with love, humour, drama, whimsy and fun. 

The characters of the Quinn family are real and flawed and quite perfect in some ways.  All I can tell you is that I loved reading about them.  Dysfunctional doesn't quite cover it.  *LOL*  Oh, but they're a lot of fun, really.  I wanted to see the Christmas movie made of this novel.  It'd beat the Hallmark Christmas movies all to hell, I'm sure! 

So, not quite a romance and not really a family saga.  It's a heart-warming novel, as they say, about a family coming home for Christmas and I found it hit the perfect spot.  And as such, this will close my Christmas reading for the year.  Always good to close on a good note.  😊

Hunter and the Grape by Eoin C. Macken

4 Stars

I do love Eoin Macken's writer's voice.  He has lovely turns of phrase and a thoughtful way of seeing things that verges on the poetic at times.  Which shouldn't suprise me, he does write poetry.
I loved Eoin' s first book, Kingdom of Scars, and was looking forward to reading this, his next offering.  Now these books are not in genres that I often, if ever, read.  Gonna be honest, I read the first one because I love Eoin on TV and was curious.  I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that the man could write!  And write well!

So, Hunter and the Grape.  I didn't love it as much as I loved Kingdom of Scars, I will admit.  This time, the hero is a little older - he's eighteen and his life just totally sucks.  He leaves home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, meets up with a girl and the adventure begins.  This book would make a terrific movie.  I found it reminiscent of My Own Private Idaho, Heathers, Beautiful Thing and What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

Reading this book made me wish I was 16 again.  Not because I want to live my life over or anything, but because then I could enjoy this book totally and fall in love with Cat/Hunter, the main character and wish I was Grape.  They're so screwed up, but not.  They get into so much trouble and then get out of it.  They can make $87 stretch FOREVER.

It's a beautifully written book.  I love Eoin's words.  This is YA literature, in my humble opinion.  :)

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

2 STARS

Thank God that's over with!

I don't know what I was expecting when everyone was recommending Sarah Waters to me. More mystery-like, I think. The blurbs and all mention the world thriller, but I just don't see it.

First off, I have to say that Sarah Waters does write well. She is definitely a talent. But man... this book.... this effing book.

I disliked all the characters... all of them. Not a single one was sympathetic. Not even the dog. There was so much woe is me, woe is me throughout the book that it even permeated the very few moments when things were supposed to be joyful. Now, I get that in the 1920's, right after The Great War, things were not unicorns and rainbows for impoverished, lesbian spinsters, but my Lord, surely to God, a wee bit of happiness or even positivity or even a glimmer of HOPE shouldn't have been impossible.

I don't even know what the point was of the story other than to highlight the bleakness of existence for all these people, not just the main characters.

Well, I'm glad I made it through and I'm glad it's over. The only reason I didn't DNF this was that so many people and places whose opinions I respect were big on it.

Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

3.5 STARS

Coughlin Saga - Book 2

So, I bought this thinking it was a mystery, ala Kenzie & Gennaro, but instead it's a straight up novel, set in the late 20s and early 30s. It has the feel of a John Jakes historical family epic.

Live By Night follows the life of young gangster (he prefers to think of himself as an outlaw) Joe Coughlin and it sucked me in pretty much from the beginning. Lehane has an easy style of writing - he's a real storyteller - and I found myself reluctant to set the book aside and get along with what I really should be doing. *LOL*

This is apparently the second in the Coughlin family saga, the first concerning Joe's older brother, but quite honestly, I've not read it and I didn't feel the lack at all. I will get a hold of it at some point, because, as I said, I enjoy Lehane's storytelling. :)

So yes, this is the story of a gangster, a bad man, but he has his own code of honour that saves him from being a villain. I liked him. :) And I liked many of the supporting players.

I do love a good family saga, and I'll be reading the third book in the series as well. Even if it's not a mystery. :)

Kingdom of Scars by Eoin Macken

5 STARS

A terrific novel reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies and Stand By Me. I will freely admit that I bought this book because it was written by Eoin Macken, a favourite actor that I wanted to support. I was prepared for it to stink, but you know what? It DEFINITELY DOES NOT stink!

