Book Club October 2019 Book- "House of Salt and Sorrows" by Erin A. Craig

This book is a YA retelling of the fairy tale "Twelve Princesses Dancing". In the fairy tale, the 12 princesses go dancing all night and have to get new shoes every day. (I've never actually read the original story, so I only know that.)

In this story, the story opens with the funeral of a girl. She is the fourth sister in a family of twelve to die. Her younger sister, Annaleigh, is the narrator. They are the daughter of a duke, who is also a widower. They have a new stepmother, who announces her pregnancy at the funeral luncheon.

 Strange things start happening at the manor. Annaleigh is not sure that Eulalie (her sister who just died) committed suicide. She investigates with the help of her friend Fisher, and finds out Eulalie had a secret lover. But before she can talk to him about the night Eulalie was going to run away, he falls to his death. She also meets this man named Cassius, whom she takes an interest in.

She and her sisters find a secret passageway to different parties that happen around the land every night.

That's all I want to share right now because there are some crazy plot twists that I don't want to give away. We read this in our book club in October because it is slightly creepy and has to do with death and ghosts. There's also a main character named Camille, which was exciting and *spoiler alert* she doesn't die! Yay! If they make this into a movie it will be a good teen movie. Lots of romance, beautiful dresses (which I wish I could wear sometimes!), suspense, and just enough scare factor to keep you super into the book. The plot twist is mind bending, and it makes you wonder what is real and what is fake.

Book Club August 2019 book- "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens

So my friend Susan started a book club here! I'm so happy about it, because it's giving me a chance to really kick up my reading.

The first book was "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens. I have seen the picture on the library website, since it is popular. So I'm glad she picked it out!

The book opens up with a scene of a man's body being found in a swamp. They don't know who killed Chase Andrews, but they had some suspicions. 

The first half of the book were memories about a girl named Kya (born Catherine) who grew up in the swamps outside a tiny town in North Carolina. She is abandoned by her family at a very young age (like ages 6-8), but somehow has the drive to survive. She sells clams to a local store run by an old "colored" man named Jumper, and makes rudimentary food. CPS comes to bring her to school, but she gets made fun of so much that she only goes one day.

Her older brother, Jody, has a friend named Tate that recognizes Kya and helps her. She learns to read and write, and eventually falls in love with Tate (in a way). She has no way of knowing what human emotions are or how someone should act besides the animals that she has seen. Tate prevents anything from happening at the last minute, and eventually goes off to college.

Meanwhile, she meets Chase, who wants to spend time with her. He shows interest, and one day when Kya is in town she sees him with his arm around another girl. He blows her off, but comes back and apologizes. They eventually go on a trip together, where he takes her virginity and she does not like it. He gets engaged to another girl soon after, and Kya writes him off.
She had been documenting the animals that she has seen, and Tate finds a professor who publishes it. This gives her money that allows her to not only survive but begin to thrive for the first time in her life.

Shortly after this is when Chase's body is found, and Chase's mom is sure it was Kya. He wore a shell necklace that she gave him every day, even after he was married. However, Chase was the type of person who had multiple affairs and could have had many enemies. Ultimately, Kya was arrested and thrown in jail.
The next whole part of the book is the courtroom and trial. It was a big shift in narrative, losing all of her descriptions and talking about the nature around her. Instead it's very matter of fact and cold. It's obvious from the get-go that the prosecution was very biased against Kya. There was no real solid evidence against her. There were no fingerprints period, which was suspicious. But nothing to suspect her.
(SPOILERS AHEAD- if you haven't read it don't keep reading!)

Ultimately the jury did not convict her. However, Tate spent so much time and emotion invested in Kya's trial that he didn't notice his dad's failing health. His dad passed away shortly after. Kya and Tate got common-law married, but never were able to have children. They lived in her house in the swamp, and Kya died in her 60's, and while Tate was cleaning out her things he found out that she was also an accomplished poet. One of her poems talks about luring a man to his death, and pushing him off the tower into the swamp.



