Book 159: The Snowbirds by Christina Clancyu

 I just finished The Snowbirds and I give it 🌴🌴🌴🌴🌴.

I really like this story of a couple (Kim and Grant) who leave Madison Wisconsin to spend the winter in Palm Springs and to see if they can continue together as a couple. They've grown apart--can Palm Springs bring them together? The story is told from Kim's point of view and in multiple time periods that give the reader a great overview of their history, but the main focus of the novel is--where is Grant? He left to go hiking on New Year's Day and never came home. I really had to force myself from reading ahead to see if Grant was OK. I liked both characters--they were both very real, meaning they had their good parts and their bad parts, and the other people who come in and out of the story were great as well. All in all, I think this is a good portrait of a long term relationship and I'm glad I read it and will search out other books by the author as well.

Book 158: Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

 I just finished Conversations with Friends and I give it ❤❤❤.

I just don't get Sally Rooney. People love her and I didn't like the characters in this book at all. They're all kind of awful even as she tries to make them sympathetic. Sigh.

Book 157: The Friend Group by Ty Hutchinson

 I loved the first two thirds of this book. A woman and her husband move to Thailand where she is taken under the wing of Vivian and two additional women who help the woman meet people and acclimated. When the woman gets pregnant, Vivian gets weird and the woman worries Vivian is going to harm her baby. At the same time, the woman is still grieving her child who died of SIDS several years earlier, and is having delusions that he is still alive. Anyway--interesting until the last third where her husband becomes Rambo like and everything goes to pieces. 

Book 156: Shakespeare, the Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench

 I just finished Shakespeare, the Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Brendan O'Hea and I give it 🙇🙇🙇🙇.

This is an interesting book. It's transcripts of conversations between Judi Dench and another actor, Brendan O'Hea, where Brendan asks Judi all about all the roles she played in various Shakespeare plays (there are lots). It is interesting to hear the stories and learn about Shakespeare, but I don't have the recall of various plays the way she does sometimes it was a bit dull. 

Book 155: The Cautious Traveler's Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks

 I just finished The Cautious Traveler's Guide to the Wastelands and I give it 🚆🚆🚆 1/2.

This is kind of an odd book. I guess it would be characterized as historical fantasy maybe? The Trans-Siberian railroad is ferrying travelers from Beijing to Moscow and it must cross The Wastelands, a terrifying place that no one really understands and that can damage the train and the travelers if it can 'break in' to the train. There are numerous characters that we follow on the journey. I liked the first half or so, and the tension as the train travels through the Wastelands is well done. However, the book gets kind of convoluted and political and I didn't like it as well. I really had to push to finish. 

Book 154: The Original Daughter by Jemima Wei

 I can't rate this book because I stopped reading it after about 70% because I was so bored.

Book 153: Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne Lamotte

 I just finished Almost Everything and I give it 🙏🙏🙏🙏..

She's a great writer, that Anne Lamotte, and I liked this book but it is very focused on faith and her perspectives on faith and I'm not too into that.