Lucia, Lucia

I headed out into the woods for 8 days camping with 5 books.  A little optimistic but I like to have choices, plus sometimes I've been a known to read 3 or 4 books it just depends on nap times.

I was able to read 2 full books and start a third and I could have read more but some people apparently wanted to hang out and talk during nap time.  What?? My only alone time of the week and I had to give up a few days to talk.  I am not a people person.  I like to be alone.  A lot.  That's why I read.  Alone. ;)

“When people are filled to the brim with love, they are their most beautiful.”

Anyway, the second book I read of the week was Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigiani.  I picked up two of Trigiani's books from the used book fair last summer and wanted finally give them a whirl. I'm glad I picked Lucia, Lucia because of how quickly I was sucked into the world of Lucia Sartori.

Lucia is a career girl.  She is 25 and lives at home with her parents and brothers.  Every day she heads off to work doing what she loves and every weekend she irons and cleans her brothers clothes.  She's engaged to Dante and seems to have it all. 

Description: It is 1950 in glittering, vibrant New York City. Lucia Sartori is the beautiful twenty-five-year-old daughter of a prosperous Italian grocer in Greenwich Village. The postwar boom is ripe with opportunities for talented girls with ambition, and Lucia becomes an apprentice to an up-and-coming designer at chic B. Altman's department store on Fifth Avenue. Engaged to her childhood sweetheart, the steadfast Dante DeMartino, Lucia is torn when she meets a handsome stranger who promises a life of uptown luxury that career girls like her only read about in the society pages. Forced to choose between duty to her family and her own dreams, Lucia finds herself in the midst of a sizzling scandal in which secrets are revealed, her beloved career is jeopardized, and the Sartoris' honor is tested.

So many times I felt so bad for Lucia.  There were times when if she had been 25 in say 2000 her choices and her life would have been steered in a different path. 

"The good things that happen to us were meant to happen, and the bad things that happen are lessons meant to teach us to be better.”

Lucia seemed to have a peace with the way her life ended up, but it doesn't mean there wasn't hurt and disappointment that came with the changing of her paths. 

The only disappointing part was when it changed back to present day with Kit.  Lucia's voice was strong but  Kit's parts read a bit awkward.  Such a small part of the book, so I'd highly recommend it for a quick summer read!

Have you read any books by Adriana Trigani? I just started Big Stone Gap and I wasn't sucked in as quickly as Lucia, Lucia.  Have you read any other books set in the 1950s you'd recommend?

Fun Saturday in the D

My first week off from work was quite hectic.  On my very last day of school my amazing, caring, selfless adorable grandpa passed away.  I am so very lucky to have had some amazing grandparents on my mom's side.  As I looked through many photos I was reminded that they were at every important moment in my life and the small ones.  I'm so glad I have memories to pass on to my little love who is named for her wonderful great-grandma whom she never got to meet.  I didn't mean to start this post out this way but it needs to be acknowledged and I'm not fully able to discuss how sad and how much I will miss them for the rest of  my life. 

Needless to say my first week off was stressful.  My in laws also had some issues (sprained ankle, fractured bone in hand and a burst appendix) soo yeah, stress.  I had major issues finding someone to watch my kiddo while I went to the visitation and funeral but thank god for friends. 

I also had a second interview and so by the weekend I was spent. 

We took a party bus to the Tiger's game and I'm so glad we did.  I needed it.  It was great to unwind and just have fun.  Probably the best way to end that hellish week!

  Our seats were high.  Way high.  When we got there we went straight for a foot long coney dog cuz we were hungry.  Then we walked up and up and up and sat down.  These weren't even technically our seats because there were open seats when we got up there and we didn't want to crawl across people.  I think we may have watched a half-inning of the game from here.  The sun came out and it was hot and we knew our cousin was at the game too so we started wandering to find him.

 

 And oh yeah, that tiny spec on the mound? Justin Verlander making his first start of the season!!

We ran into this guy.  The guys decided that they needed to find chocolate bacon on a stick.  (ew why ? ) so we went wandering.  We found some kind of bacon that they tried but not chocolate bacon.  No one seemed to know where it was located.  Though we did end up with some Java Vanilla Ported that was delicious.

My aunt, uncle and cousin were also at the game and we found her wandering out of a bathroom after we stalked her seats and could not find her. Then we walked back to where our cousin was sitting and then the guys decided they needed to find brisket nachos.  So we were watching the game from right beside this stand when a group of people got up to leave and asked us if we wanted their seats.  Uhh yes.  They had awesome big comfy seats!

Our view upgraded considerably! It was a very exciting last two innings which sadly ended with the Tigers losing to the Indians.  Boo.

We still managed to have a good time. ;)  When we got back to town we ended up going to our favorite local bar and then came home.  It was fun to pretend we were 21 again. ;)

We won't mention that I spent all day yesterday on the couch watching McBride movies.  Or whoops I just did.

This week is a bit more relaxed but I have a lot to get ready for our annual camping trip!

Did you have a good weekend? Do you like going to baseball games? Does chocolate bacon sound good to you?

The Daughter

The Daughter by Jane Shemilt intrigued me when I read the description. It sounds like a perfect family is destroyed by the disappearance of a girl.  Then the details start emerging.  The perfect family has some issues.  The narrator may not be reliable.  And what happened to Naomi?

Description: Jenny is a successful family doctor, the mother of three great teenagers, married to a celebrated neurosurgeon.

But when her youngest child, fifteen-year-old Naomi, doesn’t come home after her school play, Jenny’s seemingly ideal life begins to crumble. The authorities launch a nationwide search with no success. Naomi has vanished, and her family is broken.

As the months pass, the worst-case scenarios—kidnapping, murder—seem less plausible. The trail has gone cold. Yet for a desperate Jenny, the search has barely begun. More than a year after her daughter’s disappearance, she’s still digging for answers—and what she finds disturbs her. Everyone she’s trusted, everyone she thought she knew, has been keeping secrets, especially Naomi. Piecing together the traces her daughter left behind, Jenny discovers a very different Naomi from the girl she thought she’d raised.

I don't want to say too much about the book because it's hard to not give away the tiny details that are slowly given to you as read.  The book alternates between the time period of Naomi's disappearance and a year later. 

You really are wondering what has happened to this girl until the very last page.  There are small hints at what might have happened, who might be responsible and what not littered throughout but no until the very last is there somewhat of a conclusion.  And even then it still leaves a few lingering questions.  It's definitely not neatly wrapped up ending.  And that's all I'm going to say about that.  But, if you read it and want to discuss it, I'd be glad too. ;)

I thought it was interesting the more the other characters interact with the narrator, you start to begin to wonder if she is a good parent or if her children are that horrid of people or if she may or may not be giving all the details about herself honestly.

I'd really recommend this if you like books that aren't exactly what they appear.

Do you like reading happy books or books that are emotionally heavy? Do you find that characters are attracted to other characters that help them frequently in books? Does this happen in real life? What is a recent book that you'd recommend?

I received this book from TLC Book Tours but all thoughts and opinions are my own.