AUGUST books

I didn't read much this month.

It is because I was a total COUCH POTATO while watching the Olympics. Seriously I think I watch more TV during the Olympics than I do the entire four years previously PUT TOGETHER. My love for the Olympics is totally one of my "things" that define me as a person - which is weird as I am NOT athletic. 
AT ALL. Which is why I have a book blog and not a fitness blog.



One good thing about being glued to the TV is that my foot that I hurt in DC finally got enough rest to start getting better.  Go figure?

After the Olympics I felt like such a slug that I went crazy and painted two more bedrooms and the mud-room.  And I built some awesome shelves like the ones below for Nathan's new space.  And I have been working de-junking the house.  Which doesn't leave much time for reading. 



So that being said, I'm surprised I got in as many as I did.

Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight / A / **** / Kindle
This is the second book I've read by Kimberly McCreight (the first being, "Reconstructing Amelia"). While both have different stories, they both contain the same problem - implausibility.  The world is so big and so complex that we are surprised when there are weird coincidences, like the time we went on a cruise and our next door neighbors were on the same trip. We always say, "What a small world!" but really this is incorrect.  It isn't that the world is small, the situation becomes memorable because it is so unusual. In this book "Where They Found Her" the main characters are so crazily linked that it made you just go WHATEVER.  
My other complaint with this book is that nearly everyone is a "bad guy" in some way.  It reminded me a bit of the book "The Girl on the Train".  It is done for the shock factor and the almost required surprise plot twist, but really it was unnecessary in this case.
Now... besides all of this.... it was a very engaging read.  I really do like this author's writing style and character development.  It was a book that, once started, I did not want to put down.  I would absolutely recommend this book despite all my internal eye rolling.

The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick / A / ***1/2 / Kindle
I listened to this book on the way to SLC for meetings. It contains four very unique stories with a strange common denominator - the shape of the spiral.  Sounds crazy, right? Well it was definitely intriguing.  The stories are about a neolithic cave girl finding a spiral on a cave wall, a woman accused to witch craft in the 1600's, a doctor in an insane asylum focusing on a patient deathly afraid of spirals, to a man on a spaceship traveling to a new colony.  It was a history and science lesson on spirals and the Fibonacci sequence (yes I did some google searching after reading this book.. they really are EVERYWHERE) with a twist of science fiction at the end.  Most of all this seemed to be a story of obsession.  It was a really really fascinating book that was well written and very engaging.  The third story was the best one by far.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell / YA / *** / Kindle

Anyone who actually bothers to read this blog should know that I don't really review the books I read, I just word vomit my thoughts about each one.  And this book, at first, made me want to vomit. 

I should back track a bit and tell that I really like this author. She is a strong author that writes strong characters and tells stories that I think need to be told.  

I picked up this book based on the strength of her previous books. And speaking of her previous books, in one of them called "FANGIRL" Rowell tells the story of a girl named Cathy who loves to write fanfiction. Cathy writes fanction on a series that sounds very very similar to Harry Potter in a very tongue in cheek way.  The book Carry On is Rowell sharing the final fanfiction that was "written" by her fictional character Cathy who wrote about another fictional character "Simon" that was first created by another fictional author, Gemma. Confused yet?  Ya, me too.

I did not know any of this when I started the book. I had read Fangirl so I actually remembered some of the characters from the fan fiction (Simon and Penelope and Baz) a little.  I decided to give it a go.  After 40 pages I was totally disgusted... so disgusted at how it was such a blatant wrip-off of Harry Potter that I went to Goodreads to read all the one star reviews just to give voice to my anger.  And what I found is a lot of people saying.... be patient... just keep reading... give it a chance.  So I did.  And after about 50 pages I really got into the story. It moved away from it's Harry Potter roots to it's own story.  And it was engaging. And I didn't want to stop reading. And while I think it is the weakest of Rowell's books I've read, I still actually ended up liking it. I also have to add that some of it was just dang funny... especially the names of the spells.  They are a word nerds dream.  So my final thought is that Rowell is still awesome at teenage stories.

Three Times Lucky by by Sheila Turnage / JF / **** / ePub
Oh I liked this one.  It was full of quirky and interesting characters, had a smart and sassy heroine, took place in a charming and eccentric small town, and had a fun mystery to solve.  This one was a Newbery Honor winner and I can see why. This book reminds me why I read fiction for younger readers.

