Is it just me or does this weather (20's here in Iowa...flurries every other day) make you start to hoard books and never want to go outside? I find myself thinking I need to go to the library to get new books when I clearly have a stack of borrowed books at home, plus an additional array of books on the Kindle. I guess this is where the term book nerd comes in to play.
I'm not the only one in this house though, Quinn has been reading up a storm. She might not know exactly what is going on in the book but she can create some amazing stories on her own, just by looking at pictures. That girl LOVES to read. If we don't give her a few minutes each night to read on her own, we can almost be assured that a fit will ensue. Kids these days...
Do you want to know something else? I'm astounded when people tell me that they don't read, like ever. Like they haven't picked up a book since high school. I just want to shake them and make them realize all the great things that come in print. I guess it shouldn't be my problem if they are missing out and they truly are.
I've been reading some pretty good books lately.
Losing It by Cora Carmack
Virginity.
Bliss Edwards is about to graduate from college and still has hers. Sick of being the only virgin among her friends, she decides the best way to deal with the problem is to lose it as quickly and simply as possible-- a one-night stand. But her plan turns out to be anything but simple when she freaks out and leaves a gorgeous guy alone and naked in her bed with an excuse that no one with half-a-brain would ever believe. And as if that weren’t embarrassing enough, when she arrives for her first class of her last college semester, she recognizes her new theatre professor. She’d left him naked in her bed about 8 hours earlier.
I gave it 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. It was predictable but I would definitely keep reading the series.
All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown
When Paul Miller’s pharmaceutical company goes public, making his family IPO millionaires, his wife, Janice, is sure this is the windfall she’s been waiting years for — until she learns, via messengered letter, that her husband is divorcing her (for her tennis partner!) and cutting her out of the new fortune. Meanwhile, four hundred miles south in Los Angeles, the Millers’ older daughter, Margaret, has been dumped by her newly famous actor boyfriend and left in the lurch by an investor who promised to revive her fledgling post-feminist magazine, Snatch. Sliding toward bankruptcy and dogged by creditors, she flees for home where her younger sister Lizzie, 14, is struggling with problems of her own. Formerly chubby, Lizzie has been enjoying her newfound popularity until some bathroom graffiti alerts her to the fact that she’s become the school slut.
The three Miller women retreat behind the walls of their Georgian colonial to wage battle with divorce lawyers, debt collectors, drug-dealing pool boys, mean girls, country club ladies, evangelical neighbors, their own demons, and each other, and in the process they become achingly sympathetic characters we can’t help but root for, even as the world they live in epitomizes everything wrong with the American Dream.
4 out of 5 stars. This book made me feel really good about my own life. For having darker themes, the author kept the actual story pretty light, adding humor to everything.
This Is Where I Leave You - Jonathan Tropper
The death of Judd Foxman’s father marks the first time that the entire Foxman family—including Judd’s mother, brothers, and sister—have been together in years. Conspicuously absent: Judd’s wife, Jen, whose fourteen-month affair with Judd’s radio-shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public.
Simultaneously mourning the death of his father and the demise of his marriage, Judd joins the rest of the Foxmans as they reluctantly submit to their patriarch’s dying request: to spend the seven days following the funeral together. In the same house. Like a family.
As the week quickly spins out of control, longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed, and old passions reawakened. For Judd, it’s a weeklong attempt to make sense of the mess his life has become while trying in vain not to get sucked into the regressive battles of his madly dysfunctional family. All of which would be hard enough without the bomb Jen dropped the day Judd’s father died: She’s pregnant.
4 out of 5 stars. This book hadn't really caught my eye until the trailer for the movie came out and Tina Fey was in it. I thought if Tina was in the movie, then the book had to be good. I really enjoyed this book. It felt very similar to the the movie, The Family Stone. A lot of dry, darker type of humor but great nonetheless.
What have you been reading?
