Top Ten Tuesday - Unpopular Bookish Opinions

These Top Ten Tuesday post come from the blogger - The Artsy Reader.  Check out her blog and participate each Tuesday in this fun game.

Today's Topic: Unpopular Bookish Opinions

Now, I might be misunderstanding what this means, so I am going with - books that might be popular that I didn't particularly like.  She might be thinking of something else, but she didn't say.  So.....there you are.

These are 10 books that people tend to rate highly that I didn't love.  I didn't necessarily HATE them, but they won't be making my favorite's list.  I am sure some of you will have something to say about this list, but to each their own, right?  There are so many books that I love that people don't like. 

1. 1984
        - starting out strong right out of the gate.  1984 - I just could not get into it.  I read it a few years ago, and it just was.....okay.  Although, I am thinking with the current state of the United States, I should pull it back out and try it again.  Or maybe it would hit too close to home. 
        - if you want to read my review you can find that HERE

2. Beartown/Us Against You
          - I love Backman's books.  Love them.  All......except these two.  Beartown I liked better than Us Against You, but not by much.  Why did I read the follow up book you ask?  I was kind of hoping that maybe the continuation of the story would bring it around for me.  It did not. 
        - looking back at my blog, I gave Beartown a higher rating than I should have considering.  You can find that review HERE
        - Us Against You - went downhill.  The book just wasn't good (to me).  Very disappointing.  You can read my review HERE

3. Crazy Rich Asians
       - this one is widely popular, and I gave in and decided to read it.  I could not have rolled my eyes more as I read this book.  Over the top, unrealistic, and just silly are my takes on this novel.  I did watch the movie, and I found that slightly better.  I won't be reading any more books in this series.
       - if you want to read my review - go HERE

4. Educated
      - This one I almost didn't put on the list.  But I did struggle with it and let me tell you why.  I felt like she wrote it too soon.  Meaning - if she would have waited a few more years - distanced herself from her childhood a little more - she could have written the book a bit better.  Had a better long range perspective.  I found the book poorly written, even though the story itself was intriguing.  She didn't have all of her thoughts collected, in my opinion, to write the novel and have it flow well.
      - if you want to read my review - it is HERE

5. The Girl on the Train
       - I am feeling pretty confident that I am not alone with this choice.  I have a feeling that there are a few people out there that disliked this book as much as I did.  This book was a train wreck.  (see what I did there?)  I hated the main character.  I hated most of the characters. The writing wasn't great.  Just overall a book I wish I would have skipped.
       - if you want to read my review - it is HERE

6. Where the Crawdad's Sing
         - Please don't stop reading my blog because I didn't like this book.  I tried to like it.  Honest.  I didn't HATE it.  I don't hate many books.  (because if you took the time to write something and get it published, I think you deserve some credit).  But this one was low on my list and below my expectations considering how popular it is.  The writing was....fine.  The characters fell flat.  The storline was all over the place.  The love story didn't draw me in.  It felt a little unrealistic.  Those are my big problems with it.
          - if you want to read my review - it is HERE

7. Outlander
             - if I didn't lose you with the last book, I probably will lose some people with this announcement.  Didn't like Outlander.  I only read the first book and even that was a struggle.  It wasn't the size.  It was the book itself.  It has been more than 5 years ago that I read this book, so I don't have it as a review on my blog.  But I have had no desire to go back and try it again.  My husband loves the TV show, but I haven't even been able to get into that.  It just isn't for me.

