Book of the Month is a monthly book subscription box. Each month, 5 curators pick out their favorite new hardcover books, and you can choose which one you want to receive on the first of the month. You can also add up to 2 additional books for only $9.99 each.
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About this Box
The Subscription Box: Book of the Month
The Cost: $14.99 a month (less with 3 and 12 month subscriptions)
Use this link and coupon code APRILSHOWERS to sign up for Book of the Month and get a FREE book credit!
The Product: Subscribers get to pick from a selection of hardcover books each month. Skip any month you aren't interested in. Add up to two additional books for $9.99.
Ships to: US Only
Book of the Month April 2019 Review
This month, subscribers picked from the following 5 books:
I'm reviewing Lost and Wanted:
Lost and Wanted by Nell Freudenberger - Retail Value $26.95 (found here for $16.17)
Book Summary from Amazon:
Helen Clapp's breakthrough work on five-dimensional spacetime landed her a tenured professorship at MIT; her popular books explain physics in plain terms. Helen disdains notions of the supernatural in favor of rational thought and proven ideas. So it's perhaps especially vexing for her when, on an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday in June, she gets a phone call from a friend who has just died.
That friend was Charlotte Boyce, Helen's roommate at Harvard. The two women had once confided in each other about everything--in college, the unwanted advances Charlie received from a star literature professor; after graduation, Helen's struggles as a young woman in science, Charlie's as a black screenwriter in Hollywood, their shared challenges as parents. But as the years passed, Charlie became more elusive, and her calls came less and less often. And now she's permanently, tragically gone.
As Helen is drawn back into Charlie's orbit, and also into the web of feelings she once had for Neel Jonnal--a former college classmate now an acclaimed physicist on the verge of a Nobel Prize-winning discovery--she is forced to question the laws of the universe that had always steadied her mind and heart.
Suspenseful, perceptive, deeply affecting, Lost and Wanted is a story of friends and lovers, lost and found, at the most defining moments of their lives.
"In the first few months after Charlie died, I began hearing from her much more frequently. This was even more surprising than it might have been, since Charlie wasn't a good correspondent even when she was alive."
From these first lines, you can see how easy it was to get sucked into this book. I am fully willing to admit that I am not "sciency". I have an art degree and barely made it through my STEM courses in college. I generally split my reading time between historical biographies or slightly smutty fantasy. I never really branch out into works like this. That being said, the majority of this is a highly engrossing and emotional read. There are some super intellectual sciency parts but even those are somewhat easy to follow. The main cusp of this book is relationships, love, and grief.
The relationship between Charlie and Helen is especially poignant for me, as I too have so many close friends that I love and would do anything for, but that I don't regularly call. I feel like learning one of them had passed on across the country would be especially jarring, but even more so when after their death they start communicating again. While this book does a fantastic job on an emotional level, it also explored massive concepts such as space, time, and the existence of God, so be ready to have your emotional as well as mental strings pulled.
This book won't be for everyone. If you are looking for an honest ghost story, this isn't for you. It can be very slow at points, and though the science is somewhat easy to follow, it does take up a lot of the middle of the book. It is absolutely a heavier read and sometimes more than draining. It is not a book that has a huge twist or a gotcha moment, but rather builds steadily and resolves itself- at least for me- in a satisfying finish.
And Book of the Month includes a bookmark every month. This one has a quote from Thoreau on the back.
If you picked this book this month, please let me know what you think of it!
Verdict: The value of the Book of the Month subscription is great. The variety of new books offered is awesome and the prices are still better than Amazon for new hardcover releases. If one book a month won't cut it, you can also add-ons books from previous months for $9.99. I like that you also have the option to skip a month.
To Wrap Up:
If I sign-up now can I get this book? Yes! You can pick this book or any of the other April selections.
Use this link and coupon code APRILSHOWERS to sign up for Book of the Month and get a FREE book credit!
Check out all of our Book of the Month reviews and see what other book subscriptions made our favorites list!
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