All Things In Common - Greece

I haven't done one of these posts in a long while and I'm not sure why. Certainly I have been reading books that had things in common with other books I'd read recently. But this time, the books were close enough together that it really stood out for me. In fact, almost too close - it almost had me confused about which book I was reading. 

Ladykiller, by Katherine Wood, followed on the heels of my recent read of Ella Berman's Before We Were Innocent and now Rachel Hawkins' The Villa. So many places where these books had similarities! 

• Ladykiller and Before We Were Innocent: largely set in Greece, featuring a Greek heiress and her family's home. 

• All three books have to do with the relationship between friends and in all three of the books the storyline has to do with friends who have not seen each other in some time. 

• In Ladykiller and The Villa, we are getting a good part of the story from documents written by one of the characters. And in both, those points of view are coming from highly unreliable narrators. 

• In both The Villa and Before We Were Innocent, someone dies, although in very different ways. In Ladykiller, someone might or might not have been killed - we're left pretty confident of it but not entirely sure. 

• All three books kept me guessing until the end, wondering about the relationships and what really happened, which, as it happened, was just the kind of book I've been needing lately. 

 

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins

Read by Julia Whelan, Kimberly M. Wetherell, Shiromi Arserio

7 hours, 57 minutes

Published January 2023 by St. Martin's Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable. But by their 30s, their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend.

Villa Aestas in Orvieto is a high-end holiday home now, but in 1974, it was known as Villa Rosato, and rented for the summer by a notorious rock star, Noel Gordon. In an attempt to reignite his creative spark, Noel invites up-and-coming musician, Pierce Sheldon to join him, as well as Pierce's girlfriend, Mari, and her stepsister, Lara. But he also sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Mari writing one of the greatest horror novels of all time, Lara composing a platinum album--and ends in Pierce's brutal murder.

As Emily digs into the villa's complicated history, she begins to think there might be more to the story of that fateful summer in 1974. That perhaps Pierce's murder wasn't just a tale of sex, drugs, and rock & roll gone wrong, but that something more sinister might have occurred--and that there might be clues hidden in the now-iconic works that Mari and Lara left behind.

Yet the closer that Emily gets to the truth, the more tension she feels developing between her and Chess. As secrets from the past come to light, equally dangerous betrayals from the present also emerge--and it begins to look like the villa will claim another victim before the summer ends.

My Thoughts: 

Chess is a highly successful self-help guru. Emily is a less successful cozy mystery series writer going through a bitter divorce and far behind the deadline to submit the latest book in the series. When Chess suggests Emily join her in Italy and they can both spend time writing, Emily agrees. And that's about the last time the two seem to really enjoy each other. 

After they arrive, Emily is just not inspired to return to her Petal Blossom character (and who can blame her - what a ridiculous name - even for a cozy mystery series). Instead, she begins reading Lilith Rising, the only published novel by Mari Godwick which became one of the greatest horror novels of all time, a novel Godwick wrote the summer she spent at Villa Rosato and reading the lyrics of Mari's sister Lara's uber famous novel, Aestas. Soon she's obsessed with uncovered the secrets in those works and in the villa itself. And that's when things become very tense between Chess and Emily. 

Between Chess' and Emily's chapters, the story of what happened in 1974 is revealed through Mari Godwick's eyes. That storyline overshadows the contemporary one, in no small part because the reader is playing a game of "I see what you did there" with Hawkins. Mari Godwick = Mary Godwin Shelley; Pierce Sheldon = Percy Shelley; Noel Gordon = George Gordon, Lord Byron; Mari's step sister Lara = Mary's step sister, Clair. Lilith Rising, created on a stormy night = Frankenstein (although with a twist); Aestas = Tapestry (ok that one doesn't link back to the Romantics, but still). 

What's good here? 

• Playing "I see what you did there," although I'd far preferred that Hawkins let the reader figure out the connections without stating them outright. 
• The twists that I was expecting from Hawkins that which she delivered. 
• The readers are great (but I expected that as soon as I saw Julia Whelan was one of the readers). 

