First, thanks to Random.org we have a winner for Joshua Henkin’s signed copy of Matrimony. Congratulations to Michelle! Thanks again to Josh for the copy and for everyone who participated in the drawing.

Moving on to reading challenges once again. I am throwing in the towel on the Short Story reading challenge. Thank you to Kate for hosting. I was so close as I just needed one more short story collection and four short stories but what I did read I enjoyed a lot. Life Studies, Farewell Navigator and The Best Place to Be were all quite different and very enjoyable. I also got to read a couple of short stories by Alice Munro, finally. So I would definitely call this a success despite not finishing it.

Now, it was hard to pass up on challenges like My Year of Reading Dangerously, The World Citizen Challenge, the Manga challenge, and War Through the Generations challenge but I need some control over here. Still, I am squeezing in one more reading challenge and then just saving some room for shorter challenges, like the R.I.P. and Once Upon a Time challenges.

So for my last challenge I decided to participate in Dewey’s Books reading challenge hosted by Chris & Robin. I couldn’t pass up on this one.

The challenge runs through the year and there are several options. I’m going to go with option two, which requires reading five books from Dewey’s reviews. Here are my choices:

• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
• Christine Falls by Benjamin Black
• The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
• We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
• Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos

Now I just have one more challenge to wrap up, so I better go and finish that book. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

I’ve finished some books recently which each had a good dose of family drama going on. The stories took me to a yeshiva in Israel, a farm in Canada and the remote countryside of Northumberland.

First, my favorite read from the three was Who by Fire by Diana Spechler. I received this copy from the author but that didn’t influence my decision. Actually, all of the books were ARCs so there you go. Anyway, this story explores what happens to a family after a child is kidnapped. As years pass by how will each person develop and what will their relationships be like.

There are three main characters in the book, Ellie, the mother who wants to control her children, Bits, the daughter who has a wild streak, and Ash, the young man who clings to religion seeking answers. At times I wanted to yell at some of these characters and tell them to stop making such bad choices but ultimately these characters felt very genuine. They were flawed but they were just trying to find some comfort after their tragedy. The author also manages to throw in some interesting twists at the end which I really liked. This was really a great read and I recommend it, especially if you need a book for discussion, I think this would be perfect. Here’s my review.

However, I felt a little bit less sympathetic towards the characters in The Almost Archer Sisters by Lisa Gabriele. Two sisters will struggle to reconcile their relationship after one of the sisters, the wild one, crosses a line.

Peachy, the girl who married, is a mom to two boys and basically leads a normal life, thinks about getting some revenge on her sister but she’s got everyone telling her that her sister made a mistake. While I can understand issues of forgiveness when it comes to family. I mean, it’s family what do you do? I still couldn’t figure out why her sister acted the way she did. I did like the end however, and it made me feel a bit better about the resolution. Here’s my review.

Finally, the book I mentioned recently which started off as a blog, Wife in the North by Judith O’Reilly. The writer is a big city girl, specifically London. She loves the city, she has a successful career, friends, etc. but upon her husband’s urging the family, two boys and a baby on the way, moves to Northumberland.

There were some things I liked such as the descriptions of the country and the author’s honesty. The move was a big adjustment, and I would say especially for her because it seemed that her husband spent most of his time working in London and she was left on her own. But that honesty was sometimes a bit too much. I don’t know, but I can’t handle that much venting all the time. Here’s my review.

Have you read these books? What did you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts.