Two stinkers

 

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, otherwise known as J.K. Rowling. It is astonishing to me that Rowling could have written such an amazing series of Harry Potter books and then delivered this for the adults. Her detective Cormoran Strike is a wounded veteran from Afghanistan, really down on his luck and not faring so well in the business and romance departments. He takes a case from the brother of a famous supermodel who was believed to have committed suicide by jumping from her balcony. What follows is a series of meandering interviews and an endless parade of characters that you could really care less about, and they never seem to shut up. I thought this book was an absolute torture and will not continue the journey with the rest of the Strike series. Life is too short and these books are way too long.

The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel. The cover of the book is representative of the polished, perfect lives that NASA expected from the wives of the astronauts. They were real, everyday women with the same issues that all of the other housewives from the 1960's experienced for the most part but they had to portray a sense of well balanced, devoted, All American wifely support to help promote the space race and sell the whole package to the American people. The book does give a little bit of the feel of the 60's, how it was an ever changing world and touched on how the women's movement was gaining voice. It's a shame that the author did not make you feel too much for any one of the ladies in particular. There was such a constant stream of different women, what they were wearing, what kind of house they lived in, etc. It was hard for me to differentiate one from the other after a while. As superficial as the book cover really.