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Book Review: Landline

Rainbow Rowell Landline Cover

Rating: 4 stars

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble; it has been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems beside the point now.

Maybe that was always beside the point.

Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her — Neal is always a little upset with Georgie — but she doesn’t expect him to pack up the kids and go home without her.

When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything.

That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts…

Is that what she’s supposed to do?

Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?

I really enjoyed reading Landline. It is the second book by Rainbow Rowell that I’ve read and has become my favorite so far. What I loved about this story was how Rowell carried it out. In the beginning of the book, the reader quickly realizes that Georgie’s marriage to her husband Neal isn’t perfect. While Georgie is at work, her husband Neal spends his day at home, taking care of the kids and everything around the house. But the reader is able to easily see that Neal isn’t happy with this arrangement. The reason I love these details being portrayed in Landline is because marriages aren’t perfect. And the reader gets to see this through Neal and Georgie’s marriage to each other and what happens over the next couple days.

I also love these details because Rowell shows her readers that relationships aren’t perfect. The reader can see this throughout Landline when Neal leaves for Omaha with the kids. While he’s away, Georgie feels guilty that she didn’t go with him to his mother’s house. She also begins to reflect a lot on their relationship and wonders if they were even meant to be together. Or if they would’ve been better off not getting married in the first place. I love that Rowell makes Georgie reflect on their relationship because while they aren’t perfect for each other, the reader learns from this book that if you love someone enough, being perfect with each other doesn’t matter. As long as you are willing to be by your love’s side, you will be able to conquer all of the problems your relationship brings to the surface.

I also enjoyed reading Landline because of Georgie’s relationship with her best friend Seth. While they make Seth out to be the guy Georgie was meant to be with, I’m really glad they didn’t end up together. Yes, the reader can easily see how good of a couple they could’ve been, but I feel that her relationship with Neal was much stronger than her friendship with Seth. I know that she and Seth have been friends longer then she’s been with Neal, but I felt a stronger connection between her and Neal despite their imperfect relationship. I also found Seth to be highly entertaining and funny and just couldn’t picture the two of them being together as a couple.

Landline was also an enjoyable read for me because of the different dynamics of relationships Rowell brought into the book. Not only do you have an imperfect relationship between Neal and Georgie, but the book also has Georgie’s younger sister Heather who turns out to be gay and Georgie’s mother is married to a man closer to Georgie’s age than her own. There’s also Seth, who they make seem to be Georgie’s soul mate but really isn’t. I really like that these relationships between characters are completely dynamic because it made reading Landline for me that much more enjoyable. The book not only had dynamic characters but dynamic relationships, which made the book not turn out the way the reader would expect. While I don’t mind reading books where best friends of the opposite gender end up together, it’s also very nice to see that they can also be friends without becoming a couple too.

The only issue I had when reading Landline was the ending. Without spoiling any of you, I felt as if the ending of the book was pretty flat. Yes, it did catch me by surprise because it wasn’t what I was expecting, but I also felt as if the book just suddenly ended and everything was okay in Georgie’s universe. The reader never gets to find out what happens after that Christmas and whether Georgie and Neal’s marriage does continue on and that really bothered me when I finished reading.

However, the ending of Landline didn’t make me enjoy reading this book any less. I overall really enjoyed reading this book more than I did Fangirl and can’t wait to read some more of Rainbow Rowell’s other novels.

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Book Review: The Prayer Box

The Prayer Box Lisa Wingate

Rating: 3 stars

When Iola Anne Poole, an old-timer on Hatteras Island, passes away in her bed at ninety-one, the struggling young mother in her rental cottage, Tandi Jo Reese, finds herself charged with the task of cleaning out Iola’s rambling Victorian house. Running from a messy, dangerous past, Tandi never expects to find more than a temporary hiding place within Iola’s walls, but everything changes with the discovery of eighty-one carefully decorated prayer boxes, one for each year, spanning from Iola’s youth to her last days. Hidden in the boxes is the story of a lifetime, written on random bits of paper–the hopes and wishes, fears and thoughts of an unassuming but complex woman passing through the seasons of an extraordinary, unsung life filled with journeys of faith, observations on love, and one final lesson that could change everything for Tandi.

