Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain

My rating: 1.0

This is the story of three women who have been best friends since college...and one implausible thing after another (I won't write any spoilers) continues to happen time and again throughout this book.  

Due to the decent writing, I kept trying to just go with the flow and consider it an entertaining beach read and not get too hung up on the far-fetched contrived story lines.  I am kicking myself that I read this till I only had a couple of chapters left and it took yet another turn South before I gave up on it. 

The House of Special Purpose by John Boyne

My rating: 4.8

Part love story, part historical epic, part tragedy. Georgy is 80 years old and his beloved with Zoya is dying of cancer. He starts flashing back to when he was a teenager and how he went from being a teenage son of a poor farmer to the bodyguard to the Tzar.  

Great character development, a piece of history I was unaware of mixed with fabulous story telling. Although some of the story was far fetched, I went along with it every step of the way and loved it.

In The Heart Of The Sea by Chris Hemsworth

My rating: 3.0

This is the real life inspiration for Moby Dick. The first part of the book captures what it was like to live in Nantucket back in the 1800's and be employed on a whaling ship and the second portion captures what happens at sea.

While I found this interesting, it felt FAR too long for my liking. It really dragged for me at all different times throughout the book. If you enjoy non-fiction, you would probably really enjoy this book.

Slade House by David Mitchell

My rating: 1.0

Despite David Mitchell's wonderfully readable writing style, this was another book that is just not for me. A couple reasons were:

• Each chapter read like a short story and I don't generally like short stories;
• He would start using 'magical terms, phrases and references that you didn't know what they meant.  If you hung in there long enough he would explain them but, he did this all too frequently for my taste
• The characters felt very fluffy and superficial. If this was supposed to be scary, I felt it was more silly and childish with the characters

All in all, I am happy to let this go and move on to other books.

H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald

My rating: 1.0

Desite some beautifully written passages, this "Misery Memoir" just didn't grab me. Rather than continue to struggle through it, I decided to move on to other books.