Monday, April 10, 2017

April Reading List


April is here!  And here's what I'm aiming to read this month.
  • The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey was a gift from my Broke and Bookish Secret Santa last year.  I've been looking forward to this read and have been trying to keep away from spoilers, so I'm not sure what all I'm in for, but looking forward to the ride.
  • One True Ocean by Sarah Beth Martin was on my to be read list way back in October of 2015.  But, I never even cracked it open.  So, this is the month for redemption.  It's 
  • A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson is being turned into movie.  When I was at my aunt and uncle's cabin a few years ago, I found a copy there and started reading through it.  So, when I found a copy at a book sale, I snapped it up.
  • Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller us described as a sort of Anne Lamott style book.  So, of course I had to give it a go.  It's been sitting on my shelf for months but decided it was time to dust it off.
What's on your reading list for April?

Saturday, April 8, 2017

March Book Recap


March was a surprisingly good month for reading.  I had gotten into a habit of coming home, plopping in front of the TV and watching reruns until my husband got home, so I broke that and switched from TV to books.  Of course, once you're immersed in a good story, it's hard to put a book down, so I ended up spending a lot of nights curled up with a book.  Here's the details.

I read
  • The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky, which had been on my February reading list, but I never got to it.  It was a quick read, but much more intense than I was expecting.  I was expecting this cutsie little story about friendship and finding your place in life, and that is not what this is at all, it's much darker and more intense.  But it was good and I'm glad I finally read it.
  • The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes (originally from my November 2016 reading list) was also darker than I normally read.  I think this would be classified as horror, where I'm more a suspense type girl.  I really liked the premise of a time traveling serial killer, but there was a lot of questions left unanswered and some of the relationships and decisions of the characters just didn't seem reliable to me, and the gore was more than I care for in my books.  But it was interesting, that's for sure.
  • Still Mine by Amy Stuart didn't live up to my expectations.  I didn't really like any of the characters except for maybe the missing girl's mother, who has dementia.  The whole town sounded like a downer and being in healthcare, one my biggest annoyances was that this town of like a couple hundred people, two hours from anything in the middle of no where, isolated from everything because it's on some remote mountain road, has a hospital even though it seems like there's only one doctor and one nurse running the whole thing.  The grocery store consisted of a couple rows of stuff in the hardware store.  The town residents drive two hours to get food, but they manage to maintain a hospital?  Seriously, my town has about 4,000 people and we are pretty tiny to have a hospital.  It probably seems like no big deal to most readers, but the whole remoteness, yet randomness of this town really annoyed me.  And like I said, combine that with characters you don't care about- even the missing girl seemed unremarkable, and it makes for a fast but not really memorable read.  I did enjoy the parts of Claire's story that fleshed her out a little, but there wasn't enough to make me care about her that much.
  • Children of God by Mary Doria Russell was much better than I was expecting.  It's the sequel to The Sparrow, which was my favorite read of last year.  While the sequel wasn't as good (are they ever), I did enjoy reading more about Emilio Sandoz again, and watching him overcome the trauma he experienced in the first book.  The war in the middle got long, and I felt like a lot of it could have been cut or condensed, but I liked the back and forth point of views, where one chapter would be on Earth and the next would be on Rakhat.  I think this is one of those books that you either love or hate.  And you definitely need to read The Sparrow before this one, or you're going to be lost, or at least not as emotionally invested in a lot of the characters.
I added
  •  Lenten Lands by Douglas Gresham is a memoir of C.S. Lewis' stepson.  The more I find out about Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis' marriage, the more I want to hear about it, so this book by her son seems like an obvious read for me.
  • What Strange Creatures by Emily Arsenault is a murder mystery with a strong family story woven in.  To be honest, the cover drew me in, but I have a feeling the book is going to go a whole different direction.
  • Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes was at the dollar store, for $1.  I picked it up before I read The Shining Girls and now that I have read The Shining Girls, I worry it may be too gory for my taste, but I'm willing to give it a read.  Per Goodreads, it got slightly higher ratings that The Shining Girls.

2017 Totals
Read- 9, Acquired- 11