okiecozyreader's reviews
1216 reviews

I truly loved this book. If you love nature, this is such a beautiful find. I can see why B&N named it their 2020 Book of the Year (and received about 20 other accolades). 

The author is a poet, which you can tell in her prose. Each chapter usually features a rare and unique animal (different types of birds, bugs, sea animals, etc). She gives interesting information about it, and then weaves in stories of her own childhood, adolescence and raising her own children. It’s truly beautiful how she sees the world and appreciates nature.

The book is also lovingly illustrated by Fumi Mini Nakamura. I have been captivated by her drawings and although I don’t know many of the animals, they seem accurately drawn with care.

“[The firefly] luminescence could very well be the spark that reminds us to make a most necessary turn—a shift and a swing and a switch-toward cherishing this magnificent and wondrous planet.” P160

If you like books that take place in France, this is a fun one. It has just a little bit about the war in it, but it is mostly the story of two women in different time periods.

After a divorce, Natalie comes to Paris and finds Mme Clicquot’s journal. She envisions remaking herself and gaining inspiration from Clicquot. She meets a man selling wine, and wonders about her future. I thought this storyline kept me guessing. I love how there are parts from the author’s own life in this pov. There were a couple of twists that I thought were well done - a fun debut novel!

Barbs-Nicole Clicquot (1805) loses her husband and tries to build her wine business herself, without a man. I didn’t get as attached to this storyline, but I liked being able to see her life as it pertains to her journal and what she was trying to do. I love that this storyline was based on much of her real life (except for the maid). The author mentioned a recent movie Widow Clicquot about her life: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3234122/

“To do bold things does not mean one is without fear.”

“…wine is a reminder that life itself doesn’t last. To save things for later because you don’t want to use them is to deny them the very purpose of their existence. Wine was made to be consumed. Life was meant to be lived. To drink deeply.”

“Why did it always have to be so difficult? Life was a series of challenges, one mountain after the other, stretching out, exhausting to even ponder.”

I knew I needed something loving after reading horror. This was it, for sure.

“The mouse plops down to the sink and rushes to the lemonade cap. Dips his head for a sip's worth.
Helen watches. "That's it. I'll call you Sipsworth. lis
old-fashioned like me." P92

Sipsworth is such a quiet, sweet story about a widow Helen Cartwright who returns to her hometown in the UK after living in Australia. She is lonely and alone, when one night she sees someone throwing away an old fish tank that has a toy like her son once had. She rescues the tank and realizes later that it became the home of a mouse. 

I loved how this mouse begins to give Helen her own new community, where she is appreciated for who she is as an 83 year old woman. Found family is one of my favorite plots, and definitely what I need right now.

This is my second Grady Hendrix book and I think his books have the best titles. This one reminded me some of The Change mixed with The House of Eve, with witches, of course. I read this to try Jordy’s Bookclub. It’s the first selection of his club x Allstora.

Neva is 15 and pregnant in 1970. Her father takes her to a “home for unwed mothers.” Like the one in The House of Eve, this one treats the girls as servants, denies their rights to their babies and pregnancies and gives away their children. This book takes a Grady Hendrix turn with the arrival of a witchy librarian, who distributes books at the home. I like the way the blurb about the book says “there’s always a price to be paid… and it’s usually paid in blood.” 

Honestly, I liked this book better than the other I read, but this has super descriptive scenes (like the other) of medical situations and other violent moments, and it’s probably not my genre (horror). 

But I can appreciate how Hendrix was motivated to write this book after he learned couple of his relatives were sent to these homes for pregnant women. I thought his acknowledgments letter was compassionate and helpful. And the quotes about girls having babies at the beginning of the book was disheartening. Wow.

