The BookFetish Blog

I thought it might be fun to periodically talk about a few things going on- book related and not. I tried this before and got out of the habit, but I think it’s worth trying again.

First, since it’s “Wined” Down and not Wind Down, I’ll share what I’m drinking. I opened a bottle of red from my wine club a few nights ago, and decided to have a glass from it. It’s what is in the photo. Nothing fancy. One glass while I listen to The White Buffalo and some chicken is cooking in the convection oven.

My friend Stephanie and I have started cooking a couple of dishes on Saturday or Sunday each weekend, and portioning them out to use for lunches during the week. It’s nice to have that done, and the biggest decision to make as I’m leaving for work each morning is which one I want to take with me. We did that yesterday, so I spent this afternoon sorting and hanging laundry and doing a deep clean of the bathroom, after a big stock-up-on-all-the-things Target run.

Then I remembered I had this chicken in the fridge I needed to cook. I made chicken patties with garlic and dried shallots, rosemary, sage, and thyme. I adapted the recipe from one in The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook.  It’s a quick and easy go-to for me and I love how fragrant it is.

Let’s see. Here’s a quick rundown on what’s going on book-wise. I need to write a review of In The Name of the Children – lots of heavy subject matter, and I think that’s why it’s taking me some time to write it. My every other month book club meets Wednesday, and I am trying to finish The Human Predicament for that one- another one that isn’t exactly light reading. My Book Girls book club meets on February 25, and we are reading Laura Bush’s Spoken From the Heart. I’m listening to the audiobook of that one, and am making good progress. For fun right now, I’m reading The Library Book and I’m enjoying it.

One of my goals this year is to not spend as much time mindlessly scrolling through my phone and social media, As part of that, I’m trying TV-free Sundays. Today is the first one. I figure Sunday nights are good for listening to music and catching up on reading. And it helps me get ready for one of the other things that has become important to me this year: getting up to workout before work in the mornings.

So there you have it. A quick debrief of what’s going on here. Leave a note- what’s new with you?

This latest book was a listen for me, rather than a read, and in that vein, this review of Sadie will include my thoughts on both the plot and the audioboook.

From the Audible description:

A missing girl on a journey of revenge and a Serial-like podcast following the clues she’s left behind.

Sadie hasn’t had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she’s been raising her sister, Mattie, in an isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water.

But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie’s entire world crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is determined to bring her sister’s killer to justice and hits the road following a few meager clues to find him.

When West McCray – a radio personality working on a segment about small, forgotten towns in America – overhears Sadie’s story at a local gas station, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own podcast as he tracks Sadie’s journey, trying to figure out what happened, hoping to find her before it’s too late.

Courtney Summers’ Sadie is propulsive and harrowing and will keep listeners riveted until the last track.

This is one of the more unsettling mysteries I’ve found in a while. When we watch crime dramas, we see clues revealed and suddenly some brilliant detective or agent links the pieces together, and voila, the mystery is solved. I feel like Sadie is somewhat more realistic. For a long time, the clues don’t make sense to the people desperate to find out what happened to her. The not knowing is part of what makes you want to know what happens in the story.

At times, it is easy to judge Sadie, but then you remember she is nineteen. You see the juxtaposition of her bravado, grief, and immaturity, and you just want to help her.

Without being too spoilery, I’ll say this. There are no easy answers in Sadie.  No neatly wrapped results, and as I finished listening to it, I wanted to cry and I’m still thinking about it. I didn’t expect that when I first started listening to the story, and I don’t mind being unsettled. The very end of the narrative explains precisely why we as readers- as people-should be unsettled.

One thing that I think makes Sadie a compelling listen- perhaps more than a reading would be- is that it is told with multiple narrators, and West McCray’s part is like actually listening to a podcast. The multiple voices- especially Sadie, Maybeth, Claire, and West- bring a level of realism and emotion to the story that I believe enhance the story and evoke perhaps a greater reaction than merely reading the characters might.

The number of voices, the complexity of a podcast within a narration, could have been a disaster but in this case, I think it works well. If you’re a fan of podcasts like S-town or Serial, I think you’ll enjoy listening to this one. You get both the Podcast and the perspective of its characters.

Put this one on your list if you like a good mystery, and you’re ok with things not wrapping up in a pretty package with a nice bow.

I’m relatively sure Michelle Obama’s Becoming doesn’t need a publisher’s summary. It’s simply her story, from growing up in the South Side of Chicago to her tenure as First Lady of the United States.

I really enjoyed this one. Off the bat, you should know that political rhetoric and policy play a very small role in the book. Even if you don’t lean towards the Obamas politically, you can read and appreciate this book without being overrun with their political viewpoint.

I related to Michelle’s parents’ viewpoint on education being the ticket to a better life. Both of my parents grew up poor, and held that same belief. Reading her experiences in that area resonated with me.

