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The Candymakers by Wendy Mass

I recently reread this book and liked it just as much the second time as I did the first. The Candymakers by Wendy Mass is a book about friendship and adventure. It starts out with a boy named Logan. Logan’s father is the candymaker at the Life Is Sweet candy factory. Logan has lived there since he was born. During the period of time in which this book takes place, Logan Sweet, Miles O’Leary, Daisy Carpenter and Phillip Ransford all join the Confectionary Association's annual new candy contest. In the beginning, they are all against each other. All of them are trying to win the contest for a very specific reason. However, in the end of the book they all come together to do the right thing. This is a pretty easy reading level but it is a good story. If you read and like(d) the first book, read the second book! The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase!

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

This book has sat on my bookshelf for a few years. March, remember March? What a March! Well, that was a good month for me to finally check this book off my to-read list.
An intriguing story and, while I liked the understated nature of the writing, I constantly felt like I really wanted more details.  At first, I thought those details would come later in the story, but they never really did.  You understood that these were "different" children, and then you understand why it is that they are different, but the 10,000 questions and conflicts that I wanted to know more about were never addressed.   For me, this story was begging for so much more description than it ever got.  I would not reread.  I might recommend, but not to everyone. For a bit more summary, here's what the MORE catalog has to say...
MORE Catalogue summary:
Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it. Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it's only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is.

Happy New Year!

I loved this book. I believe I gave it 5 stars on the Goodreads website, which is a rare occurrence for me.  It is just the right blend of fiction and history, with excellent detail on specific areas of life that I know little about-- book conservation (which I found fascinating) and Jewish history (also fascinating, but in a different way). I enjoy deeply developed characters and this book provided several, both in the protaganist and in the Haggadah itself .
Read more reviews about it at Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1379961.People_of_the_Book?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=9oXahGPKAS&rank=1

 Reviving the blog!  I hope to renew the library blog in 2020 and thought I'd start right here, with a nod to my books of 2019, thanks to Goodreads willingness to share.  I read some very very good books this year, along with the mediocre and the not-so-good, and look forward to sharing them with you.  Enjoy!       

     

         

           
         

         

           
         

         

            Sometimes I Lie
         

         

            by Alice Feeney
         

         

            it was ok...i'd recommend it to anyone who likes a domestic sort of suspense story, but it didn't grab me by the throat or create any lasting emotional response. It may just be that I'm on the tail end of suspense binge and they've start...
         

     

     

         

           
         

         

           
         

         

            The Golem and the Jinni
         

         

            by Helene Wecker
         

         

            Wonderful, detailed story filled with strongly developed characters whom I miss now that the story has ended.
         

     

     

         

           
         

         

           
         

         

            What is Not Yours is Not Yours
         

         

            by Helen Oyeyemi
         

     

     

         

           
         

         

           
         

         

            Les Misérables
         

         

            by Victor Hugo
         

         

            Well, I finished it!$#!%! by reading it in a variety of formats (including a graphic novel adaptation) and skipping loooooooooots of the several hundred pages of backstory (which i decided to do after reading several hundred pages detail...
         

     

     

         

           
         

         

           
         

         

            The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
         

         

            by Junot Díaz
         

         

            His ability to wind many intricate threads into one story reminds me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
         

     

 

 

   
 
 
 

     

     

The Shadow Over Innsmouth

A while back I discovered an author some people will
 recognize who went by the name of H.P. Lovecraft. Most people
 would know him as the man behind the creation of the mythical
 being known as Cthulu. His books revolve around eldritch beings
 and strange horrors and the fates of the poor mortals who are
 unlucky enough to stumble across them. His word choice and
sometimes murky way of writing all come together to form
psychologically frightening and masterfully written stories about
ancient evils and man’s attempts to confront them. His books have
a strange feel to them, and often end with a twist.

My personal favorite H.P. Lovecraft book is, “The Shadow Over
 Innsmouth.” In this book the main character, a young man celebrating
his coming of age  by traveling through New England, discovers a
strange town by the name of Innsmouth. As he wanders the town
he finds increasingly dark secrets about it and its strange denizens.  

The latter half of the book is dedicated to his daring escape from the
 town and subsequent revelations and realizations. I love this book
 partially because of the hero. He’s quick-thinking, rational, and
 displays all the characteristics we aren’t used to from characters
 in horror books or movies. This book is fantastic, and gives you a
 little shudder after you turn the last page. I definitely recommend it.

Out of The Silent Planet

Most people have heard of C.S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia. However, 
what they don’t always realize is that Lewis wrote many other books as well, 
including a trilogy set in space. The Space Trilogy, as it is aptly named, follows 
a professor named Elwin Ransom in his journeys through space.
The first book, Out of the Silent Planet, shows Ransom’s rather rough 
introduction to space, when he is kidnapped and forced aboard a spaceship that 
whisks him off to Malacandra (Mars).  Upon arrival, he evades his captors and 
escapes into the beautiful, frightening, alien world, full of strange colorful landscapes
and creatures. As he travels the planet, he learns that not all is as he first thought. 
He meets bizarre aliens, learns about the origins of the universe, and realizes that 
man is not nearly quite as great as he thinks he is.
The other two books have similar themes, with Ransom facing different and greater 
evils as he travels space. However, they don’t get repetitive or boring, with Lewis 
continuing to add more detail and wonder into them. This trilogy truly shows that 
Lewis is just as skilled at writing science-fiction as he is at writing fantasy.