My 2019 Reading Goal was 25 books.... I did not make it. I don't know what the heck I did with my time, but I started a book in August - read three pages - and didn't pick it back up until JANUARY. Anywho, unimpressive or not, I did read 13 books in the first 3/4 of the year. Apparently there was a bit of an unplanned theme of me not really liking the protagonist, which always makes it hard to really get into a book, but there were also a couple of really good non-fiction books I read.
1. Forever and Five Days - Lowell Cauffiel
Description: Alpine Manor was the finest nursing home in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Clean, efficient, and safe, elderly patients and their loved ones could always rely on the care they received there.
My Rating: 4****
I'm a sucker for a true crime story. Add in that it's local, and you've got yourself a winner in my book. (Get it?!) Cathy Wood and Gwendolyn Graham are two convicted serial killers who worked in Walker, Michigan at a nursing home, where they smothered patients to death as an act of love and devotion to one another. These ladies were NUTS. I could seriously talk about this case/this book for hours. It's also the inspiration behind American Horror Story: Murder House.
2. Like Trees, Walking - Ravi Howard
Description: LIKE TREES, WALKING examines an old tale in the New South. Based on the true story of the 1981 lynching of Michael Donald in Mobile, Alabama, the novel follows the lives of Paul and Roy Deacon, teenagers and childhood friends of Michael Donald, as they cope with the aftermath of his hanging. It is Paul Deacon who discovers the body, and the experience leaves him forever changed.
My Rating: 5 *****
Wow. This book was heartbreaking. I don't know how I made it this long without knowing that there was a TWENTIETH CENTURY lynching, but it just goes to show how far we have to go still. The author does a great job of making you feel as if you were right there alongside him, even though that's a place that no one wants to be.
3. Why We Broke Up - Daniel Handler
Description: Min Green and Ed Slaterton are breaking up, so Min is writing Ed a letter and giving him a box. Inside the box is why they broke up. Two bottle caps, a movie ticket, a folded note, a box of matches, a protractor, books, a toy truck, a pair of ugly earrings, a comb from a motel room, and every other item collected over the course of a giddy, intimate, heartbreaking relationship. Item after item is illustrated and accounted for, and then the box, like a girlfriend, will be dumped.
My Rating: 2 **
This book was cute, but Min was annoying, and if you don't like the main character in a book, you're kind of screwed.
4. Three Sides of a Heart - Natalie C Parker, Rae Carson, Brancy Colbert, Katie Cotugno, Alaya Dawn Johnson, E.K. Johnston, Tessa Gratton and Garth Nix
Description: You may think you know the love triangle, but you've never seen love triangles like these.These top YA authors tackle the much-debated trope of the love triangle, and the result is sixteen fresh, diverse, and romantic stories you don’t want to miss.
A teen girl who offers kissing lessons. Zombies in the Civil War South. The girl next door, the boy who loves her, and the girl who loves them both. Vampires at a boarding school. Three teens fighting monsters in an abandoned video rental store. Literally the last three people on the planet.What do all these stories have in common?The love triangle.
My Rating: 3 ***
I picked this book up because I love YA books and thought it would be a fun Valentine's Day book. I thought having short stories would make it a quick and easy read, but I was not a fan of how sci-fi and futuristic almost every story was.
5. Big Girl Panties - Stephanie Evanovich
Description: Big Girl Panties by Stephanie Evanovich is a rollicking and poignant romantic comedy about a young widow who decides to get in shape...and winds up getting her groove back--and a whole lot more! Holly Brennan used food to comfort herself through her husband's illness and death. Now she's alone at age thirty-two. And she weighs more than she ever has. When fate throws her in the path of Logan Montgomery, personal trainer to pro athletes, and he offers to train her, Holly concludes it must be a sign. Much as she dreads the thought of working out, Holly knows she needs to put on her big girl panties and see if she can sweat out some of her grief. Soon, the easy intimacy and playful banter of their training sessions lead Logan and Holly to most intense and steamy workouts. But can Holly and Logan go the distance as a couple now that she's met her goals--and other men are noticing?
My Rating: 4 ****
I won this book as an Advanced Copy by the author. All views are my own. When I read the synopsis to my husband, we both laughed and said “Ugh!” thinking this book would be cheesy and awful. And it was cheesy. But far from awful. I liked it instantly and devoured it in less than a day - no pun intended. The characters were all so sincere and so purely themselves it was hard not to like them, Holly especially. I would say this book is a lighter version of Jennifer Weiner’s “Good in Bed” which is one of my all time favorites. I would read the sequel for sure.
6. The Perfect Girlfriend - Karen Hamilton
Description: Juliette loves Nate. She will follow him anywhere. She’s even become a flight attendant for his airline so she can keep a closer eye on him.They are meant to be.The fact that Nate broke up with her six months ago means nothing. Because Juliette has a plan to win him back.She is the perfect girlfriend. And she’ll make sure no one stops her from getting exactly what she wants.True love hurts, but Juliette knows it’s worth all the pain..
My Rating: I won this book as an Advanced Copy by the author. All views are my own.
I found it hard to power through this book because I didn’t like the main character. She was crazy and had no redeeming qualities. There wasn’t enough mystery or thrill to make it interesting, like in Gone Girl. The ending wasn’t satisfying.
7. I Have Heard You Calling in the Night - Thomas Healy
Description: Thomas Healy was a drunk, a fighter, sometimes a writer, often unemployed, no stranger to the police. His life was going nowhere but downhill. Then one day he bought a pup—a Doberman. He called him Martin. Gradually man and dog became unshakable allies, the closest of comrades, the best of friends. They took long walks together, they vacationed together, they even went to church together. Martin, in more ways than one, saved Thomas Healy’s life. Written with unadulterated candor and profound love, this soulful memoir gets at the heart of the intense bond between people and dogs.