The thing that I enjoyed most about the book was hearing about Michelle’s bonds with her girlfriends. The power of long-term, sustaining friendships among women cannot be underestimated. I also think that the love Mr. and Mrs. Obama have shows through in her writing about him and their relationship.

I both read this book and listened to it, depending on the time I had available. She narrates the audiobook, and it was nice to literally hear her story in her voice.

My book club read Becoming for our January selection. We discussed it last night, and we did have a general consensus that there were parts of the book that dragged a bit and were a little slow. Overall, though, we all give this one a recommend. Our next selection is Laura Bush’s Spoken from the Heart. I think it will be good to read another perspective of a member of a very small club, especially with the Bushes and Obamas becoming friends.

I’ll but putting this one on my best-of 2019 list.

“From the instant New York Times bestselling author of blockbuster thrillers In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10 comes a chilling new novel of friendship, secrets, and the dangerous games teenaged girls play.

On a cool June morning, a woman is walking her dog in the idyllic coastal village of Salten, along a tidal estuary known as the Reach. Before she can stop him, the dog charges into the water to retrieve what first appears to be a wayward stick, but to her horror, turns out to be something much more sinister…

The next morning, three women in and around London—Fatima, Thea, and Isa—receive the text they had always hoped would never come, from the fourth in their formerly inseparable clique, Kate, that says only, “I need you.”

The four girls were best friends at Salten, a second-rate boarding school set near the cliffs of the English Channel. Each different in their own way, the four became inseparable and were notorious for playing the Lying Game, telling lies at every turn to both fellow boarders and faculty. But their little game had consequences, and as the four converge in present-day Salten, they realize their shared past was not as safely buried as they had once hoped…

Atmospheric, twisty, and with just the right amount of chill to keep you wrong-footed, The Lying Game is told in Ruth Ware’s signature suspenseful style, lending itself to becoming another unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.”

The Lying Game didn’t appeal to me quite as much as Ware’s other works- the best in my opinion is In a Dark, Dark Wood-  but it is still worth the read. It does take you some time to really figure out the story, who is lying about what, and what really happened.

But, I confess I suspected “the big twist” but not the actual chain of events. I never felt a strong affinity for any of the main characters, though I wanted to really like Isa. None of that, though, really detracted from my enjoyment of the book. I maintain it’s a good vacation read. I believe fans of Ware will enjoy it, though I suspect most people will declare they prefer some of her other books over this one.

Bad Blood gave me a reading hangover. I stayed up much too late reading it because it hooked me from the first page.

From the Publisher’s Summary

In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood testing significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at more than $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work.

A riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley.

This may be the first time I’ve made this statement: Bad Blood is a practically perfect read. From the first page, I was sucked into the story. It’s told in such a matter of fact way, but you can feel the tension that would have been a part of the Theranos environment. The book does a few things very well. It portrays ordinary people who become extraordinary characters. Carreyrou hardly needs help creating villains of Holmes and Balwani, the leaders of Theranos. Their poor ethics, potentially sociopathic personalities, and general demeanor perfectly illustrate who they are. On the flip side, what you don’t see in the book is the evident charm Holmes could turn on when she needed to.

Bad Blood also highlights our tendency to seek out heroes and sometimes give them far too much leeway. I freely admit I know very little about the Venture Capital world. But Bad Blood left me questioning exactly how much goes into due diligence versus greed and the potential to make money. With investors like Larry Ellison, and board members like General Mattis, George Schultz, and Sam Nunn, I find it hard to believe that so many people were willing to accept excuse after excuse and not ask more difficult questions when Holmes continually failed to deliver, and despite people providing compelling circumstantial evidence that the emperor wore no clothes. The tech media isn’t blameless, either. Everyone was eager to champion Elizabeth Holmes – young, charismatic, and the first woman to become a self-made billionaire. Of course it makes for great press. But in the beginning, most journalists stopped at the surface and didn’t ask the challenging questions.

The mark of a good book is that it leaves you lingering over certain ideas. In Bad Blood, it’s ethics. What do you do when your personal integrity clashes with the reality you’re seeing? The real heroes of this story are the ones who dared to question. Who dared to ignore their non-disclosure agreements. Who faced intimidation head-on and didn’t back down. Who valued ethics more than money. Who couldn’t stay silent when lives could be at risk. And while the individuals who exposed Theranos are the champions, Carreyrou and The Wall Street Journal must also be celebrated for telling the story and not backing down in the face of intimidation campaigns.

Bad Blood is unequivocally a must-read. I could not put it down and have recommended it to everyone I know. The question of ethics has stayed with me since I finished the book. I don’t know if that is an intended impact but I think it is an important takeaway. It’s a study in human behavior. Clearly Holmes and Balwani were comfortable enough with their greed and ambition to lie, intimidate, and threaten people as a means to their ends. But they are also facing the consequences of those choices.