The Supreme Macaroni Company by Adriana Trigiani

The book opens with a dramatic scene on the rooftop of an apartment building in Greenwich Village.  Valentine Roncalli was comforting her friend and business partner Bret whose wife had just left him and they kissed.  Ten years ago the two had been engaged but it hadn't worked out.  Now Valentine is dating Gianluca Vecchiarelli, a tanner from Italy who has come up to the rooftop to ask her to marry him which he does anyway.  And she, a shoemaker, accepts.

Then they go to the feast of seven fishes at her mom's house in order to announce their engagement, but her father tells them to leave because the fighting is really bad.  Her sister's husband, Charlie has been laid off and Great Aunt Feen is drunk and in a mood to tear people apart.  Great Aunt Feen is a bitter woman and mean even when sober but when drunk all bets are off.  And Charlie has been drinking too so he's giving as good as he's getting.  His wife Tess is defending him too.  But Feen's not just attacking Charlie she's going after everybody. Alfred and Pamela, Jacklyn and Tom and mom and dad, and gram and Dominic, who is Gianluca's father.  The fighting stops when Gianluca announces their engagement.  Valentine is the last in the family to get married.  Her best friend Gabriel, who is often comic relief and is likely gay, is thrilled and happy to find out that he is the maid of honor.

Her mother gets her into Leonard's a reception Hall for Italians that is the creme of the crop but the opening she gets is February 14, two months away.  They don't have time to get to know each other better. She tells him she's keeping her last name and he's upset by this and she compromises by agreeing to take his name around the house.  And he keeps secrets. Lots of them. Which drives her crazy of course.  He keeps it a secret that they've lost their shoemaker and distributer.  I didn't like him because he kept so many secrets and it seemed to me like he wanted her to move to Italy, which she couldn't and which wouldn't make her happy.

But when you get to the end of the book you find yourself falling in love with him and changing your mind about him.  This was a fabulous book filled with surprises and great characters.  Like Alfred and Pamela and how the whole family pitches in for Alfred to be nice to Pamela in order to save their marriage.  Or how Valentine gets along with Orsola her grown stepdaughter and Guiluca's ex-wife.  I really enjoyed this novel and I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

Everyone seems perfect in the moonlight.

-Adriana Trigiani (The Supreme Macaroni Company p 5)

“All families are crazy” “Why is that” “People are involved.”

-Adriana Trigiani (The Supreme Macaroni Company -p 7)

“If you have love, what more do you need?” “Permission.” Gianluca laughed. “When I asked your father for your hand he cried.” “He was disappointed you only requested the hand.  He hoped you would take the entire kit.”

= Adriana Trigiani (The Supreme Macaroni Company 7-8)

The only time people get in trouble is when they live their lives for someone else.  It never works. you end up living a bitter life that’s not your own.  And the very people you gave up everything for never acknowledge all you sacrificed for them

-Adriana Trigiani (The Supreme Macaroni Company p 47)

Valentine, you listen to me. You’re going to have a proper wedding, no running off.  That’s not even real. Catholics do not go to city hall.  We marry in cathedrals.  You get a white carpet from the foyer to the alter.  Pews marked with ribbons.  For the love of Mary we festoon.   We make a sacrament. It’s holy. We get blessed and re-up our baptismal promises.

- Adriana Trigiani (The Supreme Macaroni Company 62)

 Pity is the ruination of women. When we feel sorry for a man we get into trouble.

- Adriana Trigiani (The Supreme Macaroni Company p 97)

Years from now, you’ll want a permanent record of your wedding. An invitation is the bride’s Dead Sea scroll at the bottom of her hope chest.

=p 108)

I modeled the diamond. “This doesn’t count?” “Not quite. An engagement ring is all well and good, but the deal isn’t a deal until you place a thin platinum band next to it. , locking the future into place with a 24 -K Lojack. Once you have the blessed band, you’re golden.”

- Adriana Trigiani (The Supreme Macaroni Company p 113)

“She didn’t want to be a bridesmaid” “Good call. Maybe she didn’t want to get lung cancer from all the hair spray.”

= Adriana Trigiani (The Supreme Macaroni Company p 141)

 “Okay, then if I can’t be the eater who stays skinny, I’d want to be invisible, so I could eat whatever I want and no one would look at me,” Tess said. “That’s called marriage,” Gabriel said.

