September started off kind of rocky my friends, I literally started and stopped reading three different books before I landed on a good one. I began “The Light We Lost,” which was a story set during the fall of the twin towers on Sept. 11, but it just had inappropriate scenes and language in the beginning, so I quit before I got too invested. Then I started “The Marriage Pact,” which might have ended up being decent but early on it was feeling like it would be too sadistic… So next I started “The Handmaids Tale” because it was a recommended read on my library app, but it was WAY too feministic and weird, it didn’t really even make sense to me because there was no explanation of how society got to the place it was in…so after all of that I was so thankful when this next book became available from the library because it was great!
“Everybody Always” was a great read! It’s about loving everybody, just as the title says. I honestly don’t know what else to say, there were so many interesting personal stories that just conveyed over and over how to love everybody as the Bible says…even if you start with just loving someone for the next three minutes, and then the next three after that, you get past the things that maybe were preventing you from loving as you should and get over them to see the good everyone has to offer …I loved so many thoughts in this book, and it was so compelling to me to put away any preconceived notions I had of others, how big or small they may be and just LOVE.
“Lilac Girls” was an amazing book. This book focused on the lives of multiple women living in Poland, who are brought to the concentration camp Ravensbruck, which was a German camp solely for women. These women were part of harrowing surgical experiments, to supposedly further the Germans knowledge on war wounds and other things among that nature. It is incredible the things these women were put through, how they somehow survived and assimilated back into society. These kinds of books may be hard for us to read at times knowing they are based on true stories, but I feel like we need to educate ourselves to appreciate what these people went through, if only to help ourselves be more content and appreciative of the lives we have. It was humbling to glimpse into the lives of these women.
“How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and How to Listen So Kids Will Talk” is such a practical book. I am constantly thinking about my approaches to parenting and looking for any advice that would bring me some wisdom and smoother days. Communication is so vital, in all relationships really, and with kids it can be tricky. I have really tried hard the last few months to focus on respecting my boys, modeling that for them so they can in turn show us and others respect. That involves keeping my own temper under control and speaking kindly to them, which can be such a challenging thing to do, especially when you are worn and tired. But I believe that the relationship we form in these vital little years is a foundation to our relationship in the coming teenage and adult years. I am praying we can establish positive roads of communication now to help us later, and also just to help us have positive relationships when our boys are grown. This book gives you lots of practical approaches and even models different scenarios with cartoons, to help you understand how different conversations can play out.
How do I even begin to talk about this book…“We Were the Lucky Ones” was incredible. By far one of the best books I’ve read this year. Based completely on true stories from the lives of a Jewish family and what they experienced during WW2, this book left me holding my breath and in tears the majority of the time I was reading. This book also took place predominantly in Poland where the family originally resided, and then followed them all over Europe and abroad. I have never been more grateful to be born in the time period I was, I just cannot imagine going through what these people endured. This book has left me humbled and truly given me a good dose of perspective on life. Everyone. Needs to read this book.
This book was your basic “nosy neighbor” story…”what’s going on in the cul de sac” story hah…“The Family Next Door” was a good quick read. Basically you get to know a few families that live on a street in the suburbs that are friends with each other, and then a “new neighbor” moves in. The story unfolds about the real reason the new neighbor moved in and how she is connected to a family already there. It was an interesting read, little bit of language just to warn you.
Oh how I wanted to like this book, “The Secret Life of Violet Grant”…the premise was so good, a mystery “valise” from a long lost Aunt was delivered to a New York gal who worked for the Metropolitan, so she sets her sights to find her Aunt and return it, while also solving a years old murder mystery about her aunts first husband…and all in between finding love herself…it was a great story, but every time I picked up this book I contemplated quitting it because the language was so bad at times, and then there were a lot of scenes I had to just skip over. I think as a reader it is just so frustrating to get invested in a good story and then not really be able to enjoy it because of things like that. I still wish someone would come up with s book rating system like we have for movies haha! So you have been warned on this one!
“The Great Alone” was one of my favorite books that I’ve read this year! It tells the story of how a young girl and her parents have moved around from place to place and finally settled in Alaska on a piece of frontier land left to them by one of her Dad’s old army buddies, in hopes of starting over and finding where they truly belong. It is a story of hopes and dreams, and hardships and devastation…I truly could not put this book down some days, it was just so interesting reading about how they survived in such a harsh wilderness, and also just seeing how their lives played out. There is some language in this book as well, so just warning you on that, but overall I really enjoyed this story and seeing how it ended.
“The Room on Rue Amelie” was a cute quick read. Another WW2 novel, this one was set in France, and told the story of how an American woman who married a French man, and how she got involved in a pilot escape route for men shot down in combat, who needed to be snuck out of the country and returned to Britain or the Americans. While many of the characters were based on real life people, this book was a little hard to believe at times because of the way things seemed to work out so perfectly. I enjoyed reading it though and it was clean language wise, my only complaint is that it didn’t end how I had hoped it would hehe. But it was a good read despite that. 😉
I hope you enjoyed my line up for this month! Happy reading! You can check out links to my other book reviews for this year below.