Book Review: The Yellow Birds

I recently chose this book as my book club selection for January.  I heard about it on Morning Joe on MSNBC.  Now, if you know me, you're probably thinking, "What in the WORLD were you watching MSNBC for???"  I'm a Fox News girl through and through.  I took some friendly advice to give this show a try from a friend who watches it.  It was fine.  And I actually met Joe Scarborogh when I was working at a restaurant in Pensacola, FL and he was very friendly.  So I was watching and they had this author on and they were discussing the book and read a few excerpts.  I immediately added it to my TBR (to be read) list.  The author, Kevin Powers, is an Iraq War Vet and the book is a fiction novel that follows two soldiers through a war.  And wow, it was powerful.  Very brutal...we're talking about war here....so there were some hard parts to get through.  And it jumps around a bit, so I had to get used to that.  But what captivated me so much was the way that the author wrote it.  He's a very good writer.  The words he used and the way he wrote it was almost....poetic.  That's pretty talented when you're writing a book about a war situation. While this is a fiction novel, with the author being a vet and going through a tour in a hostile country, I'm assuming that some of these experiences are things that he actually experienced somehow.
I also wanted to choose this book because my book club is made up of military spouses in my husband's group.  I wanted to see how they reacted to it, being wives of soldiers.  I got some mixed reactions.  Some really like it, some found it hard to read.  Everyone appreciated it, and we all were affected by it somehow.  In our husband's career field, they are lucky to not be on the front-lines, the way the characters in this book are.  But they do deploy and it is a hostile environment and can be scary at times.  I do recommend it if you can read this type of topic.  It's powerful and really shows you what can happen in war-time situations.

Book Review: Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris

Today, it started raining.  We had a pretty good storm and in Tucson, that's a blessing!  I took advantage of the weather and sat down to finish my book, Deadlocked.  It's the 12th novel in the Sookie Stackhouse series, which the True Blood show on HBO is based on.  Now, if you haven't followed either, or just one of the series...they are VERY different.  There are lots of things in the show that are different from the book and it can be hard to remember which realities go with which series.  You have to be willing to let them be their own concepts.  But I do love them both. 

Deadlocked is really good.  There were a few slow parts, but the last few pages blew. my. mind.  My mouth was literally hanging open.  I won't give anything away, but I really enjoyed this latest edition of the series.  And I'm always happy to feed into my Eric Northman obsession admiration.

Book Review: "Dinner: A Love Story"

 

 

*image downloaded

 I picked up Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach after seeing it featured on Ali Edwards' blog a while ago.  I checked out amazon and saw this video.  This video sold me.  I loved her philosophy and it really sounded like something I wanted to get behind.  Plus, my dinners were getting a little....boring.  You can only eat spaghetti, Lean Cuisines and baked chicken so much.  I loved her idea of keeping a Dinner Diary.  I keep something kind of similar, although it's a dry-erase that I redo each week to keep track of what we plan to eat for dinner.

 

 

 

*image downloaded - courtesy of Jenny Rosenstrach

The book is part memoir, part cookbook.  She's a great writer and I may or may not have developed a little crush on her husband - he's hilarious!  I didn't necessarily agree with all of her strategies (I don't want to eat dinner at 9pm after the kids have gone to bed), but for the most part, she inspired me.  We normally eat dinner at the table as a family.  She's inspired me to change up my normal meals and to try new things.  Her recipes are not complex.  Even the "harder" recipes are something that I can definitely do.  She got me wanting to make Chicken Pot Pie with Sweet Potatoes.  I don't normally even like Chicken Pot Pie.  But I'm going to try it!  While I was reading, I kept a bookmark of a lined piece of paper which I wrote down recipes as I read them and knew I wanted to try.  The list got pretty long!  She's really gotten me excited to cook again. 

I've tried two recipes so far and they were super easy and really delicious!  This book now lives in my kitchen, on my cookbook stand where I see it everyday.  It's a friendly reminder to cook really good food for the people I love.  I'm sure I'll revisit it and read it all the way through if I feel like I'm getting in a dinner rut again.  I highly, highly recommend this book!

*Now I just need a Dutch oven, which I've been wanting for a while anyway.  This just gives me another excuse to buy one!