WWW Wednesday, 11-January-2017

Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived here on Taking on a World of Words. Just answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses. Please, take some time to visit the other participants and see what others are reading. So, let’s get to it!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Note: For users of Blogspot blogs, I’m unable to comment on your posts as a WordPress blogger unless you’ve enabled Name/URL comments. This is a known WordPress/Blogspot issue. Please consider enabling this to participate more fully in the community.

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Currently reading: I’ve made a bit of progress with World Without End by Ken Follett this week. I try to turn it on whenever possible in my car so I can keep listening to it. I’m loving it and I’ll be sad and happy when it ends.
I got to read The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge during lunch twice since last week. I’m at about 60% of this book and I hope to push through and finish it soon.
My friends and I are competing in a year-long running challenge and I’ve been very motivated to listen to South of Broad by Pat Conroy during my runs. I’m finally over half way and I think I’ll just finish before my book club at the end of the month.
I made decent progress with Misterio de la Guia de Ferrocarriles by Agatha Christie but set it aside because I have a new book! (see below)
No progress with Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs this week. My husband and I are very busy now in the beginning of the year. I’m not sure when we’ll get back to this one so it might be on here a while.
My Interlibrary Loan came in! I was able to get through a lot of States of Confusion by Paul Jury over the weekend and I read a bit more since the week started up. It’s a quick read so I’m hoping to finish this one soon.

Recently finished: With that huge list of current reads, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise I didn’t finish a single book! I keep picking up and putting down titles and starting on super long ones, it’s no wonder. I hope to add a few here soon!

I’ve gotten two reviews up since last week! The first is Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell. I really enjoyed this book and will have a report up about my book club’s discussion of it soon. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.
The second review is for The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston which I put up yesterday. This book was a fun adventure through the 1920s, my favorite era. I gave it a full 5 out of 5 stars.

Reading Next: My class this semester will conflict with my book club meetings so, until May, I’m reading my own book list! I’ve been meaning to get to Mindy Kaling’s book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? I know it’s been on this list a few times but I really REALLY mean to read it soon.

Shameless Plug: If you’re still looking for reading challenges in 2017, take a look at my historical fiction reading challenge, When Are You Reading? Let me know you’re interested and I’ll add you to the participant list. I had 13 people participate last year and I’d love to have a bigger group this year!

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Leave a comment with your link and a comment (if you’re so inclined). Take a look at the other participant links in the comments and look at what others are reading.

Have any opinions on these choices?

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Book Review: The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston (5/5)

I don’t remember how I came across this title. It was probably a Goodreads ‘recommended books’ related to another 20s novel I read. I’m so glad I found it, though! This book was a real treat. I’ve never read a graphic novel before but I have to imagine it would be something like this. Oddly, my first thought when I picked this book up off the shelves was how heavy it was! It only took a quick flip through to realize that’s because the pages were high-quality photo pages and there was ink soaked into every inch of those pages to cover them in amazing images. I was ready to devour this book.

Cover image via Goodreads

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston

Summary from Goodreads:

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt is a visually stunning, totally unique, full-color novel in the form of a scrapbook, set in the burgeoning bohemian culture of the 1920s and featuring an endearing, unforgettable heroine. Caroline Preston, author of the New York Times Notable Book Jackie by Josie, uses a kaleidoscopic array of vintage memorabilia—postcards, letters, magazine ads, ticket stubs, catalog pages, fabric swatches, candy wrappers, fashion spreads, menus and more—to tell the tale of spirited and ambitious Frankie’s remarkable odyssey from Vassar to Greenwich Village to Paris, in a manner that will delight crafters, historical fiction fans, and anyone who loves a good coming-of-age story ingeniously told.

This book was too much fun. I devoured it. I read in the acknowledgments that the author got a lot of the images off of eBay. It’s obvious she spent a lot of time getting the images together and I loved that. It also seemed really convenient that the character descriptions and clothing matched the images exactly. I’m guessing a lot of that was Preston being inspired by the images but I found it a bit hard to believe that Frankie’s beaus always looked like magazine models. I could overlook this, though. The story was fun and encompassed so much of life in the 20s it was a little convenient, but it was really perfect and a great way to visually explore the time period.

The characters were a little bland because the dialogue and narration were reduced to allow the images to tell the story. Some of the side characters took on stronger personalities than Frankie herself. Her roommate at Vassar struck me as a memorable personality but now I can’t remember her name, haha. I wasn’t expecting strong characterization, though, so this didn’t bother me. The images were beautiful and told a great story.

I both loved and hated Jamie. Mostly hated, but there was something redeeming about him in my mind. He stuck with me the most, either way. He obviously did things with Frankie he shouldn’t have when they first met. I think he paid the price for what he did by ending up alone in Paris. He gave her a job when she needed one, obviously. I also think he helped her grow up. She was very innocent at the beginning of the book and she started to be her own woman in college, but it was really when she ran away to Paris that she had to be herself and she was scared to do that. After her second run-in with Jamie, she was much more confident and able to go after what she wanted. So yes, he was a terrible person, but he was very important to her.

