Rainy Day Reads

This was the most recent pick from my TBR Jar and I actually quite enjoyed reading this book.   It is the story of a young man, Tom, in his early 20s I believe, trying to get his life back together after having let it fall apart following the death of his uncle Joe. We hear bout how his family used to be close-knit, but after the death of Joe, everyone seems to be flailing. His father is drinking, his mother left with his sister, he pushed his friends away and screwed up big time with the girl he liked.  After taking a spill from a table cutting his head open and landing himself in hospital he slowly starts to pick up the pieces. I enjoyed seeing his life come back together. I got the feeling of how it used to be, both his family and his group of friends sticking by each other, and how everyone now seemed to be drifting apart. We see how he slowly changes from an angry, hurt, disillusioned young man into someone who takes responsibility for his actions and tries...

As you can tell from the title I DNF’ed this book. The story was about a young girl in what I believe was 16th century England. The summary said the book would detail how she was left alone and penniless on the streets of London and how she rose above that and came to be the king’s mistress. It had all the makings of a trashy period romance and I imagine it would have been almost like a “Gone With the Wind” in a different setting. And when I decided to pick up this book I felt like I was in the mood for just that. But moods change and once I had started this book I just wasn’t feeling it. At all. So I decided to put it down after just a few chapters.   What I did read was well written, but the main character of Amber really annoyed me. She reminded me of Lydia from “Pride and Prejudice”, petulant and selfish and feeling herself too good for her circumstances. She throws away everything to follow some random man who straight out tells her he won’t marry her, but she is just int...