Where it fell short for me?

• The relationship between Chess and Emily, even before the reveal that I can't tell you about. 
• That reveal about Chess and Emily's reaction to it. Not believable to me at all.   
• Although Hawkins' use of multiple narrators in The Heiress was one of my favorite things about that novel, in this book the dual storylines (interspersed with passages from Lilith Rising) didn't work as well for me because it felt uneven. 

Reviews are mixed on this one - some readers and reviewers really love it, others felt it could have been better. I fall in that latter category, but that doesn't mean it wasn't worth reading - there was plenty to enjoy. 

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand

Read by Erin Bennett

12 hours, 45 minutes

Published June 2023 by Little, Brown and Company

. 

Publisher’s Summary: 

Hollis Shaw’s life seems picture-perfect. She’s the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis’s perfect life—her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline—grow deeper.

So when Hollis hears about something called a “Five-Star Weekend”—one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her life: her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife—she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend on Nantucket. But the weekend doesn’t turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie.

The husband of Hollis’s childhood friend Tatum arranges for Hollis’s first love, Jack Finigan, to spend time with them, stirring up old feelings. Meanwhile, Tatum is forced to play nice with abrasive and elitist Dru-Ann, Hollis’s best friend from UNC Chapel Hill. Dru-Ann’s career as a prominent Chicago sports agent is on the line after her comments about a client’s mental health issues are misconstrued online. Brooke, Hollis’s friend from their thirties, has just discovered that her husband is having an inappropriate relationship with a woman at work. Again! And then there’s Gigi, a stranger to everyone (including Hollis) who reached out to Hollis through her blog. Gigi embodies an unusual grace and, as it hap- pens, has many secrets.

My Thoughts: 

Is it possible this really is my first Elin Hilderbrand book? I think it may be. I know she has legions of fans and has written 28 (or 30, depending on what site you look at) books and I’m pretty sure I own at least one on my Nook* (undoubtedly bought based on a friend’s recommendation). 

I’m sure you’ve noticed, if you’ve been reading this blog for very many years, I’m not a big beach reads reader. Consequently, I can’t speak to how this one stands up to any of Hilderbrand’s other books or, for that matter, any other beach read. These are, as always, just my opinions. 

• Hilderbrand seems to want to check off all of the boxes. Black character? Check. Asian character? Check. Gay people? Check. One Goodreads reviewer really didn’t like this book at all, in part because of this and the “wokeness” of the book. To me, it just felt like Hilderbrand was trying to appeal to everyone, which is really hard to do well. 
• Hollis knows all of these women. She knows how many of them feel about some of the others. She does NOT know one of them in real life at all…honestly it didn’t feel like she knew her all that well as an online friend, either. And still she fully expected that they would all just have a great time together over the weekend. Spoiler alert: they don’t. 
• I could 100% have done without the old love interest appearing in the book and the book would have been better without him. And I would have liked Hollis better without him – it all felt so much like the behavior of high school kids. 
• There’s a lot of brand name dropping. 
• There’s a lot of talk about food. Which I enjoyed but it made me hungry all of the time. I can’t help but wonder if there are some delicious recipes thrown into the end of the print copy of this book. 
• I wasn’t a fan of most of the women, at least until later in the book when things began to resolve (no give away there – you all know that will happen because of the kind of book this is). So their behavior really annoyed me when they were letting petty things and past grievances impact a weekend that was supposed to be about helping their friend. 
• I did appreciate Hilderbrand’s take on social media: things aren’t always what they seem, we are often too quick to think of the people we “meet” there as people we truly know, and things can get blown way out of proportion and spread all too quickly (often causing real harm). 
• Erin Bennett does a fine job of reading the book and capturing the voices of so many people. 
• And the food – did I mention the food? Good golly, I want to get into the kitchen and pull out my cookbooks! 

Kirkus Reviews says “Hilderbrand always gets it right.” On the other hand, Goodreads reviewers by and large seem disappointed with this one. Which makes me feel better and more willing to try another Hilderbrand. 

*Actually I own two – 2009’s The Castaways and 2012’s Summerland

Life: It Goes On - September 1

Happy Sunday! It's cliche and perhaps a little Boomer-y to ask, but I'll ask it nonetheless - how is it September already?! 

On social media, the "influencers" have long ago begun decorating for fall; but, for me, fall doesn't begin until at least today. Even then, I'm not yet particularly happy about it - just means that my plants are going to be dying, it will be darker sooner in the evenings, and I'm going to have to start wearing a jacket. 

One day, before long, I'll wake up and think "I really want to throw on one of my new sweaters" or "what a beautiful evening to have a fire in the fire pit." Then I'll know that I'm ready for autumn. And I'll try to live in the moment, not worrying about the imminent arrival of winter; and focus on the good parts of autumn, and not the fact that my gardens will soon be nothing more than dirt. Maybe this year I'll bring back Fall Feasting - a couple of months of reading food-centric books.

Last Week I: 

Listened To:  Finished Elin Hilderbrand's The Five-Star Weekend (which I thought was her latest and last but isn't) and started Hernan Diaz's Trust. 

Watched: Three more episodes of Emily In Paris - I know I said I was pissed at it and might not watch any more, but I did and now I'm even more annoyed. I may or may not watch the final episode of the season. BUT the exciting news is that college volleyball and football are back and hopes are high! 

Read: Kate Atkinson's Death At The Sign Of The Rook. Today I'm starting Rainbow Rowell's latest, Slow Dance. 

Made: If you can use tomatoes in it, we've made it this week: wedge salads, BLT sandwiches, pasta with tomato and basil, pico de gallo.

Enjoyed: We went with friends Friday evening to see a one-man play, Democracy Su*ks - *unless we can fix it. Tiny theater (might seat 60) - I can't imagine acting that close to your audience and having no one else to lean on. Funny show, with some riffs on Broadway songs, some raunchiness, and a lot of heart. Dinner and drinks afterward, where we solved all of the world's problems. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Week I’m:  

Planning: I meant to get back to Mini-him's dresser yesterday; but I'm so fired up to declutter that I spent most of the yesterday doing that and I'm fired up to keep at it. Hoping to get another load of stuff out of the house yet this weekend. THEN maybe I'll get back to that dresser. 

Thinking About: I have a big crowd coming for Thanksgiving and I'm already thinking about what all will need to be done before then. I'm trying to think of ways to make life less stressful. I'm pondering hiring a cleaning service for the first time. Do you use a cleaning service? If so, how do you like it?

Feeling: Torn. I have a set of dishes ready to donate. I only use it once a year and have plenty of other options. But it was my mom's. It's the sentimental things that I have a hard time letting go of. I'd ask the Big Guy if I should keep them, but I know he'll say yes (he says that about everything). Clearly what I'm looking for is someone to tell me it's ok to let them go. 

Looking forward to: Not having to go to work tomorrow. And maybe starting to take more time off work. 

Question of the week: Are you a minimalist, a maximalist or somewhere in-between? 

***This week's review theme will be "just for fun" (also, how did I not get any reviews posted last week?).***

Life: It Goes On - August 25

Happy Sunday! School may be back in session but we're getting a 100 degree reminder today that it's still summer. I'll probably spend most of the day inside enjoying the air conditioning...but I'd still rather it be summer than winter!

Last Week I: 

Listened To: We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi and I started Elon Hilderbrand's The Five-Star Weekend. Up next is Trust by Hernan Diaz. 

Watched: The Democratic National Convention. 

Read: Lisa Wingate's Shelterwood and Shea McGee's The Art of Home. 

Made: On repeat from past weeks: pasta with olive oil, garden tomatoes & fresh basil; BLTs. This week we used up the rest of the bacon and more tomatoes with wedge salads. 

Enjoyed: I got a promotion at work the beginning of the month so The Big Guy and I finally celebrated last night. Food was so good (always is) and the service was marvelous; but we both ate too much and came home at 9:30 and crashed in front of the television. We're getting so old! 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Week I’m:  

Planning: When Mini-him moved, he discovered that he had a sturdy shelving unit that he didn't have room for so I told him I would store it for him as long as I got to use it while it's in my house. Yesterday I put it to use which had me working again in the basement. Took a load of stuff I'd culled last week to donate yesterday and almost have another load ready from what I got through yesterday. I'm inspired to keep working down there this week while it's too hot to spend too long outside. 

Thinking About: When we were at Miss C's parents' home last weekend, I was really envious of their basement (another thing that has me inspired to do the hard work downstairs). This week I've been pondering how to make our basement work in similar ways and what we might do long term. 

Feeling: Somehow I've managed to injure my back on the left side (it's the right side that has plagued me off and on the past couple of years) so I'm frustrated by the limitations that's put on me. 

Looking forward to: A three-day weekend next weekend. 

Question of the week: Do you have a basement? If so, what do you use it for? Family room? Craft room? Man cave? Mostly storage? 

***This week's review theme will be nonfiction.***

Decluttering At The Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle With Stuff by Dana K. White

Decluttering At The Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle With Stuff by Dana K. White

240 pages

Published February 2018 by Nelson, Thomas Inc. 

Publisher's Summary:

While the world seems to be in love with the idea of tiny houses and minimalism, many of us simply can't purge it all and start from nothing. Yet a home with too much stuff is difficult to maintain, so where do we begin? Add in paralyzing emotional attachments and constant life challenges, and it can feel almost impossible to make real decluttering progress.

In Decluttering at the Speed of Life, decluttering expert and author Dana White identifies the mindsets and emotional challenges that make it difficult to declutter. In her signature humorous approach, she provides workable solutions to break through these struggles and get clutter out—for good!

Not only does Dana provide strategies, but she dives deep into how to implement them, no matter the reader's clutter level or emotional resistance to decluttering. She helps identify procrasticlutter—the stuff that will get done eventually so it doesn't seem urgent—as well as how to make progress when there's no time to declutter.

In Decluttering at the Speed of Life, Dana’s chapters cover:

• Why You Need This Book (You Know Why)
• Your Unique Home
• Decluttering in the Midst of Real Life
• Change Your Mind, Change Your Home
• Breaking Through Your Decluttering Delusions
• Working It Out Room by Room
• Helping Others Declutter

As long as we're living and breathing, new clutter will appear. The good news is that by following Dana’s advice, decluttering will get easier, become more natural, and require significantly fewer hours, less emotional bandwidth, and little to no sweat to keep going.

My Thoughts: 

You may well be wondering why someone who has read so many books about decluttering, done 40 Bags In 40 Days so many times, and who follows multiple organizing/simplifying accounts on social media would need to read yet another book about decluttering. Fair enough. Even I wondered why I was checking out another book about decluttering. But Myquillen Smith, the Cozy Minimalist, recommended it and she recommended this one as one of her favorites. So here we are. 

And guess what? 

I learned a different way to view and attack decluttering. Some of what White says goes entirely against what I've learned before but I can certainly see the logic of it, especially for those who are new to decluttering. 

White speaks from experience; while she may not have met the dictionary definition of "hoarder," she started married life in a house that already had too much in it when two complete households merged with no reduction in "stuff." White is a person that can't pass up a good bargain and held on to things because they "might" be useful in the future. Then kids came along, items were inherited, hobbies came and went. She knows how hard it is to start the process and how much it takes to change a mindset. 

Thus was born a desire to reset her life and along the way she has developed a system that worked for her and has now worked for thousands of others. White hosts a podcast, writes a blog, and is the author of three books. She's speaks from her own experience and those of people who have reached out to her. 

