Top 5 Friday (really late on a Sunday)

I have added so many books to my "to-read" list the last couple of weeks without taking any off.  Here are the top 5 books I am most looking forward to reading...hopefully very soon!

How I have managed not to devour this book
is honestly beyond me.  I have been looking
forward to it for so long but just haven't
started it!  Probably because I know that once
 I start it is what I will be doing until it's
finished.

I loved, loved, loved The Secret
Life of Bees and my friend Betty said I
will love it.  And she know about books.

I read Gone Girl and it was disturbingly
fabulous.  I have been wanting to read
another one of Flynn's since.  

I don't know much about this book except it
popped up on my recommendations on Goodreads
because of two other books that I absolutely loved.
We are getting ready to pick new book club books and this
might be one of my suggestions!

And speaking of book clubs, this is my Feb.
book club book and I need to get in gear reading
so I will be ready later this month!  I loved
The Kite Runner and am looking forward to this
one a whole lot!

"I have read just a bit this summer." <---- Biggest Understatement of the Summer

I just checked to see which book I last blogged about and realized again what I already knew.  I have been reading a ton this summer! I have finished the Dresden series (well, at least all that is out right now) and loved the last four books.  Number 15 is supposed to come out some time in 2013. Yay!

 


Taelin and I have been going to the library fairly regularly this summer, and I have been grabbing books by Kristin Hannah.  I read one of her books earlier and they are such quick reads. I honestly feel bad how quickly I read through them just knowing how long it takes to write!  The main characters are all women and I am so completely her target audience.  It is genre writing for sure, but great for escape!

 

Two of the books that I read that were quick but not easy reads.  The first was Defending Jacob by William Landay.  It has been recommended to me by several people.  It reminded me a little of The Dinner and We Need to Talk About Kevin.  I knew that it wouldn't have a happy ending...there was just a doom about the book from the beginning...and I was right although the details of the ending surprised me.  I am really glad I finally read it and can see why so many people thought I would love it.

The last book is the one that impacted me the most. I picked up Girlchild a few months ago with a gift card and it has been sitting on my night stand since. I am sad that I left it sit there for so long.  It was a hard read like The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls.  And while it has very little to do with school (other than the girl goes to school)  but I believe that anyone teaching in a public school, particularly one that has students of poverty, should read this book.  It is a fiction book but it tells the true stories of countless students, students that sit in our classrooms day after day dealing with stuff that should only be fiction but isn't.  There is some hard subject matter that some people will find too much for them but it is just an incredible book.

Death Masks, Blood Rites, Dead Beat, Proven Guilty, White Night and Small Favors by Jim Butcher

So...you might have noticed that I haven't been blogging a whole lot lately.  There are two reasons for that.  One, it is spring and spring is a crazy time of year for teachers.  Testing, testing and more freaking testing on top of the already HUGE load of work makes for lots of stress.  Two...I have been reading.  A whole lot.

I can safely say that I am more than hooked on the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.  So much that when I first started this post I only had three titles and then I hit "save" instead of "publish" because I needed to get started on the next book.  Now I am back to finish this post and need to add three more books to the post title.

I am not going to go back and recap all of the stories.  I will say they are a little formulaic but that is kind of what happens when you have a long standing series like this.  There are reoccurring characters that come and go and while I suppose each story could stand on it's own, there are definitely some overarching story lines in addition to the specific story.

There are 4 more left in the series (that is published) but I don't get the impression that the series will be over at that point.  I do think though at that point, there are some other authors I would like to spend some time reading.  But until that point, I really do need to wrap this up.  Book 11 is waiting...

Oh...this officially completes my goal of reading 50 books!  Yay me!

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

If you are looking for a book that is more than a bit messed up, loaded with twists, hard to put down then this is your book.  It was a mystery that just keeps on giving with a seriously crazy ending.  It has been on my  to-read list for awhile and I decided to read it because there were so many reviews comparing my book club book to it.  I didn't really see the connection as much as other people did, but I am glad that I finally got the chance to pick it up and read it.

