April Book Report

It is that time of the month again which means another book report is fresh off the press. Three books were read for the month of April and will be talked about in this episode. They were some interesting reads.

Here is a link to my other podcast-

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-simple-discussion/id1843198044

https://open.spotify.com/show/6dTngjtXoqqBomtzGyzKFH

https://castro.fm/podcast/1e732887-adca-4052-afd4-4dbce3d1caf8

Transcript

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Hello, and welcome back to the Let's Talk podcast. My name is Hannah Covington, and today I am starting the process of recording the book report for April. And why am I deciding to record this podcast in chunks? Well, I've learned over the last couple months as I have been recording my book reports, is I seem to not be remembering things that I have usually remembered. And so as soon as I finish a book, I'm going to record an episode. Within the 24 hours I had have finished a book. So the knowledge is fresh in my mind, and I'm giving you the best info of what I remember from the book is how this episode is gonna be. I hope it works for me. Let's get started. How many books am I planning to read this month before I start talking? I'm hoping to read three to four books since I have a hint more time on my hands. Since I am out of sports season for the moment, but we will have events coming up pretty soon. So I have a hint of dead time before I'll be asked to run board for events. That is my job. I work at a radio station, or if I find a better position. That all depends. And I'm gonna start on the first book I read. And this month is probably maybe gonna be only singleton books, is what I am feeling at the current moment. And they're not on my Kindle, so this month might mainly be real books more than Kindle books because they've been stacking for years and I need to read them from people giving them to me to me finally having time to sit down and read a real book and take a break from my Kindle. Even though I love her, she is my pride and joy. Can't live without her. I might be saving some of my Kindle books for the summer months, which I might be spending at the pool or might be near water and don't want to take a real book and get it destroyed by the water. Some people feel differently than me about that topic. Oh well, should I do a month theme of books by chance? I don't know. I I'm trying to think. Should I bring other readers onto the podcast that I know? Should I start a book club at some point down the road? Who knows? Because I'm slowly meeting other readers as the year has progressed since starting this podcast, and it's only been out probably by the time this episode releases, over a hundred days, like probably it'll be close to 130 days by the time this episode comes out. I don't know, but it'll be over 100 days. But let's dive into the first book I read, and then I'll pause the recording and we'll pick up with the next book after I get done talking. That's what I like about this software is I can record and then pause. And the first book I read was a book by an author I had probably taken over a year and a half off from reading. Uh it had been a while since I had read a Kristen Hanna book because the last book I read by her caused me to need a little bit of a mental break from her for set per se. And I know a lot of people love this book. I was not a fan at all. I almost DNF'd the book, but I forced myself to finish the book hoping it would get better. It did not get any better. I was very disappointed in it. And some of y'all might maybe listening say, Well, I liked The Women or I love the woman. Your home girl did not enjoy the woman when it came out. I read it on my Kindle. I really badly wanted to DNF this book so bad, and I just forced myself to finish it because there was a lot of things I did not agree with with what happened in the book. But I'm finally back to reading some Kristen Hanna books, reading historical fiction. Yet again, I'm not having my head reading other stuff, but it's always good to explore other genres of reading. I will encourage that. So the first book I have read of Kristen Hanna in a good hot minute was The Four Winds. This was a book I bought when I was very heavily involved, like made up historical story world. I was still living in Bowling Green at the time. I was still in college, and I had gotten out of my apartment one weekend and went to the Barnes and Noble. I love a good Barnes Noble, and I picked up two of her books plus some other books. I think I got. I don't remember what else I bought. I think that was also when I bought the fourth wing, possibly. I don't remember. But I have made several trips to that Barnes Noble down in Bowling Green. They got a lot of my money, I will say that. But the four winds had been sitting on my shelf wanting to be read for a couple years now, and I finally sat down and read the book. And Kristen Hannah did not disappoint me with this book at all. I loved it, loved it, loved it. It was so good. It redeemed she redeemed me with this one, and hopefully the next book I'm gonna read of hers will be just as good. And I will share that book after I go through the details of the Four Winds book, which I have notes on because your homegirl remembered to actually