A Mystifying Radio Readers BookByte
By Glenda Shepard
I'm Glenda Shepard. This is my book byte for Florida by Lauren Goff.
I never seem to read The Radio Reader's Book Club books in order. For this fall's list I first listened to Florida and next The Children's Blizzard as audio books.
Then I read Heaven's Breath because it did not have an audio book version. Next, I read And Hell Followed With It Life and Death in a Kansas Tornado. The books got better as I went along.
Then Kathleen talked me into being a book leader for And Hell Followed With It. Putting together three Radio Reader BookBytes for that book stretched my mind, but I enjoyed doing it.
Being a book leader included providing Radio Readers BookBytes for the other books, too.
Heaven's Breath was no problem. I loved the book, and I was able to write the review while on a bus trip to North Carolina. When I recorded my BookByte--eight minutes for Heaven's Breath--it felt like a mouthful rather than a bite.
Now here comes my review for Florida. I had to get my Stanton County public library to request a loan of the book. Then I had to find an angle to put the BookByte together.
After letting the book review ferment for about a week, I came up with the angle. The theme for this fall read is wind and weather, so I simply chose locations in the book where wind and weather impacted the book's characters. No spoiler alert. You won't know how the book ends.
Page 40-43, Jude is rescued from drowning by "the wind had picked up and began pushing him back across the lake, toward his house."
Page 45, "The storm came and erased the quiet."
Page 79, While in her small cabin the narrator hears, "The wind rose and it had personality."
Page 85, "It began with the chickens...And then the wind smacked the house."
Page 98, after weathering out a night of a hurricane, the husband says, "There will always be another storm, you know."
Page 115, "Then there was the blind run through the rain, holding the little boy by the hand between them."
Page 139-154, A storm strands Helena with a shopkeeper.
Page 165, Rain plus a sinkhole could be dangerous.
Page 181, A hurricane developed over the Caribbean, but only its edges lashed the shore."
Page 209-212, Following a storm, the narrator tries to rescue a rape victim.
Page 215-272, With no storms in France, the narrator realizes she doesn't belong in France.
I'm Glenda Shepard and this has been my mystifying BookByte for Florida by Lauren Goff.