So, my thoughts on the book.
It showed how judgmental people can be in regards to "other" types of people. The prosecution had suspicions but they had many other people to look into. Why not the wife, since he has had many affairs? Why not the significant other of a woman that he had an affair with? But those were all "our" people in the town. Kya was an outsider and had been marginalized her whole life. She was an easy suspect.
It was fitting that she never got legally married. Why would she try to fit in with the government that had failed her this whole time?
It is sad that she wasn't able to have children. But since she found out her mom had a mental breakdown and left when she was 4, it makes me wonder if she would have handled having a child. Not having a nurturing presence in your life could have made it difficult to know how to raise a child. (I know it is possible, but she had a very feral childhood.)


Overall, a good read! Some of the descriptions are a little mature for younger audiences, but it was definitely engaging.

"Hillbilly Elegy" by J.D. Vance

I haven't written here in a LONG time, but this was such a good book I had to share it.

This also crosses off a book from the Modern Mrs. Darcy 2019 Reading Challenge- a book I have been meaning to read! I had this book recommended to me a few months ago and just found it again. I read it in about 3 days.

J.D. is a boy who grew up in Middletown Ohio, and spent his summers in Jackson Kentucky. He comes from a long line of proud hillbillies, and spends a good amount of time talking about what that was like. He had a variety of father figures in his life, and his mother was a drug addicted nurse. He grew up with a family history of taking electric saws to people's backs over a disagreement, or the time his grandma's brother made a boy eat a pair of her underwear at gunpoint after he made an inappropriate comment about her. Arguments regularly turned to blows, and defending your mother's honor meant beating the other man to a pulp. J.D. didn't know anything besides this. One of the men his mother married (for about 6 months) nearly took him away from Middletown and the comparative stability of living on the same street as his grandparents, and he fought that. His grandparents were the ones who helped him succeed in high school. He got into Ohio State but realized he didn't know the first thing about being an adult. So he joined the Marines. When he got back from the Marines he went to Ohio State and set his mind on Yale Law school. NOBODY from his town went to an Ivy League. So when he got in it was a big deal. He got married, and now lives a totally different life from the one he was dealt.

There are 2 huge points to take away from this. 1) With the right support system, you can achieve anything. 2) Don't let yourself be a victim of your circumstances.

About point 1: J.D. was born into a poor town that was not safe and had low education expectations. The college rate was low, and Ivy League was unheard of. His Papaw and Mamaw thought that they failed his mother, since she turned out to be a drug addict that begged her kids for clean urine so she could keep working to buy more drugs. They decided to be the best possible parents they could for their grandchildren. His grandmother told him he was not allowed to hang out with his old druggie friends. She made sure he didn't accept just barely passing for himself. He was going to work HARD and make something of himself! He has an older sister, who married someone that was not "like them". This meant that he didn't scream and throw things when they got into an argument. He treated J.D.'s sister well, and gave her a stable home.  Growing up in Appalachia is a different world from New Haven. He didn't know what sparkling water was. He didn't know how to network with the lawyers and law firms. But he found a support system at Yale that allowed him to navigate these new challenges, and now is a successful attorney. 

About point 2: J.D. was part of a world that is totally foreign to me. Hillbillies (which is what they proudly called themselves) were staunchly Democrat until about Nixon's time. Then within a generation they went from totally Democrat to totally Republican. Nobody quite knows why. But nowadays, only about 6% of the country trusts the media to be truthful. People always had an excuse. When a coworker of J.D.'s who had a pregnant girlfriend was fired, he blamed the manager. He didn't blame the fact that he was hours late to work, and took multiple half-hour long bathroom breaks every day. When another acquaintance was fired, he blamed "Obama's economy", not the fact that he didn't want to come into work anymore. If people want to find something besides themselves to blame for everything that goes wrong, they can. Their support system has let them down yet again. The government is making them out to be a victim. They were born without the ability to be successful. EVERYTHING is pushing them back! But until you accept that you CAN change something the world will seemingly always be against you.

I didn't even do this book a little bit of justice, but I recommend it to everyone.

Book 7- "The Vile Village" by Lemony Snicket

This book was extremely frustrating. The Baudelaires can't find anyone else to watch them, so they are taken to a pilot program of a village taking care of children (after the saying "It takes a village to raise a child"). First of all, where are all the parents' friends? Are they really all dead too? What the heck?

