Fifty States Challenge

 

Fifty States Master Post

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Thanks to Moonlight Reader for this delightful challenge and summer reading project.

I've promised myself that for this challenge no re-reads permitted and nothing from MR's reading list (no matter how attractive it looks; it will just have to go on my wish list for another time).

The plan. I'm starting in New England, where I live, and will work my way through the founding colonies and then westward to the Pacific Coast. So far, I have been depending on GoodReads lists for finding books but after two somewhat duds, I am going to have to expand the search parameters. Finding the books can prove as time consuming as reading them and writing about them.

Let the reading begin!

MAINE -- It was tough to find a book to read for Maine considering that I am not a fan of horror (Stephen King) and I have already read The Cider House Rules. I tried and immediately put down a title by Sarah Orne Jewett; it was cold, bleak and boring. I ended up with a true vacation read. https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/10620.Books_Set_in_Maine

Murder on Parade by Jessica Fletcher/Donald Bain, part of the Murder, She Wrote series

I never watched the TV show but I was desperate to find something of interest to read. If nothing else, I found some tolerable reading for when only "necessary roughage" will do. I loved the residents of Cabot Cove; they were so New England caricature and the mystery was solid enough to sustain interest.
3 stars (would have been 3.25 if it weren't for the lousy narrator)

NEW HAMPSHIRE -- Equally as difficult to find a title, even though there are some good choices at the top of the list -- A Separate Peace, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Our Town, Jodi Picoult, Anita Shreve -- I eventually settled on a real dud. https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/16516.Books_Set_in_New_Hampshire

Summer Hours at the Robbers Library by Sue Halpern

There is just so much wrong with this book, so much unrealized potential. I can believe I read it all the way to the end. Show us,don't tell us! By the end, it was a car running out of gas, sputtering to a halt when it still had ground to cover.
2 stars