I really feel like I can't say too much or I will just give everything away!  It is a tad scary how well this author wrote from the two main character's point of view.   Nick and Amy have been married for 5 years and they find themselves in a place in life they wouldn't have guessed.  Amy goes missing the morning of their 5th anniversary and if I write any more than that I might let something slip I shouldn't!

Gillian Flynn has written two other books and the first thing I did after rating this book 4 out of 5 stars was add her other two books to my to-read list.  (That list grows faster than I can read.)

The Dinner by Herman Koch

About a month ago I got an email from a good friend of mine asking if I would be interested in joining her book group.  I have always wanted to join a book group (I don't know why I didn't just start one on my own) and was super excited to find out they meet on a day and time that would work for me every six weeks.  They just picked their books out for the next year and all but one of the books is new!  (I am not counting The Great Gatsby which I read in high school.)

Anyway, the book that we are going to be meeting on in April is The Dinner by Herman Koch.

Let me say a couple of things about this book.  First of all, it started out slow.  I had to go back and read the description to remind myself why I was excited to read this book.  Second, it seriously made me sick to my stomach a couple of times.  Third, it reminded me of We Need To Talk About Kevin which is saying something if you have read that book.

The book takes place during one evening, although there is quite a bit of flashback to fill in the story, when two brothers and their wives meet for dinner to talk about an event regarding their sons.  This book has so many topics of conversation, I honestly am not sure that we will even be able to get to half of them when we meet.

Sibling relationships, husband/wife relationships, parent/child relationships and what we would do (or wouldn't do) to preserve and protect them are ideas that are still rattling around in my brain a week later.  My book group meets in a week, over dinner, and I can't wait to find out what other people thought of this book!

Fool Moon, Grave Peril, and Summer Knight by Jim Butcher

A few weeks ago Joe talked me into reading one of his current series (of which there are currently 14 books) and after I read the first book I liked it enough to read the second one, Fool Moon.  That was good enough that I then read the third one, Grave Peril.  That one was really good and I started Summer Knight, the fourth one, and finished it when I should have been napping during our Disneyland trip.

All to say, I am indeed hooked!  The writing got less choppy by the third one and they are actually pretty quick reads! Harry Dresden is a local wizard that is a bit of a rogue.  In the second book there are a bunch of werewolves that are wreaking havoc, in the third book there are vampires that are plotting against him and in Summer Knight there is a big faerie war that he is trying to prevent.  Not really my normal cup of tea for sure but I am enjoying them just the same.

In fact, I am enjoying them enough that when I started by book for book club that it took me awhile before I kept wondering when the wizard was entering the story.  (There is no wizard in my book club book.)

Storm Front by Jim Butcher

Joe has been (I think for years) wanting me to read this series that he has found and fallen in love with.  When Joe and I first met, he read so much that I couldn't have ever imagined him not being a reader and in some ways I was right.  He "reads" all the times, but his reading now is more in the form of audio books.  He listens to and from work and before bed every night for who knows how long and he goes through books like nobody else I know. This book is the first in a series that follows a modern wizard as he, I presume because of the first book, aids in fighting crime while having a hard time keeping out of trouble himself.

I finally got around to reading the first book and was pleasantly surprised, although I shouldn't have been.  There isn't a book that Joe has recommended I read that I didn't like.  

Harry Dresden is a modern wizard that is called on to help the police department solve a double murder.  The setting assumes a certain dispelling of belief in terms of wizards, demons, faery, vampires although not any of these are known or accepted by everyone.   Harry is a bit of a lone ranger and as a wizard-for-hire, also gets called upon to solve some other cases.  In true series fashion, the unrelated cases he starts with at the beginning are all neatly connected by the end.  

I was at a disadvantage that I knew that were 13 more books (yes, 13 more at this point in the series) so I was never really worried that he was somehow not going to survive. There are quite a few things that are set up for a series and I am excited to see how they get played out.  The book was a quick read and I definitely enjoyed it.  I don't know that I will make it through all 13 before I pick something else up but I have no doubt that I will read them all.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Still Alice by Lisa Genova is a book that honestly hit a little too close to home.  Everyone else I know that has read this book has just thought it was amazing.  It just made me really uncomfortable most of the time.

Alice is a fairly young, Harvard professor with a husband that loves her and three grown children when she discovers that she has early-onset Alzheimer's.  The story is told from her perspective as she becomes increasingly aware of her disease's progression.

Growing up, my dad's uncle moved across the street from us and my mom became his primary caregiver. She took care of him long after was reasonable (in my opinion) and that entire experience was on my mind the entire time I was reading this book.  Taking care of him affected our small family in ways that I couldn't understand at the time but instead, because I was a teenager, just grew to resent.  There was plenty of resentment to go around from everyone.  Our family vacations stopped.  Even a day trip somewhere was pretty much out of the question.  Our life, schedule and overall mood in the house was determined by him and the care we had to provide.  And then I went to college, and from what I remember, it got even worse before my mom and dad finally decided it was too much for my mom and moved him into a nursing home.  There are still a lot of hard feelings around the whole thing and I would guess there always will be.  There was plenty of blame/martyrdom to go around so it really best to avoid the whole topic.  

But back to the book.  It was heartbreaking to read this story from the perspective of the woman with Alzheimer's.  There were times that I even cried.  But the title of book, and some of the premise of the story, is that even though she had this horrible disease, she was still herself.  Except for that at some point, that isn't really true.  Eventually, the person that was once there is completely gone.

Don't take my word for it.  I am admitting my known bias.  Goodreads reader's have rated the book a 4.24 with over 65,000 ratings.  Obviously a lot of people loved this book.  I just wasn't one of them.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

It isn't really too surprising to me that it has taken me such a long time to pick up a book. I had a really good run of fantastic books and December had me running crazy.  But I thought I should be able to say that I read at least one book over my break so I took this book with me when we went to Sunriver.  There was actually a time where Taelin and Joe were both taking a nap and I was able to sit down and start it.

Overall, I only gave this book three out of five stars on Goodreads.  It was pretty much "ok".  I think it was supposed to be a suspenseful book with a twist of an ending and, for me, it didn't really accomplish that.  I did keep reading though, not because I had to find out the truth, but because I had to find out if I was right...which I was.  

I don't even really want to try and summarize it. It is kind of mystery.  There are two girls that go missing in 1975 and years later, after a car crash, a women is brought to the hospital and claims to be one of the girls.  The rest of the novel unravels the story of the woman and the others that have been effected, either in the past or the present.  That is as best as I can do right now.  It was an "ok" book.  

These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf

This book has been on my radar for awhile.  I bought the book when Borders went out of business last year because the cover just grabbed me.  I should have read this book the day I bought it.  It was incredible.

I read this entire book in one sitting.  It helped that I was on the plane flying back from Chicago but I am positive that I would have stayed up later or woken up early or both in order to finish this book if I were at home.

This book is about secrets and the the effects that these secrets can have.  The author introduces 4 women and as the book progresses we find out how the secrets they have impacted each other, in positive and negatives ways.  And while their secrets have impacted others, the author does an amazing job of showing the reader how the secrets have haunted the secret holders themselves. I really don't want to reveal any of the plot so if you want to know more, head over to Goodreads and read the blurb about it.  

There are some pretty sensitive subjects in this book. I can think of a couple of people that I don't think should ever read it, it would just be too difficult.  I was reading this book on the plane with two of my co-workers I don't know if they thought it was funny or irritating because there were at least 4-5 times that I literally had to put the book down after gasping because I could not believe what was happening.  I was lucky at one point because they were both sleep as I had tears rolling down my face.  It was simply amazing. I finished it and just handed it straight to my boss without any words and then just sat there for the last 30 minutes of my flight. I wish that Goodreads had a way for me to rate it higher than a 5 so I didn't feel like I should go back and rate all the 5's I already have down to 4's just to make it clear how much this book stands apart.

