Mini-Reviews: The Fiona Davis Edition

The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis (2016)

A dual timeline story taking place at the Barbizon Hotel in New York City in the 1950s and 2016.  In 1952, Darby arrives in NYC to start secretarial school; in 2016, journalist Rose begins looking into Darby's past and her possible involvement in the death of the a maid at the Barbizon.

I wanted to read this book because it has so many elements I love - historical fiction, an iconic New York City setting, and a dual timeline.  While some things worked, others didn't.  At first, I enjoyed Darby's fish-out-of-water story.  She's not like the beautiful models she shares a floor with at the Barbizon.  She wants to train for a career so she'll never have to depend on a man.  But then she becomes friends with Esme, a maid, and she finds herself doing things she never thought she would - singing in a jazz club, staying out late, and maybe even starting a relationship.  I got the impression that Darby was the type of person who cared very much what people thought of her and wanted to fit in, so her unorthodox friendship with a maid didn't make much sense.  I also felt like Esme was a bad influence on her, causing Darby to flounder in her studies, and I wanted her to see that.

In 2016, Rose is a neighbor of Darby's at the Barbizon and also a journalist looking for her next big story.  Although Rose had a lot of things going on in her personal life, for me that didn't excuse her unethical behavior in getting her story.  However, I enjoyed the way the two storylines came together - the journalism angle felt like a natural fit.  The writing felt a bit stiff at times, but I still felt drawn in and wanted to know how it would end.  3 stars

The Masterpiece by Fiona Davis (2018)

A dual-timeline story taking place in Grand Central Terminal.  In the 1920s and 1930s, Clara Darden is a teacher at the Grand Central School of Art.  In the 1970s, Virginia Clay is a woman struggling to support herself and her daughter by working at the information booth in the terminal.

I loved both Clara and Virginia.  Clara is determined and driven, not afraid to find opportunities and further her career.  She came to New York City to become an artist and she knew she had the talent to succeed.  Virginia has had some hardships in her life (divorce, breast cancer), but she keeps moving forward.  I loved her devotion to Grand Central Terminal; she could see its beauty when others couldn't and wanted to save it. I identified with her love for historical preservation.

This is now the 3rd book I've read by Fiona Davis, and her writing improves with each one.  The dialogue flowed well, and she did a really great job of connecting the two storylines.  I appreciated all the research she included about various artistic movements and the history of Grand Central Terminal.  Once the mystery of Clara Darden's disappearance was solved, I thought it was a bit far-fetched, but otherwise the story was very engaging and well-written.  4 stars

2018 Blogging & Reading Goals - How Did I Do?

I can't believe 2018 will be over in a few hours!  It's a great time to check in on those blogging and reading goals I set at the beginning of the year before I come up with some new goals for 2019!  I also want to wrap up the year-long challenges I participated in.

Blogging Goals

1. Participate in at least two reading challenges. Pass!  I participated in two year-long challenges (recapped below) and also did a summer challenge and Nonfiction November (more of an event than a challenge).
2. Come up with new or different ways to present our travels. Pass-ish?  In addition to our hiking posts, I did two posts recapping trips we took and another on spots I want to check out the next time we're in Las Vegas.  The brainstorming I wanted to do to for this goal never really happened.  I did a post incorporating books and Disney World, so that might be something to explore more next year.
3. Learn more about the technical side of blogging.  Fail!  I don't know why I added this as a goal.
4. Start doing monthly recaps.  Pass!  Monthly recaps have been some of my favorite posts to put together.  I add to it all month long, and it's been a fun way to see everything I've read and blogged in any given month, as well as connect a bit more with readers.
   

Reading Goals:

1. Read or reread at least six classics.  Pass!  I read exactly six classics.. and then stopped.  So, I'm glad I read them, but I probably wouldn't do this again.
2. Read at least one nonfiction book per month.  Pass-ish! While I didn't reach my goal of reading one nonfiction book per month, I did read way more than 12 nonfiction titles for the year.
3. Listen to more audiobooks.  Pass!  I've listened to 15 audiobooks this year for a total of almost 130 hours of audio.  Considering I only listen to them when I'm driving to and from work, I think this was pretty good!

Originally I chose 30 titles for Beat the Backlist 2018, hosted by NovelKnight.  Of those 30, I read 27, DNFed 2, and skipped one because I realized I didn't actually want to read it!  However, I read way more backlist titles than just the ones on my TBR and ended up reading 64 backlist books in 2018.

