JANUARY 2021!!! When did this happen?!?! I have a few good reads to share with you to kick off the new year! Hope you find something interesting to you!
I love all things British, I fell in love with this country when I was 18 on a trip with the A&M Wind Symphony, and enjoy reading stories with a British setting! I love the royalty too, so just thought this would be a fun read! Overall I enjoyed “The Royal We”, but it was a lot to take in drama wise, and the language was not good in this one! The prince falls in love with an American, so it is a story about them finding each other and trying to work through having a relationship in the spotlight. Not sure that I would recommend this one to a conservative reader.
I know, you’re probably thinking, why did you read the sequel if you weren’t thrilled with the first haha…good question, I think I am just a sucker for wanting to know how a story ends! I was so curious to see how things ended up with the Prince and his girl! “The Heir Affair” had a lot of love triangle stuff going on, plus pressure to produce an heir. Probably my favorite part of the book was the relationship of the queen and the Prince’s wife, Rebecca. But again, language wasn’t great at times, and just life choices I probably wouldn’t make!
I have read a few books by Tracey Garvis Graves, and have enjoyed her writing. “The Girl He Used to Know” was unexpected for me, but I really liked it. I have said before that I enjoy reading books that give me a different perspective on life, or just give you a view into a life lived with struggles different from my own. I believe it just really helps you gain empathy and understanding of others…this story was about a girl who was a little different, but not sure why. Those “differences” ended up placing her on the Autism spectrum, so this is her story of how she lived her life and coped with trying to understand social norms. Her experiences in college, finding her boyfriend, finding a job and moving to a new city…it was very interesting to read about and just heart warming that she was able to find someone to share her life with who strived to understand and accept her as she was. I really liked this one.
Whew, “The Family Upstairs” was a weird one. I mean just weird people, weird situation…weird. It’s amazing to me how people can treat each other at times, and how some people will accept that treatment. This story was about a family who allowed another family to move in, who basically turned their home into a cult. There was psychological abuse, and a host of other issues, but I found myself just being so curious about this whole situation and how it would end up. There is a bit of mystery involved as well, because the house itself was inherited by a young girl, and she invests a lot of time and effort in trying to figure out her connection to the family, as well as who her real parents are. It was a crazy read, completely different from anything I’ve read in a while.
I picked up the second book of Elin Hilderbrand’s series “What Happens in Paradise” and overall would say I enjoyed this one. The murder mystery, family drama and relationship issues all continue on their way but I would say they weren’t overwhelmingly unrealistic hehe. I’ve enjoyed her writing, her and Nancy Thayer are my go to ladies when I need something light and fun to read!
I actually listened to “Running on Empty” this month, which I really enjoy doing with therapy based type books. For me, books that cover a lot of intense physiological topics are just easier to take in listening to rather than reading through. This book especially had a TON of scenario based examples of people, just trying to model the points the author was trying to make, so again I just appreciated being able to listen to those instead of reading through them. The title initially caught my eye with this book, because I truly have just felt like I’ve been running on empty for months now. I have never felt like I had a neglected childhood, but the author makes the point early on that even with the best of parents, all of us experience some amount of emotional neglect because we are imperfect people being raised by imperfect people. I really learned a lot from this book, from the perspective of connecting with my own children to support them emotionally, and then also things that potentially could have made me feel emotionally neglected at times over the years within all of the relationships I have in my life.
I could relate to this graphic so much haha… If you are interested in checking out my other book reviews from years past, click on my Books tab to take you to my page that has all of my reviews from the last few years! If you want to follow along with what I am reading, you can check out my Goodreads too! Happy reading friends!