This book was an okay read for me. It wasn’t what I was expecting to read, but I thought it was okay. What I liked about The Prayer Box was the background story the reader received about Tandi and why she was on Hatteras Island. Her dark past with her ex-husband was something I found I could relate to and pulled me into reading this novel. I also enjoyed Lisa Wingate’s writing. She is very descriptive about Iola Anne Poole’s Victorian house and it made me interested in finding out what Tandi was going to find in the home. She also described the scenery on the island well enough to where I could picture where Tandi and her children were living.

I also enjoyed reading about Tandi’s growing relationship with the people around her and her children. Lisa Wingate shows some strong character development with Tandi that I really enjoyed seeing as she was reading Iola’s letters.

However, there was a lot in The Prayer Box that was missing for me. The letters Tandi finds in the boxes that were written by Iola were really disappointing to me. I felt as if they didn’t really give the reader Iola’s character. If anything, the letters told us more about Iola and her past, but I didn’t feel as if I could understand her character from reading them. While I did enjoy hearing about Tandi’s past, the reader really doesn’t get a whole lot about why she and her children left. We know that Tandi’s ex-husband Trammel was bad, but I felt as if we as readers don’t get the full picture as to what happened with him. We also don’t get a whole lot about what’s going to happen to Tandi now that her ex-husband is in jail and that Iola’s house isn’t going to be destroyed. The book just suddenly ends with no real conclusion.

I also found Tandi’s character to be disappointing. While I do understand what she went through, I felt as if she didn’t really learn from her past. The reader can see this in The Prayer Box through her relationship with Ross and the relationship she has with her children at the beginning of the book. Ross is a lot like Tandi’s ex-husband Trammel and she even mentions that when she’s talking about him. However, Tandi doesn’t realize how bad of a man he is for her even after what happens with Gina. Instead, she’s upset about his cheating but doesn’t do anything. The relationship Tandi has with her children in the beginning of The Prayer Box is terrible. It is exactly the way Tandi says she was raised as a child. But Tandi doesn’t realize this at all when she talks about the way she was raised and doesn’t even realize her bad parenting until near the end of the book. Then when she tries to be a better parent it always falls flat to me. While I do enjoy seeing that she is trying to do her kids right by her, I felt as if Tandi never really learns from her experiences. Her character made reading The Prayer Box that much more difficult for me.

Part of the reason I struggled with reading this book was because I placed high expectations on this book. I was expecting a lot more than what I got out of The Prayer Box, but I just couldn’t connect with it on the level I wanted to. It just didn’t speak to me in the way it has with other readers and that’s why it’s an okay read for me. While there were parts of The Prayer Box that I enjoyed, it was an overall okay book to read. I definitely enjoyed reading The Story Keeper more and am interested in reading some of Wingate’s other novels.

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Book Review: In the Heart of the Dark Wood

In the Heart of the Dark Wood Cover

Rating: 4 stars

A motherless girl hungry for hope . . . and the dream that could be leading her astray.

Almost two years have passed since twelve year-old Allie Granderson’s beloved mother Mary disappeared into the wild tornado winds. Her body has never been found. God may have spilled out his vengeance on all of Mattingly that day–but it was Allie’s momma who got swept away.

Allie clings to memories of her mother, just as she clings to the broken compass she left behind, the makeshift Nativity scene assembled in Allie’s front yard, and to her best friend, Zach. But even with Zach at her side, the compass tied to her wrist, and the Nativity characters just a glimpse out the window, Allie cannot help but feel lost in all the growing up that must get done.

When the Holy Mother disappears from the yard one morning, Allie’s bewilderment is checked only by the sudden movement of her mother’s compass. Yet the compass isn’t pointing north but east . . . into the inky forest on the outskirts of Mattingly.