The village is the Village of Fowl Devotees (Oh I forgot to mention in the 5th book, V.F.D. is a secret code that the Baudelaires learned about. However they know nothing about it so they signed up for the village called "V.F.D."Anyway.) because they are obsessed with the crows that roost in their town. EVERYWHERE. The elders in this village have a million rules, including no mechanical tools, no books that talk about breaking any of the rules, and most importantly do NOT hurt a crow. The punishment for breaking a rule is being burnt at the stake. Even though the village signed up for the program, none of the elders wanted to house or feed the children. So they are sent to live with Hector the handyman, who just happens to have all the banned tools and books behind his house. His problem is that he is too skittish around the Elders to speak up to them ever.

When the Baudelaires go to Hector's house, he shows them something that he found by the tree outside his house. It is a couplet, written by Isadora Quagmire! The Baudelaires are convinced that they are in the village, and want to find them. They are in charge of all the chores in the village, so they work with Hector. On their first day, they find out the Elders have kidnapped Count Olaf. Which was SUPER shocking.

However, when they go to the courtroom they see that it is not Count Olaf but another man who happens to look like him and have the same tattoo. His name is Jacques Snicket, and he knew the Baudelaires' parents. They wanted to hear from Jacques, but find out the next morning that he was murdered. The detective for the case was guess who? OLAF. He says that the children were the ones who killed "Olaf", which means they were going to be burned at the stake. They are put in prison, because Hector won't stand up for them against the Elders.

The children somehow figure out that the bread and water they have will act as a sponge and help break down the brick on the wall. They work all night on it, and break out using their bench just before they are supposed to be burned. While they are talking about the poems that they had found from Isadora, they realize the Quagmire triplets are hidden in the new fountain in town. They break them out, and find Hector finishing up his invention. It is a self sustaining hot air balloon. Duncan and Isadora begin climbing, but before the Baudelaires can climb up the rope ladder Esme (who was disguised as the new chief of police) shoots the ladder with a harpoon gun. The Baudelaires fall and run away.

This book is super frustrating because they can't catch a break. Nobody stands up for them, they are just pushed around, and they find their friends AGAIN to have them leave. This time they left with a nice (but spineless) man. So it is a lot of the same as the other books, but for some reason it really bugged me this time.

Book 6- "The Ersatz Elevator" by Lemony Snicket

Out of all the books (possibly in the whole series, but definitely so far), I think this one had the most  shocking plot twist in it.

They get sent to some friends of their parents, although "friends" is a strong word. Jerome, the husband, wanted to adopt the children immediately. But Esme, the wife, is such a slave to what is "in" and what is "out" that she wouldn't entertain the idea until orphans were considered "in". (There's a lot of talk of in and out for the next few books, hold tight.) Fortunately that happened right about the time they were kicked out of boarding school, despite being exonerated from the accusations by Vice Principal Nero. They learn that Jerome is very kind, but kind of spineless because he doesn't like to argue. He allows Esme to determine what he will wear, where they will live (a 71 bedroom penthouse!), where they go to eat, all based on her crazy ideas of what is in and what is out. She is planning to have an auction of "In" things, and GUESS WHO THE AUCTIONEER IS. Olaf. How did he find them again? Then it gets really mysterious when he leaves their penthouse and the doorman is told that they aren't allowed to go back to their apartment until he leave the building. But he doesn't leave it for days. Where could he have gone? (Oh, and the penthouse is on the 66th floor but the elevators are "out" so they were taken out). Klaus realizes there is one more elevator door on the penthouse floor than anywhere else. So they push the button and realize it is just an empty shaft. And the shock of their lives happens when they realize that at the bottom of the shaft are their friends Duncan and Isadora. They were put there in a cage. Violet discovers that they can use welding tools to melt the bars. (How does she do that?) While they are heating up the tools and climbing down with a rope made of neck ties, extension cords, and rope, the Quagmires are taken away from their cage.

Now, here is the part that shocked me the first time I read it. They climb BACK up the rope and tell Esme what they discovered. She talks to them and tells them it will be ok. She is uncharacteristically kind, but it all comes to a head when she opens the phantom elevator doors and pushes them down the shaft. Luckily, someone installed a net halfway down. Turns out Esme was working with Olaf the whole time. They knew each other way back when, and she wanted to help take the children's fortune. When she leaves, Sunny climbs up the elevator shaft using her teeth (yeah that's realistic) and gets the rope. They are able to climb down and find out they are in a passageway. Here is the second shocking plot twist. When the passageway comes to a head, they find a trap door. The trap door leads to THEIR OWN HOUSE.  I had forgotten about that when I was reading it this time, so it caught me off guard.

