if I stay by Gayle Forman

Goodreads Summary:

Just listen, Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel.

I open my eyes wide now.
I sit up as much as I can.
And I listen.

Stay, he says.

Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones: Stay true to her first love—music—even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind?

Then one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, and in an instant, everything changes. Suddenly, all the choices are gone, except one. And it's the only one that matters.

If I Stay is a heartachingly beautiful book about the power of love, the true meaning of family, and the choices we all make.


My Thoughts:
I read this book because I was interested in seeing the movie. I found it to be an interesting way to talk about being a teenager and everything that comes with that. Insecurities, figuring out who you are, and all of the other things that come along with being a teenager. 

Mia is that black sheep in her family by being into classical music and being overly responsible. I think at some point everyone feels like the odd man out in their own family. I certainly have more than once. It is hard sometimes to find your place in your family and the world. Mia tells her story from the bed of an ICU after the rest of her family is killed in a car crash. Mia is both ready to leave and wanting to stay to be with her friends, boyfriend, and remaining relatives. That struggle between fighting for your life and letting go isn't one that most of us really experience and then talk about.

The teen romance is a little over the top but I think that is accurate for teen romance. I know all of mine were ridiculously over the top. It is part of how we grow up and figure out what love actually is and isn't. I haven't decided if I am going to read the second book or not. I liked this one well enough but it wasn't amazing.

Overall I would recommend this book for those looking for an easy and fast read without a lot of expectation.

While writing this review I was listening to Yo-yo Ma. 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Goodreads Summary:

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery.

So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jewish fist-fighter in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

My Thoughts:

This book wasn't really what I was expecting. Not that I am sure what I was expecting, I just know this wasn't it. I was pleasantly surprised. I knew enough about the book to know that it was a heavy read which is part  of why I held off on reading it until my book club picked it a couple months ago.

Yes this is a heavy read, but at times it is just a story about a little girl and sometimes it was touching and other times it is funny. The perspective of Death is interesting as he is mostly detached from humanity, and death is just what Death does. This little book thief was a bright spot, someone Death didn't want to detach from. The last line of this book was the most interesting and powerful to me. "I am haunted by humans."

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

While writing this review I was listening to my coffee brew.

Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe

Goodreads Summary:

A teen idol at fifteen, an international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a painfully misunderstood child actor in Ohio uprooted to the wild counterculture of mid-seventies Malibu, where he embarked on his unrelenting pursuit of a career in Hollywood.

The Outsiders placed Lowe at the birth of the modern youth movement in the entertainment industry. During his time on The West Wing, he witnessed the surreal nexus of show business and politics both on the set and in the actual White House. And in between are deft and humorous stories of the wild excesses that marked the eighties, leading to his quest for family and sobriety.

Never mean-spirited or salacious, Lowe delivers unexpected glimpses into his successes, disappointments, relationships, and one-of-a-kind encounters with people who shaped our world over the last twenty-five years. These stories are as entertaining as they are unforgettable.

My Thoughts:

I have a crush on Rob Lowe. Not the Brat Pack Rob Lowe but the West Wing Rob Lowe. Now I also have a little bit of a crush on the real Rob Lowe.

He is honest, and in some ways, raw in his telling of his stories. You really get a sense of the man while oddly you still feel like there is something more to learn about and from Rob Lowe. Well written, entertaining, and thought provoking. An all around good read, well done Rob Lowe.

At no point did I feel like his stories were name dropping stories so much as someone navigating a world that is both just like mine and entirely different than mine. Reading this book humanized Rob Lowe for me and made me respect him. I have always liked the way he looked and acted in the West Wing, but now I just like him as a person. I think that is actually quite hard for the celebrity folk to achieve, expression of being normal people while owning the ways that they are different and their experiences are rather rarefied.

Overall a great read. I would recommend this book to fans of Rob Lowe and fans of biography. 

While writing this review I was listening to Miles Davis.

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Goodreads Summary:

David Sedaris' move to Paris from New York inspired these hilarious pieces, including the title essay, about his attempts to learn French from a sadistic teacher who declares that every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section. His family is another inspiration. You Can't Kill the Rooster is a portrait of his brother, who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers of food and cashiers with six-inch fingernails.

My Thoughts:

I recently re-read this for my book club. I decided to listen to the audio-book, as read by the author, rather than read it again. In a lot of ways this made the book entirely new to me and I suggest fans of the book give it a listen. Hearing these stories from the author changed some of the take away for me from my first reading. I don't mean this in a bad way, but in a great way. I think so often a voice on the page can't quite hit the same spot in the heart as actually hearing someone talk about their lives.

A friend of mine gave me a hard time for rating this book a 4 out of 5 on goodreads. I would say it is a 4.5 and I only take that half a point off because occasionally David Sedaris is so honest that it was uncomfortable even for me. This book ran through a lot of emotions for me, some I am sure were intended while others may not have been. I was forced into some of my own nostalgia while listening to some of his stories.

Over all I would recommend this book to everyone, additionally, I think you should give the audio-book a listen if you haven't read it in a long time. You might find as I did something new in it.

While writing this review I was listening to a bastard stray cat meowing its face off in the hallway of my building.

