Review: This Adventure Ends

This Adventure Ends
Emma Mills
Published October 4, 2016

Sloane isn't expecting to fall in with a group of friends when she moves from New York to Florida—especially not a group of friends so intense, so in love, so all-consuming. Yet that's exactly what happens.

Sloane becomes closest to Vera, a social-media star who lights up any room, and Gabe, Vera's twin brother and the most serious person Sloane's ever met. When a beloved painting by the twins' late mother goes missing, Sloane takes on the responsibility of tracking it down, a journey that takes her across state lines—and ever deeper into the twins' lives.

Filled with intense and important friendships, a wonderful warts-and-all family, shiveringly good romantic developments, and sharp, witty dialogue, this story is about finding the people you never knew you needed. - from Goodreads

OMG, this cover - it's so gorgeous, I could stare at it forever.  Oh, yeah, the story wasn't too bad, either!

Sloane is the new kid in school.  She's a bit of a loner, but finds herself adopted by a group of friends: twins Vera and Gabe and former couple Remy and Aubrey.  Despite not knowing the group for very long, Sloane takes it upon herself to find a painting done by Vera and Gabe's late mother, which was accidentally sold. 

This was a quick, fun read.  I appreciated that the high schoolers in this book actually act like they're in high school.  They go to class, they study, they go to dances, they have after-school jobs.  I also loved the large role that Sloane's family, particularly her dad, played in this novel.  Sometimes when I read YA, it seems like teenagers are just doing whatever they want, with no parental supervision at all.  In This Adventure Ends, Sloane sometimes actually chose spending time with her family over her friends, and her dad even joined her for a bit on her quest to find the painting.

There were some things I wasn't crazy about.  Vera is a social media maven who seems quite popular, so it was a little confusing as to why she brought Sloane into her group.  Also, Vera was just a bit too perfect.  Gabe, on the other hand, is serious beyond measure.  He rarely smiles and almost seemed robotic.  Those "shiveringly good romantic developments"? Not so much.  And the book had quite a few different storylines going on, despite its modest length.  Unfortunately, this meant the story never got really deep.  Certain parts that could have been very emotional ended too quickly and weren't explored enough.

3.5 stars

On Giving Books as Gifts

Christmas is only a couple weeks away, so I'm trying to get the last of my shopping done.  I always want to give the perfect gift.  As a reader who loves to get books, my first thought when buying gifts for other people, whether it's a birthday or holiday, is to give them a book.  But how do you decide what book to get?  And is a book really the perfect gift for everyone?

I think there are a couple approaches when choosing a book for someone else.  The first is tailoring the selection to that particular person, such as choosing a book based on their interests or hobbies.  It shows that you've really thought about the recipient and what would appeal to them.  The second is choosing a book you think they should read or think they might enjoy, based on your own perceptions.  Maybe the book is a classic you think is a must-read, or the book somehow reminds you of the person.  There's still thought put into it, but it's colored more by our own opinions.  As much as I can, I try to stick to the first approach.  For example, here are some of the books I've recently bought for people:

• For my brother's 30th birthday earlier this year, I gave him a book about the 1986 New York Mets.  Not only are the Mets his favorite baseball team, but I thought it was a cute wink to the year he was born.
• My mom is a huge Jennifer Lopez fan, so I gave her Jennifer's recent memoir.
• I gave my dad a travel guide to Italy for his upcoming trip.

I'm always torn when buying books for other people.  I think books can be great gifts, but they're not necessarily for everyone.  I worry about seeming pushy, like I am telling other people that they should and must read.  Or that maybe I look pretentious in telling people what I think they should be reading.  Sometimes reading can be a really personal thing - we all have our favorite authors or genres that we gravitate towards.  If I don't pick something that's in their wheelhouse, there's a big chance they just won't like it.  Besides that, lots of people are not interested in reading, for one reason or another, a big one being that they just don't have time for it.  It's why I've stopped buying books for my husband.  He's not a reader, no matter how many awesome Dr. Who books I buy him.  Somewhat ironically, my sister is a big reader like me, but she often tells me not to buy her books; she'd rather just borrow from me!