Here's what differed in her approach from other approaches I've learned about: 

• She advocates using the Visibility Rule: start with the most visible spaces first. White advises this will ensure the results of efforts will be visible which will inspire readers to keep going and increase decluttering energy. 
• She does not advocate emptying a space, because you might lose steam part way through the process and end up with a bigger mess than you started with or become so overwhelmed that you just stop. 
• She does not, in this book at least, correlate decluttering with organizing. White wants it to be clear that you cannot even think about organizing until after you have completely decluttered and maybe not even then. Perhaps just keeping things decluttered will be enough, using her steps, to keep things relatively organized. 

In every space White recommends readers follow five steps: 

• Step 1: Trash - this one is self-explanatory and the easiest of the steps. Start with the most visible mess and do as much as you can in the time you have. 
• Step 2: Do The Easy Stuff - "Easy stuff is the stuff that has an established home somewhere else." What's different for me in this step is that White advocates taking each thing you find that's out of place to the correct place immediately; she suggests that putting in a box to handle later causes a potential new problem. 
• Step 3: Duh Clutter - these are things that you immediately can see need to be donated. 
• Step 4: Ask the Two Decluttering Questions - 
• #1 - If I needed this item, where would I look for it first? Take it there immediately. 
• #2 - If I needed this item, would it ever occur to me that I already had one? This might be something you use so rarely that you forget you own it and buy another without thinking to look for it. 
• Step 5: Make It Fit - like other decluttering experts, White urges readers to think of their spaces as containers. Your home is a container; each room, each closet, each cupboard, each drawer is a container. First consolidate the things you've been left with after the first four steps and then purge down to the limits of the container. 

White takes readers through each of these steps, room by room, including hobby rooms and storage spaces. She talks about having to declutter dreams (the hobby you'd been so excited to start, the baby clothes when it becomes clear there will be no more children). There is a section on helping others, including friends, children, and spouses (sadly, there was no magic trick to get your spouse on board) and another section on decluttering when you have to do it all (moving, elderly parents). Finally, she talks about how decluttering has to become a lifestyle, that it is something that you will always need to keep doing. Which is just what I needed to hear - I so often feel that I am failing when I am once again decluttering areas that I have decluttered again and again. Some of the advice here is old news to me and some of the steps won't be necessary for me in most spaces. But I'm definitely going to try using this system in some areas that have confounded me over the years. Wish me luck! 

The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

Read by Mark Bramhall

11 hours

Published October 2013 by Sourcebooks

Publisher's Summary: 

In 1942 Paris, architect Lucien Bernard accepts a commission that will bring him a great deal of money – and maybe get him killed. All he has to do is design a secret hiding place for a Jewish man, a space so invisible that even the most determined German officer won't find it while World War II rages on. He sorely needs the money, and outwitting the Nazis who have occupied his beloved city is a challenge he can't resist.

Soon Lucien is hiding more souls and saving lives. But when one of his hideouts fails horribly, and the problem of where to conceal a Jew becomes much more personal, and he can no longer ignore what's at stake.

My Thoughts: 

This book has been on my radar since shortly after it was published, but, as books do, it got pushed down the list until I couldn't remember what it was about. Not only that, but I was paying so little attention that, for some reason, I didn't really notice that picture on the cover, it was as if it were a blur to me. Now I can't imagine why I didn't see what it is and understand what the book was going to be about. As you know, though, I'm kind of a fan of going into a book unaware of what's coming. 

• Charles Belfoure is himself an architect which becomes clear because of the detail involved in explaining both the buildings Lucien designs for the Nazis and the hiding places he designs for the Jews. 
• Lucien is a man of questionable morals. He makes little effort to save his marriage, chases after his mistress like a school boy, justifies designing the buildings for the Nazis by convincing himself that the buildings will be used by the French after the war, and only creates the hiding places because it gets him the bigger projects and pays exceedingly well. Slowly, his eyes begin to open, his heart begins to open, and he risks himself for more than just prestige and money. 
• There are some interesting characters in the book: Manet, the industrialist who draws Lucien into both working with the Nazis and hiding the Jews; Herzog, the Wehrmacht officer in charge of the buildings Lucien is designing, who Lucien develops a bond with; and Pierre, a French Jewish boy who comes to live with Lucien after his entire family is killed. 
• I wish Belfoure would have spent more time developing these characters and less time writing about sexual exploits and torture for a particularly horrible Nazi soldier. You can imagine how unprepared I was for those, having had no idea what I was getting into when I picked up the book - I had to fast forward over them, they were so gruesome. 
• I found the ending very satisfying. That last hour of the book held some surprises, some people got what they deserved, some people turned out to be more than I expected. 

