Books! (And Bonus Blogger Meetup!)

So many books, so little time. I’m longing for a reading retreat, a la Stephany… but for now I’m just trying to cram in as much reading as I can. A couple recent reads… This book was… interesting. I think I would have liked it better if I had different expectations going in. I thought it was a regular old mystery. While there was a crime- actually two crimes, ten years apart- it was definitely not a traditional whodunit or police procedural. Instead it was a beautifully written story of all the sad things that can possibly happen in a small town, starting with two girls in a car being pushed into a river. One girl drowns and the other, who survives, sets out to find out how it happened, and how it might tie into a similar incident years ago. This book irritated me sometimes- parts of the plot were resolved and some not- but I also keep thinking about it. Everything can’t always tie up with a tidy bow, right? After this, I DID want a tidy bow, and I knew just where to find it: As with all Agatha Christies, this was a reread for me. As I read, I was starting to wonder if there’s something wrong with my brain, because I didn’t remember it AT ALL. I mean I read it many years ago, but there are some very distinctive elements that I thought I SHOULD have remembered… then at one point I suddenly knew who the murderer was. I couldn’t remember how or why, so it didn’t ruin the book for me, and I was happy that my memory isn’t completely gone. I thoroughly enjoyed it- but on this reread some things struck me as odd. Some of the names- Lucy Eyelesbarrow? Josiah Crackenthorpe??? Were these normal names in the 1950s, or was Agatha getting bored? Some of the plot points seemed a little farfetched as well, but it all did make sense and tie together in the end. I enjoyed it so much, I got two more from the library… … AND I got this one that SHU recommended! Speaking of Sarah, we had a blogger meetup! I’m very excited because she had an extra copy of Big Time which she generously passed along to me! I have a lot of books to read! I also just started this one: See what I mean? I need a reading retreat!!! Have you read any of these? What are you reading now? Top photo by Ed Robertson on Unsplash