THE SAME SKY

Author:  Amanda Eyre Ward

Genre:  Women's Fiction, Standalone

Published:  2015

Personal Rating:  3.25/5 (just okay +)

Format/Narrator:  Audiobook/

Cabezas & Plummer

Yearly Count:  4

Two life stories are running concurrently and eventually intersect.  One is a 40-year-old woman and her husband that desperately want a child, and the other is a 13-year-old in Honduras desperately trying to get to her mother in Texas.

Not exactly sure when I finished this and not exactly sure of any details either.  :(  I do remember thinking some parts were interesting and others just ho-hum.  Not disappointed I listened to it, though.  That's good.  :)

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THE LIFE LIST

Author:  Lori Nelson Spielman

Genre:  Women's Fiction, Standalone

Published:  2013

Personal Rating:  3/5 (just okay)

Format/Narrator:  Audiobook/Rebecca Gibel

Yearly Count:  13

When Brett's (female) mother passes away, she must complete some selected items from her Life List that she made when she was 14 years old, in order to receive her inheritance.  

I have no clue how this got in my collection of audiobooks, but I saw it there and for some reason it appealed to me.  I began to get dizzy with all the eye-rolling I was experiencing, but . . . I admit it, I wanted to know how she would accomplish her goals.  It ended up being totally cheesy with lots of predictability, but somewhat enjoyable nonetheless.  😝

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THE THINGS WE KEEP

Author:  Sally Hepworth

Genre:  Fiction, Standalone

Published:  2016

Personal Rating:  2/5 (not enjoyable)

Format/Narrator:  Audiobook/Plummer & Kreinik

Yearly Count:  10

Anna enters a residential housing situation due to her diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer's.

This was not an enjoyable audioread.  I didn't care for either of the storylines, which was pretty much all negative.  And, on occasion, I was confused as to the timeframe.  Blah.  

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SMALL GREAT THINGS

Author:  Jodi Picoult

Genre:  Women's Fiction, Standalone

Published:  October, 2016

Personal Rating:  3.5/5 (good)

Format:  eBook

Yearly Count:  40

From NetGalley:

Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years' experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she's been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don't want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?

Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy's counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other's trust, and come to see that what they've been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

 In her well-established style, Picoult tackles racism.  I think she took an honest look and conveyed it very well through her characters.  My biggest complaint was the length; it seemed to go on and on.  What I liked most was the few twists I didn't anticipate.  It kept me engaged in the story.  

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My thanks go to Random House and NetGalley for providing me with this eGalley.

ONE PLUS ONE

Author:  JoJo Moyes

Genre:  Women's Fiction, Standalone

Published:  2014

Personal Rating:  3/5 (just okay)

Format/Narrator:  Audiobook/Various

Yearly Count:  38

From NetGalley:

One single mom. One chaotic family. One quirky stranger. One irresistible love story.

Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied, and your math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you can’t afford to pay for. That’s Jess’s life in a nutshell—until an unexpected knight in shining armor offers to rescue them. Only Jess’s knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has big problems of his own, and driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages . . . maybe ever.

This one was "just okay" for me.  JoJo's writing was still spot on, but the actual story seemed a bit too predictable for me.    

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My thanks go to Penguin Group and NetGalley for providing me with a eGalley.

MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON

Author:  Elizabeth Strout

Genre:  Women's Fiction, Standalone

Published:  2016

Personal Rating:  3/5 (just okay)

Format/Narrator:  Audiobook/Kimberly Farr

Yearly Count:  15

Lucy Barton is in the hospital recuperating from a routine surgery.  During Lucy's stay, her estranged mother comes to visit her in the hospital.

After not caring for and giving up on Olive Kitteridge, I decided to give this author another try.  I decide that AFTER I discovered it was only 4 CDs.  (insert smirky face here)  I am glad that I made it through, but it was incredibly bland and disjointed.  Neither of which make for a good experience for me.  However, I can appreciate the author's talent.  :)  She incorporated a lot of emotional topics, which could provoke some deep discussion.

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THE ROSIE EFFECT

Author:  Graeme Simsion

Genre:  Women's Fiction, Rosie Sequel

Published:  2014

Personal Rating:  3.25/5 (just okay +)

Format/Narrator:  Audiobook/Dan O'Grady

Yearly Count:  13

From NetGalley:

Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are back. The Wife Project is complete, and Don and Rosie are happily married and living in New York. But they’re about to face a new challenge because— surprise!—Rosie is pregnant.

Don sets about learning the protocols of becoming a father, but his unusual research style gets him into trouble with the law. Fortunately his best friend Gene is on hand to offer advice: he’s left Claudia and moved in with Don and Rosie.