write notes down. Praise Jesus. I remember to write my notes. I do make notes on my books as I'm reading in my Google Doc so I can remember stuff. So amen to me. Well, the story is mainly about this one woman and her raising her daughter during the depression, and her name is Elsa, and her daughter's name is Loreda. How does Elsa's family treat her? Well, Loreda comes into the picture later on down the road, but it starts off with Elsa. And Elsa comes from a pretty well-known family in her community of Texas. It takes place in Texas, is where the story starts off. Elsa's family does not treat her well. They call her the ugly one, and that she's a kind of disgrace to the family because she does not look good. Her parents don't want her to marry or have a life outside the home. She's not really allowed to leave the home except to go to the library or to church. So she is pretty much stuck inside. And why she's stuck inside and can't really do anything was she had a really bad fever as a teenager. So her heart is not right due to the fever from surviving the fever. Her parents treat her as if she's very delicate. We later learn she's not a delicate soul at all. But she has this mental mindset of throughout the whole story is she can't really do anything, but there are people that come along and tell her she's worth something, is what you find out throughout the whole story. And she just wants to have a life early on in the book. She reads all these love story books and wishes she could have the life that her sisters get to have. And she makes a dress for herself that literally gets destroyed because her mother didn't agree that she went out in this crazy looking dress. She was called something something back then that was not great. I'm not familiar familiar with that term, but it's not the first time I had heard that term. And so the mom takes the dress away from her, kind of destroys it, and lets the sisters pull it apart, which is even sadder. She's not allowed to marry. Her dad has even hurts her for trying to want to have a life, which is even sadder. It's just very, very sad. And one night she meets her first future husband, who is born from two Italian immigrants, which during that time period was kind of a disgrace in most of America prior to the Great Depression, because this book takes place a little bit before the depression to hint like to the Dust Bowl, which is a part of the depression, to hint after surviving the the depression, is the whole kind of timeline of the story, which was very interesting. She did a good job with that. But Elsa's family does not treat her well. Her and Rafe have a one-night stand, which leads to Elsa being kicked out of the family and having to be forced into a marriage she was not expecting, which upended Rafe's world, and then Rafe started having problems because of that. Is the best way I could explain it. Who is her love interest? Rafe, who is Rafe Martinelli, which he's born from two Italian immigrants. Who does Elsa grow a bond with? It's Rose and Tony, which are Rafe's parents, because she's kind of forced into their family and they later get along so well. It kind of was rough in the beginning until they realized she needed love because her family, her real biological family, never really showed her love, but they would later show her the love she needed. And there's other characters that come down the road that also show her that. What led them to leave Texas? It took a lot leading up to this for them to leave Texas. First, you have the depression going on all around the United States during that time. And then second, there's a Dust Bowl going on, which has destroyed the land of Texas, which means nobody can farm on the land of Texas during this time. And it's for most of the depression, farmers can't make anything. There's a lot of profit loss in Texas because of the depression. And you also got the Dust Bowl that affected the Great Plains during that time, which took a toll, which took a toll on people's health, which you learn about throughout the story. They lost a lot of things. First of all, Ray finally leaves Elsa to go to California to make a life for himself because he was wanting to follow his dr dreams that he had made up back before he was supposed to marry someone else, but got Elsa conceived with child. So he finally left her with two children and his elderly parents, which was not very smart, I will say. Not very smart. I think it was sad what he did to his parents, but to also leave two children who adored him, especially his daughter, who was very heartbroken for most of the story. And anytime she was mad at her mom, she would take it out on her mom of that's why dad left, is something you heard repeatedly through the story. And that is one of the big main plots. And then finally, the last reason, which is why they left Texas, is to save her youngest son, who has a very severe sickness from all these dust storms that has destroyed his lungs. There was a pretty bad one that lasted four days, and that's what led her to finally saying after he had healed enough, is what led her to say, I'm gonna pack up the kids and leave Texas. She was supposed to take her in-laws with her, but the in-laws stayed and tried to keep the farm alive, which is good because she needed them to keep it alive. It seemed