THURSDAY SPARKS: THEMES & BOOKING — AUGUST 9

Welcome to another day of bookish delight, as we celebrate two events.

Theme Thursdays, hosted by Reading Between Pages, is all about finding themes in the books we read and enjoying the writing styles of the authors we explore.

Booking Through Thursday is like a conversation amongst bloggers in response to a prompt issued each week.

Come on by and join in the fun!

Theme Thursdays:

Our themes give us a wonderful opportunity to explore and understand different writing styles and descriptive approaches adopted by authors.

The theme for this week is

MIRROR Glasses, Spectacles etc

***

In Small Damages, by Beth Kephart, I found this passage on p. 26:

The day I learned about you, I’d wakened from a dream, and the dream was how I knew, or how I guessed.  The dream was me in a room of mirrors where there weren’t any doors, and in every single pane of glass was me big and getting bigger, like Alice in Wonderland and Willy Wonka got together for a pig-out.

***

About the Book:   Juno meets Under the Tuscan Sun

It’s senior year, and while Kenzie should be looking forward to prom and starting college in the fall, she discovers she’s pregnant. Her determination to keep her baby is something her boyfriend and mother do not understand. So she is sent to Spain, where she will live out her pregnancy, and her baby will be adopted by a Spanish couple. No one will ever know.

Alone and resentful in a foreign country, Kenzie is at first sullen and difficult. But as she gets to know Estela, the stubborn old cook, and Esteban, the mysterious young man who cares for the horses, she begins to open her eyes, and her heart, to the beauty that is all around her, and inside her. Kenzie realizes she has some serious choices to make–choices about life, love, and home.

Lyrically told in a way that makes the heat, the colors, and the smells of Spain feel alive, Small Damages is a feast for the heart and the soul, and a coming-of-age novel not easily forgotten.

***

Booking Through Thursday:

Amy and Sarah both asked about genres:

Amy asks:

Name a book you love in a genre you normally don’t care for. What made you decide to read it? Did it make you want to try more in that genre?

Bookish Sarah asks an interesting assortment of questions:

What genre do you avoid reading and why?

***

I had a book on my stacks that I had picked up out of curiosity…and then took forever to get to it.  I wouldn’t say I LOVED it, exactly, but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  The book:  Blood Brothers, by Nora Roberts, the first in her Sign of Seven Trilogy (paranormal)  (Click title for my review) (four stars)

As for a genre I don’t enjoy, I guess I’d say urban fantasy…but I did read a book in that genre for a challenge, and ended up giving it four stars.  Ship of Souls, by Zetta Elliott, was captivating in many ways.

I doubt if I’ll be reading any other books in this genre, but who can say?  I have surprised myself on occasion.   As for WHY I don’t normally read these kinds of books, perhaps it’s because the characters are hard for me to relate to…although, on occasion, I have found ghosts “relatable.” LOL

I prefer stories based on reality, but it’s fun to take a step off that path and explore.

What about the rest of you?  What have you discovered about your reading experiences?