I joined the Nonfiction Reading Challenge, hosted by Doing Dewey, to help me with my goal of reading more nonfiction in 2018, and it definitely worked!  I ended up reading 28 nonfiction titles this year.

How did you do on your 2018 reading and blogging goals?

 

Backlist Mini-Reviews: Survival Stories

All Stories Are Love Stories by Elizabeth Percer (2016)

In the wake of two massive earthquakes, three people struggle to survive in San Francisco.  Unfortunately, I didn't love this one nearly as much as I thought I would.  I was drawn to the survival/disaster aspect of the story, particularly the intense focus on three characters.  However, there was too much character development for me.

Max and Vashti broke up 15 years ago under bad circumstances, yet they've never been able to forget each other.  Vashti decides to visit Max just before the earthquake strikes, and they are both caught in the rubble of a collapsed building.  I found myself not really caring about their part of the story.  They are trapped, struggling to survive, and all they can do is rehash their history in long, strange monologues. 

Gene was a character I could root for, though.  He is a geologist trying to get to his ill husband.  His story felt much more organic and not as forced as the Max/Vashti storyline.  The thoughts he had of his husband Franklin and snippets of his career involving earthquake research made sense.  As the chapters rotated between the three characters, I found myself much more interested in Gene's (and also some secondary characters who give some other glimpses into the disaster).

I thought the writing was lovely, but there was too much extraneous detail about the characters' lives that just felt unnecessary and didn't really add to or advance the story in any way.  I also thought the theme of love was often heavy-handed and cliché.  3 stars

Life As We Knew It (Last Survivors #1) by Susan Beth Pfeffer (2006)

After a meteor strikes the moon, knocking it off its axis and closer to Earth, Miranda and her family must learn to adjust - and survive - in a changing world.

I loved this book so much.  I love disaster stories, especially ones like this where the author gets to be really creative in the what-if scenarios.  I was totally sucked into the story; sometimes I'd forget where I was and have to remind myself that all of this stuff wasn't happening in the real world.   Miranda's mother, although harsh at times, had so much common sense.  Way before things starting falling apart, she knew she had to start stockpiling food and water.  She just seemed to know what she needed to do to keep her family safe.

I could feel the characters' fear as their world seemed to shrink.  They lost pretty much all contact with the outside world, then their neighbors.  As the weather rapidly turned freezing, Miranda, her brothers, and their mother found themselves surviving in the one room of their house they could keep semi-warm.  I enjoyed the diary format of the book.  We really got to know Miranda and her emotions.  My only issue was that there were a lot of word-for-word conversations that one wouldn't expect to see in a diary.  4.5 stars

Nonfiction Mini-Reviews: Women With Extraordinary Jobs

Sometimes Amazing Things Happen: Heartbreak and Hope on the Bellevue Hospital Psychiatric Prison Ward by Elizabeth Ford, MD (2017)

Dr. Elizabeth Ford is a psychiatrist who worked on the Bellevue Hospital psychiatric prison ward, treating mental illness in prisoners from New York's jails, including Riker's Island.  Sometimes Amazing Things Happen is a chronicle of her time on the ward; she shares stories of the patients she treated and the bureaucracy and red tape she was often caught up in.

This book definitely featured a lot of heartbreak.  The inmates have so much working against them.  They're in jail, waiting an indefinite amount of time to have their case heard, sometimes for a crime that was a result of their mental illness.  If they get transferred to Bellevue, they'll get treatment, but the downside is that as soon as they're "well," they're transferred back to prison where the guards don't know how to deal with them and they may or may not get their medications.  It's a vicious cycle.  A few chapters on how the hospital was affected by Superstorm Sandy were a stark reminder of the tangled web of the criminal justice system.  It really made me think about this lost population of men and how the system could be improved.

My issues with this book came from a couple different sides.  This book was really short, about 240 pages, and felt more like short stories than a cohesive narrative.  And unfortunately, I had issues with Dr. Ford herself; more than a few times I got the impression that she felt an air of superiority over everyone else.  She came across as seeming like she was the only one who cared about the patients, and the other doctors, nurses, and officers were overwhelmed, under-educated, and just unsympathetic.  I think it would have done her some good to realize the hard work and hours they also put in to this extremely difficult and often thankless job.  3.5 stars

The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts by Tessa Fontaine (2018)

After her mother suffers a massive stroke, Tessa Fontaine spends years in limbo - will her mother survive?  What will her life be like?  Then, her stepfather takes her mother on a dream trip to Italy, giving Tessa a few months to join a traveling sideshow, where she performed such acts as snake charmer and the Electric Woman.