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Read by Jennette McCurdy

6 hours, 26 minutes

Published August 2022 by Simon & Schuster

Publisher's Summary: Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother's dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn't tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I'm Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail-just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I'm Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.

My Thoughts: 

• I was aware of this book when it first came out, just a year and a half after my own mom died. I couldn't have picked it up then; I couldn't have imagined being glad your mom died, even though I was certainly aware that there are a lot of terrible moms out there. 
• I listened to this one. You all know that I'll often push the speed up to 125% when I'm trying to finish a book before my loan expires OR if I feel like the reading is just too slow. Sometimes it sounds much more normal, sometimes it sounds like someone is racing through the book but I generally grow used to it. In this book, McCurdy is reading at a pace that kept me checking to see whether or not I'd upped the speed to 125%. It's fast, her voice is high pitched. I actually considered slowing the speed. 
• I got to the last five minutes of the book and was confused about when McCurdy reached the point when she felt like she was glad her mom had died. I mean, it's clear that she does and that the point of the book is to show the reasons why the book has its title. But when we got to that point, I think it was even more impactful because she waited to long to get there. 
• Wow. McCurdy's mom was a real piece of work. I mean, I've heard of moms causing eating disorders in their children and forcing them into careers because that's what the mom wants. But I have never heard of a mom insisting on showering her children well into their teens. Or moving in with them after they move out.
• I didn't know who McCurdy was before this book. My daughter must have missed the iCarly years and certainly missed the Sam and Cat years. But of course I was familiar with Nickelodeon. What an eyeopener this book is into the workings of that channel. She doesn't name names, to her credit; but does reveal that the creator of her shows was eventually made to sit in a different room when the shows were being filmed. 
• It's a tough read (or listen, as the case may be) even though McCurdy uses humor throughout. "Seeing" someone being abused, developing an eating disorder, falling into toxic relationships, and becoming an addict is hard. Especially having raised a daughter who suffered from an eating disorder, was an addict, and has been involved in a number of toxic relationships. But much as my daughter survived and now thrives, McCurdy is an inspiration and an example of how therapy can save lives. 
• In the end, as hard as it is to read, I hope McCurdy's candor will help others. 

Life: It Goes On - August 18

Happy Sunday! I hope you all had a lovely weekend! We certainly did. Got up early yesterday and drove, with Mini-him and Miss C, north to visit her parents. They have such a beautiful home in a wooded area overlooking Lewis and Clark Lake. We attended River Boat Days, visited a good local brewery, took a sunset-into-night boat ride, and went out for breakfast on the lake this morning. We very much like Miss C's parents and talked and laughed a lot and made plans for another visit. Our boys have both hit the jackpot with in-laws (or, as this case may be, future in-laws). 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished The Villa by Rachel Hawkins then took a break from books and listened to an episode of Kelly Corrigan's podcast, Kelly Corrigan Wonders, and a lot of music. 

Watched: The closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics which I thought was kind of a bore, some preseason NFL football, and the first two episodes of season 4 of Emily In Paris (even though I wasn't happy about what happened in episode 1). 

Read: The Art of Home by Shea McGee and Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate. 

Made: Lots of caprese (salad, platter) and a couple of different pasta dishes because it's summer and everything has to have tomatoes involved in some way. 