“We were unsocialized girls, fast girls, loose girls, emotionally immature girls, girls who grew up too fast. Rose wasn't even eighteen, Holly had just turned fourteen, I was fifteen. Whatever you wanted to call us, we were children.” (Beginning paragraph)

“The world shows us we are alone against its facts, naked before its history, powerless to stop its work-ings. This is correct. Stand against the world for even one moment and be crushed. Stand together with your coven and it is possible to resist. The bond between a witch and her coven is the greatest and most important power she has.” P67

“…the words of the book cut through the fog in her pregnant brain and something deep inside her body woke up.” P112

"Knowledge is a kind of power, and the knowledge you find in this book will help you find power inside yourself. Power is not a material possession that can be given. Power is the ability to act and that must always be taken, for no one will ever give that power to you.
Those who have power wish to keep it, and those who want power must learn to take it.'" P116

“They don't see these girls. I can't tell you how much they don't see these girls.” P403

If you don’t know the plot of this story - Maddie’s brother Josh dies from cancer, leaving his best friend (Dominic) and his sister (who has spent years hating and loving Dom) to visit a few places Josh wanted to go to spread his ashes.

Influenced by Instagram 💌
It seemed like so many of my bookstagram friends listed this as their favorite book last month. I struggled with this one, but don’t worry, I loved the last 50 pages and it made me cry.

But this was a book that I struggled with for 270 something pages. I can sometimes find lack of communication so frustrating and I felt like until page 270 something, communication was not happening. Poor Maddie was such a hot mess - cold then hot, love / hate, and she was so mean. Wouldn’t you ask BEFORE you start traveling with someone, what happened????

Ok, well, here is what I loved:
Travel - I have been to most of the places in this book - or close to the places where moments happen. I.e. Mount Rushmore but not the Badlands (even though I really wanted to)… things like that. Loved Denali. It’s always so fun to go back to places in books

Friendship - Maddie has the two best friends

Family - Dom’s brothers were so fun and also the best 

Towards the end - I liked conversations about work life balance and therapy.

Long- term relationship - I loved how this book took place during different seasons over a couple of years. Such an easy and clever way to show people changing.
——
Spicy - 🌶️ 🌶️🌶️🌶️ (a few super descriptive scenes)
Language - quite a few f 💣 and gd

You can get a bonus chapter from Dom’s pov by subscribing to her newsletter: https://www.laurenconnollyromance.com

“And I wonder if letting him into my heart again would be the itimate act of bravery, or a desperate woman repeating the same mistakes of the past.” P279

I started on audio and finished later on kindle.
The author/narrator is fine, but it’s too repetitive for me and I want to be able to go through it quicker for key points. I do feel like overall, I was surprised by several new ideas and ways people celebrate winter

She is a Stanford-trained scientist who went to Tromsø, Norway, 200 miles north of the arctic circle to experience winter, because she and many others dread the season. She found that people there have about the same levels of seasonal affective disorder as other places (instead of higher rates), so she wondered what caused them to have healthy “winter well-being,” and “winter was the best season,” “something people look forward to,” “to be enjoyed, not endured.” (Quotes from prelude)

In the book, she gives suggestions for others to “change their mindsets and embrace winter.”
“…how we approach winter is a pretty good litmus test for how we approach other dark, difficult seasons in our lives. How do we respond to situations out of our control? How do we react to circumstances we did not choose? Do we shrink and wither, or do we turn inward with intention and cultivate moments of joy? Do we focus on frustration, or do we seek wonder and connection to get us through?” (Introduction)

Parts of the book echo much of Wintering by Katherine May, which I loved. While that book was a personal experience, this was written for research. So in addition to her experience, she includes those of others in locations around the world.

Part 1:  Appreciate Winter / noticing nature
“If we believe that winter is boring, we are more likely to notice the times we feel bored. If we believe that winter is fascinating, we are more likely to notice the parts of winter that are engaging. One of the ways mindsets become self-fulfilling is by directing our attention, making us more likely to observe winter’s negatives or positives.” Ch 3

Ch 4:
“Útilykt is a special Icelandic word: translated directly, it means “out-smell.” It’s the scent that clings to your clothes and hair after returning inside from outdoors.” 
- “the weather outside unites us.”
-“If, instead of telling us to “stay inside” because “it’s gonna be a cold one,” the weather forecasters told us to “get ready for a cozy weekend.”
- “freeze-dry your laundry outside. Through sublimation—in which solid, frozen water evaporates directly into a gas—wet things freeze and then dry quickly and beautifully in subfreezing temperatures. This is also the science behind freeze-dried food!”

