All posts tagged: The Giver of Stars

Giving Five Stars

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Before reading it I’d definitely heard of our February book, The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes. I don’t live under a rock! Jojo Moyes is a beloved author (see Me Before You) AND Reese picked The Giver of Stars for her Hello Sunshine book club. So it was hard to miss. And most people who’d read it had nothing but good things to say. And that made me nervous. I feel that way anytime a book gets a lot of hype. Maybe because nothing can ever really live up to that hype? Or I just feel like I’m not usually the type of reader that likes the books that are so beloved? Too polarizing? Either way, that’s usually a turn off for me. But I was willing to give it a shot. Anything for The Bookly Club, right? I did do a lot of research on the story. So I knew the history it was based on. And of course I’d read the blurb, so I knew essentially what it was about. But I …

A little bit of nice…

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Full honesty here – after reading the synopsis of this book, I expected to not entirely enjoy this read. I’m not entirely sure why but just a gut thing. After reading it, here is what I can say – for what it is, the book is delightful. The hard and handsome landscape contrasts the somewhat airy and pretty story very nicely. The pace is excellent without sparing imagery, making it a hard one to put down. Plus, I really enjoyed learning a bit of badass women history. I mean, these women were freaking amazing. The other side of the coin is that the story certainly lacks for some character complexity. Each person in the story, while serving a very distinct purpose, is either decidedly good or decidedly bad (or at the very least deeply flawed). No character is particularly challenging. Everything is made easy for you in the book – including Depression Era Kentucky, which is made to feel quaint.  I felt it a bit problematic that families living in abject poverty hoping for a …

February Book

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We’re back to announce our official selection for February! We’ll be reading The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes, and we hope you’ll read along with us! But more on that later… Jojo Moyes, most notable for Me Before You (her tragic romance novel turned movie starring Emilia Clarke), recently published a historical fiction novel that’s getting a lot of attention. Including ours! Released in October of 2019, it was selected for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine bookclub in November. And we can’t seem to open Instagram without seeing another book lover rave about it. It’s based on the true story of a New Deal initiative backed by Eleanor Roosevelt called the Traveling Library. The Depression left much of America in poverty, but none were hit quite like the coal-mining counties of Kentucky. Without access to public libraries, and many illiterate, women were called upon to travel the counties and deliver books to those most in need. From 1935 to 1943 these women rode on horseback delivering books to homes and schoolhouses, earning names like packhorse …