Night Road by Kristin Hannah

I am feeling really lucky for some of the books that I have been reading lately.  They have all been fantastic and I am loving the time I am finding for reading.  (The floors in my house disagree, but they don't get to vote.  They can get cleaned later.)

One of the books that I started before I left for Chicago and finished on my trip (when there isn't a house to clean, a family to spend time with or things to cook) was Night Road by Kristin Hannah. Hannah has written many novels and they are all now on my "to-read" Goodreads list.

This book I think is really broken up into two parts.  The first part follows Jude, a mother of twins Mia and Zach, through the high school years.  Jude is the kind of mother she wishes she would have had and is definitely what would be considered a "helicopter" mom.  Another young girl, Lexi who has a sad past, moves into town and is forever intertwined with Jude, Mia and Zach.

The second part of the book follows the characters after a horrible tragedy has struck.  While the first part of the book was great (there was a bit of heavy-handedness about underage drinking that took me out of the book), the second part of the book was amazing.  I stayed up until 2 in the morning (which wasn't wise considering a two hour time difference and an early morning wake up call) because I just could not stop turning the pages.  I HAD to find out what happened.

I had puffy eyes the next morning from the late night and the amount of crying I did but it was so worth it.  Looking again at the cover gives me chills and makes me want to read it all over again.

A few books I have been reading...

I currently find myself typing this post using my iPad (which is a little more difficult than my laptop) sitting in a hotel room in downtown Chicago. I am here only overnight and then am off to the New Teacher Induction Network fall conference for the next three days. Our time here is pretty much packed but I will say these few hours between being done for the day and going to bed are the loneliest when I am away from home. In a little bit I will probably settle in to read but thought I might come here (feel a little less lonely since it feels like I am having a conversation) and tell you about the last three books I have read.

Yep, the last three. If you have been wondering why the blog posts aren't plentiful it is because I have been reading up a storm.

The first book I have read recently was 11/22/63 by Stephen King. I am generally not a fan of the stuff that you think of when you first hear "Stephen King" because of the horror element that is in a lot of his writing but this book was much more sci-fi than horror. I will admit that it took me some time to get into this book but I was hooked after a little bit. Without going into a lot of the details I think the two things that I thought most about when
I was reading this book were 1) how little I actually know about JFK's assassination and 2) how just the littlest action could affect the future.

The second book I read recently was What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty. Alice comes to after a head injury at the gym to find out that she has lost 10 years of her life to amnesia. As she tries to put things back together she starts to find that life has turned out much differently than she thought it would at 29. She doesn't remember any of her kids, why her marriage is falling apart or why her and her sister are so distant. In general it was an "ok" read but it did get me thinking about what a 10 year younger Jodie would think of me now? Or what I think I will be like in ten years? I am lucky that Joe and I have grown and changes together. Or is it luck? It definitely made me think...

The book that I just finished yesterday was The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grisson. It. Was. Incredible.

Set in the late 1700's to the early 1800's the book follows a young Irish girl who is brought to a plantation to work off a family debt and follows her through her life living and working with the slaves who call that plantation home. It is as she grows older that she realizes the color of her skin means something to the other people around her. She is pulled by two worlds and her loyalties are put the test.

This book was absolutely amazing. The characters were well developed and the events, while hard to read, held true to the time period. This book was the first by the author and she will be on my watch list for any new books that she might write.

And with that, I am off to read some more. The outside traffic noise has yet to quite (and it is 10:30) and the wind is blowing pretty hard so I have a feeling that a good book will be a welcome distraction.

The Next Thing On My List by Jill Smolinski

I just kind of happened upon this book, probably because of the title.  Once I started reading it was a little eerie. The main character, June, sets out to finish a list of a woman that was killed in a car accident.  Marissa, the woman who died, was riding in a car with June and after they were hit Marissa was thrown from the vehicle after unbuckling her seat belt to get a taco soup recipe on the way home from a Weight Watchers meeting.

