The Royal We

The Royal We

by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Genre: Chick Lit

Synopsis:  American Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy tales.  Her twin sister, Lacey, has always been the romantic who fantasized about glamour and royalty, fame and fortune.  Yet it's Bex who seeks adventure at Oxford and finds herself living down the hall from Prince Nicholas, Great Britain's future king.  And when Bex can't resist falling for Nick, the person behind the prince, if propels her into a world she did not expect to inhabit, under a spotlight she is not prepared to face.

Dating Nick immerses Bex in ritzy society, dazzling ski trips, and dinners at Kensington Palace with hem and his charming, troublesome brother, Freddie.  But the relationship also comes with unimaginable baggage: hysterical tabloids, Nick's sparkling and far more suitable ex-girlfriends, and a royal family whose private life is much thornier and more tragic than anyone on the outside knows.  The pressures are almost too much to bear, as Bex struggles to reconcile the man she loves with the monarch he's fated to become.

Which is how she gets into trouble.

Now, on the eve of the wedding of the century, Bex is faced with whether everything she's sacrificed for love-her career, her home, her family, maybe even herself-will have been for nothing.

from the book jacket

Review:  This book reminds me of the movie The Prince and Me (a prince tries to be an ordinary guy and comes to the US to go to school and falls in love with a regular American girl) as well as the love story of William and Kate.  The story was unoriginal and unbelievable but it's a romance about royalty so what's not to like?  The story extends over the many years of Bex's and Nick's relationship from when they started dating to when the get engaged and move into the public's eye.  The books is quite long for a chick lit book (452 pages) and it felt unnecessarily long at times.  I wish the authors had cut part of the story out or moved parts along a little faster (I think there could have been a few less drinking scenes).  For those of us who have a secret fascination with princesses and royalty, this was a good guilty pleasure read.

Rating: 3.5 stars

The Crown

The Crown

by Kiera Cass

Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Dystopian Fiction

Synopsis:  When Eadlyn became the first princess of Illéa to hold her own Selection, she didn’t think she would fall in love with any of her thirty-five suitors. She spent the first few weeks of the competition counting down the days until she could send them all home. But as events at the palace force Eadlyn even further into the spotlight, she realizes that she might not be content remaining alone.

Eadlyn still isn’t sure she’ll find the fairytale ending her parents did twenty years ago. But sometimes the heart has a way of surprising you…and soon Eadlyn must make a choice that feels more impossible—and more important—than she ever imagined.

from GoodReads

Review:  Since I read the other 4 books in this series, I found that I had to read the conclusion to the series.  This book was cheesy.  Really, really cheesy.  I read the first couple as guilty pleasure reads but this one was just too much.  Either I overlooked the writing style in the other books or this one is much more poorly written.  I still didn't like Eadlyn.  She is flat and unrealistic (I know that princess stories are not mean to be realistic but she was just too unbelievable).  The men in the Selection were too good to be true.  Everyone seemed to fawn over Eadlyn and I just didn't understand why.  I would recommend not reading this series past The One.  Stop with America's and Maxom's ending.

Rating: 2.5 stars

What Alice Forgot

What Alice Forgot

by Liane Moriarty

Genre: Women's Fiction

Synopsis:  Alice Love is twenty -nine years old, and her life is soft, slow, and sweet.  She's unfailingly optimistic, and keen on sleeping in and eating anything with chocolate in it, and above all, she adores her husband, Nick.  They're expecting their first baby, who at the moment is the size of a raisin (they call her the Sultana) and to whom Nick speaks nightly through an empty toilet paper roll held right up against Alice's belly, Alice and Nick plan to spend the rest of their lives working on the ramshackle house they just bough, with the goal of completing the list of projects (they all it The Impossible Dream) sometime shortly before they die.

So imagine Alice's surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym (a gym! she HATES the gym!) and is whisked off to the hospital.  Her first concern is her baby, and she's desperate to see Nick, who she knows will be worried about her.  But Alice isn't pregnant.  And Nick isn't worried.