The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney / A / *** / 
The premise of this story is really depressing.... four siblings are set to inherit a large trust fund (nicknamed "The Nest") when they find their mother has spent the majority of it on rehab and a tort payout for their irresponsible brother.  The story follows the other siblings in the aftermath of not having the funds they expected to solve their self-inflicted problems. But the underlying foundation of this story is family - not just that the people who you love the most can hurt you the most, but how we can make choices to love and forgive. It is about the ties that bind. I liked this one. It had solid, real characters who grew as the story progressed.

Daughter of Deep Silence by Carrie Ryan
I didn't love this one. It was described as a "deliciously smart revenge thriller" but I felt it was unbelievably RIDICULOUS.

This story was so unbelievably ridiculous.  A 14 year old girl is on a cruise, where she meets a girl who happens to look just like her, and a cute boy that she falls in love with.  Bad guys come and shoot everyone on the whole ship, except our girl and her new bestie.   After a week floating in the ocean, her bestie dies in her arms just hours before the bestie's dad (ON HIS PRIVATE YACHT) just happens to find them. The girl then finds out after watching the news that her CRUSH and his politician DAD also somehow survived. The boyfriend/father don't say anything about the bad guys taking out an ENTIRE CRUISE SHIP of people but rather say the ship was tipped over by a rogue wave and that they are the only survivors.  The father of her bestie convinces her to just take the place of the bestie so she can exact REVENGE on the boyfriend and his family for lying.  This is obviously better than going to foster care, right?

Now, four years later, her new "father" has died and left his considerable wealth to her. She has returned from Swiss boarding school as an 18 year old with a MISSION ... to bring down her old crush and his family and make them PAY.
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The only thing more crazy about this book is that I actually finished it.

Beneath a Meth Moon by Jacqueline Woodson / YA / *** / Kindle
This was a light "Go Ask Alice" in that is paints a very real picture of drug addiction. It walked that fine line of being real and scary without being "too much" for the teen audience for which it is intended.  I liked how it showed that the addicts on the street are someone's daughter or son.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne / YA / *** / Hardback
I didn't love this one. I tried.  It may have been the fact that this is a script of a play, and thus is printed as such.  I really tried to read slow and "see" the scenes in my mind, and felt pretty successful at this.  It was just the story that I couldn't get into as much. Maybe it is my hidden resentment that Harry and Hermione didn't get married. 
It is probably fabulous as a play - and I think I should go to London to see it. HA.

August: Osage County by Tracy Letts / A / **** / Kindle
This book is also written in a script format, and I was totally okay with this one.  This showed me that it wasn't the fact that Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was in script format that threw me off.  
This one was just a bunch of character sketches on drugs.  I could totally see each person and each scene as it unfolded. It wasn't an uplifting or wholesome story by any means, but I enjoyed the journey it took me on.


Miracles Boys by Jacqueline Woodson / YA / *** / Kindle / *** / Kindle
This is my third book by Woodson this summer.    It was a beautiful character driven story of three brothers just trying to figure things out after the sudden loss of their mother. Each boy is so different but each comes to the realization that they need each other.  It was a sweet story.

5th Wave by Rick Yancey / YA / **** / Paperback
I purchased the third and final book of this series, "The Last Star" for Nathan, as he received the first two for Christmas. I started to read the book but could not keep up with what was going on. I went back to reread the second book as a reminder, and couldn't remember THAT one either (besides remembering I didn't like it as much), so I went back to the beginning and read 5th Wave (which I remember I DID like).  And I liked it just as much this time around.  Now, on to book two.  


The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey / YA / *** / Paperback
I liked this one better the second time around, but still was just SO CONFUSED.  I just don't GET IT...which is maybe what the author is going for? I couldn't even figure what in the heck was going on.   It was a lot of characters giving each other knowing looks and speaking in cryptic sentences and I hate hate hate it because I feel like I'm supposed to "get it" and I just DON'T.  I ended up reading question boards on goodreads just to find a lot of other people don't "get" it either. Which makes me feel a little better.... but arghhh.  I have a lot of expectations for book three.