after you read to a certain point in the book close to the end, I'm not gonna spoil it, but the farm got rejuvenated. The reason they left was to save her youngest son. And then they explained the long journey to California, which was not easy at all, is something you also learn. It was a little bit rough trying to get to California because they had to be kind of cautious with their money and how they spent their money of trying to get there and using gas. Somebody almost stole their gas out of their vehicle at one point during the book, which was very surprising. Yeah, very surprising. And how did the native Californians treat them? Oh gosh, this makes me so upset with how with what was going on during that time. The native Californias, it was a mix of how they treated them. They met more ugly than kind. Like there's very few kind people you will see in the story, which is utterly surprising. I was hoping to hear, oh, they welcomed them with open arms. Yeah, that was not the case. And it dawned on me of sometimes people choose who they want to be kind to and what they want to accomplish in their states. And who are some of the nice people they met in California? Which I'm glad I wrote this down because since it was very few few and far between throughout the whole story, I felt like these names needed to be mentioned. Gene and Jeb Dewey, who are who are a married couple that they met at a camp they were staying at during the time, were some of the nicest people. They they became really close to the point of they would help each other no matter what by giving each other money to food to help him when they were sick. Betty, Ann, and Ned, who were an owner of a salon and knew how it felt to be an outsider trying to make it in California and gave them things they needed from haircuts to new clothing or gently used clothing. I honestly thought at one point when I read that part that Betty was gonna offer to take Elsa in and train her to be a beautician, was what I actually thought, but she didn't. I wish she had, because that would have made a good story. But it was lean to something else. But I wish Elsa had been a beautician. It would have been easier on her health if you read later on down the road. But there's always something that messes with plots of stories, and you think, oh, this will happen. Nope. And the other one that I wrote was Mrs. Quisquistorf, who was the librarian, and she was very big on making sure that the kids stayed educated with reading because she liked nurturing the kids' knowledge of reading, especially Loreda's, because Loreta is a little bit like her mother and loves to read, and you'll slowly grasp that. And so Miss Quistdorf was very kind and giving of give making sure Loreda had a library card, even though she was from out of state and most of the non-Californians got treated pretty poorly. Miss Quistdorf made sure that Loreta was treated just like everybody else and gave her whatever reading material she needed, even educated Loreta on what to say and not to say, and gave her wise advice. And Loreda, like, I don't know how to word it. She was very grateful for that knowledge Miss Quizdorf gave her. Because Miss Quizdorf comes up quite a bit throughout the whole book until they leave California. So you know a lot about Miss Quizdorf. What are some of the struggles Elsa and her family face? Trying to find a job and make money is the big one, and finding food because it was hard for them to find food and relief because it took a year in what the story said until they could get the relief fund. You had to live in California for a year to get the relief fund, is what you find out, and I find that very surprising. But that's the case, and it's still the same to this day. If you move to a new state, you're not considered a citizen of that state until you've been there a year, just from my own experience. So that I would say that's the biggest struggle is trying to find work and make money and trying to stay alive is one of their biggest struggles they face in finding work. And making sure the kids have a decent education during the depression is the other thing. Why does Elsa still give things to the Dewey's when she needs to care for her own family? It's because they have the biggest friendship, they care about each other, and that's what friends do for each other, is they have each other's back, as I mentioned before. Overall, I thought this book handled the depression well. I know different parts of the country had different struggles of the depression, and I'm glad Kristen and Hannah only focused on one area of the state and not the whole state, because it sounds like the Great Plains handled the depression a lot harder than we realize. And it's something that's really not talked about and needed to be addressed. And I'm glad she handled it very well. And the next book I'm reading by her that's going to be a part of this month that I'll be talking about next. In the next recording session, I have is The Great Alone by her. And I hope that book's good and that I will be picking up as soon as I finish this book. I'll I will be giving my thoughts as soon as I finish this book, which will be a part of this recording. The last time we were talking, we had just finished talking about the four winds, and now I have finished another book which I