I will say, though, that one occasion I always buy books for is a baby shower.  It works out well since a lot of baby shower hosts these day ask guests to bring a book anyway (for some ideas on what kinds of books to bring to baby showers, check out this post).  I think books are so great for babies and kids, in forming bonds with their parents during story time and learning things like their colors and numbers.  There are so many children's books out there, both classics and new ones, that it's hard to go wrong.  Now that there are so many babies in our life (our niece and two nephews were all born this year!), I'm not limiting the book-giving to just showers.  They'll all be getting books for Christmas and their birthdays, for the foreseeable future!

So, do you give books as gifts?  How do you decide what book to give?  Would you only buy books for someone else who is a big reader, or would you give a book to anyone?

"Waiting on" Wednesday: Perfect Little World

"Waiting on" Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine and spotlights upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating!

Perfect Little World
Kevin Wilson
Expected publication date: January 24, 2017

When Isabelle Poole meets Dr. Preston Grind, she's just about out of options. She recently graduated from high school and is pregnant with her art teacher's baby. Her mother is dead and her father is a drunk. The art teacher is too much of a head-case to help raise the child. Izzy knows she can be a good mother but without any money or prospects, she's left searching.

So when Dr. Grind offers her a space in The Infinite Family Project, she accepts. Housed in a spacious compound in Tennessee, she joins nine other couples, all with children the same age as her newborn son, to raise their children as one extended family. Grind's theory is that the more parental love a child receives, the better off they are.

This attempt at a utopian ideal-funded by an eccentric billionaire-starts off promising: Izzy enjoys the kids, reading to them and teaching them to cook. She even forms a bond with her son more meaningful than she ever expected. But soon the gentle equilibrium among the families is upset and it all starts to disintegrate: unspoken resentments between the couples begin to fester; the project's funding becomes tenuous; and Izzy's feelings for Dr. Grind, who is looking to expunge his own painful childhood, make her question her participation in this strange experiment in the first place. - from Goodreads

Top Ten Tuesday Holiday Gift Guide: Books for Baby's First Christmas

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and The Bookish.  This week's topic is holiday gift guide.  We were so excited to welcome a niece and two nephews into our family this past year, so I wanted to share some books to buy the little ones for their first Christmas!  There are so many classic Christmas books, but for the first Christmas, I tried to stick to simpler books.  I chose some that celebrate the holiday season and others that they can enjoy throughout the coming year! 

Review: Love, Alice

Blog note: I was on vacation last week - thank goodness for pre-scheduled posts!  I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving, and I'm looking forward to getting back to blogging and catching up with everyone's posts!

Love, Alice
Barbara Davis
Expected publication date: December 6, 2016

The truth lies between the lines... A year ago, Dovie Larkin’s life was shattered when her fiancé committed suicide just weeks before their wedding. Now, plagued by guilt, she has become a fixture at the cemetery where William is buried, visiting his grave daily, waiting for answers she knows will never come.

Then one day, she sees an old woman whose grief mirrors her own. Fascinated, she watches the woman leave a letter on a nearby grave. Dovie ignores her conscience and reads the letter—a mother’s plea for forgiveness to her dead daughter—and immediately needs to know the rest of the story.

As she delves deeper, a collection of letters from the cemetery’s lost and found begins to unravel a decades-old mystery involving one of Charleston’s wealthiest families. But even as Dovie seeks to answer questions about another woman’s past—questions filled with deception, betrayal, and heartbreaking loss—she starts to discover the keys to love, forgiveness, and finally embracing the future… - from Goodreads

I received an ARC of this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways.

Love, Alice is a story about grief, hope, finding answers, and family.  Dovie Larkin visits her fiancé's grave everyday, wondering why he committed suicide just two weeks before their wedding.  Nearby, a statue marks the gravesite of Alice Tandy, who was a nanny for the wealthy Tate family decades earlier.  One day, an old woman, Dora, leaves a letter at Alice's statue, and Dovie, in hopes of maybe helping someone else find the answers that elude her, reads the letter and strikes up a friendship with the woman.  The book explores the ties between Dovie, the Tandy family, and the Tate family.

The story moved a bit slowly at times and the plot was predictable.  I also didn't care for the character of Austin Tate, no matter how integral he is.  I disliked the way he so obviously led Dovie on, then turned around and said he couldn't be with her.  However, the good far outweighed the bad, and I really enjoyed this lovely but sometimes heartbreaking story.

I loved the way we got to know Alice through the letters she wrote to her baby.  Alice was a young and pregnant English girl, sent to an institution by her mother, Dora, to have the baby.  Alice, however, couldn't accept her child being taken away, and she followed the trail all the way to Charleston.  I could feel the love Alice had for her child, and her conflicting emotions of hope and despair.

