Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club

The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

June 15, 2019June 15, 2019 homesweethouser

I’ve seen Jasmine Guillory’s book covers all over social media. From The Proposal to The Wedding Date and The Wedding Party, the playful cover art has been grabbing my attention. The Proposal was a Reese Witherspoon pick from a few months back that finally dropped onto my shelf from the library after a while of waiting.

Nik and her boyfriend go to a Dodgers baseball game where he (after 5 months of dating) proceeds to propose to her on the scoreboard in front of thousands of fans. She is mortified and embarrassingly declines his proposal. FYI – this is not a spoiler…. all of this happens in the first chapter of the book. After her BF stomps away, Carlos and his sister (strangers and fellow Dodger watchers) feel awful for Nik as everybody stares in her direction and decide to save her. Cue the “meet cute” because the rest of the story is essentially a love story between Nik and Carlos after their unconventional meeting.

The thing I enjoyed most about this book is that it was a love story that involved persons of color, which I have found is somewhat rare (at least in the books that I have read lately). So I liked that Jasmine Guillory incorporated characters of multiple races and also tied in cultural elements from their backgrounds as well. It was a nice change of pace and added some flavor.

The story overall is pretty simple. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. There is some climactic tension and a satisfying ending. So it’s not anything mind blowing in terms of the content itself. But it’s a light, easy, and fast read, which would be good for somebody who’s just coming off of a dark or heavy book and needs some reprieve.

Cute. Fun. Flirty. Romantic. All in all, a perfect feel-good romance for the summer.

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Audiobook Review, General Fiction (Adult), Reese Witherspoon's Book Club

The Cactus by Sarah Haywood

June 12, 2019June 15, 2019 homesweethouser

The Cactus by Sarah Haywood

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

June 2019’s Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick!

I always love a good Reese pick, so I was excited to get my hands on The Cactus so quickly from the library this month.

It’s tough to say what this book is about. It is so reminiscent of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine that I was mildly distracted by the similarities. There is a woman who is a little uptight and quirky who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. Having never thought she would have children, she begins this adventure of discovery in her own quirky way. And she may find love along the way as well.

I think I enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant as a character a bit more than the main character from this book. And I didn’t enjoy the subject matter quite as much here either. Overall, it was just okay for me. It was a perfectly fine book but didn’t wow me.

That being said, I’m not a huge fan of these quirky characters that seem to be on trend right now so I’m probably not the best audience for this book. If you absolutely loved Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine or even , you would probably enjoy this one.

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Audiobook Review, Memoir/Biography, Nonfiction, Reese Witherspoon's Book Club

From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home by Tembi Locke

June 7, 2019 homesweethouser

From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home by Tembi Locke

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

From Scratch came recommended by Reese’s Book Club. I always read her recommendations and usually resonate with them, but this one wasn’t my favorite. This book is advertised as “A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home” but I would add “Loss and Death” to that list. Given the lovely photo on the cover, I was expecting something uplifting and romantic. But, this book was far more depressing than I was anticipating.

Tembi Locke tells the story of her and her husband (who died from cancer), their journey to overcome racial and cultural barriers, their struggle with illness and death, and her quest to move on.

I will say that Tembi Locke can write beautifully. I felt like I was in Sicily and her descriptions made me feel like I was in her world. The writing was wonderfully executed. Where I struggled was in the structure of the book (or lack thereof). There wasn’t really a defined beginning, middle, or end to the story. It skipped all over the place from past to present with random stories peppered in between. And the lack of a defined literary path made it difficult for me to connect with the story or the characters.

I enjoyed the first half more than the second. Tembi’s descriptions of her husband’s struggle with cancer and his ultimate death were heartbreaking and I felt for her. But after his death, the story kind of dragged on and felt a bit repetitive in places.

I know a ton of people have really loved this book. And I will admit that while I do read memoirs, they’re never the genre that I gravitate to naturally. So if you’re a fan of memoir, you may absolutely love this one. If you pick it up, I would highly recommend listening on audio as Tembi’s narration is superb.

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Audiobook Review, Nonfiction, Reese Witherspoon's Book Club, True Crime

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

May 22, 2019May 26, 2019 homesweethouser

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Snatched this one while catching up on my Reese Witherspoon Book Club picks. I went in blind but knew that it was nonfiction and that it had received mixed reviews.

The Library Book is exactly what it sounds like. A book about the library. And it just happened to be a book I borrowed from the library as well. It starts by telling the story of the fire that burned down the Los Angeles Public Library in 1986. 400,000 books burned. Another 700,000 books were damaged by smoke and water. Was it accidental or was it arson?

Then it transitions to a bunch of history about libraries, extensive information about fire, more history about libraries, and swings back around in the end to the Los Angeles Public Library fire at the end.

I was super invested in the fire portion of the book. It started to feel like a true crime and I was totally on board. When the book transitioned to library history, I was in and out. There were pieces of information that were super interesting: how Overdrive works, how the library transitioned from a book repository into a community outreach program, etc. But I lost a little bit of interest when the story turned to how the Los Angeles Public Library was designed or its family tree of librarians.

So overall, I found myself loving some pieces and being bored by others. The parts I loved were a solid 4 stars for me, but the boring sections were 3 stars. Split down the middle, I’d give the book 3.5 stars.

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Audiobook Review, Memoir/Biography, Nonfiction, Reese Witherspoon's Book Club

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

May 16, 2019May 17, 2019 homesweethouser

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow! Ann Patchett is nothing short of a powerhouse writer!

Living in Nashville and being a book junkie, I naturally made my way to Parnassus Books for a visit (it just happens to be co-owned by Ann Patchett herself). And while I was there, I decided to pick up a signed copy of Ann’s book, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick from 2017. As I’ve made it a goal to slowly make my way through Reese’s recommendations, this seemed like a fitting choice.

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I’m not a huge believer in reading book jackets or synopses before diving in (I read a wide variety of genres and prefer to be surprised), so I had no idea that this was a) nonfiction and b) a collection of essays. This is exactly why I don’t read book jackets. Because those two components together are not what I would typically gravitate toward in a book. And by reading the jacket and making a preemptive judgment, I would miss out on a ton of really amazing books.

In This is the Story of a Happy Marriage Ann Patchett teaches us life lessons, tells us about love and loss, gives us a glimpse into how she got where she is today both in her personal life and her career, and paints a lovely picture of Nashville that this Nashvillian really appreciated. But the magic isn’t necessarily in the content itself, but the author’s masterful storytelling. Her sentence structure and the way she combines words and phrases is magical. She had a lot of really insightful things to say that made me think. There were moments when I chuckled. And there were moments where I said, “I want to be friends with Ann Patchett.”

If a collection of essays doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, you should read this book anyway. While it’s technically a bunch of short stories strung together, it reads more like a cohesive memoir. The essays flowed together logically to tell a complete story that did not feel disjointed. I would highly recommend and will definitely be reading more from Patchett in the future.

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