had talked about I was going to read, which is The Great Alone by Kristen Hannah, which is another book by her. I see I seem to be the reading a ton of her books this month, and I don't mind reading a ton of her books because they seem to be easy reads after finishing a book series. But let's dive into the Great Alone. I wouldn't like for this to not be as long as me talking about the four wins. But one thing I want to bring up really fast is this took me longer than I thought it would because I thought this would be a book I would read in about a week, week and a half. And instead it took me 10 days, which I was not thrilled about because I was having a good reading speed actually. I read a lot, but I just had some days I just did not feel like reading, or I barely read because life is busy, and that's what happens when you try to get as many books read as possible per month. And that's the part about growing up and still choosing reading as a hobby while watching stuff at the same time because you want to keep up with what's going on in the world. Sometimes that means taking a break from reading. But let's dive into the great alone. Who is the main character of this story? Well, it's mostly about a female character named Lenny, but you will see some different perspectives as well that are scattered throughout the book. You'll get a little bit of perspective through a few pages of Lenny's mother close to the end of the book when she gets diagnosed with cancer, and how was her reaction to having cancer? And you get multiple pages and chapters in Matthew's perspective as well. Most of the story is in Lenny's perspective. What war affected Lenny's father? Because you will learn stuff as you go along. Of they talk about a war throughout the beginning of the book, which I think. Kind of also made it hard to read this part of the book. Like the first probably 70 to 75 pages of the book. I almost DNF'd this book. I was like, I'm gonna DNF this book. I really did think that. But I did not DNF this book. I actually I actually finished it. It got better after the first 75 pages once I just sat down. I think it was for an hour to an hour and a half and just read. I I'm gonna be honest. Sometimes take a while and you just need a good hour to hour and a half to read to get the flow of how the book feels. And the war that has affected Lenny's father is the Vietnam War. This is actually the first book out of many that Kristen Hannah wrote about the Vietnam War. She wrote from a man's perspective a little bit, just a tiny bit. And then you have The Woman, which I have read, and it was a full Vietnam perspective. And the woman, I'm never gonna reread because I'm not a fan of that book. I know that's gonna shock people. Just not a fan. I read it when it came out and I wasn't a fan. But it is brought up of how her brother how why did I just say her brother? Her father was affected by the Vietnam War and being a POW, and that it affected his brain really badly and his mental health, and he never got help for it, which affected how he treated Lenny and her mother without giving too much detail away because it is talked about throughout the whole story until a certain situation happens. I'm not gonna reveal that situation. You need to read it for yourself to find out what happens because it's a little gory and I don't want to talk about the goriness of the book of what happened. And what are my thoughts on Large Marge? Oh goodness gracious, she is a lovable character. And why I brought one to bring this up was she is probably one of my favorite characters of the story. I never thought I would like a character like Large Marge. I always find myself liking the weird characters for some odd reason. I was like that in Bridgerton, and here I am now reading singleton books and finding I am the same way with those. Large Marge has a lovable personality and is always willing to help you learn from when you first meet her, when her family first steps foot in Conic, Alaska. Large Marge is the first person they meet and she introduces herself. She is trying to be as helpful as humanly possible, especially during their early days of coming to Alaska. It was on their second or third day, Large Marge showed up with a group of people who came and helped them. And also, Large Marge gave Lenny a part-time job during high school, even helped during the tough situations with Lenny and her mother throughout the whole book, you find as well. And also addressed the situation of how her father was treating Lenny and her mother. And that's as much as I'm gonna give to encourage you to read the book. Wesley's secret that she is hiding from Matthew for a decent amount of the book until I don't even know if she told Matthew this secret at all. Lenny's mother will not leave her toxic father. That's the best way I can describe it. It's like her mother still lives in the past of her what she sees in Lenny's father and refuses to leave him, as you'll learn throughout the whole story, until a certain point in the book. Why was there one chapter of Matthew's perspective? I later found out it was about two. One was before the accident, and then one after the accident, because one was it was before Matthew decided to move back to Conic after being away and working through his emotions. The other chapter was on Matthew