Longing and Loving

  

Book #9 and Book #10: Longing and Loving by Karen Kingsbury
I finished the Bailey Flanigan series and still have mixed reviews of them. I think Longing, the third book in the series, is the best one, or at least it's my favorite. I enjoyed Loving, the final book, but once again found myself skimming past multiple pages of scenes that were completely unnecessary. I was happy for the protagonist but once it was clear she was going to get married, I was ok with the story ending there. Instead we got several extra chapters of wedding planning, parents pontificating on their children growing up, and endless reminders about sexual purity. I get it, really I do, but this kind of blathering on is for people who enjoy soap operas, and I am not one of them. I'm still recommending them to my daughter because the story is engaging and the overall messages are great.

Harper Lee

If you felt a disturbance in the force yesterday, it was probably all of us book nerds crying out at once in reaction to this news:

Harper Lee, Author of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ Is to Publish a Second Novel

If you're not familiar, the short version is that Harper Lee wrote one book in 1960 and then sat down. She didn't write another book, and in spite of all her fans clamoring for another, she didn't need to. That one book was enough to make every author's dreams come true. My 15 year old daughter was even excited about this news, as she just read To Kill A Mockingbird this year in school. I called my mother immediately and we rejoiced together. The new book will be released this summer.

There of course must always be at least one Debbie Downer on the Interwebs, and some are already blogging about conspiracy theories, etc., since Lee's sister and protector just died three months ago. I do hope that nothing funny went on, and hope that the reception this book is getting brings joy to Harper Lee's heart.

January Books

I read 8 books in January! Feels good to be reading so much. Towards Zero by Agatha Christie was # 6. I started reading N or M? by Agatha Christie but took a break from it and read the first two books of Karen Kingsbury's Bailey Flanigan Series. I just needed something easy and fun to read, which these are. I do have a love/hate relationship with this author's books if I'm being honest. She writes great stories about faith and family, but they are often cheesy and predictable. We have to suffer through the lengthy inner monologue as characters work out their feelings and decisions, and the mom & child conversations with baby talk are just torture. I end up skipping over long sections like this because they make me a bit stabby. That said, I'm still reading them and enjoying them as crazy as that sounds. It's nice to have something a bit mindless to breeze through and they do have a good message about living out your faith.