- Adriana Trigiani (The Supreme Macaroni Company p 150)

“He wanted me.” “And he still does.” “You think so?” “Honey, only a man that loved you would move to Greenwich Village and build a new life when his old one was perfectly fine. May I point out that he left Tuscany for you?  That’s the one place on earth everyone wants to go and never wants to leave. And yet, he did it for you; It’s you that he wants. It’s you that he married.

- Adriana Trigiani (The Supreme Macaroni Company p168)               

Someday I would look back on this fight and know for certain that there is only one fight in a marriage, the first one. And as much as you might try, the fight is never solved. Over time, it becomes a conundrum, the immovable thing, the inexplicable conflict that forms a wall between you. It grows higher and higher, and then the vines come, and when the wall is grown over in bramble and weed, there’s no getting over it. You cannot see past it, get around it, or blow through it. It takes up the space between you, and no amount of love can bring that wall down.

- Adriana Trigiani (The Supreme Macaroni Company p176)

“I blew it!” “He chose you didn’t he?” I nodded.  “So he got what he wanted. He had his dream. A man who gets his dream in this life has everything.”

- Adriana Trigiani (The Supreme Macaroni Company p 313)

       

Listed On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Supreme-Macaroni-Company-Novel/dp/0062136593/ref=sr_1_1?crid=XFNY14RKNEPD&keywords=the+supreme+macaroni+company+by+adriana+trigiani&qid=1582721997&sprefix=the+supreme+macaroni+company%5C%2Caps%2C1988&sr=8-1

The Trouble With Twelfth Grave by Darynda Jones

In the last book, Charley had been worried and pondering over how to get the innocents out of the hell dimension locket God had made for his half brother Reyes, her husband, who is also the son of Satan. Charley decides to go inside, but Reyes vetoes that idea as she is too important as a grim reaper and a god herself.  So Reyes decides to go inside and all Charley needs to do to get him out is call him by his given name.  But it doesn't work and an hour passes before suddenly the glass locket is broken to pieces and the innocents cross over through her and Reyes comes out only he isn't Reyes he's Rey'azikeen, the evil god Reyes was created from.                 

Charley doesn't tell anyone for a couple of days because she feels she can handle it alone, but she can't and is forced to ask for help from the gang.  Michael the Archangel visits to tell her that an army is coming down to attack Rey'azikeen. Charley asks for more time and he gives her three days. The three days she has already mostly used.  Osh and Garrett and Charley plan a trap for him that doesn't go as planned and Charley and Rey\azikenn have hot sex on the celestial plane so what that means is anyone's guess.

Then he destroys the run down psych ward where Rocket, Blue, and Strawberry haunt and where Rocket keeps track of the dead and living.  He's looking for something like an ember or ashes but Rocket wouldn't tell him or Charley what it was.  He keeps popping up everywhere threatening her and demanding that she tell him where to find what he's looking for but Charley has no idea what that is.

Meanwhile, Charley\s tattoo artist friend Pari who went out with a guy named Hector while on a break from her boyfriend.  They only went out twice and that was so she could drive his hot car.  Then suddenly he's obsessed with her and cutting up her nightgowns and other creepy stuff.  She and her boyfriend get back together. Then one night Hector comes over and is strangling her when her boyfriend happens by and grabs her baseball bat and swings it at his head.  There\s no body, but the police come around asking her about him as he's dead. Pari has asked Charley to look into his death and find out what happened. To see if they did anything wrong.

There are also these bizarre murders that involve burning flesh and gruesome death of these various different people who all have something in common.  What else came out of that glass, or is Rey\azikeen responsible?

This was a good book, though you'll be screaming at Charley to read those books and finish them.  The Pari story is interesting, which any story with Pari in it is going to be, and we get to finally find out what happened to Strawberry\s brother.   I did enjoy this book and the end was a surprise I suppose.  I give it four out of five stars.

Quotes

“Is this going to be one of those life lesson things?  Nobody compares to you so it\s not fair.”  “Is this going to be one of those guilt trip things? ‘Cause they don’t really work when I’m around. I can sense insincerity, remember?”

=Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 40)

I once made a pot of coffee so strong it opened a jar for me.

-Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 43)\\

 

If I manage to survive the rest of the week, I would like my straightjacket hot pink and my helmet sparkly.

-Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 59)

I always carry a knife in my purse…you know, in case of cheesecake or something.

-Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 69)

 Why is it so hard to find an exercise bike with a nice little basket where I can put my vodka and nachos.

-Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 92)

I’m not saying I don’t like you. I’m just saying I’d unplug your life support to make a pot of coffee.

-Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 105)

Never ask a woman who’s eating ice cream straight from the carton how she’s doing.

-Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 125)

Stress has a way of aging a person.

-Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 149)

If I were a Jedi, there’s a 100% chance I’d use the Force inappropriately.

-Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 142)

Apparently, “Just Fuck Me Up”, is not an appropriate coffee order at Starbucks.

-Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 160)

“Charley, you’re pulled in so many different directions I don’t know how you do it.” “Right? I put in my bid for Elastigirl serum, so the minute the scientific communitygets its act together and creates something more useful than Viagra, I’m set”

-Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 169)

Some days I amaze myself. Other days I put my keys in the fridge.

-Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 176)

It just occurred to me that you could substitute Miranda rights for wedding vows. Verbatim.

-Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 215)

I try to take one day at a time, but lately several days have attacked me at once.

-Darynda Jones (The Trouble With Twelfth Grave p 262)

Listed At Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Trouble-Twelfth-Grave-Charley-Davidson/dp/1250147557/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1582035311&sr=1-1

Education: A Memoir by Tara Westover

Tara grew up in the mountains of Idaho as a Mormon, the youngest of many children to a father who owned a scrap yard and was manic depressive and a mother who was a midwife and sold herbal remedies.  Her father was a survivalist who constantly believed that the End was near so they stockpiled food and weapons and gas.  They were pure Mormons and followed the laws on the dress, food, drink, and not working on the Sabbath, etc... so her dad believed that they had been chosen for special treatment.  They didn't believe in schooling, hospitals, doctors, or the government.

When her dad got depressed, they headed to Arizona to visit his parents who spent the winter there.  The family believed that the sun would lift his spirits.  It seemed to and after a few days, he was ready to go back to work. However, he wanted to leave that evening rather than first thing in the morning when everyone would be fresh and the twelve-hour ride would result in an accident when Tara's older brother Tyler fell asleep at the wheel and drifted off the road and plowed into a tractor.  Their mother was damaged badly as the front end of the car had pushed inward toward her.  For the next three months, she would spend most of it in the basement and her memory would never be the same again.  About two years later the same thing would happen only in a van.  Dad would be driving in an ice storm that he refused to stop for, in fact, had sped up for, and wound up flipping the van on the side of the road.

Then therre\s Shawn, her older brother who sometimes looks after her like he did with the Shearer, an evil machine that destroys iron and can take off your arm or your head in the process.  He refused to let her use that machine as long as she held it down for him to keep it from rearing up and hurting him.  But she had to also bring him glasses of water with ice, then without ice, then something else to drink because that wasn't what he wanted to drink.  Shawn is an abuser.  If she goes against him then she gets her head put in the toilet and then her hand stretched back to the point of breaking it.  He has a string of girlfriends he abuses.

Tyler gets out and goes to BYU and gives Tara the idea of going to college. With Tyler's help, she manages it and gets accepted to BYU herself.  But once there she realizes all she doesn't know.  Like the Holocaust.  Or really anything about history.  At first, she stays by herself, but eventually, she learns to branch out and makes friends. 

This was an intriguing book in that you don't often come across stories of people who had not been educated get into college and go farther than that.  And the abuse she suffered from her brother and father is horrendous.  To overcome those odds stacked against you is indeed incredible.  Her story is fascinating and as one who comes from a family of manic depressives I can sympathize.   The writings not bad but could be better. I can't explain it but it's just a feeling I have about the reading.  So I give this book four out of five stars.

Quotes

This moment would define my memory of that night, and of the many nights like it, for a decade. In it I saw myself as unbreakable, as tender as stone. At first, I merely believed that until one day it became the truth. Then I was able to tell myself without lying, that it didn\t affect me.  I didn’t understand how morbidly right I was. How I had hollowed myself out. For all my obsesseing over the consequences of that night, I had misunderstood the vital truth: that its not affecting me: that was its effect.

-Tara Westover (Education p 111)

“I’ve been praying anout your decision to go to college.  The Lord has called me to testify. He is displeased. You have caset aside His blessijngs to nwhore after man\s knowledge. His wrathis stirred against you. It will not be long in coming.”  I don’t remember my father standing to leave but he must have, while I sdat gripped by fear. God’s wrath had laid wast to cities it had flooded the whole earth. I felt weak, then wholly powerless. I remembered that my life was not mine. I could be taken out of my body at any moment, dragged heavenwar to reckon with a furious Father.  The next morning I found Mother mixing oils in the kitchen. “I\ve decided not to go to BYU,” I said.  “Don’t say that. I don’t want to hear that.  Of all my children you were the one I thought would burst out of here in a blaze. I didn’t expect it from Tyler—that was a suprise00butg you. Don’t you stay. Go. Don’t let anything stop you from going.”                                                                                                                      

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

-Tara Westover (Education p 133-4)

 

I noticed. though, when he came home for Christmas that he waws reading a book called Les Miserables, and I decided that it must be the kind of book a college student reads.  I bought my own copy, hoping it would teach me about history or literature, but it didn’t.  It couldn’t, because I was unable to distinguiush between the fictional story and the historical backdrop. Napoleon felt no more real to me than Jean Valjean. I had never heard of either.

