It's Friday! What are you reading? (3/3)

[ufcasey]

What books did you read this past week? What books are you currently reading? How did/do you feel about them?

QOTW:
What's your favorite vacation location you have been to? Why did you like it so much?
(Can you tell I am trying to plan a vacation? ha!)

[snshne322]

I'm still reading Out of the Easy. It's enjoyable, but I haven't dedicated much time to it.

I've been flying through audio books this week, but I started Born a Crime this morning and I'm loving it so far.

QOTW: We aren't much for traveling as adults. I went to France/England in high school and while it was cool, it was bogged down with petty HS girl bullshit. I'd really love to experience it again as an adult without all that nonsense. I remember being blown away by Versailles. It was so bigger than life. I absolutely want to do that again.

[rainbowchip]

This week I read Crown of Midnight. I wasn't really feeling it though I will probably continue the series.

I'm started The Circle last night. I'm not very far into it but I like the writing style and I'm interested in where it's going.

I regret it now and will likely never do it again but I loved when we went to Orlando and did SeaWorld, Discovery Cove, Busch Gardens, and Kennedy Space Center. I do plan to take DS to Kennedy in a couple years because he is really into space.
I also really enjoyed Hawaii. We stayed on Maui and took a day trip to Oahu. We had a guided tour that took us around to stuff but we got very little time at each place so I would probably want to plan to stay on Oahu for a day or two if I went back.

[cole]

This past week I finished White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise (good read) and The Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johansen (awful). I'm starting Underground Railroad today.

My H and I went to Ireland a few years ago and had a great time, I think because we barely planned anything. We rented a car and drove from Dublin to Galway, and then meandered around the west and south coast until going back to Dublin. It was a really fun trip.

[MrsAxilla]

I'm reading The Alchemist and really enjoying it.

QOTD: Italy was amazing! Great food, art, architecture, wine, espresso, wine, gelato......

[CheeringCharm]

I just picked up We Are Unprepared by Meg Little Reilly. It sounds interesting. It's about a couple who just moved from Brooklyn to rural Vermont just in time to be hit by an unprecedented superstorm, which splits the town and them apart because they disagree in how to get ready for it.

QOTW: I think Turks and Caicos. We were just there with our kids last November. The beach was beautiful and even though the resort was at full capacity, it was often deserted which was nice for us. It was just really pretty and relaxing. We had a great time.

[monkeyfeet]

I have 10 minutes left of Hidden Figures. I just downloaded a ya book but can't remember the name until All the Missing Girls comes in!

Good question! We did a sailboat cruise of the bvis for our honeymoon. When we lived in Europe, we did 2 Disney cruises that were fantastic, but when I research them out of cape canaveral, it's hard to get excited! I love Yosemite and Estes park if you're the outdoorsy type. I think my dream vacation would include both relaxation and outdoor activities.

[sassypants]

I'm in the middle of Jennifer Weiner's memoir Hungry Heart. Man did she have a terrible inferiority complex as a kid and people were so mean to her!

QOTW: Egypt was beyond amazing, but I don't know that I'd feel safe going there now. DH and I were married and honeymooned in Savannah, and that was lovely. I'd like to go back. And of course the Wizarding World of HP is amazing, and we need to go do the new section.

[ufcasey]

Read this week
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera - fiction; 3 stars; this is such a crazy book. It's like using a novel as a case study for psychology and philosophy, it's hard to explain. If you want to read something you have never read before, this would be a good pick.
About That Night by Julie James - romance; 2.5 stars; literally NOTHING interesting happens in this book. If this was the first book I had read by her, I would have probably rated this even lower and then never read another book by her again. Luckily that was not the case. But definitely don't recommend this one.
A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught - historical romance; 2.5 stars; really well written but I just wasn't into it
Split by Swati Avasthi - YA fiction; 4.5 stars; If you read Collen Hoovers "It Ends With Us" and wished it was kind of better, this is probably what you were looking for (at least it was for me), but only if you can forgive it for being YA instead of NA. I really, really liked this. As much as you can like a book about domestic violence anyways.

Currently reading
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult - fiction; good, but the author isn't exactly subtle about where she is going with this Tucker character, but I could be wrong.
Blindsighted by Karin Slaughter - mystery/thriller; it's early on, but I am really hooked into it so far
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain - classic; I hate everything about this book. I will eventually finish it because I've gotten this far haha.