8. The Shack
        - This one I read because everyone else was reading it.  Gave in to the pressure of wanting to see what the fuss was all about.  I should have left it alone.  It was cheesy and it shouldn't have been.  The story was hard to read.  I felt the book was rambly and I could not get invested.
       - if you want to read my review - it is HERE

9. The Great Gatsby
        - I can tell you that my sister in law is going to stop talking to me after mentioning 1984 and The Great Gatsby in this list. (She is an English Teacher) I am not making friends today.  At all.
       - It wasn't terrible.  Gatsby was so shallow I couldn't really develop any feelings for him.  I did watch the movie and it helped a little, but not much.  But I read this classic.  And it is done.
        - if you want to read my review - it is HERE

10. Crime and Punishment
             - Last one!  This book was BORING.  It was long and complicated and I didn't like any of the characters.  I felt like I needed to take a shower after each time I put this book down because the main character was so dirty and sickly the entire book.  Now - in the books defense, I did read it while I was trying to move to Switzerland, so it COULD have been the timing.  My mind was in about a million different places. Maybe some day I will read it again.  Maybe not.
           - if you want to read my review - it is HERE

2018 Challenge - Book #111 - Us Against You

Today's review is for

Us Against You
Author: Frederik Backman
Pages: 448

This is the follow up book to Backman's "Beartown".  The town of Beartown is still realing for a young girl's rape.  The town divided and picked their side leaving the Beartown hockey team in shambles.  The hockey team might be disbanded because it was the coaches daughter who was raped.  A lot of former Beartown players leave to play for the rival town of Hed. But a newcomer gives the town hope and soon a new Beartown hockey team is formed.  The team forms around former players of the junior team - a gang of misfits who don't quite fit in anywhere.  They have a new coach who is determined to make them a winning team regardless of how that has to be done.

Before the season ends, a resident of Beartown will be dead.  Hed and Beartown will be left to decide if hockey is really what is most important.  The towns will both be challenged and be given a choice.

This book was not very good.  I was disappointed because Backman is one of my favorite authors.  I love almost everything is writes, but this one was just not well written.  First, it is extemely melencholy.  There is never an upswing for any of the characters - which makes the story just drag.  I mean - really?  Nothing but sadness?  One reviewing on Amazon said it best "It was like a swirling snowstorm that was brewing for too long".  Nother ever really happened.  Each chapter would leave you with cliff hangers and often he would say "they would remember this day".  But then....what?  Nothing of great importance.  He did too much setting up and then things would work out fine.  There was too much of that.

I don't recommend this book.  And the rumor is that there will be a third.  I honestly think he should have just left Beartown alone and not tried to continue the story.  Because it really has no where else to go.

Stars:  2

Read The World - Sweden - A Man Called Ove

Book: A Man Called Ove
Author: Fredrik Backman
Pages: 337
Book takes place in the country: YES
Author is from the country: YES
I have visited: no

I read this book at the beginning of 2017, and quickly fell in love with Fredrik Backman.  I have read everything he has written, and besdies "Us Against You" I have loved them all.  What a talented writer.  If you have not tried his books, you need to pick one of them up now.  This is my favorite of his, with "My Grandmother Said To Tell You I'm Sorry" running a very close second.

This is a story of a man named Ove.  He is a grumpy 59 year old man that has always thrived on order and rules.  He likes a quiet life and likes to be left alone.  His life was turned upside down 6 months ago when his wife died.  He has decided to end his own life, but things keep getting in the way.

Soon - new neighbors move next door - a young couple and their two young girls who immediately take a liking to Ove.  Ove doesn't know what to make of this attention from his neighbors, and before long, he finds himself intertwined in many of his neighbors lives and realizes that there is still much to live for.

This is a wonderful story.  It is funny and endearing and sweet all at once.  Ove is hilarious as a little old man who just wants everyone to do their job and follow the rules.  He is always on the lookout for thieves and people who insist on driving their car in his neighborhood that doesn't allow cars.  He can't get rid of a stray cat who he names "Cat Annoyance".

Ove helps people but grumps about it.  But the main theme is that he can't help himself being a good person because that is who his wife saw him as.  He honors her memory by being the man she always saw him to be and in the end, all of his neighbors become his friends.

GREAT story.  Check it out.