-Tara Westover (Education p 150)

Dad would have said I was broker than the Ten Commandments.\

-Tara Westover (Education p 167)

To admit uncertainty is to admist to weakneesss, topowerlesssnesss, and to believer in yourself despite both.  It is a fraility, but in this frailty there is a strength; the conviction to live in your own mind, and not in someone else’s. 

-Tara Westover (Education p 197)

It’s strange how you give people you love so much power over you, I had written in my journeal. But Shawn had more poweree over me than I could possibly have imagined. He had defined me to myself, and there’s no greater power than that.

-Tara Westover (Education p 199)

I could tolerate any form of cruelty better than kindness.

-Tara Westover (Education p 240)

Mother had grown tired of the lecture, and I askded Dad to talk about something else. “But the world is about to end!” he said. He was shouting now.  “Of courst it is,” Mother said. “But let’s not discuss it over dinner.”

-Tara Westover (Education p 248)

[John Stuart] Mill claimed that women have been coazed, cajoled, shoved, and squashjed into a series of femine contortions for so many centuries, that it is now quite impossible to define their natural abilities or aspirations. 

-Tara Westover (Education p 259)

When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies.

-Tara Westover (Education p 301)

The thing about having a mental breakdown is that no matter hwo obvious it is that you’re having one, it is somehow not obvious to you.

-Tara Westover (Education p 307)

Listed On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Educated-Memoir-Tara-Westover/dp/0399590501/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=educated&qid=1581512755&s=books&sr=1-1

Darth Vader Vol 2: Shadows and Secrets by Kieron Gillen (Writer), Salvador Larroca (Artist), Edgar Delgado (Colorist), VC's Joe Caramagna (Letterer)

Vader has taken it upon himself to capture the person who blew up the Death Star since he now knows that that person is his son. It doesn't matter that someone else has been assigned to the task. He and Dr. Alpha decimate Luke's old home once they're done investigating it. Now Alpha has a new plan that involves four bounty hunters and some Empire loot.

The money comes from a Rodisian who ran illegal activities in the Outer Rim without paying the Empire it's share or asking permission.  He had quite a lot of money saved up, but Alpha doesn't plan on stealing all of it.  Alpha has come up with a brilliant plan on stealing some of it.  And Alpha is working with Vader who wanted these bounty hunters beholden to them for some reason.

But now the Empire has sent a regular Sherlock Holmes to solve the case and worse--he's honest and true to the Empire so Vader must be very careful that de doesn't find out his involvement in this scheme.

This was quite a good comic. I really like the investigator. He was delightful and you fully expect a denouement at the end of the book, which is so much fun but would be bad for Vader. I really like Doctor Alpha. She's good to the droids who so many people overlook or treat poorly.  This was the second comic in the series and this series is looking great.  I give this book five out of five stars.

Listed on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Shadows-Secrets-2015-2016-ebook/dp/B019P7HNP8/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=dark+vader+2+shadows+and+secrets&qid=1581085293&s=books&sr=1-1

Elektra Vol 1:Bloodlines by W. Haden Blackman (Writer), Michael Del Mundo (Artist, Colorist),, Marco D'Alfonso (Colorist), VC's Clayton Cowles (Letterer)

Elektra is an assassin though she has tried to be different things.   Life with Daredevil is on the outs and she is desperate for an assignment so she goes to the Matchmaker the woman who fixes assassins up with jobs.  And she has the perfect job for Elektra: to bring in Cape Crowe the man no one was ever able to bring in and who retired.  Here's the thing  The Guild has never given up on bringing him in dead or alive, preferably dead and there's a new lead that everyone's chasing. What the matchmaker's doing is setting Elektra up with is an anonymous donor who wants someone to bring him in alive.  So the Matchmaker will give her the book on Cape Crow and supplies and transportation to one of his safe houses.