My Rating: 3 ****
This book was good and heartfelt. I appreciated that a dog was able to be what pulled a man out of the depths of his addiction, but the story was pretty bland.
8. Luckiest Girl Alive - Jessica Knoll
Description: As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue blood fiancé, she’s this close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve.But Ani has a secret.There’s something else buried in her past that still haunts her, something private and painful that threatens to bubble to the surface and destroy everything.With a singular voice and twists you won’t see coming, Luckiest Girl Alive explores the unbearable pressure that so many women feel to “have it all” and introduces a heroine whose sharp edges and cutthroat ambition have been protecting a scandalous truth, and a heart that's bigger than it first appears.The question remains: will breaking her silence destroy all that she has worked for—or, will it at long last, set Ani free?
My Rating: 4 ****
This book surprised me. I thought that there was only one big reveal.... but there were two, and the second one shocked me because I never saw it coming. The writing was set up to make you think you already knew what happened in Ani's past, but you didn't know the full story until you were reading it. Jessica Knoll's writing style is a little weird and was hard to get used to (ie: many comma splices)but I liked the story well enough to power through it, even though I found myself re-reading many sentences and paragraphs.
9. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman
Description: Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding unnecessary human contact, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen, the three rescue one another from the lives of isolation that they had been living. Ultimately, it is Raymond’s big heart that will help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. If she does, she'll learn that she, too, is capable of finding friendship—and even love—after all.
My Rating: 3 ***
Unpopular opinion alert.... I did not like Eleanor. I did not find her humorous or endearing, but rather annoying and snooty. If it weren't for the mystery aspect (what happened with her mom, how she got her scars, etc) I don't think I would have finished the book, which is not something I do. The ending was satisfying, but overall it wasn't that great of a read.
10. Second Chance - Jane Green
Description: Jane Green has become a nationally bestselling author with legions of fans through her novels about the true-life dilemmas of real women—their relationships, their careers, their loves, their triumphs and disappointments. In her latest book, Green tells the story of a group of people who haven’t seen each other since they were best friends at school. When one of them dies in a terrible tragedy, the reunited friends work through their grief together and find that each of their lives is impacted in ways they could have never foreseen. Warm, witty, and as wise as ever, this is a story of friendship, of family, and of life coming full circle.
My Rating: 5 *****
This book was good for my soul. I was a Holly and I had a Tom. And my Tom also died. This story helped me look at the positives of the situation, and look for similarities between my friends and the friends in this story. I loved how easily these friends fell back into place with one another, and the ending was so sweet. I really liked how well she was able to focus on everyone rather than just one person or one couple. Sure, Holly was technically the main character, but it wasn't solely about her journey, which would have been a great book anyway, but the other characters and their friendships/relationships as a whole made it a much better story.
11. The Apology - Eve Ensler
Description: Like millions of women, Eve Ensler has been waiting much of her lifetime for an apology. Sexually and physically abused from the age of 5 by her father, Eve has struggled and suffered her whole life from this betrayal, longing for an honest reckoning from a man who is long dead. After years of work as an artist and anti-violence activist, she decided she was no longer waiting; an apology could be imagined, by her, for her, to her. This book, The Apology, written by Eve from her father's point of view in the words she longed to hear attempts to transform the abuse she suffered, with unflinching truthfulness, compassion, and an expansive vision for the future.
My Rating: 5 *****
This book was hard for me to review. It gave me nightmares - it shook me to my core, but in the best way. It stitched together a piece of my heart that had been broken many years before. It was the apology that I didn't think I would ever get. I'm amazed at the journey that Eve took you on, that she shared it, and how much it meant to me.
12. This is How It Always Is - Laurie Frankel
Description: This is how a family keeps a secret…and how that secret ends up keeping them.This is how a family lives happily ever after…until happily ever after becomes complicated.This is how children change…and then change the world.This is Claude. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess.When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl.Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes.
My Rating: 3 ***
This book was good, but the premise was better than the execution. I found myself really annoyed at how smart the author tried to make every character. No child talks the way she had these children talk, and it was so far-fetched that it made me roll my eyes and too away from the story.
The plot was good, relevant, and something we could all learn some empathy towards.
13. The Girls: An All-American Town, a Predatory Doctor, and the Untold Story of the Gymnasts Who Brought Him Down - Abigail Pesta
Description: We think of Larry Nassar as the despicable sexual predator of Olympic gymnasts -- but there is an astonishing, untold story. For decades, in a small-town gym in Michigan, he honed his manipulations on generations of aspiring gymnasts. Kids from the neighborhood. Girls with hopes of a college scholarship. Athletes and parents with a dream. In The Girls, these brave women for the first time describe Nassar's increasingly bold predations through the years, recount their warning calls unheeded, and demonstrate their resiliency in the face of a nightmare.The Girls is a profound exploration of trust, ambition, betrayal, and self-discovery. Award-winning journalist Abigail Pesta unveils this deeply reported narrative at a time when the nation is wrestling with the implications of the MeToo movement. How do the women who grew up with Nassar reconcile the monster in the news with the man they once trusted? In The Girls, we learn that their answers to that wrenching question are as rich, insightful, and varied as the human experience itself.
My rating: 5 *****
I went down a bit of a wormhole regarding Larry Nassar, and after listening to many podcasts, I learned about this book. One thing that sets this book apart is that it's not about the Olympic victims - rather, it's about the ordinary people who suffered abuse at the hands of Larry Nassar. These women were just as magnificent in his demise, but they also deserved their voices to be heard. This book was clearly written by a journalist, which I loved because she made it a triumphant story of how these women overcame the years of abuse to go on to be successfull women, mothers, wives, activists, and most importantly - survivors.