Books I Read and Other Assorted Oddities

 This one was really popular in YA several years ago. I know... I'm always reading older books. But I was fascinated by the dark cover and spooky vibes. I picked this up as an audiobook and started it a couple of months ago. Lately, I've been really good and listening to books on my way home from work and while cleaning. Three sisters, divided as children. Each with a different power. Kat is a poisoner, capable of mixing power potions designed to bring death upon any enemy. Arsinoe is a naturalist, who can make plants bloom and summon an animal familiar. Mirabella is an elemental with the power to control the weather and fire. Two of the sisters are incredibly weak, and one very strong. After Beltane, comes the Year of Ascension, where two sisters must die, and one will become queen. Who will prove strong enough to survive? I had no expectations going into this book. I had no idea what it was about, or anything. I just knew that it was popular. I was hooked pretty much from the...

 I managed to finish off a couple of books during this past cycle through the line-up. Here's where I'm at: Fantasy:  The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue  by V. E. Schwab (9%) Sci-Fi:  A Wrinkle in Time  by Madeleine L'Engle (100%) Realistic Fiction:  Love and Gelato  by Jenna Evans Welch (100%) Young Readers:  Old Yeller  by Fred Gipson (100%) Brandon Sanderson:  The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England  (73%) Nonfiction:  The Anxious Generation  by Jonathan Haidt (53%) Classic:  Les Misérables  by Victor Hugo (5%) Mystery/Thriller:  The Brothers Hawthorne  by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (18%) Historical Fiction:  The Nightingale  by Kristin Hannah (100%) Audio:  Three Dark Crowns  by Kendare Blake (66%) English Department Book Club: Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor (35%) I decided in the course of this rotation that I was going to just add my book club books into the...

 This book was the result of dice rolls. I originally got this book when my mother in law was downsizing her collection from her elementary school teaching days. I've never read it. I feel like in second grade, you read Old Yeller , or you read Where the Red Fern Grows , and I read Red Fern ... Old Yeller  is a coming of age story that follows Travis and his family during a summer. Travis's father leaves with the other men and older boys of their settlement in Texas to take cattle to Kansas to the market. Travis is tasked with being "the man of the house" and helping his mother out with all of the household things, the farm, and watching over his brother Arliss. Everything is going well until an old dog shows up in the chickens, stealing the eggs. Travis hates the dog to start with, but grows to like him as he realizes how smart he is and what a spectacular help the dog is. I knew going into this book that Yeller was going to die. You don't pick up a book like thi...

 This book is really nostalgic for me, and probably why I love it so much. My mom read this to my brother and I when we were kids, and it's one that has stuck with me surprisingly well. I remember several parts of the story really vividly (and was actually really impressed with what I remembered of the story). This one got the Disney treatment, but the movie is terrible in comparison. Meg's father is gone. They don't know where he is, when he will return, or if he's even all right. People in town are starting to talk, and kids make fun of Meg (and they're met with her fists). All of that changes when Charles Wallace, Meg's younger brother introduces them to three exceptionally odd ladies: Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Who. The ladies set the children (who are joined by Calvin, their neighbor) on a journey to rescue Meg's father from a galaxy-consuming darkness. Like I said, I can't help but find this book really fascinating. I remembered portions of...

 This book is highly recommended online and from some of my book club friends. It's taken me months to get through this, but I ended up enjoying it. The Nightingale  follows the story of two sisters, Vianne and Isabelle. Vianne is the older sister, married with a daughter, Sophie. Isabelle is a beauty, but a wild spirit. Never one to follow the rules, Isabelle frequently shows up where she's not supposed to be. As the war breaks out, Isabelle finds herself disobeying everyone's expectations again, and throwing herself into the resistance. With her husband gone, Vianne is forced to billet a German officer. This only gets more complicated as Isabelle's resistance life clashes with Vianne's attempts to protect her family. I loved this book, but I also hated it. I struggle a bit with violence against children, and while it is historically accurate, I really had a hard time with that aspect of the novel. The characters were interesting, though I was a bit annoyed by both...

 This was a book club choice for this month, and I've never read it before. I will say, going into this review, (as I do frequently) that romance is not my genre... Lina thought she knew her mother. It had always been the two of them, and her mother was a force of nature. Then came the diagnosis, and the details of the man that her mother said was Lina's father. After her mother's passing, Lina agreed to go and stay with her father in Italy, where he lived. Upon arriving, she finds that he lived in a WWII memorial graveyard, and she met Ren, the most gorgeous boy she'd ever seen. Then comes the journal. It's from her mother, and the first words say, "I made the wrong choice." Can Lina uncover the truth about her mother's time in Italy and her own self? Overall, this book was cute, but predictable. I had most of it figured out before I was very far into the book, and it felt almost like a formulaic YA romance (the first boy is always the  boy, no matter...