But she isn't alone in looking for him there. There\s the Serpent, or Bloody Lips who eats his victims in order to obtain their memories and their powers such as the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in order to obtain codes and information on Cape Crow.  He ate Bullseye in order to get the location of the safe houses and his deadly aim.  Lady Bullseye and Scalphunter are also there looking for Cape Crow but Elektra fights them off along with a large animal that attacks them.  Besides Bloody Lips is waiting for them to get information from them so he eats all of Scalphunter and a good portion of Lady Bullseye, which is when he tastes Elektra on her sword and becomes entranced and obsessed with eating her.

Elektra also finds a young man Kento Roe, who is Cape Crow\s son who put up the bounty but doesn't have the money he just wants to protect his father.  What he does have he will give to her.  Elektra agrees and they go to try out another safe house that he knows about.  The creepy Serpent follows them as does someone else.

This comic was interesting and a real look into Elektra's tortured mind.  And that snake thing was just awful. The artwork used to describe his taking from his victims was disturbing. He was one sicko.  Kudos to the artists for getting that across.  This was a really good comic with a good story and well-done characters.  I give it four out of five stars.

Listed On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Elektra-1-Bloodlines-Haden-Blackman/dp/078515406X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=electra+vol+1+bloodlines&qid=1580911561&s=books&sr=1-1-spell

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

Set in Sydney, Australia, this novel is about secrets being revealed.  First there's Tess who lives in Melbourne with her husband Tim and runs a successful business with him and her cousin Felicity with whom she's done everything together with since birth.  Tess is massively shy and must find ways to overcome it in her job.  Now, Felicity who has spent her entire life massively overweight has spent the last six months losing weight and now she looks gorgeous and she made a beeline for Tim who has fallen for her too.  They haven't slept together out of respect for her and she tells them to go ahead and get it out of their systems and for Felicity to give her her husband back when she's finished because she doesn't want to put their six-year-old son Liam through a divorce like she went through.  Meanwhile, she and Liam will be in Sydney taking care of her mother who broke her ankle and needs help.

Then there's Rachel whose daughter Janie was murdered at the age of sixteen many years ago.  The last person to see her alive was Connor Whitby and she snags onto him as her murderer and develops a deep hatred for him especially when he gets a job working at the same primary school as her teaching gym while she works in the office.  Her husband has passed and her son who was younger than Janie and whom she has kinda given the short shrift over the years due to her grief is married to a career woman and they have a son Jacob who is two and the light of her life.  But they're moving to New York for two years for her job and it will likely turn permanent and she'll miss out on seeing Jacob grow up.

Then there's Cecila who's the queen of Tupperware and the Parent-Teacher group at school (P & F). Her life is organized to the last detail.  Until she is up in the attic getting something and stumble upon a letter her husband wrote years ago with her name on it to be opened in the event of his death.  Should she open it?  He's in Chicago on business and when he calls she tells him about the letter and he says its just something embarrassing and to throw it away. But she can tell he's lying.  The next day she's decided to open the letter but he's arrived home three days early which is very suspicious.  What is in that letter?  Is he really gay?  One of their three daughters said that he was looking at Isobel funny so was he a pedophile? One of their other daughters caught him crying in the shower and she remembered that before they met he tried to commit suicide so was it a mental disorder?  After they go to bed to sleep and she hears him in the attic looking for it even though he has claustrophobia she goes to where she put the letter and reads it and is shocked to her core.

This book was a real page-turner.  And I really liked the characters.  Moriarty shows you the characters one way and then gives you another look at them.  I think Tess will outgrow her shyness without Felicity there to reinforce it.  Cecilia will have to rebuild her life from scratch but she's a strong woman and she can do it.  Rachel will adapt.  These are strong women who can overcome the obstacles that have been thrown at them and thrive.  You can't stay mad at any of them or hate any of them for the entire length of the book. She won't let you. Maybe that's a flaw, but I don't think so.  It makes for an enjoyable book.   I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

Anway, weren’t women allowed to be sexist for the next thousand years or so, until they’d evened up the score?

-Liane Moriarty (The Husband’s Secret p 3)

 When you didn’t let a woman help, it was a way of keeping her at a distance, of letting her know that she wasn’t family, of saying I don’t like you enough to let you into my kitchen.

-Liane Moriarty (The Husband’s Secret p 311)

Mothers can’t be in love. They’re too old.

-Liane Moriarty (The Husaband’s Secret p 337)

Falling in love was easy. Anyone could fall. It was holding on that was tricky.

-Liane Moriarty (The Husband’s Secret p 361)

Marriage was a form of insanity; love hovering on the edge of aggravation.

-Liane Moriarty (The Husband’s Secret p 378)

LIsted On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451490045/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2