Following the needle, Allie and Zach leave the city pavement behind and push into the line of trees edging on the Virginia hill country. For Allie, the journey is more than a ghost hunt: she is rejoining the mother she lost–and finding herself with each step deeper into the heart of the darkest woods she’s ever seen.

Brimming with lyrical prose and unexpected discoveries, “In the Heart of the Dark Wood” illustrates the steep transition we all must undergo–the moment we shed our child-like selves and step into the strange territory of adulthood.

This book moved me in ways I wasn’t expecting. When I first saw the premise of the book, I originally thought it was going to be an okay read with a very happy ending. However, this book took several turns I didn’t see coming. They were turns that enthralled me, making me want to continue reading. That is one of the many reasons why I enjoyed reading In the Heart of the Dark Wood.

I also enjoyed reading this book because I felt a strong connection with Allie. From the very beginning, I sympathized with Allie’s character because I knew exactly how she felt. While I myself haven’t lost my mother, I know what it’s like being without one parent, feeling as if a part of you is gone. In a way, losing anyone you care about is like that, and this book heavily portrayed that in a way that moved me emotionally. While Allie does struggle to let go of her past and to continue moving forward, when she does let go, it’s in a very adult way, which allows the reader to see her develop as a character.

I also enjoyed reading In the Heart of the Dark Wood because I enjoyed hearing about their journey and how both Allie and Zach were able to survive as the townspeople kept looking for them. I enjoyed hearing about their adventure because the author writes in plenty of detail, pulling the reader’s attention with every passing minute. The context of the text is very lyrical and beautifully written and really pulled at my emotions. When I was near the end of the book, I was crying because I was so emotionally invested in what I was reading. Allie is such a sympathetic character that it was hard not to feel bad for her and everything she has gone through.

However, one aspect of In the Heart of the Dark Wood that bothered me was how the time Allie and Zach spent in the woods dragged on. While reading about their time in the woods was enthralling, there were aspects of it that seemed to take forever to become interesting. One example is the creature in the woods that has been following them. They have encounters with this creature two or three times before they are finally able to see what creature is pursuing them. This bothers me because the reader doesn’t figure out what creature Allie and Zach encounter until the very end of the book. I was also bothered by how Allie finds her mother in the woods. While it’s good to know Allie finally has closure with what happened to her mother, I was hoping that things would go differently for her.

In the Heart of the Dark Wood was a pleasure to read. It kept me guessing at every turn of the page and really enthralled me emotionally.

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Book Review: Seeker

Seeker Book Cover

Rating: 2 stars

The night Quin Kincaid takes her Oath, she will become what she has trained to be her entire life. She will become a Seeker. This is her legacy, and it is an honor.

As a Seeker, Quin will fight beside her two closest companions, Shinobu and John, to protect the weak and the wronged. Together they will stand for light in a shadowy world.

And she’ll be with the boy she loves—who’s also her best friend.
But the night Quin takes her Oath, everything changes. Being a Seeker is not what she thought. Her family is not what she thought. Even the boy she loves is not who she thought. And now it’s too late to walk away.

I read Seeker in May and posted my thoughts about it on Goodreads. However, I want to go more in-depth about why I didn’t enjoy reading this book as much as I was hoping. But before I go into all of that, I’d first like to talk about what I liked about Seeker.

I really enjoyed how the author switched the points of view between different characters. This gave the reader a unique experience that you don’t see very often when reading books. Especially fantasy books like this one. The different points of view gave the reader a better understanding of what was really going on in the story because not only did the reader hear the story from the perspective of the main character Quin, but also from other characters in their world who played a pivotal role in maintaining the balance between good and evil, such as Maud. I also enjoyed hearing the story from John’s perspective. Though John is one of the main antagonists of Seeker, I felt as if I could understand what he was doing. I also enjoyed learning more about the technology and the setting in the world surrounding the characters in this book, such as learning about their different weaponry for fighting.

