Year 3, week 34: The Giver of Stars / The Year of Living Biblically / Where the Crawdads Sing

I'm going to rapid-fire a bunch of books this week.



The Giver of Stars
By Jojo Moyes

This week's book is kind of the same subject matter as The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardso, which I read a while back. The packhorse libraries of Kentucky seem like such an interesting part of history. Women would ride mules into the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky to bring books to the severely poor population. This book is more of a novel, where Richardso's book is historical fiction. I enjoyed both a great deal. I had read the Me Before You series which Moyes wrote, so that pulled me in.

I would recommend both The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek and The Giver of Stars.



The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
By A. J. Jacobs

I picked up this book forever ago at Goodwill. The book is the true story of a writer who decided he would try to follow all the rules the Bible instructs people to do for a year.

I read A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband "Master" by Rachel Held Evans a few years ago for a book group. I had enjoyed Evans' book when I read it, but I felt like she didn't do enough for it to be a full book. She picked twelve items to do, one for each month.

Jacobs jumped in with both feet and tried to live as close as he could to the Bible. I found the book quite interesting and entertaining. The author's pregnant wife gives him a hard time pretty much the whole time. I didn't know it was made into a TV show at some point, but I don't know anything about it. I would recommend either of the books if you want to hear about people trying something new.



Where the Crawdads Sing
By Delia Owens

I actually read this book months ago for my book group, but we finally discussed it via Zoom recently. This book was/is the one of those books that is on everyone's book lists for 2019 or 2020. Everyone in the group loved it and were raving about it. I apparently am the only one on the planet that didn't like it.

I will admit it is well written, beautifully worded and images, but the plot is so sad. The main character is left by everyone that she loves and has to live by herself in the swamp, leaving everyone in town to call her swamp trash. She is very smart but wildly misunderstood, and even is accused of murder after a man uses her. When my book group discussed it, many people thought this book sounded like a fairy tale or folklore, and I would have to agree. The novel has also been compared to Educated, another book that was a big hit for reading group darling, which I also didn't enjoy. I found both of those books just far too depressing.

So even though I didn't enjoy the book, read if you want.