Jonas is lost, emotionally and spiritually, and he knows it. He decides the only option is to die in this parable. He doesn’t want his daughter to find his body, so he travels to an unnamed recent war zone. He’s used to fixing odds and ends around the house. That habit, and just the habit of living, are very difficult to give up.

It was emotional, both happy and sad at the same time.

Such an important look at the impact of patriarchy on men

I started this book on Libby, but I struggled to follow along with the narrator. I picked up an actual book and started over. This book was very touching and I felt the emotions of the all the characters. It was so hard to choose a side even when characters did wrong.

I started the series a couple of years ago listening to the audiobook of To Helvetica and Back. It seemed slow taking too much time to establish the town and characters. The reader just didn’t seem right, which is very important to me with audiobooks. I thought I’d give the series another try when I saw this on the list. It’s definitely better and certainly moves faster. A novice snowboarder finds a boot (including foot, ankle, and sock) on a Utah ski slope. The rest of the skier is found, shot, in a crevasse. The deceased grew up in the area, an awkward nerd in high school, but founded a successful tech company. Shelton’s writing style is okay. But it’s one of those cozies that you can’t solve along with amateur sleuth. Too many random misdirects. The solution is based on clues the protagonist only remembered (and are shared with readers) at the very end. It was ok, but with so many cozy series available you can find better.

Very repetitious prose. The story was interesting, but I didn't need to know 50 ways in which the husbands had sex with their mail-order brides. Nor did I need to know 100 ways the women gave birth. The bare bones of the story were interesting, but it was hard to read.

Having read The Taking of Jemima Boone I was familiar with the details of the charges brought against Boone. This book is told from the view of the trial & the US court system struggling to develop their own codes as distinct from the British system. Boone does a brilliant job of defending himself& explaining what really occurred

Entangled Life is not a quick read, but went faster than I expected. I don’t know much about mushrooms, lichen, etc. This is very sciency, but clear. I can promise how much I’ll remember. The chapter on radical mycology — using fungi to help break down litter like used diapers, cigarette butts, even some plastics — is probably the most worth reading.

David Baldacci is one of my all time favorite authors and I suspect I would have enjoyed this book at another time. However, given the political and racial unrest we are experiencing it just hits a bit too close for now. I was not able to finish it.

Happy Rock, OR, is the stereotypical small town found in books and sitcoms created by native NYCers. Everyone is quirky. There is exactly one of every type of business (even florist when there can’t be enough sales to keep it afloat), all locally-owned by the same families for at least 3 generations. Everything is in easy walking distance, except the big city which is an hour’s drive. And there are no possible secrets. Enter Hollywood has-been Miranda, former star of an 80s(?) mystery show. She’s broke and forgotten, but delusional that she’s still entitled to full star treatment. The first half of the book is dull exposition in flashbacks, reminiscences, and awkward character introductions. The authors start promising there is a murder coming at about the 40% point. They do not bother with subtle foreshadowing, going more for pleading readers to stick around. The actual murder happens at 64%. wow. Miranda believes she was the intended victim and pretty much accuses all of the other characters, mostly based on her “humorous” misunderstanding of these characters based on the how they were all initially (mis)introduced — to Miranda and to readers. Eventually she gets it right in the lamest drawing room reveal scene ever. And we know self-centered Miranda has grown as person because she doesn’t rush back to LA at the end. It’s the worst Hallmark movie tropes forcibly merged into the blandest cozy.