Somehow they make it to the auction and Count Olaf barely escapes. Again. Jerome won't take them because he doesn't want to argue. So he clearly isn't that good of a guardian if he won't even stand up for them. But this one had enough twists and turns to keep me entertained.

Book 5- "The Austere Academy" by Lemony Snicket

This one was one of my favorites. Not only is "austere" a word I can use more often than a lot of the words I've learned from this book, but there is SO much to hate and love here!

Vice Principal Nero (pictured on the cover) is one of the most irritating people I've ever met (read). In many ways he shadows Count Olaf, but in a non-murderous sort of way. He is arrogant, cruel to the students at his school, and severely underestimates the Baudelaires. When they arrive, he tells them that they cannot live in the dormitories because they didn't have a guardian sign their permission slip. Because they don't have a guardian... but that doesn't matter. So they are sent off to live in the nicknamed "Orphan Shack". It has crabs, mold, and awful wallpaper. If they are late for meals (which are served at breakfasttime, lunchtime and dinnertime), they don't get any cups for their drinks. If they enter the office building, they don't get silverware. And since Sunny is too young for any of the classes, she is employed as Principal Nero's secretary. Which is as ridiculous as it sounds. So she doesn't get silverware for any of her meals. Now, as the parent of a toddler I know she will be just fine.

The part of the book that I love is that they make friends finally! They meet two triplets (the third died in a fire), who just so happen to also be orphans, named Duncan and Isadora. They are the heirs to the Quagmire sapphire fortune. Duncan wants to be a reporter, and Isadora a poet. They both have notebooks that they carry around to take notes in. The Baudelaires trust them and tell them about their troubles. Just then, a new gym teacher shows up. Yep, Olaf. He has the children start running laps all. night. long. For about 10 nights straight. The children are exhausted, but Vice Principal Nero won't do anything about it. They finally have to pass a comprehensive exam (and make their own staples, in Sunny's case) or fail out. Luckily for them, their gym teacher will take them in if they get kicked out. Ohhhhh dear. Duncan and Isadora offer to go in their place, using Violet's hair ribbon and Klaus' glasses. They bring a bag of flour along for Sunny. The Baudelaires are able to prepare all night, and pass their tests. Just as they think everything is going well for once, Coach Genghis (Olaf) shows up announcing that they cheated by having someone else run in their place. They see his accomplices (who were well hidden this time, so I can't blame them for not seeing it) loading Duncan and Isadora into a car, and they chase them just for Olaf and his henchmen to escape. It is so hard for the children to realize they lost the first friends they have made in a long time. Luckily Mr. Poe was there, right? (eye roll)

Book 4- "The Miserable Mill" by Lemony Snicket

This is the fourth book in the series, and not quite as exciting as the first 3. First of all, why would Mr. Poe allow someone who was in charge of a lumber mill take care of 2 teenagers and an infant? The adoption/foster system during the time and in the place of the Baudelaires really leaves something to be desired.

The children are put right to work, and don't notice anything suspicious about anyone around them. Which is really too bad. If they were more aware of what the accomplices of Count Olaf looked like then they could have devised a plan. But as it were, they let him push Klaus to the ground twice, breaking his glasses. When he came back, he was a totally different person. They eventually found out that he was hypnotized by the optometrist, who had a brand new receptionist named "Shirley". Yep, Olaf. They don't realize until it's too late that the foreman is one of Olaf's accomplices, as Olaf and his workers are trying to pin crimes on the children to get them kicked out of the mill. The only person who is really nice to them is one of the owners of the mill, Charles. One night, Charles is nearly killed when Klaus is hypnotized. The children manage to escape (with Klaus un-hypnotized), but Dr. Orwell falls in front of the saw and dies.

I'm assuming that by this book the reader knows that Olaf is going to show up, which kind of takes the suspense out of the one big plot twist from the book. It isn't my favorite, because there isn't anything that makes my heart pound or gasp in my head.