QOTW
Italy - we went there on our honeymoon so that of course made it seem extra special too. We plan to go back just the two of us for our 10 year anniversary (next year! yay!) but for now we need to pick a family friendly vacation for a 2 year old and 5 year old, and I'm stumped. We live in the Orlando, FL so they are spoiled by themeparks and relatively easy access to the beach every year. First world problem - picking a family vacation when you live where people usually family vacation LOL!

[ufcasey]

sassypants - Yes! I loved Egypt, we went literally the month before the military had their coup etc. Can't recommend going there now, but it was absolutely amazing.

CheeringCharm - how old are your kids if you don't mind me asking Was there 'things to do', that's my only hesitation with doing an island vacation, since we live in Florida near the beach.

MrsAxilla - Amen. I ate my weight in Italy haha

cole - Ireland is on our "couple only" list Looks so beautiful!

rainbowchip - Hawaii is so beautiful! I definitely want to take the kids when they are older and can handle the long flight from Florida.

snshne322 - that's my hesitation with taking my kids to Europe until they are older, I am just not sure how much they can appreciate it. They definitely won't at this age, they won't even remember it. My family growing up only went on these long ass road trips in a small car from Florida to Niagara Falls and to Yellowstone National Park and I hated it. Mainly because LONG CAR RIDE with an end result that wasn't worth it to me at the time LOL. I would like them now though...

monkeyfeet - I agree! I want a vacation where I can relax, but I want something to do too if that makes any sense? haha

[CheeringCharm]

ufcasey, our kids are 8, 6, and 4. We took the older kids snorkeling and we took all three on a boat ride to a small island to walk around and explore but other than that we pretty much hung out by the beach and the pool. It was very relaxing. There probably are other things to do there but we primarily went to laze around on the beach

[rainbowchip]

ufcasey I've seen some advertising for the Nickelodeon resort in Punta Cana that looks interesting. If you are looking for kids stuff.
I'm planning Disney World right now for this May but Disney Cruises look amazing too. They have the kids club where you can leave the kids and go do adult relaxing stuff!

[aurora]

Reading Robert Jordan's Winter's Heart and listening to The Romanov Sisters in (early) preparation for book club because this is when it came available from my library.

For vacations, it really depends on what I'm in the mood for. One of my favorite places is a quiet outpost in southcentral Alaska where my family used to go when I was growing up. Spectacular scenery and no electricity or water. Really gets you away!

I also love Hawaii.

For more adventuresome travel, we had an amazing time in Tanzania. There are animals everywhere in the national parks, and I loved sitting and watching the lions and zebras and everything else.

[susiebw]

I'm reading Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. I love it. It's suspense/horror/psychological, but not what I was expecting. In a good way. It's modern and really old at the same time, if that makes any sense at all.

QOTW: Either Aruba on my honeymoon or my study-abroad summer in England and Portugal.  Aruba was far more relaxing and beautiful, but Europe was 10 weeks in Europe with friends, even if I did have to work and go to school.

[mrspez07]

I just started Eligible by Curtis Sittenfield a few minutes ago.

So many places to choose from!
Versailles is also up there for me. London, Ticino area of Switzerland and Argentina/Uruguay.

State-side I would pick central coast of CA (Paso Robles area) or Phoenix for baseball spring training.

ETA: I live in CO and left all of those amazing long weekend/short vacations off my list, but lots of memories here too.

[minionlover]

I'm reading The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney and listening to I've got your Number by Sophie Kinsella. I have a few other books checked out. I just got a NY Public Library card and am giving it lots of exercise.

QOTW: I loved Antigua. DH and I went there on our honeymoon. I also liked Maui but I feel guilty about it because that's where my first husband and I went on our honeymoon.

[Wallflower]

I finished Twisted Threads (Lea Wait) and liked it enough to order the next two books in the series. I've started The Unquiet Dead (Ausma Zehanat Khan) and so far I'm enjoying it.

QOTW: For many years, my family had a rustic cabin (e.g., no plumbing) on a lake. Because of that, every single person in the family will tell you that sitting on a porch, looking at a lake, is the perfect vacation. We had to sell the family place several years back, but in the last 4-5 years, I've found a rental that gives that feeling. I look forward to that vacation every year.

However, second place goes to Yellowstone - loved, loved, loved that park.

[dorothyinAus]

I finished The Janissary Tree on Tuesday and began The Alienist that evening.  Note to self, do not begin thrillers after 11 pm if you want to get to sleep!  I am enjoying it so far, but I've begun to wonder how many of the characters are real people, other than TR.  I don't want to Google anything about it because I don't want to risk spoilers.

