Still Alice Review

Yes! We are finally reviewing Still Alice by Lisa Genova.

Like we said before, this book hit home for a lot of us because of our different families' situations. Many of our grandparents are older so we had so many text-to-self connections with this book! 

Disclaimer: only 3 of us successfully read this book in its entirety because of the extreme sadness. Therefore, this review is shorter than usual because only three people could comment on it :)

We all agreed it was sad. I mean, that goes without saying. The story follows Alice, who had a Ph.D in linguistics as she discovers she has early onset dementia. The book details how she and her family are coping with this heart-wrenching disease. We all agreed that John, Alice's husband, was not the greatest. Yes he had his shining moments and was somewhat supportive, but we hated how Alice's disease made him cold. We DID NOT support the ending at all. 

The relationship between Alice and her children was beautiful, especially between Alice and her daughter Lydia. Lisa Genova had such a way of writing the book that the reader felt every ounce of heartache and fear that Alice and her family felt. It takes a talented author to be able to create such a feeling. 

Although we enjoyed the writing style of Lisa Genova and the themes throughout the book, we still had a hard time getting over the sadness of the book. As hard as it is, we have to give Still Alice a 3-wine glass rating. Don't get us wrong, it was an excellent book. But the big picture ideas had us feeling more depressed about the world than before.

Girl on the Train Review

It's time to review our second book! Finally...

Girl on the Train was, what we thought it was supposed to be at least, a psycho-thriller that was a mystery. We knew there was a lot of hype around this book given that it's being made into a movie. But we had mixed reviews on this one. Many of us liked the change of pace from the Me Before You book. Hint: you can read that review here! 

Maybe it's just the procrastinating college students in us, but we thought this book could've been shortened by about half. Yes the information in the first 3/4 of the book is helpful for understanding the whole solving-of-the-mystery part, but honestly we could've gotten the picture if Paula Hawkins cut it shorter. 

We all agreed that Rachel was 100% crazy and we all felt bothered that she knew of her personal issues but did nothing about them. We all also thought that Anna was annoying but rightfully so--her husband's ex-wife was a little cray cray. Cathy was Rachel's only saving grace in the book. One of us said, "Honestly, Cathy wins the MVP award." #yougoCathy 

We really didn't understand the red-haired guy on the train with Rachel. We couldn't tell if him and Rachel had a fling one night or if she was confusing her stories again (wouldn't surprise us!) If we were in Megan's shoes, we couldn't figure out what we would do. She was in a rough marriage with a jealous and over-bearing husband but she had 0 family members to rely on. On top of that, she's still overcoming something from her teen years but not doing so in an appropriate manner. What we do know is that the ladies of Wine and Spine WOULD NOT cheat on said husband with multiple men. 

#50shadesofnothanks

Another quote from one of our fine bookclub members "the only good part of this book was when the story picked up in the last 20 pages." Okay so it was like the last 80 pages but still. It's pretty clear where our wine glass ratings fall on this one...

Me Before You Review

It's time to review our first book!

Recently we read Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. It was our first book of Wine & Spine and it was a good book to start off with! The book takes place in England which led some of us to read the dialogue in a British accent :) The story follows Louisa Clark as she starts her new job as a personal care aide to a witty and rude paraplegic. The book turns into a love story with an ethical conflict mixed in. The majority of our book club members enjoyed the book. The opinions ranged from "give this book five wine glasses!!" to a public shaming of the book on Twitter :) When forming Wine & Spine we knew that opinions would vary but that just makes for a better discussion!

***Spoiler Alert***

Many of us did NOT like the ending. It left us incomplete and mad at some of the characters. We couldn't help but feel heartbroken for our beloved character when she "wasn't enough". Although we disagree with the ending, some of us were happy the author didn't end with a cliche happy ending. She stuck to her decision. 

The book was easy to read. Because it's written by a British author, some of the British-lingo was a little tricky but could easily be figured out. We asked everyone to rate the book using our wine glass rating system and we took the average of the ratings...

We rated this book a solid 3 and a half wine glasses! Not bad for our first book club book, right?