What I’m Reading: October 2020

I am so behind on my book posts haha! What else is new?! I gotta be honest, October 2020 was not my most favorite month of reading. I struggglled especially towards the second half of the month to find anything worth reading. It’s funny, sometimes I will have hoards of books coming available on my library app, and then other times it’s like crickets! Who knows! Anyway, here are my October books, see what you think!

I read the first of this series last month, so I was curious to see what “A Rogue of One’s Own” was about. I enjoyed the first book a lot, this book was good but a little more scandalous, for lack of a better word, so it’s hard for me to say that I would recommend this to read. This book is about the “Bringing Down the Duke” main character’s best friend, and how she lands her own rogue in her own ways, rather than following societal proper expectations. I like that these stories are set in the Victorian era, when women had no rights at all, but are striving to obtain whatever rights they could. It’s an interesting time period to read about, and definitely makes me thankful for the freedoms and respect I have!

“Dear Edward”… I saw this book recommended by someone, I want to say Reece Witherspoon… and since she generally has good recommendations, I thought I would check it out. This was an interesting, yet hard book to read… It was a story about an airplane crash, a plane that crashed because of mistakes the pilots made, and how all passengers and crew on the plane died except for one boy. Now, before you go shaking your head, saying this would never happen, it actually has happened. Rather recently in fact. I like to read the information in the back of the book, so I looked up the Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771. Out of 104 passengers and crew, 103 perished in an accident, leaving a 9 year old boy as the sole survivor. I just cannot imagine. I can’t imagine experiencing that, and living with that on your mind, that you were the only one spared.

So this book is a story based off of that event. What would it be like to go through the crash? What would it feel like to be that lone survivor, to lose everyone you love in an instant, for your life to change forever in the blink of an eye. He goes to live with his Aunt and Uncle, and as it turns out, people from all of the country begin to write him letters. He systematically responds to as many as he can with the help of a friend, but it is heartbreaking to see how difficult his life became after an experience like that. I will note that the books jumps back and forth from the past to the present, before the crash and after. When it goes to the before parts, it is from the perspectives of different passengers on the plane, and some of them are potty mouths. 😉 It got to the point where I just skipped paragraphs if Benjamin or Crispin were narrating! So just a word of warning for you! This book had all of the feelings for sure, but is one of those stories that just gives you a lot of appreciate for your own life and the wonderful people that surround you.

“The Daughter of the Reich” was hard for me. I hadn’t read a WW2 story from the perspective of a German girl growing up in a household where her father was a Nazi, moving up in rank and power. It was a heartbreaking story of love that cannot be had, loss, friendship, standing up for the right thing, doing the hard things, doing everything you can to reunite with those you love and more. I think reading this after Dear Edward was hard for me, it was just too much, too heavy…it was a well written book, but just heartbreaking.

At this point in the month, I needed something upbeat and light hearted… so I chose “The Goldfinch” based off of a recommendation of an acquaintance… and if you have read this book before, then you have to be laughing to yourself, because it is the opposite of light hearted! It begins with a young boy losing his mother in a bombing of a New York City art museum…so there you go – nope, not upbeat.

Even though this wasn’t what I was looking for, I tried to stick with it. But y’all, this was the longest, slowest book I think I have ever read. I kept reading and reading and reading and just felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. I finally gave up when I realized I had been reading between 3-4 hours and was only at 12% of the book. LOL OH MY. Plus, it was just sad. And my poor mama brain just couldn’t take anymore sad reading. So on to the next book. This is when I got stuck and just couldn’t find anything. I finally settled on an Emily Giffin book and thoroughly hated it lol…

“First Comes Love” makes me think it’s going to be this cutesy little romance novel. Nope. Think again. A tragic car accident steals away a beloved brother, leaving two contentious sisters behind. (I don’t know what my problem was this month because every single stinkin’ book was just SAD!!! Well, minus the first one that is…)

This was a story about sisterly love, which I can appreciate and get on board with, especially having a younger sister. But these two sisters were awful. I just couldn’t take it. And one was thoroughly dissatisfied with her life, and walked around like a grumpy cantankerous martyr the whole book. (I’m sorry, I’m just saying it like it is.) She ends up going away to “find herself” and sort out the problems of having a loving, handsome, supportive husband, a successful job and beautiful daughter, and decides that she pretty much wants a divorce and was never in love with her husband anyway! My head just about fell off my shoulders. Anyway, I don’t want to say anymore in case anyone feels compelled to read this, although I would be shocked after my positive review HAH. Needless to say, I gave this book ONE star on Goodreads, which I don’t think I ever have done that before. I just wanted to finish it and move on to November! Whew!