Part 2: Make it Special (nights, lights, and rites)

Ch 5 - mood
“We found that in American storybooks, best-selling storybooks, the characters show more of these open, toothy, what we call these ‘excitement smiles,’ whereas in the Taiwanese best-selling storybooks, more of these characters showed these closed, smaller, what we call ‘calm smiles.’ ” 
…
“We internalize them without even being aware of it, and then we reproduce them,”

- creating hygge 
- taking awe walks. These participants were told to “tap into your childlike sense of wonder” and to “approach what you see with fresh eyes.”

Ch 6 nights, lights and rites
-“Rather than pushing against the darkness, ask yourself: What is better in the dark?”
-“Why I Adore the Night,” by Jeanette Winterson
- The simple act of being around fire, as it becomes more of a luxury and less of a necessity in our modern world, is its own kind of celebration. Treating it as a sacred time—whether over a candlelit dinner or gathered around a hearth—is an opportunity to bring mindful attention to long winter nights.
-using natural materials like birch bark rather than artificial fire starters, paper, or cardboard, to make the fire more connected to nature
- making a sunset tea tray, with a hot drink and a little treat
- rituals provide connection at four levels: with ourselves, with each other, with nature, and with the transcendent. 
- Jólabókaflóð: the Christmas book flood, Christmas Eve … exchange books and then spend the evening reading and drinking hot chocolate,

Part 3: Get Outside

Ch 7  creating short term goals, self-compassion and companionship outside 
“Henrik Ibsen in 1859, friluftstliv, directly translated, means “open air life.”

Ch 8 (hot and cold swims)

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict called the Japanese bath “one of the best loved minor pleasures of the body.”

This book kind of reminds me of Kristin Hannah’s writing - things get worse and worse and worse… and when you finish the book, you miss the characters and wonder how they are doing, and think about them throughout your day. I guess it’s the amount of time you spend with them, and of course, the writing.

I read this book for my local bookclub tonight and I probably wouldn’t have read it if it wasn’t the selection. It’s kind of overwhelming in size and it is a tough read. Hundreds of pages of drug abuse and tough situations.

Demon has red hair, green eyes and begins the book living with his mother, who is an addict. His dad died early in his life, and when his mom meets a man who makes life difficult, it begins his journey of figuring out life for himself. We watch him grow up in foster homes, going back to his grandparents and try to find someone who cares for him as a family. It is all a tough journey, to say the least.

I felt like, at times, there was more detail given than necessary, like stories that didn’t pertain to the plot. I felt like it could have been edited down some.


I didn’t read David Copperfield, so I went and read a synopsis of it. It does seem to follow the original format (600-1200 pages depending on version). It’s interesting how Kingsolver wanted to tell a story of the opioid crisis in Appalachia and found a format through Charles Dickens work featuring a life of poverty.

“Everybody warns about bad influences, but it's these things already inside you that are going to take you down.” Ch 36

“Good people, bad people, what does that even mean? Get down to the rock and the hard place, and we're all just soft flesh and the weapon at hand. Ch 40

“Where does the road to ruin start?” Oprah asked this question in her bookclub, and I thought it was a good one. Ch 41

“Many had tried their best with us, but we came out of too-hungry mothers. Four demons spawned by four different starving hearts.” Cho 45

“The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between.” ch 56

There is a little propaganda about the issue of oxy 
“She said Purdue looked at data and everything with their computers, and handpicked targets like Lee County that were gold mines. They actually looked up which doctors had the most pain patients on disability, and sent out their drug reps for the full offensive.” Ch 49

This was the perfect companion book to The Sing Sing Files, which I listened to this week. The cover and title are great, but they don’t really give you an idea what this book is about.

It is about a wonderful bookclub in a women’s prison, where Harriet (aka Bookie) brings books to the women and tries to find ones that resonate with them and help them to grow. She bonds with them (more than she should), and when Violet is released and they run into each other, she welcomes Violet back into the real world, when her own family doesn’t want anything to do with her.

It is such a lovely found family story for all of them - Harriet, Violet, and Frank Diagle, the husband of the woman in Violet’s accident, that sent her to jail.

It is also a beautiful love letter to parrots and how loving animals are, and the difference they make in our lives.