June found Marissa's "20 things to do before I turn 25" list and decided that she was going to finish it for her.  The rest of the story is about June working on finishing the list.  We get to meet some of Marissa's family (some of the things on the list had to do with them) and we get to learn more about June as she works her way through the list.  Not too surprising, working through the list changed June's life in ways that she couldn't have expected.

About half way through I thought I had figured out how it was going to end, and to be honest, I was irritated by my prediction.  It would have been too tidy and not very realistic but I still expected it since I have been right in the past about endings of books like this one. I was wrong though and was very happy that I was.

Overall though, I thought this book was just ok.  I liked it just fine but didn't love it.  The writing was fine, the topic was something I connected to (obviously) but it was still just ok.  Maybe it is because I am on my own little list completing adventure that reading about some fictional list just wasn't as exciting. Who knows!

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Awhile ago I read Divergent by Veronica Roth and I could not wait to read the second in the series, Insurgent.  Except that I did have to wait and I was a little cranky about the whole thing.  I finally just downloaded the book onto my iPad and I read it in two days!

It was a great follow up to the first book, pretty much picking up where the last one had left off.  Unlike many books in a series, Roth did not spend a lot of time reminding you of what happened in the first book. It was a good thing that I had just read the first one because there are a lot of characters to keep straight.  I will probably have to reread both of them again when the third one comes out.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first book but I still loved it. The story became more complex as characters and their relationships become more complicated.  I felt like the first book left me hanging but it was nothing compared to how this second book ended.

The only downside of this series is that I now have to wait until next fall (Fall 2013) for the last one to be published.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

This book was SO good and I can't wait to read the second one. It was recommended by a friend and I was in love with the book from the very first page.

It is a young adult novel that is set in dystopian Chicago and starts explaining the five factions that make up their society. Each society represents a certain virtue and once a year, anyone that has turned 16 has to pick which faction that want to belong to from that point on.  That sometimes results in them leaving their family and way of life.

Beatrice is noticeably different right from the beginning and the book follows her through her choice and the secret she is told to keep. As she goes through initiation and finds out more about the faction she choose, she starts to realize there is more to it all.

I can't really write more without giving things away, but I do have to say that I am so glad that there are two more books so I can keep following Beatrice and her story.  I don't have the second one, Insurgent, but I need to get it soon!

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

This book is quite a departure from some of the books I have read lately.  It is set in Mississippi and does the whole "present day story with flashbacks to fill in missing parts" thing that seems to be something that authors like to do.  I am honestly impressed with this kind of story telling for a couple of reasons.  First, I am super linear so when I am telling a story or writing my stories I start at the beginning and end at the end.  No jumping around for me.  Second, some authors seem to have a great way of weaving details in and out of the story to keep the reader engaged and interested.  It drives the story and makes it that much more fun to read, especially if there is a mysterious element to the book, like this one did.

I liked the second half of the book much more than the first half.  I like action and movement and character changes.  I don't need two pages of description of how a cabin looks. I am a lazy reader that way.  Tell me it's a cabin, give me a few details and I will fill in the rest.  I can recognize that kind of writing as impressive, it just isn't my preference.

This story starts out with one of the two men being shot and left for dead.  The man, Larry, has a bad reputation in his small Mississippi town, suspected but never convicted of kidnapping a local girl when he was in high school.  He is 41 now and leads a lonely life.  The other  man, named Silas when he was a boy but is now called "32", is local law enforcement.  Larry is white, Silas is black and the two made unlikely friends for a very short time when they were in high school.

The story unravels as Silas solves Larry's shooting and I will admit to being surprised at the end of the story, although as I look back I probably shouldn't have been too surprised.  Not being a 40 year old man...or a teenage boy...there were times that I wasn't super invested in the characters but I was glad that I didn't abandon the book part way through.  I would have missed out on a pretty good story.

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

I loved this book.  Absolutely loved it.

This story follows two mothers. One who has given up a daughter in order to save her life.  The other is the one who has adopted her.

