Goodnight June by Sarah Jio

Author: Sarah Jio
Original title: Goodnight June
Pages: 384
Edition Language: Russian
Series: no 
Format: e-book
Genres: Chick Lit, Romance
Goodreads

Blurb:     
June Andersen is professionally successful, but her personal life is marred by unhappiness. Unexpectedly, she is called to settle her great-aunt Ruby’s estate and determine the fate of Bluebird Books, the children’s bookstore Ruby founded in the 1940s. Amidst the store’s papers, June stumbles upon letters between her great-aunt and the late Margaret Wise Brown—and steps into the pages of American literature.

My thoughts: 
      This was my first time reading this author. I heard about her quite a lot and was wondering if I might like her books. It turned out no. I was aware that this book is a romantic story and I did not expect it to be very intellectual read, but it turned out to be just rubbish. I have read a lot of love romance and this one was not a good one. Every character was as flat as paper, and predictable as a 5 o'clock tea. I cannot find any positive scene in the book: Seattle seemed like a village with three houses, the main love interest too perfect and eager to marry after 2 days, even the situation with a cancer and hospital seems so forced, just to paint the book less pink. I forced myself to finish it and was skipping especially boring passages. I will not venture to read another book by this author.

Rating:  

    1/5 

The Lockwood Concern by John O'Hara

Author: John O'Hara 
Original title: The Lockwood Concern
Pages: 368
Edition Language: Russian
Series: no
Genres: Family Saga  
Goodreads

Blurb:
      A novel about 4 generations of Lockwood men their despair, greed, accomplishments and it's pursuit of wealth.
My thoughts:
      I really have no idea why I started to read this book about 11 years ago, when I was at the university. But I did not advance too far. I stopped just after Lockwood built the wall around his new house. I had the impression that I stopped in the middle of the book and the whole mystery is laying ahead. There was a passage of how he secretly contracted a hidden passage in his house, nobody knows about and I was imagining all kinds of mysteries and possible development that can involve this passage. So, this book was haunting me all those years and I had an urge to finish the story, that started so promising. So finally, this spring I found an old copy and read it... To say that I was disappointed is to say nothing. Of course, there were no mystery at all, no tension and the story dragged really slowly.
      The book is basically about 4 generations of men of Lockwood family and their way to make their name worthy to be accepted by the aristocracy and leave the trace in history.
      I do not say it was a bad book, it is very thorough in the description of the society of that time and difference between old families with roots and new rising names who gain fast money but not are accepted totally by the high society, but it just did not grab me at all. I could not feel more remote from the ideas and troubles this family had; the general treatment of women in this family did not inspire me to be connected with any of the characters at all.
      The ending was as well disappointing: the whole book you are expecting some kind of critical point from which the narration will finally come to the logical end, but the book ended so abruptly, that I was actually checking if my addition if some pages were missing... not happy with it.

Rating: 

    2/5