Reading Hangover

Title: Written in My Own Heart's Blood
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: time travel, historical fiction, romance, adventure, books on TV

You see the above meme? (Sheldon from Big Bang Theory). This was me this past week. When I need answers while I'm doing my fun reading, I end up with a reading hangover the next day. What’s a reading hangover, you ask? It’s the sluggish feeling you have the next day after staying up too late instead of getting much needed sleep for work. Disclaimer: reading hangovers only happen when a person stays up too late because of “fun reading” (homework doesn’t count).

 I am reading the Outlander series and I finished reading Book 8 (Written in My Own Heart’s Blood) today. This series deals with time travel (but not in a nerdy, technical, sci-fi way) and this is what I've had to deal with and why I also need answers at 1am....

**Some spoilers ahead**

 Seriously, if you have not read the first seven books, turn back now!

Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

*Claire Randall accidentally time travels from 1948 to 1743
*Claire travels back to 1948 to escape the Jacobite rebellion
*In 1968 Claire travels back to the 1760s to reunite with Jamie Fraser
*Her daughter Brianna travels back to the 1700s to be with Claire.
*Brianna's boyfriend, Roger, also travels back in time to the 1700s
*Now everyone is together in the mountains of NC
*Brianna and Roger have two kids but little Mandy is born with a heart defect so they must travel (backwards/forwards?) into the late 1970s so that Mandy can have surgery

So, in Book 8 Brianna and Roger’s son, Jem, gets kidnapped and Roger and Brianna think his kidnapper has taken back to the 1700s so off Roger goes to the 1700s
*At this point the reader knows that Jem is still in 1980 but Brianna and the kids are separated from Roger by two centuries and this is WHERE I DON"T NEED SLEEP FOR WORK, I NEED ANSWERS!!!

*Roger ends up going back too early and ends up in Scotland in 1739. He meets Jamie’s father, uncle and sister before tragic things befell the Fraser clan. He knows what’s going to happen to them but he can’t do anything about it or warn them because it will change the future and how Jamie and Claire meet….

This series had been on my to-read list for years- multiple people had recommended it to me but I never found the time to tackle the series until the books were turned into a TV show for the Starz network two years ago. I watched the first episode and was hooked; I checked out the first book in the series (Outlander) was hooked on that as well. Along with all the time traveling that keeps me up at night, is some buried treasure (seriously), the American Revolution (the battle scenes can get tedious if you’re not a fan of military science and strategy), some Scottish/American culture and a bit of romance. The books are HUGE (they are each approximately 800 pages)- they will make you laugh and cry. Keep the tissues handy as well as Google Translate for the French, Gaelic, and Latin phrases that are sprinkled throughout.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

Title: The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
Author: Katarina Bivald
Genre: romance, literary fiction, women's fiction


The Readers of Broken Wheel is a delight! Amy Harris and Sara Linqvist are pen pals/book pals; after Sara is laid off from her bookstore job in Sweden Amy invites her for an extended visit to Iowa. Amy had painted a Norman Rockwell-esque portrait of Broken Wheel, Iowa to Sara: eccentric characters, town gossip, tragedy, etc. When Sara arrives she finds out that Amy has died and that the town is on the verge of dying too. Amy Harris was a respected citizen of Broken Wheel so the townspeople decide to take care of Sara and they let her stay in Amy's house free of charge. In fact, they let her do everything free of charge: meals at the diner, groceries, etc. Sara decides to repay their kindness with a bookshop. She stocks the bookshop with Amy's books and vows to find a book for everyone in the town. Broken Wheel is not a literary town (there is no library!) so Sara is looked upon as a strange European. People come into the bookshop to check out the "tourist" and eventually their lives change in small but significant ways. The town also changes Sara. Sara was used to living life vicariously through books. Ironically, she begins to live in a tiny town in Iowa!
** This book was received as an Advanced Reader Copy digital e-galley from Netgalley.com**

Title: Voyager
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: historical fiction, romance, time travel, fantasy, books to TV


Aahhh, another semester is over and I have a few weeks of fun reading ahead of me. Diana Gabaldon's books are waaayyyy too addictive to read during the school year when I need to be focusing on homework and research papers so her books are always a delicious treat to me at the end of a stressful and busy semester. Her books are also difficult to categorize: they are a blend of historical fiction, romance (not too much!), time travel and fantasy. They are also hard to talk about with others without giving away major spoilers....


SPOILERS BELOW! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!
In this third installment in the Outlander series we get to see how Jamie deals with the aftermath of not dying at Culloden (not well at first). His life is spared by an English commander and he is sent on his way back to Lallybroch. Meanwhile, back in 1968 Claire, Brianna, and Roger follow the paper trail to find out what happened to Jamie after the failed Stuart Restoration. Soon Claire makes the momentous decision to go back to Jamie and she finds him... and discovers a lot of "surprises" not mentioned in the historical record: smuggling, sedition, an illegitimate son, a loveless marriage, etc. Of course Jamie and Claire are thrust into one adventure after another as they venture across the Atlantic Ocean to rescue Jamie's nephew: pirates, plague ships, hurricanes, slave revolts, etc. Oh, and the best part? The connection between the kidnapping and an old "nemesis."

Like Water for Chocolate

Title: Like Water for Chocolate
Author: Laura Esquivel
Genre: Hispanic literature, cookbooks, romance, magical realism

I had heard for years that this was an excellent book along with its movie adaptation although I had no idea what the storyline was about. I finally watched the movie a few weeks ago for an extra credit opportunity for my Food and Culture class. I really struggled with how to tie this movie into our class discussions and readings and after reading the book, I think my difficulty was due to the fact that it's hard to define the genre of this book. It has elements of magical realism interspersed with recipes, romance, and family drama sprinkled with tiny bits of Mexican history and culture.