I feel like this was two different books joined together only by the fact that the two events happened to take place at the same time.  On one hand, this was a book about mothers and daughters and the sometimes difficult relationship Tessa had with hers.  Reading about her mother's health issues felt almost invasive at times, but I think a lot of people will be able to relate to it.

On the other hand, this book is a behind-the-scenes look at what it's like to work at a carnival/fair/circus/sideshow.  This part was probably more interesting to me, although it felt a bit repetitive at times.  It's not an enviable lifestyle - the hours are long, it's physically taxing, you're living in a tiny space with a lot of other people, cleaning your clothes in sinks.  However, I enjoyed learning about the different sideshow acts.  3.5 stars

Fiction/Nonfiction Mini-Reviews: The Vanderbilt Edition

The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home by Denise Kiernan (2017)

In The Last Castle, Denise Kiernan tells the story of Biltmore, the largest private home in America, constructed by George Vanderbilt in the late 19th century in Asheville, North Carolina.  I visited Biltmore as a teenager, but of course, I didn't remember many of the specifics, so I wanted to read this book to get more information on the house and the family.

I could tell that Kiernan had really done her research.  There was so much information within the pages, not just about Biltmore, but about the extended Vanderbilt family and also current events of the time.  Sometimes it felt overwhelming, especially with the sheer number of names in the book.  I also felt like the actual construction of the house wasn't as big a part of the story as I would have thought.  I mean, this house is over 175,000 sq. ft. and it took years to build!

The book was very readable, though, and I flew through it in two days.  I loved learning about how George wanted to create not just a house for himself, but an entire village in the area, as well as promote other projects such as forestry.  His wife Edith was an intriguing character, particularly after George passed away and it was left to her to manage the estate.  She was a big part of the community, whether she was handing out Christmas gifts to the employees or establishing a crafts school that also sold handmade goods.  4 stars

A Well-Behaved Woman by Therese Anne Fowler (2018)

A Well-Behaved Woman tells the story of Alva Vanderbilt, who married into the wealthy but socially downtrodden family in order to help her own destitute family.

Alva is a pretty amazing character.  She wasn't typical of women of her time.  Yes, she married for financial reasons (not uncommon then), but she wasn't content to play the roles society established for her.  She worked extremely hard to get the entire Vanderbilt family accepted into high society.  Architecture was a passion of hers (the Newport "cottage" Marble House was all her doing), and she was also interested in charitable endeavors.  I loved how she was never afraid to be honest; I had to chuckle sometimes at the things that came out of her mouth.  I loved the setting, as well; the Gilded Age was a time of great wealth, especially for the Vanderbilts, and it was a fun glimpse into the lives of the super-rich.

The story is well-written and flows nicely, although with many historical fiction novels that focus on the life of a single person, there isn't really a whole lot of plot.  No tension or drama, and the story petered out a bit at the end.  4 stars

Nonfiction November 2018: New To My TBR!

It's time to wrap up Nonfiction November 2018 by highlighting all those new books I've added to my TBR this month!  This week is hosted by Katie at Doing Dewey.

Mind Joggle

  

Bookish Beck

Stacked Books

Julz Reads

What's Nonfiction?

Sophisticated Dorkiness

Books Are My Favourite and Best

The Writerly Reader

The Bookish Libra

Novel Visits

Words and Peace

Always Doing

ExUrbanis


Thank you all for a great month of nonfiction!!
 

Nonfiction Mini-Reviews: The (Not So) Political Edition

The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Andersen Brower (2015)

What's it like to work in one of the most famous houses in the world?  The Residence introduces readers to the staff members that have served the first families, from the Kennedys to the Obamas, as they provide anecdotes and memories of their years in the White House.

I found this book to be a fascinating and engaging read.  Although at times it felt a bit scattered (it was organized thematically, so the various Presidents and families were kind of all jumbled together in each chapter), I thoroughly enjoyed the stories told.  Yes, some were embarrassing and unpleasant, but there were plenty of heartwarming stories, too.  There was a chapter on children in the White House, and the chapter that focused on the sorrow following President Kennedy's assassination and the chaos of 9/11 left me in tears many times.