The novel is set in the suburbs of Dublin and it FEELS like I imagine the 'burbs of Dublin should be -and really, it's not so different from any suburb, anywhere. The prose is rich and evocative, the dialogue clear and unique in my mind's ear and it's just an all-round feast of a read. Kingdom of Scars is Macken's first novel and I hope not his last. He has a talent and flair for writing that needs to be shared, and read by all ages. Macken remembers what it's like to be a teenage boy and shares with us all the uncertainty, bravado, hope and despair of being 15 years old with an artful hand.

I don't read many YA books any more - they don't hold my interest, but this one had me hooked from beginning to end. These kids are real. Flawed, imperfect, growing, dumb as posts and brilliant in the most surprising ways. I knew boys like all these boys here, hell, my own son fits in there somewhere. :) And I knew girls like the girls that make up part of the story, I was one of them way back when.

Treat yourself. Read this book.

An extra bonus is the interview with the author at the end of the book. Eoin Macken has talent, folks!

Lucky Break by Esther Freud

3.5 STARS

I wish I had read this book when I was in my 20s; back in the days where I dreamed of what might have been had I been an actress in the theatre, one of my youthfull dreams. :) It was recommended to me by a very good friend as one of her most favourite books.

Lucky Break tells the tale of 3 actors and their journey from drama school at the fictional Drama Arts academy in London, through the next 10 years of their lives. Nell, Charlie and Dan start out as the plain girl, the cover girl and the handsome lad and over time we watch as they encounter hurdle after hurdle in their chosen career of acting, be it on the stage, on TV or in movies. All the typical situations abound, disillusionment and renewed hope are the rollercoaster ride all three characters embark upon. There really is nothing new in the stories of the three characters, but Esther Freud's writing is indeed lovely. As she delves inside Nell to find the eternal flame of her hope, tears back the curtain on Dan's constant inner battle of family vs career or uncovers a sympathetic side to the selfish Charlie, her prose is just the right side of what I would terms as either too affected or too precious. It's savoury prose... there we go! Savoury.

Did I fall in love with the characters? No, but I loved reading their stories and what their successes ultimately were. Lucky Break is not what I would term 'a rippingly good yarn', but it was a fine book. :)

Through It Came Bright Colors by Trebor Healey

4 STARS

This book was not a light, entertaining, escapist read.

That being said, it was a beautiful, lyrical (even in, and possibly especially in its darkest moments), at times eviscerating, at times glorious work.

"Love hurts, love heals - that's the crystalline message at the core of Trebor Healey's complex, accomplishing coming-of-age story about a cautiously queer suburban kid whose heart is unexpectedly squeezed hard by a young junkie's quicksilver mind and beautiful lean body. Healey's refreshingly original tale hums with the potency of poetry."

That's what Richard Labonte, reviewer at Book Marks and Q Syndicate, had to say about this book and he said it better than I ever could have.

It was dark, it was gritty, it was cruel and it was filled with love and humour and moments of deep affection. It was difficult to read, especially having lost both my parents to cancer (the hero's brother's disease is a main part of the story), but it was familiar and real and touched me in spots I'd thought long-since healed.

I read this passage, where Neill, the protagonist muses about the taking care of his invalid brother, while I was in the cafeteria at work... "In the end, I think his wounds made it easier to love him as they taught me something I didn't know about love. My mother knew it; mothers do. Love was a much more physical thing thank I'd ever understood it to be. It lived where his fingers touched mine; it's what made the water bead up on his shoulders and roll off; it's what made his skin warm, glowing and soft. I'd always thought love was some feeling in the mind, but this was the physicality of love: the love of the body, so much simpler; so much more useful. It felt real, substantial, like proof--like what I needed. Cancer gave me that."... and I had to pause, wipe actual tears from my eyes and then read it over and over, marvelling at the obvious simplicity of something we tend so often to complicate.

So yes, this was a hard book to read, but so beautifully written and thought-provoking; and in the end ultimately very rewarding. The story of Neill; his lover, Vince and Neill's brother, Peter, is so much more than a love story, yet that's exactly what it is.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

5 STARS

I read this book for the first time for Grade 7 English class and it's been my favorite ever since. I reread it at least every couple of years.