Community Chat

[skyblue]

I finished THE HUSBAND'S SECRET. I figured out the secret and the twist fairly early on and it dragged from there. Definitely not a favorite for me.

[cookie5]

I agree with you skyblue. I thought I was the only one who didn't care for it.

[smoky22]

I never thought the husband's secret was a surprise. The main theme of the book for me was how the characters dealt with the information after it was discovered. I didn't think it was a great book, but I felt it was worth reading.

I'm not trying to disagree with anyone who didn't like the book (there have been plenty of books I didn't like that were praised by others). I just wanted to mention that I didn't think the secret was necessarily meant to be a surprise. Most of the book deals with the aftermath of people knowing about it.

[jaxs mom]

On 6/27/2014 DiAnne said:

I just finished The Romanov Sisters by Helen Rappaport. It was slow reading but a very good book. I was not that familiar with the Russian Revolution and had a hard time keeping track of the names. That said I learned a lot and enjoyed the book. I would recommend to anyone who enjoys historical novels.

Have you read From Splendor to Revolution: The Romanov Women from 1847-1928 by Julia Galardi? I really enjoyed it.

[skyblue]

On 6/28/2014 smokymtngal said:

I never thought the husband's secret was a surprise. The main theme of the book for me was how the characters dealt with the information after it was discovered. I didn't think it was a great book, but I felt it was worth reading.

I'm not trying to disagree with anyone who didn't like the book (there have been plenty of books I didn't like that were praised by others). I just wanted to mention that I didn't think the secret was necessarily meant to be a surprise. Most of the book deals with the aftermath of people knowing about it.

Good points! Absolutely no offense taken! I love to hear varying points of view!

[esmerelda]

Finished The Silkworm (Robert Galbraith) today. What a great book!! I don't usually seek out mysteries, so I'm not one who tries to figure out "whodunit." Even if I did, I don't know if I would have seen this one coming. It was an audible download and the reader (Robert Glenister) did an remarkable job!!

Not sure I mentioned earlier I read (audible download) The Sense of an Ending (Julian Barnes). From amazon:

This intense new novel follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he’d left all this behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage and family and career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement. But he is then presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety of things he thought he’d understood all along, and to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

It was good, and short enough that I listened twice, picking up more the second time around.

Moving on to Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932: A Novel (Francine Prose). From Booklist, via amazon:

Artistically and intellectually adventurous, Prose presents a house-of-mirrors historical novel built around a famous photograph by Brassai of two women at a table in a Paris nightclub. The one wearing a tuxedo is athlete, race-car driver, and N*zi collaborator Violette Morris. So intriguing and disturbing is her story, Prose considered writing a biography, but instead she forged an electrifying union of fact and fiction by creating a circle of witnesses and chroniclers of varying degrees of reliability....In an intricately patterned, ever-morphing, lavishly well-informed plot spanning the French countryside and reaching to Berlin, Prose intensifies our depth perception of that time of epic aberration and mesmerizing evil as she portrays complex, besieged individuals struggling to become their true selves. A dark and glorious tour de force.

In print I'm enjoying Killing Bridezilla (Laura Levine)...light mystery.

[smoky22]

On 6/28/2014 skyblue said:

On 6/28/2014 smokymtngal said:

I never thought the husband's secret was a surprise. The main theme of the book for me was how the characters dealt with the information after it was discovered. I didn't think it was a great book, but I felt it was worth reading.

I'm not trying to disagree with anyone who didn't like the book (there have been plenty of books I didn't like that were praised by others). I just wanted to mention that I didn't think the secret was necessarily meant to be a surprise. Most of the book deals with the aftermath of people knowing about it.

Good points! Absolutely no offense taken! I love to hear varying points of view!

Thanks, skyblue. I was hoping I didn't sound offensive. I like different points of view also. By the way, based on your earlier review, I put myself on waitlist for The Secret Life Of Violet Grant.

[smoky22]

On 6/28/2014 esmerelda said:

Finished The Silkworm (Robert Galbraith) today. What a great book!! I don't usually seek out mysteries, so I'm not one who tries to figure out "whodunit." Even if I did, I don't know if I would have seen this one coming. It was an audible download and the reader (Robert Glenister) did an remarkable job!!

Not sure I mentioned earlier I read (audible download) The Sense of an Ending (Julian Barnes). From amazon:

I just purchased The Silkworm for my Kindle. It's the first book (ever) that I've purchased for my Kindle (I have a lot of free downloads of the classics). I usually get my books from the library, but impossible as it sounds, my library doesn't have this book yet. They said there was no money in June to buy any new books and they might have it in July. I couldn't wait (and there will be long waitlist, I'm sure, when they do get it). I hope I like it as much as the first book.

I vaguely recall reading The Sense of an Ending. It won some kind of prize, too, but the details of the book have not stayed with me.

Killing Bridezilla was cute.

[walkingal]

I just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. First, I was surprised by the writing style and lack of punctuation, but I quickly got used to that and really got into the book. I think McCarthy's writing style here was appropriate for the story. It's sad (I used a lot of tissue), and tender, sweet, dark, and harrowing; but love and devotion keep two people -- a father and son -- alive in the midst of total devastation. I'm glad I read it, and I highly recommend it.

[Lilysmom]

SMOKYMTNGAL, SKYBLUE, I'm with you on your review of THE HUSBAND'S SECRET. LM