Stars:  5

Book: The Collapsing Empire

 Book: The Collapsing Empire

Author: John Scalzi

Pages: 336

This is my 38th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Our universe is ruled by physics.  Faster than light travel is impossible - until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field available at certain points in space-time, which can take us to other planets around other stars.  Riding The Flow, humaity spreads to innumerable other worlds.  Earth is forgotten.  A new empire arises, the Interdependency, based on the doctrine that no one human outpost can survive without the others.  It's a hedge against interstellar war - and, for the empire's rulers, a system of control.  The Flow is eternal - but it's not static.  Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well.  In rare cases, entire worlds have been cut off from the rest of humanity.  When it's discovered that the entire Flor is moving, possibly separating all human world's from one another forever, three individuals - a scientist, a starship captain, and the emperox of the Interdependency - must race against time to discover what, it anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.

This was a great book.  I am a Scalzi fan, no doubt, but I was worried this one might be too heavy on the Sci Fi.  It was not.  It was not a complicated read, had a cheeky character, and a clever story.  The characters are well developed, and the story flowed well.  I was kept on the edge of my seat once the main "problem" was brought to the front of the story, and read late into the night to see where it was going.  This is the first book of a trilogy, but I did feel that it wrapped up well.  Not a big cliff hanger that would make you feel like you would need to continue if you didn't want to.  Easily a stand alone for those who are looking for a good story, but not a contiuing one.

Stars: 4.5

Book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

 Book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Author: Barbara Kingsolver

Pages: 432

This is my 213th read for the year

Amazon says:

America has long been a nation of farmers.  But within the past several decades, our food supply has become dependent on transportation that burns fossil fuels and on increasingly fewer varieties of vegetables and animals.  In a single generation, most Americans have lost their knowledge of agriculture and the natral processes that are a part of our food chain.  But while food is cheap, we pay for it in other ways, including shorter life spans for our children, argues Barbara Kingsolver.  Determined to integrate their food choices with their family values, Kingsolver and her family moved from suburban Arizon to a rural Appalachia, and embarked on an adventure of realigning their lives with the food chain.  Part memoir, part journalistic invetigation, it follows the family through the first year of their experiment.  They learn from other committed citizens who are trying to turn the tide in their communities, from organic farmers to members of the Slow Food movemnt who are doing their best to protect our foods against extinction and return us to a way of life that is better for our health, our wallets, and our environment.

This book was excellent.  Barbara Kingsolver is a gifter writer, and her non-fiction books are no exception.  I really enjoyed this look into her personal life and her personal quest to eat better, better the environment, and truly stick to her purpose - to eat only what she could get locally.  The book will make you hungry and you will want to run out and buy seeds and start your own movement after you hear her passion.  The whole family was on board - even her youngest.

I am so glad I found this book.  I read if for a reading challenge, and it did not disappoint.  I could not put it down.

Stars: 5

Read The World - Congo Republic - The Poisonwood Bible

Book: The Poisonwood Bible
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Pages: 576
Book Takes Place in the country: YES
Author is from the country: no
I have visited the country: no

I actually just read this book last year.  It had been recommended to me over and over again, but the size of the book put me off a little.  Since last year's challenge was reading recommended books, so it finally made the rotation.  And I am so glad I finally read it.  

This is the story of the Price family who went to the Congo in Africa on a mission for the church.  Nathan - the father - went against the church's wishes feeling that he needed to reach the people of Africa and bring them the word of God.  So in 1959, he and his wife and their 4 young daughters find themselves in a completely different world than where they came from in Georgia.  During the tumultuous year in the Congo, Nathan fails to start the church he so desired, but refuses to leave.  His refusal leads to his family's undoing.  The family lives in extreme povery and in fear for their lives every day.  And in the end, they will leave their part of the Congo as a party of 5 - losing one along the way.

This was a powerful story.  It is an intense read, told from the points of view of the 4 daughters and the mother.  Each girl is so different, that their take away from their time in the Congo is unique to each person.  Once tragedy falls on their family, the women all pick different paths in their lives - all claiming that their year in the Congo, and the tragedy, is what lead them to where they ended up.  The book covers almost the entire lives of the women - jumping ahead a few years at a time after the initial year they spent together.  So you get to see what becomes of them and how events lead to one's life choices.

