Something for Sunday

I haven't done a book review in quite a while. Since July is drawing to a close, I thought I'd share my 5-star picks for the month. Out of the ten I read, four were big hits with me. Ten books in a month is a lot for me. I average about six or seven. Maybe the books I read were shorter this month.

Anyway, let's go:

1. Let me start by saying that I like Gretchen Wilson---but I don't love her. Meaning, I never felt the need to go to one of her concerts. What prompted me to read her book were two things: 1. I like autobiographies and 2. She grew up across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. I really enjoy books where I can relate to the locations and businesses they talk about. Anyway, she totally considers herself a redneck and by all definitions of the word, she and her family are. It's a very interesting story and I love her dedication to family. She has all relatives handling just about every aspect of her career and running her farm. I loved it.

2. Although this is a book of fiction, it takes place in Nashville. Again, I love that I know all the places mentioned in the book. This book is about the "haves" and the "have nots" with some surprising twists thrown in. 

3. This story is about all the families living on a cul-de-sac. You might think you know them, but each family has their own secrets and ultimately, surprises. 

4. This book is a psychological thriller. It's not scary or anything, in fact, it takes quite a while before any of the strange things start happening. Everyone seems pretty normal, although it's unrealistic to me that people fall in love in a day or two. I don't usually like books that are far-fetched, but I didn't see this ending coming and I LOVE books like that!!

The other books I read that were just so-so are:

The Night Portrait--we picked this for our girls book on vacation. We wanted something set in Italy. It's another that goes back and forth in time, highlighting the history of DaVinci's "Lady with an Ermine" portrait. It was all right, but if you already know about the monuments men, I wouldn't waste my time.

No Time Like the Future--autobiography of Michael J. Fox. I enjoyed this book and I love MJF, but it wasn't one of the best. Really, the best autobiography I've read in the past year was Viola Davis'. If I could, I'd give it 10 stars!

It All Comes Back to You--I almost gave this book 5 stars. It was a sweet story about a nursing home worker, Ronni, who bonds with an elderly woman, Violet. When Violet dies, Ronni stands to inherit her estate in exchange for writing a book of her (Violet's) life story. It goes back and forth in time--which is a favorite style of mine. But Violet was a little too "self-serving" for my taste.

The Prisoner--I usually like B.A. Paris' thrillers. This one was too far-fetched for me. The fact that I had to "look up" what it was about to remind myself says it all.

Agnes Grey--I read this book because I learned about the lesser known Bronte sister, Ann--while watching the docu-movie about Emily on the plane coming home from Italy. There's a reason that this book didn't become a classic. It's very similar to other books during that time period: young girl becomes governess to horrid children, falls in love with the local curate without his reciprocation, circumstances separates them, they get together at the very end with nothing but nonsense in-between. That's the entire book in a nutshell. There, consider you read it!

Women Talking--this book was highly rated. It's an interesting story, but I do not like ANY books where I cannot pronounce the names of the characters or tell if they are male or female. In this case, most were female, but my constant stumbling over the names and my inability to keep the characters straight, just frustrated me.