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The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth

Photo by Tiko Giorgadze on Unsplash Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review an advanced reader's copy of this book. The Younger Wife was a satisfying, fast-paced romp of a read. Sally Hepworth has become a reliable favourite for books that I can't put down! She has a way of writing dark subjects lightly, and her characters are always richly developed, full of flaws and quirks— which I love. I find with her writing, I never quite know how things will turn out in the end, and The Younger Wife was no exception.  The book is told from the perspectives of Tully and Rachel, two adult sisters, as well as from the perspective of their father's new fiancé, Heather. Tully and Rachel's mother has dementia and is in a nursing home, so understandably, their father, Stephen, wants to move forward with life and has found love with Heather, who is notably younger than him, which doesn't sit well with the sisters. I found the characte...
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Year End Round Up and Book Goals for 2021

Photo by Ella Jardim on Unsplash I came to the embarrassing realization recently that while I may have slammed through over 60 books this past year , a great majority of those books didn't really stick around in my memory. If the book is a thriller or mystery there's an even greater chance that unless the book was extremely profound, I probably don't remember the ending! Which I guess would be fine if I was trying to save money and wanted to just reread things, but that's not really for me. What in the world... what has happened to the kid who used to recite the plot of books with ease, and could remember all the details of everything she read.  I have a sneaking suspicion that this is all happening because in recent years I've prioritized the quantity of books read over the course of the above everything else about books. Sites like Goodreads feed into this binge reading approach, which makes sense, since they're owned by Amazon and they want you to buy more ...
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The Midnight Library and Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

I love Dolly Parton. For so many reasons, including that she's a badass feminist with a massive heart of gold who has contributed to kid's literacy among other charitable causes, including contributing to funding of the Moderna vaccine. Oh, and her incredible musical catalogue, of course. But this story only about Dolly peripherally. Recently, Dolly did an interview with the NY Times , and she mentioned that she's been reading a book called The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll have heard of this book as it's on all the lists this year. It's about a 35 year old woman called Nora Seed whose life is just not working out the way she hoped it would — in any area at all. She decides it's time to end things, and after she tries to do so, she finds herself in a place between life and death called The Midnight Library where her childhood library explains that she can try on different versions of her life to see what w...
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Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling by Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen

  I haven't been so utterly besotted with a character as I was with Aisling in a very, very long time. I also think this audiobook may have broken some records on the number of times it made me snort laugh out loud with the endless Irish-isms, and the genuine hilarious earnestness of our dear Aisling.  It's no secret that I love/am fairly obsessed with any and everything Irish. I'm Canadian as can be, but my paternal grandmother has roots in Ireland (and shared many of the cultural perspectives that came up in this book for the country folk, it turns out), and my mother's grandmother had family from Northern Ireland, I think. Anyway, like I said, I'm Canadian af, and so are my parents and their parents, so I'm certainly not claiming citizenship here or something. But I do think some very old family traits and traditions have made it down the line to the things we still find ourselves doing today. Additionally, many of my fond memories are due to a tiny, spritel...
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Pandemic Probs Got You Down? It's Disney and Mary Blair to the Rescue!

What better thing is there to do during a pandemic than bury yourself in the animated films of your early childhood? This is what I've found myself doing lately as the weather has turned darker and wetter, and I've turned more bitter and dismal as well. There's something so light, inspirational, and glorious about revisiting these old Disney movies that left me with an endless sense of wonder, as well as some ill-advised ideas about gender roles and relationships. Ahem, anyway. It recently came to my attention that some of the aspects of the old Disney films I loved most — things like bold colour and style of backgrounds or scenery like in Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, or Cinderella — were all either Mary Blair 's concept design or colour styling. And if it wasn't a Disney film she actually touched herself, it's a safe bet she influenced it.  A short rundown on Mary Blair according to wikipedia : she was an American artist who started her animation career at M...
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Reading My Own Shelves

  The year is winding down, and I've been thinking a lot lately about my spending. Unsurprisingly, with the pandemic that shall not be named, I haven't exactly been what one might call "frugal". Boredom and depressing doldrums of life being stuck indoors away from other people haven't made it easy to say no to whatever cute thing Instagram serves up while I doom-scroll the internet for the bajillionth time.  I typically never feel truly bad about buying new books, though I've come to a point where I've realized that the sheer number of books I have on hand would take me years to finish. And hey perhaps it's worth stopping for a second and taking a closer look at those before I dive into yet another Kindle deal. Plus, for me a physical paperback is worlds more enjoyable to read than a screen. I also feel like I may be missing out on a few big hits from a couple years back from a cultural standpoint. As someone inclined to the FOMO in general, I should ...
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Tana French and Revisiting Broken Harbor

I first heard about Tana French back in 2014, and started with In the Woods, the first in her Dublin Murder Squad series. I was quickly hooked, as is to be expected when you're dealing with a writer as talented with atmospheric world building and complex, nuanced characters. As I'm wont to do, I rushed into her other books, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, and eventually The Likeness. The Secret Place I didn't have until January 2015, and then after that it was The Trespasser, and finally The Witch Elm as they came out.  In my early rush to consume everything she'd written, I found myself a little disappointed with Broken Harbor— the 4th in the Dublin Murder Squad series. Admittedly, having read it so long ago, and so quickly, there's a lot of the story that I no longer even remember.  Our main crime happens in a small real estate development a ways outside of Dublin, which has been hit hard by the recession of 2008. It's half built and abandoned, except for those...
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