💻🛜⛱️✍️👩‍🍳🪄A Week of Interesting, Quirky Books

 

"I felt like living my life through screens had trapped me in this dark little cell, my own black box of doom."
― Jason Pargin, I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom

I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin was a blast! There were many good elements contributing to the deliciousness of this book. Given its title, I was surprised by how good-hearted and kind its characters were. It has many familiar storylines. It is a quest--what's in the box, with a buddy journey--Abbott agrees to drive an unknown woman and a strange box from LA to Washington DC; coming of age--Abbott takes the wheel of his life; redemption--wrongs are righted, relationships repaired, plus an education about the glory and ruin that is the internet. The book has wonderfully broken, fascinating characters, lots of action, and gentle moralism. A great read.

💻🛜◼️🚙🛣️

 Don't Forget to Write by Sara Goodman Confino is a historical fiction set in 1960. It is also adjacent to the romance category--not its primary purpose, but when your protagonist is sent as punishment to live with her strict seventy-plus aunt, who also happens to be an in-demand matchmaker, there is going to be romance. This book is balanced with interesting characters, a surprising plot, and good writing. Its central theme is self-determination. Marilyn Kleinman misbehaving as she chaffs under her father's strictness becomes a purposeful path towards knowing herself and what she wants. 

☀️⛱️✍️🐩

    I found Something Close to Magic by Emma Mills on a list of cozy fantasy novels--just the right book for post-Christmas, Artic blast doldrums.

https://modernmrsdarcy.com/cozy-fantasy-novels/

It contained several books I'd already read and enjoyed. Emma Mills does a good job of creating an ensemble cast with a downtrodden but spunky protagonist, Aurelie, the apprentice baker. She is trying to make a stable, dependable life for herself. Still, it is disrupted by Illiane, the bounty hunter who needs her special magical skill to find people, specifically a prince named Hapless. This was a lovely adventure. The book is YA, but it is a fun read.

👩‍🍳🪄🤴🥮

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Three 5-Star Books and a Weird One!🎉

 

    What a great book to start off the year! The Frozen River is the first book I've read by Ariel Lawhon, and it won't be the last. Lawhon creates a spirited, compassionate protagonist in Martha Ballard, a real-life midwife. The book is based on the journals she kept from 1785-1812. Lawhon weaves a captivating life story in colonial America, birth, murder, and justice.

🪵🥶👶🏻🦊

    Guide Me Home by Attica Locke is the third and final book in the Highway 59 series. I have been reluctant to read it because Locke creates a flawed, tragic hero in Darren Matthews, a black Texas Ranger. His twin uncles raise him after the death of his father, convincing his sixteen-year-old mother to give him up. Darren reflects Texas: independent, burdened with racism, and proud of its history, but refusing to see the hidden damage. Darren wants to love his state but is being crushed by its shortcomings. He fights to regain his hope and confidence, but he must face the pain of his past to move into his future. Locke created a beautiful, complex man who lives a powerful story of an honorable man. I highly recommend it.

Here are my reviews of the previous books in the series: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Attica+Locke

⭐️🛣️🌲

    This is my second time reading Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds. After the shooting death of his older brother, a young man, Will, is wrestling with the rules of his community: No crying, No snitching, Revenge. Will doesn't cry and doesn't snitch. He takes his brother's gun and gets on the elevator to get revenge. As he descends, he meets those whose lives reflect following the rules. They challenge Will to consider his plans.

"ANOTHER THING ABOUT THE RULES

They weren't meant to be broken.
They were meant for the broken

to follow."

😵🚬🚬🚬🚬🚬🚬🛗

    If the title didn't clue you in--The Village Library Demon Hunting Society by C.M. Waggoner--let me assure you, this was a weird book. Like if Agatha Christie's Miss Marple suddenly discovered St. Mary Mead had a demon problem. The book is quirky but enjoyable. I wondered where it would go next. The mystery solver, a 60+ librarian named Sherry Pinkwhistle, is the one everyone turns to when there is a suspicious death in the community. Then, she becomes suspicious of so many suspicious deaths. She assembles her crime-solving, demon-hunting squad, including her possessed cat, Sir Thomas Cromwell, and they get to work. 

🐈👿📚

🎄🎄🎄Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! My Final Books of 2024

 

   The Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna was a fun romantasy. It had a creative concept surrounding the history of witches. They must conceal their magic from the world and have limited contact with each other because their powers increase when they are together. Mika Moon is a young witch who longs for connection with others but continually hides her true self. So, she started a YouTube channel about potion-making! The pacing was slow, but the story was delightful.

🧹🧙‍♀️🧪🫖

    

Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters is a book of poetry. It is a collection of free-verse monologues by dead people buried in a cemetery in the Spoon River. Masters captures the essence of each person in a few paragraphs. It is a fitting book to read at the end of December when I evaluate the setting year and anticipate the dawning one. The characters shine from their brief words--abusers, heroes, cowards, thieves, sour-spirits, broken-hearted, and more. I heard about Spoon River Anthology from How to Read a Book. A prison book club read it. https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2024/12/forgiveness-and-fierce-grandmother.html

🪦🪦😵🪦🪦

    How to Walk Away by Katherine Center is a romance book at its center. It has a gruff frenemy with a panty-dropping accent. A main character with significant problems to figure out. Many side stories contribute to a propulsive plot. There is the benefit of learning much about spinal cord injuries. Center has done good research for her story, but it doesn't detract from plot.

🛬🦽🏥💔

I read A Novel Love Story a few days before Christmas and confess I didn't give it my full attention. It has a clever and complex premise. On her way to a private book retreat, a woman finds herself in an idyllic small town, just like the one from her favorite romance series. Her car has broken down, and she finds herself stranded there for several days. Things are mysteriously weird, and the grumpy, hot bookstore owner isn't helping matters. I liked it, but I wish I'd read it at a less harried time and could appreciate it more.

🚗🐈📚❤️‍🔥