I encourage you to read this book.  I could not believe the poverty and the danger that they faced daily but that they still stayed.  It is hard for us who live in extreme comfort to imagine what it would be like to have nothing.

Stars:  4 1/2

Book: Bookshops and Bonedust

 Book: Bookshops and Bonedust

Author: Travis Baldree

Pages: 352

This is my 76th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Viv's career with the notorious mercenary company Rackam's Ravens isn't going as planned.  Wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer, she's packed off against her will to recuperate in the sleepy beach town of Murk - so far from the action that she worries she'll never be able to return to it.  What's a thwarted soldier of fortune to do?  Spending her hours at a belaguered bookshop in the compnay of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted, but it may be both exactly what she needs and the seed of changes she couldn't possibly imagine.  Stll, adventure isn't all that far awa.  A suspicious traveler in gray, a gnome with a chip on her shoulder, a summer fling, and an improbable number of skeletons prove Murk to be more eventful than Viv could have ever expected.

This was a great second book in this series.  It is actually a prequel to his first book, and it gives us a little more insite into Viv's past.  IT is well written with good character development.  You cheer for everyone in Viv's circle.  There is a cozy adventure and a sweet character that is made all of bones that you can't help adore.  Looking forward to reading the next one.

Stars: 4.5

Read The World - Vatican City - The Fifth Gospel

Book: The Fifth Gospel
Author: Ian Caldwell
Pages: 448
Book Takes Place in the Country: YES
Author is from the country: NO
I have visited: YES

My fourth book for the year 2019.  Finished reading 1/8/2019.  I have visited Vatican City.  I was there in 2017 as part of our 2 week trip to Italy.  It is a beautiful place next to Rome, and I was fascinated that it is its own country.  While we were in Vatican City, it was over the Easter Holiday, and we had a chance to visit the Sistine Chapel (stunning) and see the Pope in Person at his Wednesday Mass on the square (he rode very close to us - it was humbling).  It is a beautiful place, and worth a visit if you are in Rome.

This book takes place in 2004.  Pope John Paul is in his late years as Pope.  An exhibit is about to go on display in the Vatican museum.  Brothers Simon and Alex have been helping the artist - Ugo - get the exhibit ready for the world.  

A week before the opening, Ugo is murdered and Simon is blamed.  Locked away and refusing to talk, Alex tries to put together the pieces of the true story of Ugo's death.  Alex is 100% certain his brother did not do this, and would not do this, but the evidence is either stacked against Simon, or missing.  

As the pressure to free Simon mounts, Alex discovers things about the highest holy men in Vatican City.  He struggles for the truth at every turn.  And when the truth is finally brought to light, the men of the church struggle for reason.

This was a great book on a lot of levels.  For one - I grew up Catholic, so I found the stories of the high holy men in the story enlightening.  For another - the authro delves deep into the 4 gospels of the Bible comparing them to each other, which I really have never done.  (it has been awhile since I have been in CCD).  The Fifth Gospel is the Diatessaron (real thing) It is where the 4 gospels are fused together.   And the center piece of all of it - is the Shroud that supposedly covered Jesus when he was taken down from the cross (also something that exists, but has been proven to be a fake)

My favorite parts of this book were where the gospels were compared and information about the stories of the Bible were brought to light.  It gave me a lot to think about.  The mystery and murder were, for me, secondary in my enjoyement of this book.  I could see where the story was leading, even though the author keeps trying to lead the reader down different paths.  

My biggest problem with the book would be two things.  1) everything seemed to be grave peril.  Everyone had an agenda, and there was danger at every turn.  It was fine for awhile, but after awhile, I felt the author should have backed off a bit.  2) keeping the audience in the suspense for suspsense sake.  

Overall - this book was wonderful and I would highly recommend it.  The story is captivating and I encourage you to read it for what how it was intended.  A great history lesson.

