Waiting to be Read....

This is the stack of book on my nightstand that are being read and needed to be read!

I just finished reading Where'd You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple. Here's a review from Amazon ( I thought I would give to much away!)

Bernadette Fox is a wife and mother with anxiety issues. HUGE anxiety issues. It's so bad that she hires an offshore resource to handle her day-to-day errands - the ones she doesn't have to show up for in person. The less she has to deal with people, the better!

She wasn't always like this. In fact, she used to be a rising star in the world of architecture, back in the day. A genius rising star. Then something happened, and Bernadette ran from the world.

Her husband Elgin still loves her, and her daughter Bee thinks the world revolves around her, so Bernadette doesn't have any complaints. Until things spin out of control, and Elgin decides an intervention is necessary before it all goes to hell in a hand-basket.

Then Bernadette disappears.

I really enjoyed how this book was written. It is actually letters and emails that Bernadette's daughter is reading in order to figure out where her mom may have gone. At one time you read an email how the parents of the school were getting together to discuss how to get more parents to attend the private school.. The next part is a note sent home from the principal apologizing for the disastrous meeting and how to watch your child for PTSD.  It is a very cleverly written book and I would recommend this one to anyone who needs a fun easy read!!

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Another book I just finished was The Twelve Tribes of Hattie which is Oprah's latest book choice.

I have mixed feelings about this book. Here is an overview from Amazon:

In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness. Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind.

the first chapter, which is told from Hattie's perspective, was heartbreaking and I couldn't put the book down.  I found that each chapter is a short story told from the perspective of one of Hattie's nine children. I loved the short stories...each one grabbed my attention, but I was left  wondering what happened to that character later in life. At one point, I wondered if the author would put out additional books, finishing the story of some of the characters.  But, I like when I get to the end of a book that things are all tied up...good or bad...but needs to have an ending. I would give this book 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.  It is worth reading, but be prepared, that the stories don't have a solid ending.  

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I am just starting Still Life by Louise Penny...a quick preview from amazon:

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it’s a tragic hunting accident and nothing more, but Gamache smells something foul in these remote woods, and is soon certain that Jane Neal died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter.

Doesn't this sound exciting!! I'll let you know what I think!