Turns out, Alice is, in fact, thirty-nine, has three children, and the honeymoon is well and truly over for her and Nick.  Her ramshackle home is instead picture-perfect from top to bottom, and it's clear that she inhabits a body that doesn't indulge in chocolate often (or ever).  The knock on the head has misplaced ten years of her life, and Alice isn't sure she likes life ten years later.  With a decade of memories gone for the time being, she has to piece together what has happened and who she has become.  In the end, it turns out that forgetting may be the most memorable thing that's ever happened to her.

from the book jacket

Review: When the book starts Alice has lost her memory of the last 10 years and thinks that she is twenty-nine and pregnant with her first child.  She learns that, in fact, ten years have gone by and things have drastically changed for her-she is divorcing Nick, has three children, and her perspective on so many things have changed.  Alice, who thinks she is ten years younger, has such a fresh outlook on the things that have not gone the way she expected them to and is willing to make amends with so many people.  She has a hard time believing how things changed (not the way she expected at all) and does not accept them as irreversible.

Alice is a quirky honest protagonist who makes you cheer for what could have been.  You can't help but be caught up in her enthusiasm to fix her wrongs.  You feel for Alice as she struggles to remember anything of the last ten years, most importantly her children.  You also get to know Alice's sister, Elizabeth and her struggles, through a series of letters that Elizabeth has written for her therapist.  There are also letters that Francie, Alice's honorary grandma, wrote.  In these letters, we learn about Alice from other people's point of views.  This book was a little slow at first but then picked up and made me keep reading so I could find out what happened to Alice.

Rating: 4 stars

Life Without Summer

Life Without Summer

by Lynne Griffin

Genre: Women's Fiction

Synopsis:  Tessa Gray's life changes forever when she loses her four-year-old daughter, Abby, in a hit-and-run accident outside her preschool.  Once a vivacious, joyful mother and wife, Tessa now spends her days holed up in Abby's room, sleeping in her bed, clutching Abby's Tootsie Rabbit stuffed animal-anything to keep her memories close.  As Tessa grapples with a terrible grief, made worse by the police's insistence that the case is unsolvable, she finds solace in Celia Reed, the therapist her husband pushed her to see, and in the journal she's keeping, where she compulsively counts the "days without Abby" and maps out her plan for catching the driver who tore her family apart.

As Celia struggles to keep Tessa from getting caught up in a bleak crusade for answers, she finds that their sessions open the door to emotions that she's spent years ignoring, forcing her to face the rising tensions in her life-her troubled teenage son, her alcoholic ex-husband, and her fragile new marriage.  Celia begins to realize that she must come to terms with the tragic mistakes of her past and the choices that have led her family to their own brink of destruction.

from the book jacket

Review:  The first third of this book was uninteresting.  The characters were one-dimensional, flat, and mainly unlikable, Celia's new husband being the worst of them and sadly, he does not improve at all in the book.  I have some words that I would like to use to describe him but they aren't nice words so I will refrain.  He causes so many problems in Celia's relationship with her ex-husband and son.   Honestly, I think he could have been left out of the book.

I kept reading because I really wanted to know how Celia and Tessa were connected, in a way beyond therapist-client, who ran Abby down, and what the title had to do with the book (that was not self explanatory).  Once Tessa started doing more than just grieving, the book picked up.  The story is supposedly journal entries written by Tessa and Celia but they don't seem to be journal entries-the sections lack emotions and are much more like prose than something that a character would have written.  The ending is predictable.

Rating:  2.5 stars

Finding Jake

Finding Jake

by Bryan Reardon

Genre: Fiction

Synopsis:  For sixteen years, Simon Connelly's successful wife has gone to her law office each day, while he has stayed home to raise their children.  Though Simon has loved taking care of Jake and Laney, it has cost him a part of himself, and has made him an anomaly in his pretty, suburban neighborhood-the only stay-at-home dad among a tight circle of mothers.

Shepherding them through childhood, the angst-ridden father has tried to do the best for the kids, even if he often second-guesses his choices.  For sunny outgoing Lacey, it's been easy.  But quiet Jake has always preferred the company of his books or his sister to playdates and organized sports.  Now that they are in high school, Simon should feel more relaxed, but he doesn't.  He's seen the statistics, read the headlines.

Then, on a warm November day, he receives a text: There has been a shooting at the high school.

