American Royals II: Majesty by Katharine McGee

Kindle edition

I started the 2nd book in the American Royals series on December 13 and finished it on December 20. Another great read!

I don't want to give too much away, but America has a new queen, Beatrice! This book covers what happens once Beatrice takes the crown. As you'd expect, there is major drama - with family (Royal family), friends, strangers, paparazzi.

If you liked the first book, you'll like this one.

Post written on June 4, 2023. Publication date reflects date I finished the book.

American Royals (book 1) by Katharine McGee

Kindle edition

I think I may have heard about this book from the Real Simple magazine reading list, but I don't fully recall. I can tell you that I really liked this book and couldn't wait to read the rest of the books in the series.

I started this one on October 4 and finished it on October 12.

Imagine, if you will, if America after the Revolutionary War became a country with a King and Queen - a royalty class? That's the premise of this book. America has a King and this book is about his family - the Washingtons (yes, related to George Washington, America's first King).

It's set in modern time. There is the oldest daughter (Beatrice), the one who will inherit the crown. And there are twin younger siblings, a boy (Jefferson) and a girl (Samantha), who are the spares. This book is about their relationships with each other, their relationships and desires (or not) for the crown, their friends who are less royal, and their lives navigating through protocol, school, family, and friends.

This was certainly a page turner and I loved it!

Post written on June 4, 2023. Publication date reflects date I finished the book.

Red, White & Royal Blue: A Novel by Casey McQuiston

Quarantine Reading

Kindle edition

I read about this book in Real Simple Magazine, I think. It's been on my "to read" list for at least a year. I finally requested it from the library via OverDrive - shout out to eBooks and Kindle!  I started it on June 15 and finished on June 21.

Though I read the description when I first put this on my "to read" list, I didn't entirely remember what it was about when I started reading it. Let me tell you - this book is really fresh, funny, and I really loved it.

It's a love story, coming out story, and political book all in one. This book tells the story of the first family of the United States. The president is female (YAHOO!) and divorced and has two adult-ish kids - Alex and June. Alex's arch nemesis is one of the Princes of England, Henry. Through a turn of events, these two men who hate each other have to become besties to quell a potential PR nightmare of their causing. Their fake friendship evolves into a real friendship and an entirely new actual PR nightmare to deal with.

One of the several things that made me laugh out loud while reading this book is the "nickname" Alex gave Henry in his phone - HRH Royal Dickhead 💩.  I was laughing so much at that.

If you like a love story, have an open mind, I think you'll love this book. It's fresh, it's modern, it's funny, it's sad, it's engaging, and I definitely stayed up too late at night reading this. I just couldn't put it down.  Now I'm left with the "what's next" desire for a sequel.

Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan

Quarantine Reading

Finished #2 in this series and immediately moved on to Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan. I started this on June 1 and finished it on June 11.

Again, no movie (yet) so used the images from movie #1 in my mind as I read this book. Also again, I like learning the "what's next" for all of the characters from the prior book.  And, again, I kept thinking that this was so much more over the top, so much "more," so much "excess," so much "money," so much "disfunction" with most of these characters.

Don't get me wrong, I really liked this book, it was very entertaining, engaging, a page turner, and I definitely stayed up too late reading at night. Unlike Hamilton, which I'm still "reading" (yes, I'm using quotes around reading because that book is still by my nightstand, it's been in progress for at least 2 years now, it still pains me to read it, it's still boring, and I still want to finish it) and literally puts me to sleep in 5 or fewer pages, the Crazy Rich series is so entertaining, even if I'm super tired, I stay awake to read. It's the polar opposite of Hamilton in many ways: Kwan's books are light, funny, engaging, easy to read and understand. Chernow's Hamilton, is not those things.

If you liked the other two books in this series, I'm certain you'll like this one.

China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan

Quarantine reading

Finished #1 on May 22 and started China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan on May 24 and finished it on May 30.

Another quick read - engaging, entertaining, funny, over the top, stayed up too late reading at night.

There isn't a movie (yet) to compare the book to - so my mind used the images from the first movie throughout reading this book.

If you thought #1 was over the top, wait until you read #2. While I very much enjoyed learning the proverbial, "what's next?" about all of the characters, I kept thinking to myself with each page, chapter, character, "come on - this is too much!", "this is too over the top," "really???". 