QOTW: My favorite vacation was either:  (a) A cruise to the Baltic in 2000, which was dream-come-true trip for me because I got to visit The Winter Palace and walk up & down the Jordan Staircase, and I stood at the edge of the Gulf of Finland at Mon Plaisir. It was an indescribable experience for me. or (b) A trip to Adelaide which also included a side trip to Kangaroo Island. Seeing kangaroos in the wild was fantastic. I was less than five feet from a huge male grey kangaroo and we just stood looking at each other for a while. And the wine tasting trip through the Barossa was great. If you go, definitely take one of the private tasting tours. The one we did was an all-day trip including breakfast & lunch and tasting at as many wineries as you wanted. We tasted at 5, and discovered my all-time favorite wine, which unfortunately is not exported, even out of South Australia.

[litskispeciality]

I finished "Younger" last night. Treating myself to a re-read of "Thirteen Reasons Why".

QOTW: I loved the Bahamas, although that was also my honeymoon and first trip to a tropical place. Holland was oustanding as well, I'd love to go back again.

[Nonny]

Still working on Life After Life, I'm about 50% of the way through it now, but it's basically the book that will never end.  :?

I finished The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1), and in the end I didn't hate it, but it wasn't that great.  I probably won't continue the series, but I haven't fully ruled it out yet.  I did at least finish it in time to get another blind date with a book from my library, which turned out to be A Darker Place by Laurie R. King, a thriller about a religious cult. I'm only about 3 chapters in so far, so no opinion yet.  Some of the Goodreads reviews says it gets very sexual, and I'm hoping that doesn't mean rapey.

QOTW:  I'm way more into travel than my H, so I have a great time going pretty much anywhere. 

My best domestic trip was when my H and went to NOLA for a long weekend (I think it was only three nights) but we escaped the PNW gloom for a few days and had a lot great food.  My H still talks about how relaxing that trip was, and normally when he talks about trips it's to bitch about how much he hates being a fat guy in a tiny airplane seat, so I know he had a great time. 

My best international trip was to Ireland with my BFF.  We stayed with a woman we'd both worked with in college (a librarian who'd retired to Ireland after her H passed away), and she took us to her favorite places and introduced us to lots of locals.  That combined with an incredibly loose itinerary and perfect weather for the spring (I think it only rained once or twice in the evening when we were sleeping) made for a fun, relaxed time.  We did get stranded for nearly an extra week due to the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, and those extra days were at times horrifically stressful, but it makes for a great story after the fact. LOL!

[charlatti]

I finished A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab, which I really liked. Very satisfying end to the trilogy, but now I'm in a brief post-fantasy slump. I'm sort of reading Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, which I think I'll like once I give it some time, and I have The Most Dangerous Place and The Burning Page sitting next to me as options.

I pretty much always want to go to the beach. I love Holden Beach, NC, and I have a soft spot for Sarasota area beaches. On a cruise many years back, Aruba was gorgeous but Grenada was my absolute favorite stop.

[dorothyinAus]

Mar 3, 2017 16:46:28 GMT -5 Nonny said:

Still working on Life After Life, I'm about 50% of the way through it now, but it's basically the book that will never end.  :?

I finished The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1), and in the end I didn't hate it, but it wasn't that great.  I probably won't continue the series, but I haven't fully ruled it out yet.  I did at least finish it in time to get another blind date with a book from my library, which turned out to be A Darker Place by Laurie R. King, a thriller about a religious cult. I'm only about 3 chapters in so far, so no opinion yet.  Some of the Goodreads reviews says it gets very sexual, and I'm hoping that doesn't mean rapey.

QOTW:  I'm way more into travel than my H, so I have a great time going pretty much anywhere. 

My best domestic trip was when my H and went to NOLA for a long weekend (I think it was only three nights) but we escaped the PNW gloom for a few days and had a lot great food.  My H still talks about how relaxing that trip was, and normally when he talks about trips it's to bitch about how much he hates being a fat guy in a tiny airplane seat, so I know he had a great time. 

My best international trip was to Ireland with my BFF.  We stayed with a woman we'd both worked with in college (a librarian who'd retired to Ireland after her H passed away), and she took us to her favorite places and introduced us to lots of locals.  That combined with an incredibly loose itinerary and perfect weather for the spring (I think it only rained once or twice in the evening when we were sleeping) made for a fun, relaxed time.  We did get stranded for nearly an extra week due to the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, and those extra days were at times horrifically stressful, but it makes for a great story after the fact. LOL!

