A Couple of Recipes!

So I've been sharing the treats I've made for book club the past couple of months over on the youtube channel (they are quick shorts found on this playlist) and have had a couple a request for recipes both by online viewers and the in real life book club goers! I figured the best way to share them was just right here on the blog, and then everyone interested can have them! (I will link to the Short on youtube on the title of each recipe if you want to see the process and final product.) 

Fudgy Chocolate Chunk Brownies (we used this one for All The Girls I've Been by Tess Sharpe)

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups chocolate chunks (I use big dark chocolate chocolate chips)

Instructions: Grease a 9x9 baking dish. Preheat over to 350. Beat together the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Add eggs. Gradually add dry ingredients, then add the chocolate chunks. Spread evenly in pan. It will be very thick! Bake for 25 minutes until they begin to pull away from the side of the pan. 

Note: I double this recipe and bake them in a 9x13 pan!

Big Soft Ginger Cookies (we did this one for The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave)

3/4 cup butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup molasses

2 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp sugar for rolling 

Beat the butter and sugar together. Add the egg and molasses. Beat well. Stir dry ingredients into the mixture. Shape into balls (1 heaping tablespoon) and roll in the sugar. Bake at 350 for 10 min or until light brown and still puffed. Let stand 2 min before moving to wire rack. 

Note: I double this one usually because we always need MORE!

Books for Book Club 2023-2024!

As you know by now, every year we vote on a pile of books that the book club wants to read and then come up with a schedule for a whole year ahead of time. (Our book club year goes from June- May, and we vote every year in March. How this happened, I don't really know, but it works for us!)

And this past week, we finalized that list yet again! 

Are you curious about what we'll be reading? Here's the list!

June:  Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

July: Memoir Month

August: My Contrary Mary by Brodie Ashton, Cynthia Hand and Jodi Meadows

September: Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher

October: Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

November: Spare by Prince Harry

December: The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict

January: Remarkedly Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

February: Book Lovers by Emily Henry

March: Beartown by Fredrik Backman

April: Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

May: A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

And then we'll be having a bonus meeting to discuss Trish Milburn's Sing Me a Love Song, the first book in her kpop romance series. 

I'm excited about them all! And I want to read all the ones that didn't make it too!

If you are interested, I talked about all the books on our list and these ones that won over on the Booktube channel:

Book Review: The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth

 Book: The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth

Genre: literary fiction/mystery

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

This was September's book club book. A bunch of the members of book club have been raving about this author and I've never even heard of her. So it was fun to see what all the fuss was about!

In this one we have two sisters, each telling their story, including what life was like growing up with their mom. Most of the story is from the point of view of the sister who seems a bit autistic (Fern.) And then we get journal entries from the other sister, the one who it seems feels a bit of responsibility for the other sister (Rose.) 

Who is the "good" sister is anyone's guess at this point!

Rose is struggling with her husband and feels like having a baby would solve all the problems. But she can't seem to get pregnant. So Fern decides she is going to help her by getting pregnant FOR her. So she sets out to find a guy. And in the process, she actually falls in love with a pretty interesting dude. So things should be easy now, yes? 

But not at all. This is when things get pretty interesting and we start getting the very strong feeling that all is not as it seems. 

Most people say they can figure it out, but I can never do it, so I was pretty hooked until the end trying to figure out what was going on. 

So, yeah. I really enjoyed it! It was quick to get into it and quite easily readable. I'm good to read more by this author should she come up again.

Book Club Reading List 2022-2023

The IRL book club has come up with our schedule for the next year's reading! (Yes I know we do this at a weird time of year, but that's just how it's been for years!) We vote on books in March and come up with a list for our reading year which for book club goes from June to June.  

Here's what we'll be reading this coming year. We decided to shake it up a bit and do a "read your own memoir" month in July. We'll see how that turns out. And then we are keeping our August Utah Book Month tradition alive after all these years. I think we started this in what, 2010 or so? I don't even know! 

Anyway, for those interested, here's what our list looks like. Let me know what books you've read and what we have to look forward to:

June: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
July (memoir month:) Choose your own memoir
August (Utah Author month): Lines of Courage by Jennifer A. Nielsen
September: The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth
October (Halloween read): Feed by Mira Grant
November: The Maid by Nita Prose
December (Christmas read): In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren
January: My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman
February: The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty
March: The Silence of Bones by June Hur
April: The Girl’s I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe
May: The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

As always, I'm looking forward to them all!

Book Review: Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

Book: Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

Genre: literary fiction

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

This book reminded me a lot of Anxious People which I also recently read. We have a bunch of people who don't know each other at all, thrown together in a strange and weird circumstance and then they all bond and their lives become better because of the experience. Very similar premise!

It also reminded me of that book in that at first I was like... am I supposed to like these people? Because they all have SO MANY issues that it's just depressing to read, you know. But I remembered Anxious People and how I pushed through that first annoyance at the characters and how everyone seems so much more "normal" after you get to know all their true stories.

And yep, the same thing happened here. One thing this author does is DRAG YOU IN with character development. Like, how does she do this? It's crazy amazing. And even though they all have issues that sometimes make me roll my eyes (I get tired of reading about so many marriage problems for instance... can't someone just get married and be happy about it?) everything makes more sense once you find out all the back stuff. Which also interesting to think about regarding real life, you know? Like people and their first impressions are not usually at all that real person once you get to know them and their back stories. 

Anyway, in this story, our nine strangers all check into a health retreat spa resort thing. All with different things they are hoping to get out of it. The leader of this resort also has her issues... A LOT of issues. We bounce back and forth between ALL their points of view! It's a bit intense, but never did it bother me. Everyone has such a distinct voice and again... how does she do this??? It's so impressive seriously. 

And then stuff happens and all does not go at all as they expect it to. And like I said, because of that and because of the connections they make with each other, they actually do end up coming out better people. There's a lot of stuff here to make one think about one's own life and so much that's relatable, which is absolutely saying something since I just said they all annoyed me! LOL! 

So bottom line, I truly enjoyed it and am glad once again that the book club keeps wanting to read her stuff! Stay tuned for later this week to see what has ended up on our book club list for next year's reading! Will their be even more Liane Moriarty???