However, I found that I was displeased reading Seeker more than anything else. While the plot of the book kept me interested in wanting to read more, the execution of the plot was overall disappointing and not very clearly organized. The reader discovers that Seekers are not the knights in shining armor that protect the good like Quin thought they were. But the reader never gets an explanation of what all exactly they do.

I also was disappointed in the character development of Quin and her cousin Shinobu. When they end up traveling to Hong Kong, I felt myself becoming disoriented at the sequence of events that happened while they were there. Both Quin and Shinobu almost seemed like different characters in Seeker, trying to escape their past instead of doing everything in their power to stop John from getting an athame. I also thought that the relationship between Quin and Shinobu came out of nowhere. The reader knew in the beginning of the book that Shinobu had strong feelings for Quin, but I felt as if Quin’s feelings for her cousin came out of thin air and that they weren’t real. While I’m not particularly a fan of incest in books I read, if the relationship of love between the two characters is clear to see and the writing is well-written, I don’t mind it as much. But Quin and Shinobu’s relationship just happens with no explanation.

The only reason I kept reading was out of the hope that Seeker would get better for me. Instead, this book fell flat and really left me disappointed. I don’t recommend Seeker as a book to read because it didn’t fulfill my hopes for what I thought it was going to be and the plot was under developed.

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Book Review: Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer’s Search for Wonder in the Natural World

Phenomenal Book

Rating: 4 stars

Heartfelt and awe inspiring, Leigh Ann Henion’s Phenomenal is a moving tale of physical grandeur and emotional transformation, a journey around the world that ultimately explores the depths of the human heart. A journalist and young mother, Henion combines her own conflicted but joyful experiences as a parent with a panoramic tour of the world’s most extraordinary natural wonders. Phenomenal begins in hardship: with Henion deeply shaken by the birth of her beloved son, shocked at the adversity a young mother faces with a newborn. The lack of sleep, the shrinking social circle, the health difficulties, all collide and force Henion to ask hard questions about our accepted wisdom on parenting and the lives of women. Convinced that the greatest key to happiness—both her own and that of her family—lies in periodically allowing herself to venture into the wider world beyond home, Henion sets out on a global trek to rekindle her sense of wonder.

Henion’s quest takes her far afield, but it swiftly teaches her that freedom is its own form of parenting, one that ultimately allows her to meet her son on his own terms: with a visceral understanding of the wonder he experiences every day at the fresh new world. Whether standing on the still-burning volcanoes of Hawai’i or in the fearsome lightning storms of Venezuela, in the vast animal movements of Tanzania or the elegant butterfly migrations of Mexico, Henion reveals in Phenomenal a world of sublimity and revelation.

Henion’s spiritual wanderlust puts her in the path of modern-day shamans, reindeer herders, and astrophysicists. She meets laypeople from all over the world, from all walks of life, each going to great lengths to chase migrations, auroras, eclipses, and other phenomena. These seekers trust their instincts, follow their passions, shape their days into the lives they most want to lead. And somewhere along the way, Leigh Ann Henion becomes one of them.

A breathtaking memoir, Phenomenal reveals unforgettable truths about motherhood, spirituality, and the beauty of nature.

Upon picking up this book, I discovered how much I really enjoyed reading it. I found this book to be a phenomenal read because it inspired in me a sense of wonder about the world around us. It brought to light how much of the world I have yet to see and how each of us in everyday life can find something to live in awe over. Hearing this incredible journey to see natural phenomena in our everyday world from the perspective of a journalist struggling to fit in her travels while still having time with her son really made me captivated to continue reading this memoir.

I found Phenomenal to be an enjoyable read for other reasons as well. I really enjoyed hearing about all of the different places Leigh Ann traveled to, from seeing the Northern Lights in Sweden to going to see a volcano eruption in Hawaii. I also enjoyed her conversations with people from different walks of life about their culture and their own beliefs and how she was able to reflect on all of those different conversations to try and make sense of the world we live in. I found Phenomenal to be a memoir that not only kept me thinking, but also inspired in me the need to travel and see the wonderful sights the world around us has to offer.

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