Enjoyed: More than once this weekend, I looked over and saw this two holding hands. Again and again, I heard them laughing together. My boy is so relaxed and himself around Miss C. It makes this mama's heart so happy to see her kid this happy. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Week I’m:  

Planning: What I didn't enjoy last week was getting water in my basement after we got 7" of rain in 24 hours. I spent a chunk of Wednesday evening and a good part of Thursday dealing with the aftermath of that. Being in the basement that much had me really thinking about what should stay and what needs to go. I have a vehicle load ready to go and this week I'm going to work on getting a second load of stuff out of there. After being in Miss C's one-year-old home this weekend and seeing their basement, I have visions of what ours could be and I'm inspired to make that happen. 

Thinking About: Doing some painting. I just ordered four paint samples. We'll see how long it takes me to get around to using them! 

Feeling: I'm so tired. We did spend a lot of time sitting and relaxing this weekend, but being "on" for 36 hours wears me out, even when I do like the people and I am enjoying myself. 

Looking forward to: Book club Tuesday to discuss The Measure. 

Question of the week: Are you in camp "let's don't rush summer" or camp "schools in so it must be fall now?"

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

512 pages

Published September 2024 by Crown Publishing

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review 

Publisher's Summary: [SKIP THIS IF YOU WANT TO BE SURPRISED BY THIS BOOK]

If you knew your future, would you try to fight fate?

Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed.
 
Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future—age 103!—and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away at all.
 
How do they know this? There were ostensibly more interesting people on the flight (the bride and groom, the jittery, possibly famous woman, the giant Hemsworth-esque guy who looks like an off-duty superhero, the frazzled, gorgeous flight attendant) but none would become as famous as “The Death Lady.”
 
Not a single passenger or crew member will later recall noticing her board the plane. She wasn’t exceptionally old or young, rude or polite. She wasn’t drunk or nervous or pregnant. Her appearance and demeanor were unremarkable. But what she did on that flight was truly remarkable.
 
A few months later, one passenger dies exactly as she predicted. Then two more passengers die, again, as she said they would. Soon no one is thinking this is simply an entertaining story at a cocktail party.
 
If you were told you only had a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny?

My Thoughts: 

Oh gosh, I just told you not to read the synopsis and now I have to give you my thoughts without giving away anything! Ok, let's give it a shot: 

• First up, it's Liane Moriarty. That's all it took for me to know I wanted to read this book and I suspect many of you will be feeling the same. Even when I didn't feel like her writing was up to her best (Nine Perfect Strangers), she always gives readers interesting characters and plenty to think about. Here One Moment succeeds on both counts. 
• I was twenty pages into this one and already telling a friend NOT to read the synopsis because it's key in those first pages to go in without any preconceived notions, to be left wondering who this woman is and why she is, in fact, remarkable.

"Later, not a single person will recall seeing the lady board the flight at Hobart Airport.

Nothing about her appearance or demeanor raises a red flag or even an eyebrow.

She is not drunk or belligerent or famous.

She is not injured, like the bespectacled hipster with his arm scaffolded in white guaze so that one hand is permanently pressed to his heart, as if he's professing his love or honesty.

She is not frazzled, like the sweaty young mother trying to keep her grip on a slippery baby, a furious toddler, and far too much carry-on.

She is not frail, like the stopped elderly couple wearing multiple heavy layers as if they're off to join Captain Scott's Antarctica expedition."

• When we figure out why the woman is remarkable, we'll spend the rest of the book thinking we know what's going to happen, waiting for it to happen, and wondering how Moriarty will frame it so that it's not anticlimactic. Trust me when I tell you that she will. 
• I absolutely loved how Moriarty moves from the plane to focus on just a few characters, whose stories we'll alternate between...including that woman. In fact, she will be the person we'll get to know the best, the one we'll grow to care the most about. 

If you're a fan of Moriarty's, you wont' be disappointed by this one. If you've never read Moriarty before, you'll become a fan of the way she can help readers relate to and care about her characters. Is it her best? In my opinion, no; that honor still goes to Big Little Lies for me. But this one is right up there, if for no other reason than the way she made me care about one particular character.