December Book Reads

 

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The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter

At first, I found the book annoying because the story keeps getting interrupted by the characters having a conversation as it is being written. Pretty quickly the reader becomes used to it and eventually even enjoys the interruptions. The story begins with Mary Jekyll’s mother dying.The funds to continue running the household are low and Mary is unsure of what to do to stay afloat. On top of that,she learns that her mother had been paying a monthly fee associated with Mr. Hyde (a man no one cared for!). Mary is determined to learn where all that money went so she seeks help from Sherlock Holmes. This leads to trying to solve a case about mysterious murders. Throughout the book, women whose scientific fathers have done them wrong continue to appear and pull the story together. I am very ready to read the next book in the series.

 

The Atomic City Girls

I love history. I love reading about events that took place that I don’t know much about. In this case, it is the city of Oak Ridge and the creation of the atomic bomb. Many young women moved to Oak Ridge to work in factories but had no idea what they were doing besides watching dials and making adjustments. The rule in Oak Ridge was that you didn’t say a word about your job to anyone. There would be severe consequences if you were caught speaking about your job’s details to anyone

 

The story follows two different young women, a scientist, and an African-American worker as they live, work, and eventually leave Oak Ridge. The characters in the book are a little blah and the reader doesn’t get invested enough in their relationships to really care what happens to them but the history is really interesting. I also love that the book includes historic photos throughout the book. Furthermore, a timeline is included at the end of the book that compares what was happening in the world versus what scientists were accomplishing at the same time.

The Aviator’s Wife

Told from the viewpoint of Charles Lindbergh’s wife, this story delves into when she met Charles, their life as husband and wife, and the secrets revealed after his death. I didn’t know much about Charles Lindbergh until reading this book and it’s all pretty fascinating. His wife was also quite impressive. She was his crew and flew with him on many adventures. He insisted that she learn how to fly, navigate, etc but after having a family they had differing viewpoints of how much time was acceptable to be away from the kids. The book explains their feelings towards Nazis and how they almost moved to Germany after being constantly hounded by the press and public in America. The story really shines a light on the struggles women go through (or at least did at the time) always being associated with their husbands and his viewpoints. She constantly put her interests and feelings on the backburner for the sake of her family. *Warning – Don’t read this book if you have just had a baby.

Boy Erased

The son of a southern preacher goes to intense therapy to “cure” himself of homosexuality. Such an interesting topic yet I felt the book only focused on religion. In addition, the story jumped around too much to hold my interest. It is so crazy to me that this happened in 2004. It is heartbreaking to think that in this day and age people are still so unaccepting of other people’s sexuality and lifestyles. Maybe the movie is better?

Need more good books to read?  Check out my reviews and recommendations from November!