Thank you so much for using its name and not just calling it "the Icelandic Volcano"

[Nonny]

Mar 3, 2017 17:01:34 GMT -5 dorothyinAus said:

Mar 3, 2017 16:46:28 GMT -5 Nonny said:

 the Eyjafjallajökull volcano,

Thank you so much for using its name and not just calling it "the Icelandic Volcano"

LOL! I can't actually pronounce it, so when I'm talking about it in person I refer to it as "the hard to pronounce Icelandic volcano that shut down European airspace in 2010" but I'm sitting at a computer so for this I could easily look it up and copy/paste the correct name.

[travella]

I finished The Whistler by John Grisham.  It was not his best work, but I enjoyed it.  However, I haven't found a John Grisham legal drama I haven't enjoyed.  I am currently reading Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah.  I am only about 100 pages into the book and it has been slow reading.  I'm hoping it picks up a bit. 

My favorite vacation location is Europe.  It is difficult to pick one country.  I will always love Spain because I lived there for a while in college and loved the culture.  I loved Prague for all the gorgeous sites and all the fun excursions we did while there.  My dream vacation would be to travel around Europe with the kids.  My daughter is madly in love with the idea of France, Paris in particular.  We promised her that we will take them to Europe when she gets a little older.  I would also love to travel to Tanzania. 

[spedrunner]

This week I am reading

Ghettoside - It is really good but I just cant get into it!  Really struggling with it

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes  (very early but like it so far)

The Unnecessary Woman

QOTD:  A few years ago I did a European cruise with my family.  I loved loved LOVED Santorini and Venice most!  Venice was just beautiful to see and walk around , Santorini breathtaking as well!  

[spedrunner]

Mar 3, 2017 17:29:49 GMT -5 travella said:

I finished The Whistler by John Grisham.  It was not his best work, but I enjoyed it.  However, I haven't found a John Grisham legal drama I haven't enjoyed.  I am currently reading Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah.  I am only about 100 pages into the book and it has been slow reading.  I'm hoping it picks up a bit. 

My favorite vacation location is Europe.  It is difficult to pick one country.  I will always love Spain because I lived there for a while in college and loved the culture.  I loved Prague for all the gorgeous sites and all the fun excursions we did while there.  My dream vacation would be to travel around Europe with the kids.  My daughter is madly in love with the idea of France, Paris in particular.  We promised her that we will take them to Europe when she gets a little older.  I would also love to travel to Tanzania. 

Oh I loved this book so much!!!

[sassypants]

Mar 3, 2017 17:12:17 GMT -5 Nonny said:

Mar 3, 2017 17:01:34 GMT -5 dorothyinAus said:

Thank you so much for using its name and not just calling it "the Icelandic Volcano"

LOL! I can't actually pronounce it, so when I'm talking about it in person I refer to it as "the hard to pronounce Icelandic volcano that shut down European airspace in 2010" but I'm sitting at a computer so for this I could easily look it up and copy/paste the correct name.

I had an Icelandic coworker at the time the volcano erupted, and I asked him to help me pronounce it. I can still pronounce it but ONLY if I can read it. I can never get all the syllables in if I try to say it from memory without looking at the spelling of it. 

[abs]

I am currently reading Lilac Girls and am really liking it so far!

My favorite vacation was probably Maui. It has such a nice mix of things to do. You can be as active or as lazy as you want and we usually eat really well there, too! However, I haven't been with DD. With her we have only done San Antonio and Disney World. Both are super fun!

[rootbeerfloat]

I'm finally reading The Underground Railroad. I've had it for a few weeks and meant to read it for this month's discussion, but got busy.

ufcasey, I live in HI, but we've taken our kids (10 and 7) to the neighbor islands, and they still like it since it's a new place, usually with a big pool lol. We've also had fun in SF and SoCal (San Diego, Disneyland). We're taking them to Portland this summer; it's fun for them to experience more city-like vacations (museums, different geography, etc), and we've considered NY and DC, but both are fairly expensive trips for us. Their dream is to go where you live

[brewco]

Slow reading week for me, just finished After You which I thought was just ok. Starting Sharp Objects now for a books on tap book club.

QOTW: I have 2-
1. one way flight from MI to MT where we rented a car and spent 2 weeks driving home. Stops included Glacier NP, Yellowstone NP, Teton NP, Deadwood, SD, Devil's Tower, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Badlands NP, Corn Palace and Antique Archeology (American Pickers store).

2. We love camping and have a travel trailer. We renovated our TT last year and spent 40 nights camping last summer. We often camp within 1 hour of our house, but have taken some longer trips too. Favorite trip was probably Pictured Rocks NP & Tahquamenon Falls.