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Currently Reading

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

When I first heard that my book club would be reading this, I looked at the length of the book and thought “no way!” I didn’t want to read a book that was twenty-one hours long when we usually read around twelve hours per book. That and the fact that I didn’t really connect with the topic and thought I wouldn’t like the story…but I was wrong. A classic ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ situation. BookBrowse.com’s short summary says, “Coming of Age in the Shadow of Appalachia; Demon grows up orphaned and poor in the midst of a drug-centered area of rural Virginia. His relationships are detailed and his ingenuity highlighted as he overcomes the worst of situations to finally find love and happiness.” It is based off of the book, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Because of the way that the book is written, it feels like Demon is a real person and is telling his story and having the narrator read the book makes it sound like it’s a true story. The book covers some hard and depressing topics, but he keeps going and that’s what feels so rewarding as the reader (or listener). I have about four out of the twenty-one hours to go and I’m really enjoying it.

Recently Read

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

Here’s a short summary of my book review: I gave this book 3.75 stars out of 5. It took me awhile to get used to a tree as a narrator, but as the book went on I realized it was a clever way to tell the story from the viewpoint of something that was alive before the other narrator, Ada. The book is a semi-historical fiction book with magical realism elements. The chapters go back and forth between the character’s early lives in Cyprus and the father’s present day life with his daughter, Ada in England. Overall, I liked the book, but I felt like the present day chapters didn’t really go well with the flashback chapters. I felt a disconnect with Ada and her knowing about what happened to her mother. It is never told why Defne (Ada’s mother) died. I felt sorry for Ada. I think the history in this book didn’t really fit with Ada and her father’s story in present day, but I liked the historic and flashback chapters more than the present day chapters.

Reading Next

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

This book sounds fun. Someone in my book club introduced this one at the last meeting and we ended up picking it. Goodreads says this book “is an intelligent mystery about a group of senior citizens who find themselves in the center of a murder investigation. Every Thursday, Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron, residents of Coopers Chase Retirement Village, meet to review cold case murder files.” We thought it gave off Only Murders in the Building vibes so I’m excited to start this one. It’s very different than what we’ve been reading lately and I like mixing it up!