A Girl Called Fearless By Catherine Linka

*****I received this book as an ARC about a year ago, it took me a while to get to it. In no way is my review influenced by the fact that I got this as an ARC****

Goodreads Summary:

Avie Reveare has the normal life of a privileged teen growing up in L.A., at least as normal as any girl’s life is these days. After a synthetic hormone in beef killed fifty million American women ten years ago, only young girls, old women, men, and boys are left to pick up the pieces. The death threat is past, but fathers still fear for their daughters’ safety, and the Paternalist Movement, begun to "protect" young women, is taking over the choices they make.Like all her friends, Avie still mourns the loss of her mother, but she’s also dreaming about college and love and what she’ll make of her life. When her dad "contracts" her to marry a rich, older man to raise money to save his struggling company, her life suddenly narrows to two choices: Be trapped in a marriage with a controlling politician, or run. Her lifelong friend, student revolutionary Yates, urges her to run to freedom across the border to Canada. As their friendship turns to passion, the decision to leave becomes harder and harder. Running away is incredibly dangerous, and it’s possible Avie will never see Yates again. But staying could mean death.From Catherine Linka comes this romantic, thought-provoking, and frighteningly real story, A Girl Called Fearless, about fighting for the most important things in life—freedom and love.


*****I received this book as an ARC about a year ago, it took me a while to get to it. In no way is my review influenced by the fact that I got this as an ARC****

(Advanced Reader Copy)

My Thoughts:

I was a serious slacker in that it took me forever to pick up this book. I admit I judged the book by the cover and honestly it turned me off. However, once I picked it up, I read this book in a day. Part of this is because I didn't want to put this book down. The other part was I was home sick and didn't feel like watching TV. 

This being said I liked the book but I didn't think it was the best thing ever. 

It follows the dystopian/post-apocalyptic formula, but I don't think that is a bad thing per se, just a little boring at this point. The plot point in this book that is different than others is that the majority of women have been killed off from ovarian cancer caused by hormones in our food. I actually think in a lot of ways this is more likely than a lot of possible end of the world scenarios. My point of view on that isn't really important to this review but I will say that this book gave me something to think about, which is always awesome.

Avie is a likable character, she is less annoying and whiny than some other female leads. I feel like she is more relate-able as a person. She is called fearless, but that doesn't mean she actually is. I think that people can force themselves to be fearless  when they are just trying to survive. And Avie is just trying to survive. I think this book is a bit more honest about the intentions of people. No one brave really intends to be that way, they just have to be.

Additionally, I felt the supporting characters were more believable. The intentions of all the characters were realistic and not overly complicated by plot twists that didn't feel natural which is often the case with the genre. Overall, I liked the book and I would recommend it to fans of the genre. I do intend on reading the second book in the series when it comes out later this year.  I could tell that this book was a first book for the author Linka. I think she has enough of a voice that she could really expand the ideas presented in the first book in a really smart way in the second. I hope she lives up to that potential and doesn't let anyone change her voice too much.

While writing this review I was listening to REM Losing My Religion.

Dragonfly In Amber by Diana Gabaldon

Goodreads Summary:

With her now-classic novel Outlander, Diana Gabaldon introduced two unforgettable characters — Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser—delighting readers with a story of adventure and love that spanned two centuries. Now Gabaldon returns to that extraordinary time and place in this vivid, powerful follow-up to Outlander....

For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland’s majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones ... about a love that transcends the boundaries of time ... and about James Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his....

Now a legacy of blood and desire will test her beautiful copper-haired daughter, Brianna, as Claire’s spellbinding journey of self-discovery continues in the intrigue-ridden Paris court of Charles Stuart ... in a race to thwart a doomed Highlands uprising ... and in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves....

My Thoughts:

The second installment in the Outlander Series definitely didn't grab me as quickly as the first. This isn't anything against the writing per se, mostly there just wasn't as much action as the first book. But the story telling was rich and we got to know our characters better while meeting new ones.

This book is definitely quite sad but that didn't make me want to stop reading it, but I did take it a bit slower than the first book. Jamie and Claire have some rocky times in this book, but they stay true to who they are.

Overall, I liked the book but it didn't hook me as fast and as hard as the first. I am also not running to read the third. I fully intend to read the next book but I think I need a break as these are seriously long and seriously serious books.

I would recommend the book to those who have read Outlander, just be ready for it to be a slower and different read than the first. I wouldn't recommend reading out of order, I am not sure it is a stand alone read.

While writing this review I was listening to my husband and dog snore.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Goodreads Summary:

The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord...1743.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

My Thoughts:

Months ago my bestie asked me to DVR the new Starz show Outlander as it was based on one of her favorite book series. I was not at all interested in watching the show but I figured I could crochet or read while she watched it. As it turned out, I was immediately a fan of the show and decided to read the books. Who could blame me, have you seen Sam Heughan? The first time I saw him I wanted to find some screaming rocks to fall through. (Note: I told my husband this and he rolled his eyes and told me to take a flashlight in case it got dark looking for screaming rocks, yep that is marriage to the right guy, he gets me)

I read the first book not quite as fast as I thought I would but that had more to do with a hectic work schedule than the book. I really enjoyed getting a deeper insight to the characters I already liked from the show. After having read the book the series is in my opinion doing the story justice. I really think fans will like the show so long as they don't get too hung up on details, which is hard for super fans.

I am not normally a fan of historical fiction. I suppose I am actually understating that a bit. I often hate hate hate historical fiction. This book was definitely an exception to that. I wasn't a fan of the sheer number of rape, almost rape scenes in the book. I know that it happened all the time back in the day (still does) but it was hard for me to read. If you have an extra hard time with rape you may want to skip this book, well let's say skip the series.

I would recommend this book to historical fiction fans and romance fans. There is a fair bit of sex which I suspect is why the books are so popular. I recently read an article that described both the show and the books lady porn. I feel this is accurate in a lot of ways. 

While writing this review I was listening to that horrible Aston Kutcher movie Valentine's Day.