Racing to the rendezvous point, Simon is forced to wait with scores of other anxious fathers and tearful mothers, overwhelmed by the disturbing questions running through his head.  How many victims were there?  Why did this happen?  One by one, parents are reunited with their children.  Their numbers dwindle, until Simon is alone.  Lacey has gone home with her mom.  Jake is the only child missing.

As his worst nightmare unfolds, Simon begins to obsess over the past, searching for answers, for hope, for the memory of the boy he raised, for the mistakes he must have made for the reasons everything came to this.  Where is Jake?  What happened in those final moments?  Is it possible he doesn't really know his son?  Or he knows him better than he thought?  Jake couldn't have done this-or could he?

As rumors being to ricochet, amplified by an invasive media, Simon must find answers.  But there is only one way to understand what has happened...he must find Jake.

from the book jacket

Review: This book was addicting, I read it in about a day and a half.  I could not put it down until I knew what happened with Jake although it was a hard book to read.  It is difficult to read about violence in schools and violence against our children and the end made me really cry.  Not just tear up but really emotionally cry (I'm just about in tears even writing this).  While I've cried at other books, this one really got to me probably because it seemed so realistic and something that could hit close to home.  With that said, this book is not for everyone as it might be too upsetting for some.

The chapters in this book alternate between the present time right after the school shooting and a look back at Jake's life from his father's eyes.  As the book goes on, the chapters about Jake's childhood start reflecting on Simon's insecurities about how he raised Jake and doubt starts to creep into Simon's mind as to Jake's innocence and we as readers start to doubt as well.  Before I got to the end, I started to think that there were too many stereotypes about the profiles of school shooters but once I finished the book, I realized why the author did what he did.  There was a preachy, PSA section of the book which I don't think added to the book but overall this was such a compelling, albeit emotional, read.

Rating: 4.5 stars

All of Us and Everything

All of Us and Everything

by Bridget Asher

Genre: Women's fiction

Synopsis:  The Rockwell women are nothing if not . . . Well, it’s complicated. When the sisters—Esme, Liv, and Ru—were young, their eccentric mother, Augusta, silenced all talk of their absent father with the wild story that he was an international spy, always away on top-secret missions. But the consequences of such an unconventional upbringing are neither small nor subtle: Esme is navigating a failing marriage while trying to keep her precocious fifteen-year-old daughter from live-tweeting every detail. Liv finds herself in between relationships and rehabs, and Ru has run away from enough people and problems to earn her frequent flier miles. So when a hurricane hits the family home on the Jersey Shore, the Rockwells reunite to assess the damage—only to discover that the storm has unearthed a long-buried box. In a candid moment, Augusta reveals a startling secret that will blow the sisters’ concept of family to smithereens—and send them on an adventure to reconnect with a lost past . . . and one another.

from GoodReads

Review:  I was intrigued by the synopsis but the characters were just too quirky and blase for me.  I just didn't care about any of the characters and I couldn't keep reading about them because they were annoying.

Rating: abandonded

Blackberry Winter

Blackberry Winter

by Sarah Jio

Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis:  Seattle 1933.  Vera Ray kisses her three-year-old son, Daniel, good night and reluctantly leaves for work.  She hates the night shift, but it's the only way she can earn enough to keep destitution at bay.  In the morning-even though it's the second of May-a heavy snow is falling.  Vera rushes to wake Daniel, but his bed is empty.  His teddy bear lies outside in the snow.

Seattle, present day.  On the second of May, Seattle Herald reporter Claire Aldridge awakens to another late-season snowstorm.  Assigned to cover this "blackberry winter" and its predecessor decades earlier, Claire learns of Daniel's unsolved abduction and vows to unearth the truth-only to discover that she and Vera are linked in unexpected ways.

from the back of the book

Review:  This was a quick easy read that kept me engaged in the story.  Both Vera's and Claire's stories were so intertwined that both kept me reading to find out what the connection to each other was.  I felt like some of the events were a little too coincidental and didn't seem realistic.  People seemed to fall into Claire's lap as she investigated the disappearance of Daniel and of course those people had critical information.  The author has an ease about her writing style and it isn't too meaty.  A good book for when you want something a little lighter.

Rating: 3.5 stars