working through his emotions, even though he couldn't talk after the accident, and then there were some other moments throughout the book as well, Close Ian, of some thoughts he was thinking in his head that he couldn't say aloud because of how his brain was after the accident, of wondering if Lenny would ever come back is the best way I could describe it. And what does Lenny hide from Matthew? Well, Matthew had gone through very traumatic experience with the accident. Lenny finds out months after the accident that she is with child and it was Matthew's child, and she just wasn't ready to tell him before she had to abruptly leave and move back to Seattle, which is where Lenny's mother's parents lived, and took them in and helped them for a good six years before Lenny moved back to Conic. Lenny hid the fact of she was with Matthew's child, and she just didn't want to overwhelm him and be stuck in Conic while dealing with a certain situation. You'll have to read to find out the situation. It was Matthew's son. She later finds out Lenny at first thought it was a girl and already had a name picked out because you see some letters that Lenny wrote that never went to Matthew, and she didn't even have time to grab them to bring back with her. Because Lenny thought he was so brain damaged that he couldn't read them. Well, that's how Matthew relearned how to talk was through the older letter letters. When Lenny went to give birth, she finds out it's a boy and names that child after Matthew and calls him MJ, which I find an interesting name. I thought he would go by his middle name, which was a cool middle name, which was Denali. You don't hear that name that often. And how does Lenny explain to MJ when he was five or six years old about his father? MJ hit a certain age in the book. It was four to five range when Lenny had to start explaining of why his father was not in the picture. I think he was starting the school age of kindergarten, first grade, and he was starting to get curious to a degree. He wasn't fully curious, but Lenny had to explain to her son of why his father couldn't be in the picture at the current moment. Even though Lenny wished she could have Matthew in the picture, but they lived so far away. And she was worried about due to Matthew's severe injury, that he wouldn't be as helpful with MJ at that age, and that she wished she could go back to Alaska and introduce MJ to his father at some point, but she didn't know the condition of Matthew. After Lenny's mother's death from cancer, yes, Lenny's mother dies from cancer while MJ is pretty young. And the one wish Lenny's mother had was for her to go back to Alaska and do some things that I don't want to mention, and that you need to read the book to find out what Lenny's mother asked of her on her mother's deathbed. But they do end up going back to Alaska when MJ is probably between six to six and a half range. They end up going back to a certain police station. Lenny ends up having to wait behind bars, and she asks one thing to this one detective or police officer to call Matthew's father, Tom. And Tom is very involved in the story as well as Large Marge. And Lenny asks for Tom to come to the station because she's afraid of her being sent to jail and that she wants a certain person to take care of MJ. And Tom is the person she trusts the most to take care of MJ, other than probably Large Marge, which would have been the second option from who Lenny trusted from the town. I will say Tom's reaction to meeting MJ was one of the most adorable moments in the entire book because Tom just melts meeting MJ. Because I would say Tom didn't expect to become a grandfather after the traumatic injury. He was thinking this will never happen. And to finally meet a grandson that he never expected to get probably warmed his heart. And Tom was willing to do anything for Lenny because he knew Lenny was innocent to the point of calling the governor of Alaska to get the situation dropped so Lenny could come back and be with her son. But one thing she asked Tom not to do until she was in the presence was she told Tom, Don't tell Matthew about MJ. She goes, I want to tell Matthew herself. And Tom listened to her wishes, which trying to explain to a child, hey, you can't meet your father without me. But MJ did not understand. He just was excited to have another grandfather, which he was so excited about and probably seeing all the animals and all the land. He was so mesmerized, probably with that he didn't even know his biological father was still alive. I'm glad Tom was willing to take on MJ. And what is Matthew's reaction to meeting MJ? And did he ever think he would have a child? This was the most interesting experience of the book as well, other than Tom meeting MJ. Why I say this is because Matthew originally thought because his brain processes things a little different since the injury. When Lenny is trying to explain to him, no, you have a son. He wasn't understanding that he had a son named after him. It took him a minute or two to understand what Lenny was saying, and that Lenny got a little frustrated of saying, like, I still love you, and that we have a son, and that she had been dying to introduce him to their son. She never thought he would be in a better condition enough to talk. At the end, Matthew was so excited