Audible Review: Elin Hilderbrand's The Rumor

One of the biggest challenges about traveling for work is the obscenely long amounts of time I spend in the car alone. I don't mind being by myself at all, but spending upwards of six hours alone in a rental car every day gets old. Quick.

When I first started, I would go to our local library and check out books on CD so I would have something to hold my attention while I navigated the back roads of America. For some reason I fell out of the habit and relied solely on the radio. I don't care what anyone says, there's only so long before listening to the radio gets repetitive. I am convinced satellite radio only has three CDs to pull from.

Over four days on my last trip I spent 17 hours in the car alone. I was dying. My husband, in one of his more annoying habits, is addicted to listening to books on tape through Audible. I swear the man never not has his earbuds plugged in. During what seemed like my third desperate call of the day to get him, someone, anyone, to talk to me, he suggested I download Audible and listen to a book.

I really liked being able to have a book through my speakers without having to remember to go to the library, or be at the mercy of their selections. Since I was searching for a title while I was pumping gas, I saw Elin Hilderbrand's The Rumor, and went for it pretty quickly.

I wish I hadn't.

This is the second of Hilderbrand's books I've read, and while I did enjoy parts of The Rumor. It was seemingly a little repetitive of the first I'd read, Nantucket Nights.

Both books are set on Nantucket, are focused on a group of extremely close girlfriends, and are propelled by a scandal. Granted, the scandals in each are different, but both stories felt very similar.

I don't know if I would have drawn the parallel, and been as disappointed in the writing as I was, if I hadn't read them back to back.

I have a third Hilderbrand book, The Blue Bistro, that a friend passed to me, and I will admit I buried it a little on my shelf to give myself a Nantucket summer scandal break.

All in all, I would give The Rumor three stars, if only because it seems like Hilderbrand is just writing what she knows, as a Nantucket resident herself. The story was filled with trite suspense and lots and lots of sex.

Literary Snack

Lately I have been in a Nora Roberts mood. My reading has a tendency to come and go in waves, and while I read so much technical stuff for the day job, the heavier classics for my classes (say that three times fast!), sometimes I just want a literary snack.

Or literary filth as someone has called it. Which, by the way, if you think NR's romances are filthy have you actually READ any pages of Christian Grey? Don't get me started on that...that…filth.

Off my soapbox and back on to my topic. The world is complicated, constantly changing, and topsy-turvy and hard to understand. Nora is all those things. But with a happy ending that life usually sometimes decides you don't deserve can't have.

via

But surely I'm not the only one that spends hours reading titles like Playing the Odds: The Story of Serena and Justin.

Or maybe I am.

A Blue Sort of #posituesday

It's one of those days where everything seems to be off. Which I hate because it should be #posituesday.

I've mentioned before about how changing my life so drastically has had ups and downs. Today seems to be one of those downs. In fact, it has been a down week of sorts. I have flashes of happy and content but then flashes of sheer disappointment.

Disappointment in myself for my current state of discontent. Disappointment in how I woke up a few days ago and realized that all the weight and muscle I worked so hard to lose/gain in the beginning of the year is gone. Disappoinment that no matter how hard I try to stay digitally connected to my best friends, a phone call or a gchat will never be the same as grabbing beers at Innisfree to catch up on gossip.

I've read Mommy blogs that discuss not saying never and not taking yourself too seriously. I've learned to never say never, I mean I can't with the job I have! As far as taking myself too seriously? Yeah, that has never been my problem. I've leaned on friends, mentors from school, even my former boss. Yet, I still have this burning feeling that I'm disappointed in myself. Maybe it's the weather: I've never been a "rain" person. Maybe it's the three day blues from having some vacation: being in a cubical is not as fun after a vacation…

I'm disappointed in myself for feeling so blue and being so self-centered that everyone wants to hear about it. It's supposed to be #posituesday, which I'm spinning this week. Every once and a while it's okay to feel blue. It means you're alive and feeling all the other feelings too.

At least that's what I am going to tell myself. I'm giving myself today to feel blue. I'm going to power though my responsibilities and then spend all evening in front of my sad little Charlie Brown tree reading a delicious Nora Roberts romance.

The 'Heart of the Matter'

It's no secret that as an English major, I love to read. And I read a lot. A ton in fact. My reading goes in cycles: I'll read like crazy for a few weeks, devouring all kinds of things. Then, I'll see my reading taper off and I'll struggle through one novel in a month. I blame it on college. Welllllll, college is over now. I'm out of excuses, time to make a commitment to reading my tail off. Summer's always been my favorite time for reading: between the pool, vacations and the warm air, being outside with a book is second nature to me. In fact, when I was about 15 I read 100 novels over the summer. Yes, I'm that nerdy. And yes, my Momma and I are that competitive. But I digress...

I started this “Summer of Reading” off with Emily Giffin's Heart of the Matter. Giffin, the brain behind Something Borrowed and Something Blue, two of my absolute favorite novels. When I came across Heart of the Matter I was thrilled. In fact Giffin even references the Something characters in Heart! From page 1 to page 288 I could not stop reading. I fell in love with the heart stoppingly fierce leading lady that sleeps with a married man. (It's not what you'd think....) But then when the married man finally makes his decision, I became disenfranchised. I hope I'm not giving too much away, but the ending left a lot to be desired, something I never thought I'd say after having read all of Giffin's previous novels. Each character is thoroughly developed, strong yet raw. Real. Exactly what you'd expect from Giffin. I had to force myself to continue on, push through the final eighty pages. I owed it to Giffin and myself to give it a fighting chance. I was disappointed. Check it out for yourself and tell me what you think? I'd love to talk about it with someone!

Wish me luck as I tackle another title on my seemingly never ending reading list: Beginner's Greek byJames Collins.