Dovie and Dora were also fantastic characters.  The friendship that bloomed between them was beautiful and I loved the way they helped each other.  Dovie was intelligent and thoughtful, although at times she seemed very scattered.  Dora spent years not knowing what happened to Alice.  I felt so bad for her; she was trying to do what was best for her daughter, but Alice didn't understand and couldn't forgive her.  These characters aren't perfect, but they are relatable.

Davis' writing is flowing and easy to read, and I loved the way she brought the setting of Charleston, South Carolina to life.

4 stars

Review: You Will Know Me

You Will Know Me
Megan Abbott
Published July 26, 2016

Katie and Eric Knox have dedicated their lives to their fifteen-year-old daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful. But when a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community just weeks before an all-important competition, everything the Knoxes have worked so hard for feels suddenly at risk. As rumors swirl among the other parents, revealing hidden plots and allegiances, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself drawn, irresistibly, to the crime itself, and the dark corners it threatens to illuminate. From a writer with "exceptional gifts for making nerves jangle and skin crawl," (Janet Maslin) You Will Know Me is a breathless rollercoaster of a novel about the desperate limits of desire, jealousy, and ambition. - from Goodreads

You Will Know Me is one of the most anticipated releases of the year, so it pains me to say this and I know I'll be in the minority, but I did not enjoy reading this book.  There's no doubt that Megan Abbott is an incredible writer.  I loved The Fever and the way she creates her characters and the tense relationships between them.  But I felt so uncomfortable and uneasy reading You Will Know Me that I almost stopped several times.  I suppose making a reader feel so strongly is the mark of a great writer, but in this instance it didn't work for me.

Devon Knox is a gymnastics star working her way up to the highest ranks.  Her parents, Katie and Eric, have devoted themselves to her career.  But their lives are severely disrupted when the boyfriend of Devon's coach's niece is killed in a hit-and-run accident.  The story focuses on the Knox's family dynamics and their small gymnastics community in the wake of the accident.

Katie, Devon's mom, is the main character, but she is so clueless about everything around her.  The amount of times she is surprised by something told to her by another character is really astounding.  It's like everyone knows what's going on except her, especially when it comes to her daughter, Devon.  And Devon is one of the most artificial characters I've ever come across.  She's cold, stoic, robotic - she doesn't even cry when she's injured.  Yes, she's an elite athlete and her focus is strong, but it's almost unnerving.

It was pretty obvious early on where Abbott was going with this story, although the ending was not quite what I thought it would be.  There were some pretty big legal and moral issues that were completely glossed over.  I also had some problems with the writing.  Certain details and descriptions felt repetitive and almost too personal, like I was reading someone's diary (and not in a good way).  Another issue was the unrealistic dialogue.  Almost every conversation (between any characters, no matter their age) is peppered with statements that are vague, cryptic, ominous, fraught with double meaning - take your pick.  I can see how Abbott was trying to create some mystery and tension, but it was just way too much.  No one speaks like that in real life.

2 stars

Greenwood Gardens

Last Sunday was a beautiful day, and Tom and I were looking for something to do.  I started Googling "New Jersey hidden gems" and came across Greenwood Gardens.  Since it wasn't too far from our house, we decided to check it out!



Greenwood Gardens, located in Short Hills, Essex County, New Jersey, is a fairly new 28-acre public garden, located next to South Mountain Reservation.  Formerly a private estate, the last family to own the property established Greenwood Gardens as a public space in 2003.  The main house and terrace have been restored, and work continues on the gardens and other structures.  There is a $10.00 entrance fee.

A Georgian Revival-style home looks out onto the main lawn.  From here we walked down into the gardens.  There are so many little pathways to take, with something new to see down each one.  I think my favorite part of Greenwood Gardens was seeing all these little structures and details everywhere.  It was so quaint and charming!

The Summerhouse

It was so appropriate that I had just finished reading Heartless by Marissa Meyer when we visited, because dotting the landscape were lifesize chess pieces, like this guy!

The Teahouse

The estate used to have many water features, like The Cascade below, that are now used for plantings.

These gorgeous colored tiles can be found in many places around the estate, and they add such a sense of whimsy - really beautiful!

Although Greenwood Gardens isn't huge (we were probably there for an hour and a half), it really was a magical place to visit.  Check their website for information about hours of operation and tours!