to finally have his son. And some of the stuff he shares with Lenny of he says, I don't think I'm gonna be a good father. And Lenny reassures him and says, Well, your son knows about your condition and will love you anyways, which I'm glad she had talked MJ through how his father would be before that, which made it easier on him, which is very, very great. I don't know how to say it, but it was so sweet their interaction and how much MJ was so excited to finally meet this person that he kind of knew about, but he really thought he would never meet. So it's very, very exciting to see someone finally meet someone they never thought they were gonna meet. And that, like, whole part of the book, I was almost in tears. It was just that I think that was one of my favorite parts of the book was MJ finally getting to meet his father and Lenny and Matthew reconnecting after being away for probably seven years. Yeah, that sounds right. And Lenny apologized apologized to Matthew about not being there when he when she should have been there the most. But he forgave her, which I was like, dang. But he understood she was trying to hide from a certain situation, but he was so excited to finally get to meet a child he never thought he was gonna have, which is always so exciting to see. But I will talk to you after I read another book. I will tell you what the next book is after I read it. I am back to tell you which book I picked for my third book for the month of April. I literally just finished it the night prior as I am recording this last part of the April book report because I needed to finish it before the month ended so I could tell y'all about it and get it done in a timely manner with this report. I get it edited and put out for y'all because apparently I did not do a great of a job as last m month. If you couldn't tell by when I posted it, but yes, I wanna say I had a hard time picking what book to read because most of the time I try to link books with my Kindle and Audible account when I'm deciding what books to read. If you guys did not know that, that's how I decide stuff, and I kind of explored a genre I have never explored, but other people around me have explored this genre, and I'm not the hugest fan of this genre, by the way. If you're like picking up on what I like to read at the moment, I'm more of a historical fiction biographies, that kind of sort. I'm just trying to explore what is my type of books at the current moment because I kind of am set in my ways, but I'm willing to explore new genres this year because in order to read 50 books or close to 50 books, I'm gonna have to explore some different genres so I don't get burnt out on books. And this book I read was also by an author I like to read a lot of. She has written one of my favorite series, which is Wait for It, Wait for It. Yeah, uh Fourth Wing. I love Fourth Wing. Yes, my favorite series is Fourth Wing, and I am slowly finding my authors as well since graduating college that I like to read because it seems like it's a process in finding the j the authors and genres you want to read. And I have slowly been getting onto Rebecca Yarro's reading uh books after how much I enjoyed the fourth wing series and how I came to be of the fourth wing series is a very interesting story, as well, but the book I read of hers that I just finished was kind of outside of what Fourth Wing was and also outside of my comfort zone as well, which is I read a book by her, and I heard about this book through watching a video on YouTube because I'm always wondering what is the it book at the moment to read, and I've had this book actually sitting in my Kindle for about a year, I would say, yeah, a year. And I'm glad I did. And the book is called Variation. I did not understand the title of the book at first when I was uh starting it, I didn't get it. I was like, why did she choose a book called Variation? Because I would not have picked that type of title by any means. I would have picked something completely different, but you have to get a little bit into the book to understand why she picked that title because one of the main characters is a professional bat ballerina, is the best way I could explain it. And it's a love story between a professional ballerina and a person in the Coast Guard. Not something I thought I'd see on my reading list for this year, but it was something I needed to get read and off my Kindle as like sometime this year, and I've officially returned it since I have finished the book, and I can check it off as my what book number am I on? I'm gonna check real fast. Yeah, what book number am I on? It was my 12th book. Yes, I've read 12 out of 50 books officially, and maybe sometime today I will start my 13th book. Hopefully, like get a start into a 13th book is the goal. But yeah, I read my first romance novel. Not really a fan of romance novels, but Rebecca Yarrows has grabbed my attention yet again with a romance novel. How does this story start off? I will say I was a little confused in the beginning when I was reading this book. It took a while for me to understand why she did all these year gaps in the first couple chapters, because Hudson and one of and his not his one uh his other brother, Gavin, say two teen girls, like they were teenagers back at the time, all the characters were, and like Hudson