It's Always the Husband
This is your classic "who done it?" murder mystery. It's the story of 3 girls who are placed together as college roommates and their very complicated relationships through their first year. These 3 girls with very different backgrounds come together as best friends, but are their relationships as they seem?
The book is split into two sections- which both are drama filled in their own way. The first half goes through their freshman year at college and all the crazy antics that are to be expected from young girls who are on their own for the first time all the way up to a shocking incident that changes the girls forever.
The second section details their lives 20 years later through their still very complicated relationships with each other and their significant others. With so many secrets between them all it's no surprise that things begin to unravel, but nobody expected it to end in murder. Prepare to be at the edge of your seat trying to solve this one. Just when you think you've got it figured out something new is revealed and you're back at square one.
If you find yourself struggling a little bit to get through the first half like I was just hang in there, the second half is SO much better. While I understand that 20 years had passed between the two sections and the author tried to write it in a way that showed their maturity growth, at times I felt like the two sections were written by completely different authors. So don't get discouraged if you start to loose interest early in, I promise it is worth it. This is such a complicated mystery, but it plays out in the most perfect way. This comes out on the 16th and is definitely my recommendation of the month!
Radium Girls
Beautifully and meticulously written, this book tells of the true and important story of the girls of the Radium Dial Painting factories during the first world war until the mid 1930’s. It is a maddening, emotionally evoking story that will bring you to tears and inspire you at the same time.
I have to first note how much detail and facts Kate Moore put into writing this historically accurate book. We hear quotes from the girls themselves, their families, employers, attorneys, and doctors. No detail was left out. So that also means that it is a VERY long book, but it was written so perfectly and had so much information that it didn’t feel half as long as it really was.
The Radium Girls were girls who worked at factories painting the dials onto the faces of watches with a “luminous” material that was composed of radium. They were instructed to use their brushes and dip them into the material and lick the brush into a point. They were also told that the luminous material was completely safe.
The story goes into great detail the lives of several women and what came to happen to them after they left the radium plant (and a few while they still were actually working there) It tells of the sheer greed and callousness of the radium factories and how many safety standards and workers compensation came to be today. It also tells of their undying faith even in times where most people would have none.
If you want to hear about some extremely brave women who took on a challenge that most people would (and some did) shy away from then you will thoroughly enjoy this heart tugging story about the radium girls and their struggles.
But get a box of tissues ready and don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Sunbaked
A fun easy read starts off with a woman buying a beach cottage in Pineapple Clay in a drunken state at 2am after catching her husband cheating. Not your average way to buy a home, but Nina packs little belongings, renews her old job as a travel writer and hits the road to her new oasis without much more of a plan. Things quickly get complicated when a brazen neighbor, bitter about being beat to the purchase of the home that he had planned to demolish and turn into a resort, begins to make life difficult for her. And then becomes further entangled when his wife, wearing a necklace worth millions goes missing at a party that she is attending.
Nina and her two sidekicks, Pansy (her realtor) and Danish (the local mail man, yoga instructor and waiter) take you on an adventure of mystery and bad decisions that make for an interesting read. While at times Nina acts on impulse and follows the lead of a rather immature Danish, for the most part she manages to keep a somewhat level head and remain likable.
Sunbaked is a fun and comedic beach read with a somewhat predictable plot, but enjoyable to read nonetheless.
my read shelf:
Check out the books I read last month here