“Hard to believe that on Harriet’s first day as volunteer Book Club leader, these same twelve women had struck her as nearly identical. Of course that was the point of uniforms, to render the women interchangeable. 
…
She could hear the women now, channeling voices dying to be heard.“ ch 3

“Books won’t solve my problems, Harriet.”
         “No, but they give your problems perspective. They allow your problems to breathe.” Ch 9

“ The line between this and that, you and her, us and them, the line is thin.” Ch 11

“The writer writes the words. The given reader reads the words. And the book, the unique and unrepeatable book, doesn’t exist until the given reader meets the writer on the page.” Ch 26

“ She’d been raised to say yes, to agree and approve and adapt and accommodate, to step aside as the architect of her own happiness. After Lou’s death she vowed to say yes only when that yes belonged to her, solely to her. “ ch 30

“It’s what Harriet would call the meanwhile, the important thing that was happening while the rest of the story moved along.” Epitaph 

There are a few storylines in this book that confused me for a little while, but then when they came together, I figured it out better.

Egypt, 1936 - Charlotte goes on a dig and meets her husband and has a child. She helps uncover some precious artifacts about an Egyptian queen.

New York City, 1978 - Annie lives with her alcoholic mother while trying to make ends meet. Her landlord asks her to run an errand to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where her life changes.

At the same time, Charlotte is working for the Met to organize Egyptian art and various exhibitions. She is living with a man who she doesn’t feel like she can be completely honest with, even about some pieces at the museum that she feels were illegally acquired. 

The Egyptian art in this story is based on certain pieces but the storylines had to change, so she made them all fictional pieces and events. The scenes in the book that brought more action in real life were related to other pieces, instead of the ones mentioned.

There were parts of this I really loved and parts that moved slower. I have enjoyed how Fiona Davis always finds another great NYC landmark to highlight. 

“Lots of museums are asking themselves the same questions these days, including the Met. Is the goal deaccession-sending everything back to its country of origin, no matter what—or is it better for an institution like the Met to hold on 8 to the object and keep it safe?” Ch 35

“

The irony that Charlotte was desperate to find her missing child while Joyce was doing everything she could to erase Annie from her life was not lost on Annie.” Ch 31

Thank you libro.fm for providing audio copies to librarians! I enjoyed listening! 

I have seen this book compared to Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, and it is similar for sure - it is the story of Dan Slepian, who began investigating one wrongful conviction at the Sing Sing correctional institution in New York, and subsequently finding 5 more at the same facility, that were processed by some of the same offices. 

As Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer, Dan Slepian is a journalist, so he has a different process and goal as he is doing his research. As he tells each person, if I find facts against your case, I will report on those as well, I am interested in the truth, not a defender for your case (my summary of his words). 

The audio for this book is incredible, read by Slepian, with letters read by the people who wrote them, and other audio from real events. One case is weaved through most of the others is for Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez. It took so many years for progress to be made in the case, and it’s shocking that he is still labeled as a murderer (at the time of this book)… but there is good news in a special update to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/last-stop-on-the-road-to-freedom/id1671212466?i=1000671609706

After reading Just Mercy, I knew that many innocent people are in jail, but this book did bring so much reality to their lives, the lives they missed and the personal pain people endure when they are wrongfully imprisoned (in JJ’s case for 20 years).

This book is based on his Pulitzer Prize podcast finalist, The Sing Sing Files https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/letters-from-sing-sing/id1671212466

“While I have a responsibility to the truth, I also have a responsibility to be a decent person, and it has been a tricky thing to navigate in my dealings with false imprisonment and the men who had suffered because of it. And that moment in the courthouse was one time when I was not living up to my obligations as a human being. I was behaving in a way I was taught to behave. That rigidity, that lack of humanity, that desire to appear ethical, is why people are wrongfully convicted in the first place.” Ch 19

“He said he had been convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years to life for a murder in the Bronx despite giving police the names of not one or two but thirteen witnesses who could swear he was a thousand miles away in Florida at the time of the crime for which he was convicted. The number left me dumbfounded. How could I not investigate this one?” Ch 20

This story is told in more detail in his podcast
13 Alibis - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/13-alibis/id1463081342