was practicing swimming in cold water because his dream is to be a part of the Coast Guard, a certain part of the post Coast Guard, and he was practicing because you have to stay in water for so long in order to become a part of this certain position in the Coast Guard. And Gavin's trying to tell him, hey, we need to get back, and as they are headed back, they come across these two teen girls who came out on a very old rowboat, and Hudson goes in and saves them because they needed to be saved or they were gonna die. And we didn't know who these girls were until they get into the boat, and that they were very well known in the town as they have their own group of people and they don't really talk to locals, they don't they don't even treat the locals well when they were children, or some of the siblings don't, as you find out throughout the story, and it dives into their childhood of how things went. It's just very, very interesting learning about the childhood. And who are the main characters? Allie and Hudson Hudson. Hudson is the guy and Allie is the girl. Allie is a nickname which was short for Alessandra, such a beautiful name. I love that she could find a nickname and not always be called by her full name because let me say that is a mouthful. And why did the author give so many year gas for the first couple of chapters? I think because at first I was confused about this, as I was saying earlier, but I think it was trying to set the plot of how they met and what led to their breakup and why they haven't talked for X amount of years. And what led to them meeting back up with each other 10 years later? If I am understanding this story correctly, I hope I'm understanding the story correctly. Because this is my first romance novel, and I don't know how romance novels are, and I'm exploring this genre per se, yeah. And it's very interesting because they start out as teenagers, and then they jump to two years later, and how they broke up, and it wasn't a pretty breakup, let's per se. And then it goes to ten years later, and how Allie gets injured while live on stage. She had just barely started a performance and she tears her Achilles. And this isn't the first time she has torn her Achilles, and you learn how she had teared her Achilles the first time because she gets into a wreck, which is also a decent amount of this story as well, because it does get brought up periodically throughout the story, because it's some trauma Allie has been working through with a therapist throughout the years, because Allie has to try to explain this to Hudson's adopted niece, Juniper, who we will later find out is related to Allie in a weird format. And Juniper asked some questions that Allie really didn't have true answers to because you'll find out at the end, which was the mother lied to the other sisters that are still alive about several different things that you find out close to the end of the book about that Juniper was actually how she was related to them, and the sister who has passed on for over 10 years, had a daughter, and who the father of that daughter is to what happened the night of the accident, and how Hudson and Allie broke up, and Allie had been mad at Hudson for 10 years over something when really he's the one that saved her, and tried to be there with her after the accident and got pushed away by Allie's mother. And what are the main characters' jobs? I've already said that. Allie is a professional ballerina while Hudson works for the Coast Guard as a rescue swimmer. That's the part of I forgot about what Hudson does. And who has to be my favorite character from the story? That is so hard because of the fact that there were so many good characters throughout the story. And it would be hard to pick a character because everybody's character played a good vital role throughout the whole story. I can definitely tell you the character I le I did I disliked the most, which was Allie's mother, because of some of the stuff she put Allie through and her sisters as a as children, and forcing them to do ballet when really they didn't want to do ballet. And it's really hard to pick just one character. If I had to pick a character, I would have to say honestly, I liked the sister Anne because of Anne's the one trying to hold everything together, and she does a good job. I would say I'd be between Anne and Kenna, which Kenna is Allie's good friend, and they're the ones that hold Allie together. There's something about you need a good couple of good girlfriends around you to hold you together during some times when you're struggling. And I would have to say my I'm gonna have to pick two characters. I'm gonna have to say Ann and Kenna are my two favorites. And who is holding Hudson back? Okay, this is brought up multiple times throughout the book as well. I think this needs to be addressed as well because Allie goes over to Hudson's house halfway through the book because of and it was after the camping trip they had with his family, they never really gave straight dates of when that camping trip was, I would say, and so she goes and stays at his house, and she runs across his picture of him with Juniper, their shared niece, which brought them together. And he talked about how he loved some of the ports he was at, and he had been at this great place until a certain incident