A lot of the things Frankie did were things I would have liked to do but never dared. I would never run off to Paris with no plan and hope to be a writer. I would ignore my fun but reckless roommate at school. She was brave in ways I am not and I wanted to be her sometimes, but I didn’t quite relate to her. Her friendships in high school were the closest to my life and those seemed to be over by page 15.

Caroline Preston
Image via Entertainment Relm

The images in this book were amazing. I wanted to rip pages out and put them above my computer for inspiration while I write my 1920s themed novel. I’m so impressed that Preston spent the time to find them all and that she wove them into the story so well. I’m sure what she could find dictated the plot slightly, but it didn’t feel that way. I enjoyed being swept up into a time period so visually.

If anything, the worst thing about this book was that I read it so fast. I finished it in three days and could have finished it in a single sitting if I wanted to. Maybe more text, pages without images, would have given it a deeper plot. Or maybe something a bit longer. I would have liked a little more depth with the characters, though. Though it would have been impossible to make them authentic, photographs would have been great. Maybe doctoring some could have worked.

Frankie is running away from her past, but it’s only when she comes home that she’s happy. She may have bobbed her hair and tried to be a Lost Generation writer, but it’s the farm and her mother where she finds happiness. I think too often people run away or hide from their lives like Frankie tries to do. But in the end, she has to remember who she is and where she comes from before she can be happy. I think it was an appropriate ending and one you don’t see a lot in books.

Writer’s Takeaway: As a writer, I feel like I have to avoid images because they are for children’s books. It was nice to see a book for YA and adult audiences with pictures used so liberally and effectively. I know that my book will not be able to publish images, but it’s made me think about collecting pictures to remind me of the people in my book and the time period they were living in. I have one picture now that I keep above my computer but I’m thinking of collecting some more.

This book was fun yet short and very different from other books I have read. A full Five out of Five stars.

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

Related Posts:
Review | The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: a novel in pictures, Caroline Preston | Literary Treats
Review: The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston | Diary of an Eccentric
The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt | alibrarymama

WWW Wednesday, 4-January-2017

Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived here on Taking on a World of Words. Just answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses. Please, take some time to visit the other participants and see what others are reading. So, let’s get to it!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Note: For users of Blogspot blogs, I’m unable to comment on your posts as a WordPress blogger unless you’ve enabled Name/URL comments. This is a known WordPress/Blogspot issue. Please consider enabling this to participate more fully in the community.

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Currently reading: I wasn’t able to make much progress with World Without End by Ken Follett during the holiday break. I didn’t drive anywhere alone and didn’t feel like forcing my husband to listen in so I didn’t make much progress. I’ll press on, though! It’s still really enjoyable.
Also not much with The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge. It’s still enjoyable and I’m moving through it at a moderate pace, but it will still be a while.
I had a cold over the weekend so all of my plans of listening to South of Broad by Pat Conroy and enjoying some long runs were dashed and replaced by me cooped up in bed. Sigh.
I was able to start Misterio de la Guia de Ferrocarriles by Agatha Christie as my Spanish-language read of the year. I hope I can move through this one quickly but my Spanish books always take longer because of the brain power they devour.
My husband and I started an audiobook together while we were driving to Ohio and back. We picked Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs, the third and final book of the Peculiar Children trilogy. We both enjoyed the first book but were not big fans of the second. We’re a bit skeptical about this one and we keep trying to pick out if there’s a traitor. It’s fun trying to be one step ahead of everyone.

Recently finished: I flew through The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston. It was a much shorter read than it at first appeared because so much of the story was told through pictures. I would compare it to a graphic novel in that respect. The story was a bit bare boned but it was really enjoyable and I would recommend it highly.
I picked up a book I didn’t intend to this week. My brother’s girlfriend got us all books for Christmas and I finished Frankie Pratt sooner than expected so I picked up my gift, Trap by Robert K. Tanenbaum. It wasn’t my usual genre but I read it quickly. I’ll say that’s partly due to interest and partly due to being sick and unable to get out of bed or off the couch much.

Reading Next: I’m still waiting for States of Confusion by Paul Jury to come in from the library. I’m not sure how long ILLs take so this might be here for a while.

Shameless Plug: If you’re still looking for reading challenges in 2017, take a look at my historical fiction reading challenge, When Are You Reading? Let me know you’re interested and I’ll add you to the participant list. I had 13 people participate last year and I’d love to have a bigger group this year!

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Leave a comment with your link and a comment (if you’re so inclined). Take a look at the other participant links in the comments and look at what others are reading.

Have any opinions on these choices?

Until next time, write on.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!