Tag: book review

A Book Review: Ordinary Grace

Lauren1 Comment

Happy Friday!  Last night Joey and I gave our white picket fence a fresh coat of paint, brewed beer, had pizza delivered and watched Big Brother.  The sun was out till 9 PM, there was so much extra daytime and summer is the best ever!

IMG_8131

In other news, this week I finished book club book #4, Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger.  It was one of those books that grows on you and by the end, you’re sad that it’s over, ya know?  The narrator is Frank Drum, who recounts growing up in a small Minnesota town during the summer of 1961.  Though he’s an adult at this point, he tells the story as he experienced it, as a 13-year old who’s still got a good sense of childhood naivety and innocence.

There are five deaths that summer, one of which being Frank’s (and younger brother Jake’s) older sister, Ariel.  That’s a lot of death for one small town and a lot for a kid to take in, so we get to see Frank coming to terms with the realities of life and how that plays into his belief system.  And as death is very much a part of real life and something we’ve all had to encounter, I think the plot had a relatable feel to it.

Kent Krueger did what I think is a somewhat difficult writing task and that’s creating an interesting (and believable) plot while still giving attention to his characters.  I find that most books lean towards one of the other, but this one had an attention grabbing plot and characters, whom by the end, you really felt like you knew.  I loved that!  Also, it had this Stand by Me type of feel, what with the whole young boys find a dead body thing.  As a fan of that movie, I’m A-OK with reading a book that reminds me of it 🙂

What are you reading this summer?

A Book Review: Whistling Past the Graveyard

Lauren1 Comment

Book Group was weird this week.  I’m still trying to get the hang of this “Go Somewhere By Myself And Try Not To Be Shy” thing but I feel like I have to give myself a Hannah-From-GIRLS style pep talk beforehand (come on, you know the one).  At this particular meeting, there were about 12 of us and maybe it was because I wasn’t that into the book and didn’t speak up much but I just felt uninteresting and like I wasn’t really fitting in with the group.  I don’t know where I get this need to be liked by others from but I should probably work on that.  Just keeping it real today.

Anyway, back to the book, Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall.

IMG_8090

I thought it was just okay.  The plot, characters and writing-style didn’t particularly excite me.  The narrator is a 9-year-old girl (Starla), who runs away from home, befriends a black woman (Eula) who has just found a white baby abandoned on the steps of a church and decided to keep him as her own and the three of them journey to Nashville to find Starla’s mother.

I could appreciate that the author decided to use a child narrator because it allowed her to delve into race relations in the 1960’s with a certain level of innocence and naivety, but I felt like she only brushed the surface of the intensity of things that happened during the Civil Rights Movement.  It was all a little too simple, especially to have taken place in the deep south.

That being said, some of the characters were very endearing and you couldn’t help but like them.  The relationship between Starla and Eula was particularly sweet.  Some of my favorite parts of the book were centered around them baking and bonding together and really transcending any race barriers.  Go figure that I’d like the parts that included pie 🙂  Overall, it just reminded me too much of The Help and how much more I liked that book over this one.

What are you reading right now?