brought him back to his hometown, and that he was up for being being reassigned, which is a part of being in military, and he had re put his hometown again because he had made a deal with Juniper's adoptive father that he would help his sister and his niece while putting his dreams on hold when in reality he could have moved to somewhere he wanted to, is how it is. So it's really Hudson's sister is what's holding him back from going somewhere he has dreamed about, which is somewhere in Alaska. It's kind of an interesting place to move, but hey, people have dreams, and he's such a family man. He literally upended having a contract somewhere to go be with his family after a tragic thing happened to go help his sister, which makes him a good human and kind of made Allie want him more after she learned of how much he cares about his family. How are Allie and Hudson brought back together? Oh my gosh, this is so interesting, and this was kind of one of the most interesting parts about the book that I thoroughly liked because there always has to be that one moment that brings two people back together ten years later, because Hudson Hudson one Saturday is watching his niece, and she's really into ballet, wants to be doing ballet, but she can't do ballet. Her mother refuses to let her do ballet, and juniper is very much like, no, I am gonna do ballet, and she thinks she's her mother is Allie, which is not, and she forces Hud Hudson to drive her over to Allie's house, and he's like, fine, he was very against it, but Juniper will always win his heart or Melt's heart when and he goes over there. At first, she doesn't answer the door, and then Juniper just runs how Juniper knows that Allie's in town is because of social media, is the best way I can describe it. And Juniper runs to the backyard of going, maybe she's here, but that's why she's not answering the door. And then they he finds a figure, he sees a weird thing in the water, and was like, who could that be in the water? And he has to run into the water and save Allie. It was I don't know what to describe what she was doing, but her mental health space after the injury was not the best from how I was reading it because of how much pressure was put on her. So Hudson goes and saves Allie, and then they have their little reunion scene. It was an interesting reunion scene, and Juniper tells Allie that, hey, I think you're my mu mother. And Allie's like, like, excuse me, I don't think I am, but she was forced to take a DNA test to later find out that Juniper is her niece, and then she later brings Hudson back to tell him the thing, and Anne walks in in the middle of this confrontation, and they make this plan, which is this big fake love story they have to make, which equals they work through a lot of problems throughout, and they really realize there were some people that kind of broke them apart during their younger years that didn't need to break them up. And in the middle of this process, Allie's youngest sibling, Eva, who's the youngest of the four sisters, does something really not great to Allie, which is she tried to take a role from Allie that was not made for her, which was not the best thing to do as a sister. And Allie and Ann almost disown Eva for it, but Eva owned up to her mistakes and even apologized for it. And who supported Allie during her long month of training? Once her ankle slash Achilles got back to feeling better, she had this very intense month of training to get her back to the Astanema to do ballet again with the help of some of her closest friends. And this also included her sister who's retired from ballet, helped plan this. She had her, I don't know what to call what Kenna's position is, but Kenna helped and put this together. It was Kenna and Kenna's mother Eloise, who helps with the Metropolitan Bell ballet, and her mother's name. Kenna's mother's name is Eloise, love a good old school name. And then also one of Allie's good guy friends, who is a part of the same ballet company as her. His name is Everett. And I've said, of course, Anne helped with it, and so was Hudson. Like, Hudson and Anne were probably her two biggest helpers in trying to keep her on track of making sure she ate and slept and all that, which is awesome because I was like, if you don't have a big support system, how are you gonna heal and get back to the level you were at? And I've talked about kind of how evil Ali's mom was. She did a lot of things that she shouldn't have done, like hiding the fact that their oldest sister had a baby and they did not know that, and that the baby had been put up for adoption, and part of the adoption was that this baby could not do dance, which was kind of sad because Juniper all she wanted was to dance, and they later learned that through some stuff, and also learning who the father of Juniper was, and that was really shocking as well because they were trying to figure out who the father is, who the fa who's the father, and they later find out which is even a bigger shocker, and so yeah, a lot of interesting things happened during this book, and I don't really want to spoil a book, and so I hope you have enjoyed this April book report, and that I only got three books read, but they were some really interesting books to read, and I will see you next month for the next book report. Bye.