Greenwich Park

Thoughts by Katherine Faulkner,  Gallery Books 2022, 378 pages

Challenge: for Book Club and #ReadICT: Color category (perhaps also Villain category?)

Genre/Theme: Mystery/Thriller

Type/Source: eBook / Libby

What It’s About: Synopsis from the top result of googling:

GREENWICH PARK centers around two women, Helen and Rachel, who find their lives entangled when they meet at a prenatal class. Helen, our protagonist, is an instantly-sympathetic and relatable character: when we meet her, we immediately feel a sense of protectiveness towards her.

Thoughts: No, we didn’t. We did not feel any sense of protectiveness and not immediately. Um… The very first page had me confused and annoyed at adjectives and word choice. Then I saw that Laila didn’t like the main character and then my mother (also in my book club) said it failed to capture her interest in the first few pages. I started to read other 1 and 2 star reviews on goodreads — the kiss of death of whether or not I will like a book!

Someone called the protag “gormless”, other reviews said it was dry. Some praised the writing but I wasn’t impressed.

Back to the ebook (after searching for the word “pie”…), I decided to skip around and jump pages, and then read the ending. Blech. I have no desire to catch up what I might have missed. I really am not a good reader of mystery/thrillers. If they are mostly literary, I might like it but usually, I just can’t get interested!

Rating: Two slices of pie. Apricot tart means pie!

“There are no lines, so I take my time choosing serrano ham, hard cheeses, a glistening apricot tart.”

5%

Copyright © 2007-2023. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

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Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

Thoughts by Anna Quindlen, Random House Trade 2012, 205 pages

Challenge: What’s in a Name: Celebration category

Genre/Theme: Essays, Family and Motherhood, Aging, Feminism

Type/Source: Tradeback / Second Hand Bookstore Purchase

What It’s About: Anna shares her thoughts on aging. She is so insightful and hopeful.

“At age 60 I find myself poised between the inevitable and the possible, the things I know and understand and the things I hope to learn and perhaps unravel. But it’s still a bit of a mystery, the yet to come, with that greatest of all mysteries, mortality, at its very end.”

Thoughts: She talks a lot about family and her place in the progression of time. Also her timing into the American workforce balanced with the progression of the women’s movement. And, considerate of being thankful that she lived past the age her mother died, and in the realization of how much her mother missed by dying young, and also the perspective of how her mother’s death impacted her appreciation of life ongoing. I was especially thankful and admiring of her essay on religion.

Rating: I don’t think I was cognizant of her use of the the title in the text, nor do I think she ever mentioned pie. Five slices of pie because I love her. And the cover makes me happy.

Copyright © 2007-2023. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

Thoughts by Alison Espach, Henry Holt & Company 2022, 340 pages

Challenge: for TOB and for #ReadICT: Grief category

Genre/Theme: Adult Fiction; grief, sister relationships

Type/Source: Hardcover / Library

What It’s About: A sister talks to her dead sister, the few years prior, the immediate aftermath, and the years following.

Thoughts: I loved it. Sally was such a devoted little sister, adoring her older sibling. How she grieves and attempts to understand and work through her parents grief, as well as be totally besotted with her sister’s boyfriend. Her outlook on life, attempting to throw humor at everything, only makes her feel odd and empty; it was just heartbreaking and felt very real to me.

Rating: Five slices of pie. Apple pie mentions.

“Then it was over and all the people came to our house and ate apple pie and swirled around our mother at the kitchen table, who was catatonic in her chair.”

Page 97

Copyright © 2007-2023. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

The Patron Saint of Liars

Thoughts by Ann Patchett, Mariner Books (first pub’ 1992), 402 pages

Challenge: for #WiaN2023, category 7 Deadly Sins

Genre/Theme: Adult Fiction; mother-daughter relationships

Type/Source: eBook Libby

What It’s About: Rose accepts her sign from God to marry, but she prefers to drive.

Rose marries a fine man. She loves her mother. But she just cannot live the life as presented to her and she flees to a far corner and accepts where she lands. She is pregnant and accepts those terms, SORT OF. She finds a place for her in the midst of this somehow and . . .

SPOILER ahead –> just highlight to read it:

when the old life encroaches on the newly established, she drives off again. She leaves a daughter distraught with questions and confusions as to what comes next.

Heartbreaking!

Thoughts: Patchett knows “people”, knows the ache of longing and frustration against the pull of responsibility. I love her.

Rating: Four slices of pie. LOTS of pie mentions! Lots of whipped cream.

“”In the hospital,” Rose said, pinching in the edges of a pie crust, or maybe it was a tart. Nothing was a plain old pie with her anymore.”

many other pie mentions, including apple…