As Don tries to schedule time for pregnancy research, getting Gene and Claudia to reconcile, servicing the industrial refrigeration unit that occupies half his apartment, helping Dave the Baseball Fan save his business, and staying on the right side of Lydia the social worker, he almost misses the biggest problem of all: he might lose Rosie when she needs him the most.

I have mixed feelings about this book.  I really liked Don and all his efforts, but I did not like Rosie at all.  She rubbed me the wrong way.  I also didn't like some of the events that took place against Don.  This was not a pleasant read for me.

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My thanks go to Simon & Schuster & NetGalley for providing me with this eGalley.

   

WHERE THE RIVER ENDS

Author:  Charles Martin

Genre:  Women's Fiction, Standalone

Published:  2008

Personal Rating:  3/5 (just okay)

Format/Narrator:  Audiobook/Mark Deakins

Yearly Count:  57

A wife is dying of cancer and her husband attempts to make her "Bucket List" come true.

I had absolutely no idea what this book was about.  Had I known, I probably wouldn't have listened to or read it.  It's just not my thing.  The writing was fine, but I'm not a fan of the Nicholas Spark-esque books.  Although, there was one thing I did not like for sure . . . there were no warnings that the timeframe was going to change.  One paragraph just led into another one.  Ugh.  So, not a great audioread for me.

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THE LOOK OF LOVE

Author:  Sarah Jio

Genre:  Women's Fiction, Standalone

Published:  2014

Personal Rating:  2.5/5 (eh)

Format/Narrator:  Audiobook/Julia Whelan & 

Cassandra Campbell

Yearly Count:  16

Jane was given a rare gift at birth.  She is able to see love.  Her predecessor has given her the task to identify the 6 different types by her 30th birthday.  She has a year to complete it or she will reap the consequences of failing the task.

This was not my kind of book; however, I did become invested in a couple of the relationships and wanted to know what would become of them.  Other than that, the basic idea of the book did not work for me.  It was unrealistic and a bit silly.  

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BIG LITTLE LIES

Author:  Liane Moriarty

Genre:  Women's Fiction, Standalone

Published:  2014

Personal Rating:  4/5 (very good)

Format/Narrator:  Audiobook/Caroline Lee

Yearly Count:  7

Trivia Night at the local school provides the backdrop for the culmination of several lives to explode, which all began during Kindergarten orientation.

Out of the three Moriarty books I have read, I enjoyed this one best.  However, I picked out the culprits AND the supposed "twist" from the beginning.  So, seriously, this book had no surprises for me.  Oh!  Yes.  There was one.  Minor, but there was one.  I was definitely engaged enough to want to continue listening and find out what really happened on Trivia Night.

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FORTUNE'S ROCKS

Author:  Anita Shreve

Genre:  Fiction, Standalone

Published:  2001

Personal Rating:  2.5/5 (eh)

Format/Narrator:  Audiobook/Blair Brown

Yearly Count:  69

1899, a 15-year-old girl has an affair with a 41-year-old man.

I had no idea what this book was about before I began listening to it.  Once I got into it, I never bought into the storyline.  Could it happen?  Yes.  However, it would be very unlikely.  The girl's character seemed more out of place than the man's.  

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AFTER I DO

Author:  Taylor Jenkins Reid

Genre:  Women's Fiction, Standalone

Published:  2014

Personal Rating:  3/5 (just okay)

Format:  eBook

Yearly Count:  60


From NetGalley:

When Lauren and Ryan’s marriage reaches the breaking point, they come up with an unconventional plan. They decide to take a year off in the hopes of finding a way to fall in love again. One year apart, and only one rule: they cannot contact each other. Aside from that, anything goes.

Lauren embarks on a journey of self-discovery, quickly finding that her friends and family have their own ideas about the meaning of marriage. These influences, as well as her own healing process and the challenges of living apart from Ryan, begin to change Lauren’s ideas about monogamy and marriage. She starts to question: When you can have romance without loyalty and commitment without marriage, when love and lust are no longer tied together, what do you value? What are you willing to fight for?

This is a love story about what happens when the love fades. It’s about staying in love, seizing love, forsaking love, and committing to love with everything you’ve got. And above all, After I Do is the story of a couple caught up in an old game—and searching for a new road to happily ever after.

Another shift in my usual fare . . . women's fiction.  I wanted something quick and easy to read, and that's what I got.  It was incredibly predictable, but quick and easy reading, which is what I required.  Unfortunately, I didn't buy into the premise.  Their "breaking point" did not warrant a year separation.  And, if that's the case in real life, no wonder the divorce rate is so high.      

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My thanks go to Atria Books and NetGalley for providing me with this eGalley.