Joy's Book Blog
I’ve been hearing about The Vanishing Half for quite awhile now. Like my last few books, it was a Goodreads Best of 2020 nominee and dealt with some of the deeper issues facing our society today. I knew it had a racial theme, but that’s all I knew about the book before I read it. …
So last night, I wasn’t feeling well so went to bed early. Figured I would read alittle and fall right asleep. The Midnight Library had just become available to me digitally after a long wait, so I figured I’d get a good start on it before bed. Two hours later, my husband came up …
I’ve been hearing about The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson for awhile. A family member asked me if I had read it yet, my book club ladies all loved it, and now he has another bestseller out there (The Splendid and the Vile). So I thought I’d try this one. To be …
The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was not a book I was looking forward to read, but I needed a book and the title was interesting. The reason I wasn’t excited is that I read one of Stuart Turton’s other books (The Devil and the Dark Sea) and wasn’t impressed. Still, Evelyn Hardcastle was …
Take Two This is the second time I’ve read American Dirt and I’d like to amend my first review. My book club leader said that sometimes you have to be “in the right place” to read a book; I take this to mean mentally, physically, and in the right season of life. The first time …
Being very honest, this is the second time I’ve read this book for a book club. However, I loved it the second time as much as I did the first, so I wanted to review it for this blog (the first time I read it was before my blogging days). The Alice Network tells …
I didn’t particularly care for Finding Dorothy, but I had problems figuring out why. First though, let’s talk about the book. Like so many others right now, this book is set in both the protagonist’s past and future, flipping between the two time periods every chapter or so. To be very honest, I’m getting tired …
I actually really liked this book. By Karen McManus, the author of One of Us Is Lying, a NY Times Best-seller, I actually liked The Cousins just as much (if not alittle more) than that one. Like One of Us Is Lying, this book is considered a YA novel and is told from different points-of-view. …
I’ve been hearing about Eleanor Oliphant for years – mostly people ask if I’ve read it, and then change the subject when I say “no.” Now that I have, I’m wondering how the conversation would have played out. Because it’s so popular, I expected this to be a fantastic book. I thought Eleanor would …
After reading both of Krakauer’s non-fiction bestsellers, Into Thin Air and Into the Wild, I’ve decided it’s too hard to review just one without mentioning the other. So I’m doing them both at the same time. To begin, both books were well-written and impeccably researched. I really like Krakauer’s writing style; otherwise I would never have read two …