Book Chatter

Sunday Matters, a latte on a wooden tray against greenery.

I’ve had a long, luxurious, lazy vacation, and yes, it was peppered with all of Los Angeles burning. Heartbreaking to see all of the Palisades and Malibu as we know it, absolutely gone. The landscape is completely different. You need GPS just to see where those buildings were because nothing is left. Just ashes. What a horrible start to 2025. The acts of kindness and support is what stands out to me though.

Malibu Before.

Malibu After.

My heart and prayers go out to those people. Yes, many celebrities lost homes but so did a lot of working folks, who had their homes for decades. Even being so close to the ocean didn’t help. They couldn’t do air drops because of the 90 mph winds.

Right Now:

Student ministry starts up again today so I am on my way to that after a quick bite and a ton of coffee.

This Week:

This Monday I am back at work. Remotely, but back to the routine. Routines can be good. I have been incredibly lazy with my wake-up times these past four weeks. In the past, I was never able to sleep in. Sleeping in meant until 6am or so. But after brain surgery, I pushed it to 8am. Unheard of! Now I am dragging my behind back to work.

Reading:

My first book of the year is The Brothers Karamazov. It’s very good and I am doing well with it. At 928 pages though it will be awhile before I review that one. I finished Bright Young Women and reviewed it.

I added the following to read alongside Brothers:

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout
Three Days in June by Anne Tyler (comes out 2/11)
Trust by Hernan Diaz (Feb club pick)

Watching:

We finished Squid Game season 2. It’s really such a good show. Very hard to stop watching so we blew through it and now have to wait for Season 3 in June. The creators went with a much younger cast of characters which made it extra playful. Really dug those new characters.

We started another Korean show on Netflix called Happiness but the Hub is not getting into it. We will watching one more episode and then decide. We’ve only watched one episode and it’s supposed to be kind of like a zombie movie but this one is different.

Grateful for:

Coffee creamers that taste good without all the fake stuff and chemicals. My fave at the moment, Chobani. Lots of flavors.
Opportunities to try new things. Sometimes, they stick.
Fire crews that jump into fire battles even without water. There were so many fires that water pressure was an issue and hydrants were tapped out but they were still there, grabbing what they could like dogs and personal effects.
That I work for a campus that puts everyone’s safety first. I was off this past week anyway but after the fires, the campus asked everyone to work remotely for the rest of the week. A good decision. Happy that my colleagues could do that.

Other than that, we are dealing with some in-law health stuff. Doctor’s visits and the like. Would appreciate your prayers.

Bright Young Women
By Jessica Knoll
S&s/ Marysue Rucci Books, 9781501153235, August 2024, 400pp.

The Short of It:

A killer, a house full of sorority girls, what could go wrong?

The Rest of It:

Plenty! Knoll wastes no time, we learn very early on what happened to those sorority girls, we just don’t know who did it. Pamela, the sorority president takes her role very seriously. In the aftermath of what’s happened, she feels the weight of the world on her shoulders. Contact the parents, get the other girls to safety, talk to the police and yes, the press.

She is the only one who saw his face. As a law students, she knows the importance of this and knows that cases can go sideways quickly. For that to happen though, they have to have the suspect in custody.

That’s where Tina comes in. She shows up out of nowhere, offers to help. Offers a place to stay. Gives Pamela pointers on who to talk to in the press and who to steer clear from. Tina is a problem. She lost her friend Ruth years earlier and has been hell bent on finding her killer. Tina’s instincts and intentions seem good but is she taking Pamela down the wrong path? Plus, Tina has a horrible reputation with law enforcement so her friendship with Pamela is questioned.

I was very invested in this story for the first half. The details as they unraveled piqued my interest. Pamela is a strong, likable character but Tina is not and her opinions take up much of the story. I also felt that although Pamela’s closeness to one of the victims is what drives her to look for her killer, I did not know enough about the girl to really care for her. Sure, no one wants someone to be murdered but besides her being a sorority sister, what gives?

The author makes some decisions with some of the characters that raised my eyebrows. They felt like an addendum rather than part of the story. Kind of tacked on for mystery’s sake. I didn’t care for it. Also, the sexual orientation of the girls was woven into the story, but I’m not sure it was needed or if it brought anything else to the story, really. My opinion.

My book club chose this book for January’s meeting. I really liked that first half but it left me a little frustrated by the end. I looked back at another book by this author, Luckiest Girl Alive, and felt the same way.

Source: Borrowed
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