Stars: 4 

2018 Challenge - Book #102 - The Poisonwood Bible

Today's review is for

The Poisonwood Bible
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Pages: 576

This is the story of the Price family who went to the Congo in AFrica on a mission for the church.  Nathan - the father - went against the churches wishes feeling that he needed to reach the people of Africa and bring them the word of God.  So in 1959, he and his wife and their 4 young daughters find themselves in a completely different world than where they came from in Georgia.  During the tumultuous year in the Congo, Nathan fails to start the church he so desired but refuses to leave.  His refusal leads to his families undoing.  The family lives in extreme povery and in fear for their lives every day.  And in the end, they will leave their part of the Congo as a part of 5 - losing one along the way.

This was a powerful story.  It is an intense read, told from the points of view of the 4 daughters and the mother.  Each girl is so different, that their take away from their time in the Congo is unique to each person.  Once tragedy falls on their family, the women all pick different paths in their lives - all claiming that their year in the Congo, and the tragedy, is what lead them to where they ended up.  The book covers almost the entire lives of the women - jumping ahead a few years at a time after the initial year they spent together.  So you get to see what becomes of them and how events lead to one's life choices.

I encourage you to read this book.  I could not believe the poverty and the danger that they faced daily but that they still stayed.  It is hard for us who live in extreme comfort to imagine what it would be like to have nothing. 

Stars:  4 1/2

Book: The Spymaters: How The CIA shaped History and the Future

 Book: The Spymasters

Author: Chris Whipple

Pages: 400

This is my 132nd read for the year

What Amazon says:

Only 11 men and 1 woman are alive today who have made the life and death decisions that come with running the world's most powerful and influential intelligence service.  With unprecedented, deep access to nearly all these individuals plus several of their predecessors, Chris Whipple tells the story of an agency that answers to the US president alone, but whose activities - spying, espionage, and covert action - take place on every continent.  At pivotal moments, the CIA acts as a break on rogue presidents, starting in the mid 70s with DCI Richard Helm's refusal to conceal Richard Nixon's criminality and continuing to the present as the actions of a CIA whistleblower have ignited impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump.  Since its inception in 1947, the CIA has been a powerful player on the world stage, operating largely in the shadows to protect American interests.  For The Spymasters, Whipple conducted extensive, exclusive interviews with nearly every living CIA director, pulling back the curtain on the world's elite spy agencies and showing how the CIA partners - or clashes - with counterparts in Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.  

This was a pretty interesting book.  It is well written and quite thorough coverage of the CIA over the years.  Each president form Nixon to Trump are covered in this book and how the CIA worked with them.  (I can give you a pretty good idea how that last one is going).  I learned a lot about the CIA in general and new information related to different difficulties each President faced.  Good book.

Stars: 4 

Book: West With Giraffes

 Book: West With Giraffes

Author: Lynda Rutledge

Pages: 372

This is my 121st read for the year

This is the story of Woodrow.  In 1938 He is a young man that has been recruited to help get two giraffes across the country to the San Diego zoo.  Accompanied by an "old man" who is responsible for the delivering the giraffes to the first female zoo director, the two find a country in awe as they travel.  They draw crowds whereever they go, everyone wanting a peek of the two.  Followed by a woman who claims to be a photographer for Life Magazine and a dangerous circus master, they race against the clock to get the giraffes to safety before something happens to them.

This is an excellent book.  I have had it on my shelf for awhile and I finally got to it.  It is well written and a fast moving story of two men - both with pasts they would like to forget - taking a long and harrowing journey across the US.  The story is told in journal form from Woodrow who is now a 105 year old man at the end of his life - desperately wanting to get this story down into words before he dies.  There is good character development.  Woodrow and the old man are well developed and you root for them to finish their task before the circus steals the giraffes.  I like that there is back and forth between present and past.  There is a great epilogue where Woodrow's story unfolds and he is reconnected with the giraffes of his past.  Great book.

Stars: 5