Kavita lives in rural India and when her second child is born a girl she walks miles into the large city to turn her over to an orphanage so she doesn't suffer the same fate as her first little girl.  She lies to her husband and says the girl died overnight so that he doesn't take the little girl to be killed like he did their first daughter.  Boys are the preferred baby and while it breaks Kavita's heart to give her up, she knows it is the only way her girl will live.

Somer lives in California and has suffered another miscarriage.  She is finally convinced by her husband, who is from India, to adopt and they come home with a little girl.  Kavita's little girl.

The rest of the story follows Kavita, Somer and Asha, the secret daughter, as they all struggle with their part of the story and the parts they wish they knew.  Kavita wonders what has come of her daughter.  Somer struggles as Asha grows, loving her deeply but unable to completely understand at times.  Asha wonders where is she is from and what her story is.

When Asha is in college, she decides to travel to India for a semester and stays with her father's family, her family.  Because of this trip, all three of their lives are changed forever.

I realize that others might not love this book as much as I did.  My own life and my own story connected me to these characters in such strong ways that I have no doubt that colored my impression of this book.    I just randomly picked up this book, without really knowing anything, and it honestly could not have been a better book for me to read this month.

Henry's Sisters by Cathy Lamb

This book was a bit different than the blurb on Goodreads suggested.  The blurb was certainly was correct but I don't know that it prepared me for some of the dysfunction that was throughout the book among the three sisters and their mother.  Even though there were parts that I didn't really care for around that dysfunction, I liked the book a lot and raced through it pretty quickly.

This story centers around a family comprised of 3 sisters (all with their own issues because of how they grew up), 1 mother who at times I hated and other times I felt sorry for, 1 brother (Henry) who is mentally challenged but the one that everyone rallys around, and a grandmother that thinks she is Amelia Earhart.

All three sisters end up back in their home town in order to help take care of the family bakery, Henry and Amelia Earhart after the mother ends up needing surgery.  There was A LOT that happened in the story...almost too much at times to be believable...but as a reader I definitely went through a range of emotions.

The plot wasn't necessarily predictable but I wasn't really surprised as events unfolded and it ended pretty much the way I thought it would.  It was a great story though and I can't remember the last time I needed that many tissues at the end of a book.

Saving Max by Antoinette van Heugten

Another amazing book! This book follows Danielle who is a single mom and a lawyer about to make partner who takes her son Max to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation.  Danielle is a fierce advocate for her son and refuses to believe her son is capable of the murder he is charged with after he is found in the same room with another patient who has been horribly mutilated.

I admit myself completely annoyed with Danielle's behavior for a better part of the book and thought for awhile that an evaluation for her at a psychiatric hospital might be in her interest too.  I do think that it was the author's intent for me to feel that way and I fell for it hook, line and sinker.

Even though I expected a twist at the end, nothing could have prepared me for the end.  I feel like I can't write much more without giving something away.  I will certainly be watching this author for her next book.

The Murderer's Daughter by Randy Susan Meyers

This novel was amazing! I read it in just over a few days and it was a welcome distraction from the craziness of the beginning of the school year.  It was not what I would call a "feel good" novel by any means, but I think that is why I liked it.  I like books that have a tied up ending but it doesn't necessarily need to be a happy one...especially if I feel like it wouldn't fit the characters and the rest of the book.

This book starts out when two sisters, Lulu and Merry, are little and their father kills their mother and stabs the younger of the two girls. The rest of the book follows the two girls over the next 30 years through living with family, group homes, foster homes and then into adulthood.  They wrestle with how people treat them because of who they are and their story.  Each of them reacts very differently, in particularly in regard to the relationship each has with their father who is in prison.  It was simply amazing how invested I was in each character.

This is Randy Susan Meyers first novel and I have added her next novel, which is supposed to published next February, to my "to-read" list.  Each chapter was told from either Lulu's or Merry's perspective but I was so impressed how she would introduce something in one chapter with one character and then resolve it in the next chapter through the other girl.  I have read a lot of books in the same style, but none that pulled that off as well as this one.  I really hope that her next novel is in the next style.