I like that we get to see what life is like for Rachel and Nick, for Kitty and Bernard (love his character from movie #1 - Jimmy Yang from Silicon Valley is hilarious), Astrid, Peik Lin, all of them. I truly love a good sequel, 1 is never enough.

If you liked the first book, I'll go out on a limb here and say that I'm sure you'll like this one.

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

Quarantine Reading

My boss sent a Slack to our team asking if we wanted any of the books she was done with and wanting to offload after a bout of quarantine cleaning. She had the 2nd and 3rd books in the Crazy Rich Asians series. I'd been wanting to read them, so I took her up on her offer to mail the 2 books to me and requested the first in the series from the library. Seeing as how the library is closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I had to get the eBook. Of course all of the copies were checked out. 

Side note - it's an eBook. As in "electronic" - how is there a limit on those? It is virtual... Oh well - it didn't take long for a copy to be ready for me.

I started reading Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan on about May 14 and finished it on May 22.

I really liked the book. It was funny, entertaining, a definite page turner for me. Here's where I had some issues. The movie was different. I kept running through the movie in my head as I was reading the book and thinking, "that's not how it was in the movie." I think that's the blessing and curse of the book/movie syndrome. The book paints a picture for you that your mind needs to visualize. Movies visualize the picture for you and your mind is along for the ride. Much to my chagrin, the movie never 100% matches the book. So, what do you do first? Read the book and be disappointed by the movie (because it isn't the same) or watch the movie and be disappointed by the book (because it isn't the same)? Really - what's the answer?

I can see how the movie was born of this book - all of the pieces are there. The characters are all there. The settings are all there. The over-the-top-ness of wealth is there. Most of the exchanges between the characters are all there. Except they aren't even though they are.

Bottom line - this is an entertaining read, it's funny, it's engaging, it's entertaining. I laughed, I stayed up too late reading at night, and when I finished it, I was definitely ready to jump in to book #2 in the series.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

This is the tale of The Library Book by Susan Orlean. The Husband first picked up this book, The Library Book, from our local library on or around October 16, 2019. I didn't finish it by the time it was due back. So, back it went, so sad and unfinished. I got it back again on 11/30-ish only to not finish it again. Then, got it back on 1/17/2020 and finished it, FINALLY, on January 24, 2020. This is one of the longest reads, aside from Hamilton, which is still unfinished. The first 2 times I had this book, it was just a normal book. The last time it came back to me, it was a member of Reese Witherspoon's book club. My, how things can change in a few months.

So - this book. It was.......... interesting. It centers mostly about the devastating fire at the Los Angeles Public Library - downtown / main branch on April 29, 2986 that destroyed 400,000 books and damaged 700,000. No one was ever tried for setting the fire, but the LAFD sued a man, Harry Peak, in civil court for the cost to fight the fire. Orlean talks in depth about the fire, the fighting of the fire, the aftermath of the fire, rescuing the books after the fire, restoring books after their rescue from the fire, and the life of the library after the fire. And much more.

She weaves in stories about the sordid and colorful history of the Los Angeles library and the head librarians. Not surprisingly it is filled with lots of men and thankfully some women too. She talks about the role libraries play in communities and how librarians are much more than book specialists. She also writes about libraries around the world and the roles they play and the struggles they've had.

For example, European libraries didn't fare very well during WWI and WWII. Among many atrocities, the library at the University of Louvain in Belgium was burned down by the German army in WWI. It was rebuilt after the war only to be bombed and destroyed again in 1940. It lost all of its books including over 1,000 that were published prior to 1500. Poland lost 80% of all its books. Kiev's books found themselves lining streets to provide traction for German armored vehicles. German troops burned more than 96 million books in Russia.

Each chapter begins with a list of books, like in a card catalog. Some books that I actually knew were in some of them as are some that I want to read, like Fox Tossing: And other forgotten and dangerous sports, pastimes, and games by Edward Brooke-Hitching. 

Why did it take me so long to read this book? It's dense. Really dense. And interesting, so I didn't want to skim or rush through it. It was slow-going. But I'm glad I finally finished it after 3 months.

The book is interesting, very well-researched, and is about much much more than a library fire. If you've got some time - give it a read.