If you are in Canada and didn't vote in the advance polls (like me), get out there today to vote in our Federal Election. This is the most important election of our time and wouldn't it be amazing to see record number of voters this time!
I read a couple of books in March and April to tell you about today:
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler
This book is the fictionalized story of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald (the author), how they met, married, and spent their years together.
I got this book for Christmas and when I started reading it, I realized I had read it before. I seem to remember that the first time I read it, I really enjoyed reading about the parties and clothes and the time spent away in Europe, but this time I was mostly just annoyed with Scott and Zelda. Perhaps I am more mature now and could not relate to their irresponsibility.
Real Ones by Katherena Vermette
This book is told from the perspective of two sisters. They are Metis through their father's side and their mother is French, but has been pretending to be Indigenous artist. A journalist has uncovered this scam and it's become a public story. The sisters, and other side characters, have to deal with the aftermath and consider how their own identities are impacted by this.
This book is fine, it's always good to read about stories different than your own and the Indigenous voice is important for us to hear, but honestly I found this book a little boring. I wasn't invested in most of the sisters' personal stories and the few things I was interested didn't feature in a central way. I read another book by this author, about the same family, but different members of it, the Strangers. I liked that other one enough, but this one wasn't as good.
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
This book is about a man, who we meet at the beginning of his life, and then meet up with him at various stages of his life. From his childhood in Ireland and then other places. I don't want to give too much away.
I really liked this book, it is a "chewy book" meaning there is a lot of dialogue between the characters, difficult scenarios, misunderstandings abound, and tragedy. It did take me about a fifth of the book to really like the main character and become invested in his story, but then I couldn't really put it down.
One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware
Nico is an aspiring actor with the opportunity to appear on a reality show. But it's a couples show and he needs to bring his girlfriend, Lyla, who is not an actor, but a scientist who has no interest in being on TV. But she agrees to do it to help Nico's career and they set off for a remote island in Indonesia to begin filming with the other couples. Things do not go as planned and there is a whole new "reality' that the contestants need to deal with.
I like a Ruth Ware book, she does a good job of teasing the story, but not giving too much away so readers are keen to keep turning the pages. I enjoyed this book and found real depth to the characters and the plot. This would be a good book to adapt to a movie or mini-series, as I understand they are doing with another of Ware's books "The Woman in Cabin 10".