I had some high hopes and mixed feelings about The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue. On the surface it ticked all of my “summer reading” boxes: A book set the late 1990s where a sixteen-year-old girl and her teacher disappeared from a remote Catholic girls’ boarding-school housed in a cliffside old mansion in Ireland? … Continue reading
I really don’t know how I came across this book. It was on my reserves from library so at some point I must have suggested they purchase it. I vaguely remember reading an earlier book of hers and enjoying it well enough. Sometimes the lag between reading about a book and it actually coming out … Continue reading
I heard about Already Toast: Caregiving and Burnout in America by Kate Washington because she is a (former?) food writer and recipe developer and we must at least share some twitter friends. I was also interested because I ended up being the person in charge of my mother’s health care and then quickly, end of … Continue reading
With the push towards memoir, biographies almost seem quaint in 2021. I feel like I used to read lot more them years ago. As biographies go, this one had an impressive amount of citation and the level of work that went into must be staggering. That said, I felt like it was a little flat. … Continue reading
There needs to be a new subgenre of books that describe a book where something mysterious happens but that at the heart of the book is family-centered general fiction. I’ve read many books where a teenage girl disappears but the book is mostly about what is going on in the town vs. a true mystery or investigation. … Continue reading
Another mashup of memoir and some research, this time into female friendship, Text Me When You Get Home was a peek into a bit of a different world for me. I could not relate to the bulk of this book at all, the author was desperate for friends and acceptance in a way that I can’t … Continue reading
Poison starts out sort of slow and typical. The woman is a journalist who focuses on women’s rights type stories. She is now a professor in the Seattle area where she lives with her professional husband, her toddler and two children from her first, deceased husband. As the book progresses, it is clear her husband … Continue reading
I don’t read a lot of books written by men or about men because they generally don’t interest me. I already know too much about men’s stories. I picked The Good Father because I like the shows Fargo and Legion and he is the writer/creator of them and the subject sounded interesting. I tried … Continue reading
The Hopefuls is another book I got out from the library because it was available instantly for download for the Kindle. I remember hearing about her other book, Girls in White Dresses, when it came out but I honestly am not sure if I read it. I thought I had but then the description doesn’t … Continue reading
Another YA book! What has gotten into me? I had tried to get this on Netgalley but was refused (I have a 97% rating! What more do they want?) but saw it it was available immediately for the Kindle through the Maryland Library eLibrary Consortium so I downloaded it. I really prefer to read on my … Continue reading
Rachel Reads Books 