April 2016 books

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes a bit heavy-handed - I felt like it was always trying to characterize people in a single sentence rather than just letting us see how people's personalities played out. "Oh, of course that man from the village is helping the Germans, he always seemed a little slimy to me," etc. It also seemed like the point of the book was to allow the reader to imagine which sister s/he is, which I admire, but again: heavy-handed.

And this book has taught me that I can't handle reading about real-life horrible things that happened to children, even in the distant past, even distant past whose events I am really familiar with and have read a lot of books about, even since childhood. Something has changed and I can't do it anymore.

All that said, this was an interesting book that was hard to put down! Just not as complex as I might have liked.

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Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I said of Between Shades of Gray that it told a sad story in a dignified way, and the same is true with the author's Salt to the Sea (perfect title, by the way). It's not quite as understated as its predecessor - some of the horrors of war seemed to be more vividly drawn in this book - but this is still a quiet, haunting, but ultimately respectful book. I love that Sepetys writes books about important events and makes them meaningful. We need more books like this one.

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Savage Summit: The True Stories of the First Five Women Who Climbed K2, the World's Most Feared Mountain by Jennifer Jordan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm giving this five stars because I think it's a fantastic idea for a book and often executed at the five-star level. But not always - there were a few sloppy areas, and I wasn't always happy with the way the author talked about the conflicts between female climbers and the traditional Pakistani culture they experienced while preparing to climb K2. Sometimes it felt like the Pakistanis were being reduced to caricatures. Which might be fair - goodness knows these women themselves have been reduced to caricatures in almost every other book that mentions them - but still. In a book about women climbing K2, I think this issue could have been explored with a little more nuance.

BUT. Still an amazing book. What an interesting idea, and what a thorough treatment of it! I loved finding out more about the lives of these women, who were so much more than just "first lady to climb K2" or whatever. Their stories inspired me and also broke my heart more than once.

I originally picked this up to kill time before my hold on Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster came through, but I ended up completely enjoying it in its own right. Excellent read.

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Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't know, I liked Edenbrooke better. I appreciated that this book was essentially harmless fun, but I spent most of it wanting to punch Kate in the face or, in my kinder moods, be the get-a-grip friend who she so desperately needs. Still enjoyed the plot homages to Austen, though.

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Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Third reading April 2016. Even though I just finished this book five minutes ago, I could probably turn back to page one right now and read it all over again. Riveting.

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Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I want to say I love what this author did with the setting - turning Arabia into a Wild West - but I can't decide if I actually do love it. On the one hand, it made it all that easier for me, an American, to imagine. Sometimes stories set in the Arabian wilderness are made too exotic by half - all enigma and honor without the scrap and sand. This setting is full of scrap and sand, and that made it real.

On the other hand, though, it sometimes came off like literary shorthand. Arabia: it's just like 1860s California! In any case, it was an interesting decision for the author to make. It's a good thing she did, too, since at about the 70% mark, except for the setting, this book turned into everything else I've ever read, complete with a ragtag band of rebels and a girl who doesn't know her own power.

I'm giving it such a low rating because I almost didn't finish it. Then I decided, what the heck, my hold for The Winner's Kiss still hasn't come in. Might as well finish this one.

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The Winner's Kiss by Marie Rutkoski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book read like a foil to its predecessor, and I'm not complaining. Book 2 was a frustrating read and this book did a good job of teasing out what happened and putting it to rest. The passages dealing with sadness and loss and betrayal in this book - and they were considerable in number - were exquisite. Rutkoski did eventually get down to the business of wrapping up this series, though - it can't all be angst and healing (unfortunately, sigh).

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