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Adult Fiction
Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke
Um… So….This Book….Yeah, I think it’s time to borrow this meme from my Grasshopper Jungle review:
I got this audiobook from my library because I got it confused with some other book and thought it was about Victorian-era spies. But, since the audio was only 5 hours I figured I could knock it out in a week.
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Room by Emma Donahuge
Since Brie Larson took home an Academy Award for the film adaptation of this book, I finally decided to give it a read on audio. Room is told from the point of view of 5-year-old Jack, a boy who has lived his entire life in captivity with his mom in a shed.
I did this on audio and at first I was like nope, nope, nope when I heard narrator Michal Friedman’s 5-year-old boy voice. But once you settle into the story– it works. I think the little boy voice is close to her speaking voice because she has also done some chicklit with a similar tone. She did a great job and her voice is so unique. I was sad to see she died a year after this came out
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Audiobook Review: Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke
You’d think after reading seven In Death books about the surly and biting New York City detective Eve Dallas that reading about Hannah Swenson, a sleuthy cookie shop owner in a small Midwest town, would be a cake–er–cookie walk
And it is.
But the more I thought about it the more I realized that Hannah Swenson is pretty scary. Cause when the local milkman is found shot in an alley Hannah (because her brother-in-law is investigating) gets swept up in the case as she finds clues, makes connections and solves the murder !
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Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters
With all the discussion surrounding #ownvoices and representation in publishing I know some readers will be turned off this book because Ben Winters is White and judging by his Twitter feed is like all of this writer’s woke ex-boyfriends. That said, I saw Attica Locke praising this book and I thought I’d give it a try.
Spike Lee has this mockumentary C. S. A , about an alternate future where slavery never ended. Well, Underground Airlines is in that kind of world. It’s the 2010’s and there are still 4 Southern states where enslaving Black people is legal. We meet Victor, a runaway slave living in the North who has been conscripted by the US Marshall Service to locate and return runaway slaves to their owners. His latest mission takes him to Indianapolis, but he soon discovers this case isn’t all it seems.
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Me Before You by JoJo Moyes
After losing the waitress job she loves, Louisa Clark takes the unlikely job as a companion for Will Traynor. Will is a handsome former corporate tycoon playboy who is now a quadriplegic, living at home with his posh family. Louisa’s job as a companion soon becomes a mission for the impossible when she learns the true reason she was hired.
I knew nothing about this book or Jojo Moyes going in, so I got culture shock by how English this book was. Like real deal, average day-to-day English. I mean how crazy is it that you can live right around the corner from an ancient castle ? What is Tesco ? Lots of Googling ensued.
Anyway, the story follows Louisa and Will on a series of small adventures as they try to grow out of the boxes they’ve put themselves in. During the course of their outings the book did open my eyes to how our world is built with able-bodied people in mind. It’s the little things you don’t think about unless you have to; like is there grass or are the aisles big enough ?
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