I loved learning about the quick transition between first families on Inauguration Day (the staff only has 6 hours to get the residence ready!) and how for many workers, this isn't a typical 9-5 job.  It was interesting to see the balancing act performed by the staff members, who want to provide comfort and stability for the family while having to remain somewhat invisible.  And who knew that the President has to pay for his own groceries?  4.5 stars

From The Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein (2018)

Beck Dorey-Stein lands herself a job as a stenographer taping and typing up President Obama's speeches, interviews, and conference calls.  She also delves into her personal life in the memoir, including her disastrous love life.

I enjoyed this book, although I probably wasn't as enamored as many others were by it.  I thought it was a quick and easy read from an interesting perspective.  Dorey-Stein was a relatively low-level employee, but she also had incredible access: she had some problems fitting into the staff hierarchy and often felt like it was an unfriendly or cliquey place to work, but she was able to make some friends and accompany the President on amazing trips all over the world.  I loved how much she admired and respected President Obama, and the way she incorporated global and domestic events that transpired during her years in the White House was nice.

However, I didn't really care for all the talk about her relationships.  It was a little bit eye roll-inducing to read about her back-and-forth affair with another staffer.  She had no willpower when it came to him and he came across as pretty despicable (he constantly cheated on his long-time girlfriend with Dorey-Stein and several other women).  I kept wishing she would gain a bigger sense of self-worth and finally open her eyes.  3.5 stars

Nonfiction November 2018: Fiction/Nonfiction Book Pairings

This week of Nonfiction November is hosted by Sarah at Sarah's Book Shelves and focuses on fiction/nonfiction book pairings.  I loved this week during last year's event and it really inspired me in my blogging this year.  I've been making a move towards more mini-reviews and I especially like when I can come up with a theme for the books I'm reviewing; fiction/nonfiction pairings went along with this so well!  Here are the pairings I've done:

  

Sweet Mini-Reviews: Everything is Better With Ice Cream

 

Backlist Mini-Reviews: The Royal Edition

 

The Reality TV Edition

 

The Women Who Lived and Worked in "Atomic City"

  

Out of This World Mini-Reviews

 

What do you think of these pairings?

Backlist Mini-Reviews: Time Travel Romances

I think you guys know by now that I'm a sucker for time travel romances - and I've found two more!

Until We Meet Again by Renee Collins (2015)

Cassandra feels trapped in a high-society town until she meets Lawrence on the beach, but their relationship becomes complicated when they realize they are separated by 90 years.

In 2015, Cassandra is lost: she doesn't know what she wants to do with her life, she has few friends, and she doesn't fit in.  In 1925, Lawrence's life is being planned out for him by his father and uncle, and he's too scared to tell them that he really wants to be a writer.  Through some rip in time, Cassandra and Lawrence meet on the beach of the house they share, decades apart.  Their relationship was a bit insta-lovey, but it worked here.  They find a kindred spirit in each other, and the circumstances under which they meet are rather romantic, so it's forgiven!

I liked the way the author played with the time travel aspect, especially how Cassandra is concerned with changing the future.  When she discovers that Lawrence is supposed to be murdered in just two weeks, she obviously wants to stop it, but she worries that maybe she is the one putting things in motion.  Things got a little tense as the story inched closer to that night, and I worried for Lawrence.  I enjoyed the way the story moved between the two characters' points of view, and they felt very distinct, especially since Collins did a great job creating the 1920s scenes.  The ending was very clever and unexpected.  4 stars 

The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley (2011)

After the death of her sister, Eva Ward travels to Trelowarth, an estate in Cornwall where the sisters spent their childhood summers.  While there, she finds herself inexplicably traveling back and forth to 1715, leaving her wondering where her place really is in the world.

This was my first Susanna Kearsley book and I can confidently say it won't be my last.  I loved Kearsley's writing; it's very elegant and rich without being stuffy, and the gothic, almost melancholy feel comes through strong, especially in the first part of the book.

Eva is an interesting main character.  Even though she is close to the family who lives at Trelowarth (and they are all fabulous characters), she finds herself drawn to the inhabitants of 1715, eventually falling in love with one of the brothers who lives there.  I can't imagine how frustrating it must have been for Eva to not be able to control the time travel; she would disappear and reappear without warning.  I actually wanted a bit more of the romance between Eva and Daniel, which is surprising for me.  The way the author tied in real historical events was interesting, although the pacing of the story felt a bit slow at times.  However, there was an unexpected twist at the end that left me with a huge smile on my face and brought the whole story together.  4.5 stars