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Apr 30

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Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

I am a huge Margaret Atwood fan and several of her books are among my favorites of all time. So when it came to selecting a book for Women’s History month for my joint reading challenge (my partner and I are reading and discussing a book each month), I immediately thought of this book. I’m late to reviewing it since I wanted to pair the review with the series and it took us over a month to get to the series. I had read Alias Grace when it first came out but didn’t remember too much about it. I tend to gravitate more toward her less conventional (e.g., dystopian, genre bending) books than her straight historical fiction novels. My partner had not read any of her books, and I was a bit tired of some of the other types of genres we had picked in prior months (I needed a serious break from books like Black Leopard, Red Wolf – sorry James). So it was the perfect time for us to read an Atwood novel. Here’s what I thought.

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Apr 22

City of Pearl by Karen Traviss

Happy Earth day to all our lovely readers. Those of you who have been following our blog know that my partner and I have been doing a monthly themed read this year. We alternate picking books that fit the listed themes in the photo above and we read, discuss, and review them in our book journals. This month it was my partner’s turn to pick for April (either comedy or earth day related books).

I fully admit that I was judgmental about his book selection from the start and thought he was trying to play an April Fool’s joke on me. The kitschy cover and description of both the book and the author (“her work on Halo, Gears of War, Batman, G.I. Joe, and other major franchises has earned her a broad range of fans”) did nothing to make me feel better about the prospect of reading it. My initial reaction was to question how a science fiction book about aliens had even the remotest connection to an earth day theme. Science fiction is my least favorite genre, well maybe second to romance novels. After a few weeks of silent pouting and self-pitying, I pulled myself together and read the book.

Did I survive it? Keep reading to find out.

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Apr 3

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Earth Day Inspired Books

April is the month for a number of celebrations related to the our earth and the natural world. National wildlife week is from April 4-9, Earth Day is on April 22, Arbor day is on April 29, and the whole month is National Garden Month.

Those of you who have been following the blog, know that my partner and I are doing a joint monthly theme read where we alternate picking a book (for each of the 12 pre-determined themes we selected), read said book together, and discuss the book. This month it was his turn to pick a novel for our earth day/natural world theme. It was not a choice about which I was overly enthusiastic (more to come on that later) although it was certainly a creative pick. While he was busy trying to kill me with his book choices, I was browsing my shelves and gathering inspiration from the Litsy community. Here are some selections we recommend to get you in the mood for earth day celebrations.

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