Pick-a-Shelf discussion

March Shelf is feel-good

What did you read and is it as you expected?

I read
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Read ~ 3.14.23

I expected it to be good because the wait list was so long that I had to eventually buy a copy just because I got tired of waiting. I wasn't really expecting anything, but I really found this book a lot deeper and more thought provoking than its blurb suggests it is.

I'm nominating Alex Awards

The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory
⭐⭐⭐

A meet cute in an elevator, a fake dating trope, and a long distance romance. This was a sweet and simple romance novel. It was fine, but not really my fave genre.


Used for seriously serial and 15-15 prompt 6
I nominate past-and-present

I read the The Reading List
it was OK, disappointed, actually. The premise was great, but the actual plot treatment was very medicine

I've read 3 for this shelf in the last couple of weeks:

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree Read: 3/12/23 ✭✭✭✭
Heartstopper: Volume Two by Alice Oseman Read: 3/12/23✭✭✭✭
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna Read: 3/18/23 ✭✭✭✭✭

Enjoyed all of them!

Still hoping to get to Lessons in Chemistry and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by the end of the month. My library's waiting list for these are LONGggggg.... Moving up, though.

I used both Legends & Lattes and The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches for comfort reads (prompt #8) in Fifteen for Fifteen (2023).

I nominate Found Family

How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior
✭✭✭ or maybe 2.5

Elderly Veronica decides on a bit of a whim to track down her long lost grandson and then head off to an Antarctic research station. This was a bit cute, but also pretty silly and dull. A few too many plot holes and easy fixes solved by being a millionaire, which felt a bit lazy.

Read for seriously serial & 15 prompt 7
I nominate unreliable narrator

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson Three Stars

Love the mission of building schools, especially for girls. Love how Mortenson made the promise and didn't give up. The writing was hard to get through. And half way through the book, around the time he was shoveling in his yard, I began to think that what Mortenson really needs is some serious therapy for old traumas and to spend more time at home helping raise his own children. I'm glad I can finally cross this book off my list.

Also read for LOST, Moving Mountains, Trim that TBR, and 15 prompt 4.

I nominate old books

I read The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. This was not on my planned list but was a book planned for several other challenges.

It is the interesting story of a 100 year old man who escapes from the nursing home on the day of his century birthday just before the party being given for him.

The story is filled with his adventures during his lifetime (quite fantastical and involving many world leaders) as well as the current one of his escape. He meets quite a bunch of characters whose own stories are told as they intertwine with his. 4*.

I nominate Humor.

I read two books this month:
The Overdue Life of Amy Byler⭐⭐⭐⭐
City of Girls⭐⭐⭐⭐

The The Overdue Life of Amy Byler is a cute book about a exhausted, overworked, mom with two children. Her husband abandons her and moves out of the country. After several years he shows up and offers to keep the kids for the summer and she vacations in NYC. Amy lets her hair down and discovers a few things she has been missing. The book is an easy read and funny in parts.

City of Girls starts in 1940, with 19 year old Vivian Morris kicked out of college and sent to New York City to live with her flamboyant Aunt Peg. The book is told from the perspective of Vivian as old women looking back.

I used both books for LOST.
I nominate I nominate post-apocalyptic

I read The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

I listened to the audiobook of this one with my eleven-year-old. We both loved this story, loved these characters, and now want to read all the other books by this author. I don't know how this author managed to write so many books before this one and I never heard of any of them, then suddenly this book is everywhere.

Everyone loves magical children, but this take on especially outcast children--a wyvern, a large boy who changes into a small dog, the anti-christ (literally the son of the devil), a gnome, and a boy they don't even have a name for what he is--is so clever and so lovely. This motley crew will steal your heart.

The narrator for the audiobook is fantastic. Truly epic. He does voices for the characters that are just spot on. This is a wonderful listening experience and I highly recommend it in that format.

I used it for 15/15 and By the Month.
I nominate 1001.

I read The Spanish Love Deception. I gave it 3,5 stars

This book has been hyped and I have been a bit disappointed. I expected more after hearing about this book. It was still a good book. It's a sweet story.

I nominate: sleuths

I read Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
four stars

I came to this book with a sort of grudging acceptance that I would have to read a silly book because it was selected for my book club. I had read the reviews promising that it was more than it's marketing, but I didn't really believe them. And through the first part of the book, I was sure that I was right--just a feminist candy shell on a boring chick lit novel.

I was unfair to this novel. I ended up caring about these characters. By the end of the book I could forgive the insistently quirky quirks of the characters. I even liked the unrealistically smart dog. I did not like the precocious child, but that's a pet peeve of mine so many readers may find it endearing.

Overall, better than expected.

I used it for 15/15 and By the Month
I nominate 1001.

I read A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
5 stars
Review
This is two stories in one. One is that Lovey the AI from the first book is now in a body but her memories didn't travel over. So she has to adapt to the all the input and try to make sense of her new friends and surroundings while trying to fit in to society as well. The other is a story of survival of Jane and how she escapes her enslavement with the with the help of an AI program.

This is was so good I want to read the next book right away. I listened to it on audible and it was very well narrated as well.

I used it for By the Month and Seriously Serial
I nominate: Favorite Authors

I read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe and The House in the Cerulean Sea, and I thought they were both terrific.