Dona's Book Blog

I found Kill Joy by Holly Jackson on the Libby app. Check for your local library on the app and read great books for free!📚 My sweet husband gave me Holly Jackson's GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER trilogy for Christmas last year, and while I have yet to read them (you could read this whether or not you've read the other books), I was in no way lacking to enjoy this charming little mystery short. In it, several college students gather in a mansion to act out a murder mystery a la the old 90's murder-with-your-meal dinner shows. Many dramatic gasps, plot reversals, and suspenseful hijinks ensue. I'm assuming these characters show up in the first book of the trilogy, which would be fine, because they are each genuinely likeable. The way the brothers fight constantly reminds me of me and my sisters. And I love the main character, Pip Fitz-Amobi (yeah, that name is amazing !), with her self-assuredness and keen judgment. I even love that Jackson decided to tell ...

⛽️Thank you @BookSparks for sending me a gifted copy of J.A. Wright's deeply moving coming-of-age novel, ᴇᴀᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ɢᴇᴛ ɢᴀs.⛽️ The book follows Evan Hanson, a plucky thirteen-year-old, as she navigates a very trying time for her family and the whole world -- the Vietnam War. Her mother absconds with her older brother to Canada in an attempt to avoid the draft, leaving Evan and her younger brother Teddy with their father, who never came back the same after his first two tours fighting in Vietnam. He takes them to his mother's motor court and home, a small business she calls Eat And Get Gas. There, they all live and work together, nuclear and extended family, and try to make sense of the situation. Evan misses her mother and remembers a loving, affectionate father, but now finds only a man grappling with himself and his world. And she's just too young to fix any of it. For her parents, her brothers, or herself. This book is deeply emotional, sad as well as hopeful, ...

I found PAPER NAMES by Susie Luo on the Libby app. Check for your local library on the app and read great books for free!📚 In certain sections, this book is beautiful and moving. I enjoyed the primary characters, Engineer educated in China and working in the US, Tony, and his first-generation US-born daughter, Tammy, well enough, for what they were, which were unlikable characters who changed relative to each other through the course of the story. Their troubled relationship hurt for me to read, and felt rewarding when they gained personal ground: “Tammy! You did it!” he said, blocking the TV. “Did what?” she said. His heart swelled so rapidly that he lost his breath. He wanted to tell her about the entire day, what she had made possible, every one of her words that had come out of his mouth during the review. But only one thing, a memory buried deep in his bones, almost someone else’s voice, spoke through him. “Ni shi wo de xin gan.” “What’d you say?” said Tammy. How coul...