30/40: The Virgin Cure by Amy McKay

The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

From Goodreads: "I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart."

The Virgin Cure begins in the tenements of lower Manhattan in the year 1871. A series of betrayals lead Moth, at only twelve years old, to the wild, murky world of the Bowery, where eventually she meets Miss Everett, the owner of a brothel simply known as "The Infant School." Miss Everett caters to gentlemen who pay dearly for companions who are "willing and clean," and the most desirable of them all are young virgins like Moth.

While Moth's housemates risk falling prey to the myth of the "virgin cure"--the belief that deflowering a girl can heal the incurable and tainted--her new friend Dr. Sadie warns Moth to question and observe the world around her so she won't share the same fate. Still, Moth dreams of answering to no one but herself. There's a high price for such independence, though, and no one knows that better than a girl from Chrystie Street

I really enjoyed this one. The only thing I would want different is for it to be longer! Around the last 90 pages I kept thinking that there HAS to be more to the story.

Moth was a good character. Innocent, trying not to be. Trying to survive. As much as she tries to be ruthless or heartless and make herself out to be older than she is, she is still a young girl at heart needing someone to love her. Dr. Sadie was such a sweet woman and I love how her story ended. She had such a good heart and I really hoped that what she did for a living made a difference. Which for Moth, it certainly made life more bearable.

The personalities of Rose, Mae and Alice was fantastic. McKay covered all the bases for girls who would be in a brothel and played their characters just right in the story. It was a struggle to get through some parts and I found myself disgusted with the behavior of the men, but that was the point of the story.

I loved the setting and how well McKay described everything. I could almost feel the grit and dirt Moth lived in. She went into enough detail to disturb you, but left a lot to the imagination. The path that took Moth to Miss Fenwick - one of Miss Everett's girls was a bumpy one, a hard one and ended up being rewarding.

Highly recommend this one for anyone who is a historical novel fan.


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23/40: The Girl in the Garden

The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

From Goodreads: The redemptive journey of a young woman unsure of her engagement, who revisits in memory the events of one scorching childhood summer when her beautiful yet troubled mother spirits her away from her home to an Indian village untouched by time, where she discovers in the jungle behind her ancestral house a spellbinding garden that harbors a terrifying secret.

This is another book I've read that is just ok. It took a long time for the story to go anywhere and wrapped up in the last 100 pages. And not just wrapped up, SHOVED FULL of reveals. There was too many for my liking and I thought a couple of "secrets" were a bit unnecessary.

The writing was good however. It flowed well, the description was great and I loved the setting. There was just enough description for me to picture where everyone was, what was going on and move on with the story. There were a lot of characters but the few the story followed were easy to feel for and relate to. There were quite a few outer characters that I thought would have a big part in the book but never came back into the story. It irks me when characters are introduced, but then are just left alone.

This was a book for my book club so I'm hoping there will be good discussions about it.

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20/40: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

A Discovery Of Witches by Deborah Harkness
My rating: 3 of 5 stars


From Goodreads:
 In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and the descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont. Harkness has created a universe to rival those of Anne Rice, Diana Gabaldon, and Elizabeth Kostova, and she adds a scholar's depth to this riveting story of magic and suspense.


This was a so-so book for me. I liked the premise of it. I liked the different creatures and I loved the mystery and intrigue. I felt it was far too long. I found myself skipping over parts that seemed unimportant. Skimming a book is never a good sign.


The characters were great, but I had a sad realization that the relationship between vampire and woman was eerily like that of the possessive one in Twilight. I just couldn't get that out of my head. The good thing is, Diana is a witch and incredibly strong. Or at least she appears strong. For a character that is stubborn and has so much power inside her, she was rather "woe is me, I can't do this" for the majority of the book. Even when she discovered her power and started to train, she was still weak as a witch. I'm not sure if it was her love or if she was just pretending to be strong at the beginning. 


Matthew was close to being my new book boyfriend. At the beginning I was all "Oh Matthew, you are so amazing". But then he lost his luster. Sorry Matthew Clairmont, you didn't make the cut. 


I don't have a desire to pick up the next one. It ended on quite a cliffhanger and I can see how a lot of people would pick up the next one right away. The length of the end of the story was too much for me to pick up the next one. Feeling like I'll never finish a book and just want to get it down and over with is never a good sign.


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Planned Reading

Are you a person that plans your reading book to book?
Usually I have a list or shelf of books I want to read but I never plan the exact next book. I just take one off that shelf or list that seems to fit my mood. At least until lately. I've noticed that my love for books has gotten me into 3 book clubs; 2 online and 1 in real life. While I love it and wouldn't give them up, I now have 3 books to read a month and then discuss. 3 books that may or may not have been on my to-read list. It's great that I'm expanding my reading to other genres and it's fantastic to have people to discuss books with, I feel like I don't get to read anything BUT book club books. 

Are you in a book club? What are you reading next?

Here's my list of planned reading.

The Girl in the Garden - Kamala Nair
Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
The Sandcastle Girls - Chris Bohjalian

My Goodreads Challenge says I'm 3 books behind. I need to read some short books and get that back to on track.

18/40: The Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain

The Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

From Goodreads:
Dear Anna,
What I have to tell you is difficult to write, but I know it will be far more difficult for you to hear, and I'm so sorry…

The unfinished letter is the only clue Tara and Emerson have to the reason behind their close friend Noelle's suicide. Everything they knew about Noelle—her calling as a midwife, her passion for causes, her love for her friends and family—described a woman who embraced life.
Yet there was so much they didn't know.

With the discovery of the letter and its heartbreaking secret, Noelle's friends begin to uncover the truth about this complex woman who touched each of their lives—and the life of a desperate stranger—with love and betrayal, compassion and deceit.

Before I start my review... I'm in a face-to-face bookclub! I'm in a book club online, so this is the first one where people meet in person. I'm super excited and really like all the women. Sister#2 asked me to join with her so I jumped at the chance. This is the first book the group picked.

Review:
This was really slow to start and left a lot of unanswered questions that may or may not have been relavent to the story, I'll never know. There are certain things that the author never went back to clarify. There was also parts that I felt had significance that were never elaborated on.

I normally enjoy books told from multiple perspectives, however this one had too many. It felt very disjointed for the first two parts of the book, and then moved into a flowing novel in the third part. Tara and Emerson both discover things about Noelle in each of their chapters. The thing that bugged me was they would discover something and then the next chapter would move on to something entirely different. Sometimes it went back to the big reveal, other times it didn't at all and just left it as something insignificant.
Having so many perspectives throughout the book I never really felt close or sympathized with any of the characters. There wasn't time to get to know any of them deeply. It was on a very high level.

I wasn't entirely sure who the main character was supposed to be throughout the whole book. And perhaps that was the point, there wasn't one. It became less and less about Noelle as it went along.

It was not what I expected after reading the synopsis.
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