Lydia
Ahhh this book! I cannot even remotely give it enough stars. I laughed so many times out loud. Fredrik has the wittiest sense of humor. He just so splendidly wove a tale of a man that I wish existed and could be in my life. At the end I wept. And then I was openly sobbing.
This is one of those books that will stay with me forever and that I will NOT be giving to Paperback Swap!!!
I think everyone has experienced bullying at some point in their lives. I know I sure did. As a kid, a teenager, and even as an adult. As a kid, for whatever reason, I just didn't really have many friends. This probably was partly my fault since I preferred the company of a book over anything. (I can relate to Kurt's character.) As a teenager, I had some friends. I was kind of the girl that was friends with everyone but didn't have a group I belonged to. As an adult, I've even experienced it. In one of my workplaces, I had a friend, a best friend actually, and a new person came into the scene and she dropped me without any warning. And what amazed me about it was how she and I talked all the time about how horrible it was when that happened because you just wanted to know why and the other person never told you. I digress. This isn't about me. :) This book though was powerful and I nearly wish it was required for anyone in 8th or 9th grade. Maybe reading this would stop some of the bullying. I loved how the author wove the view of each character. I felt like I was sitting in on an interview where each person gives their perspective, until we get to the real truth of the matter and it comes directly from the source. To be fair, though I was always the one bullied, I found myself understanding the perspective of everyone but Alice. In reality, high school is hard, for everyone. Most kids are just trying to survive and sometimes they do really awful things for that end. I appreciated that the book made me see that. I just loved this book. I cannot express how much I loved this book. I intend to find anything else Jennifer has written and devour it quickly.
I didn't hate it and I didn't love it. I could not for the life of me remember the name of the book. Perhaps that should have been my red flag of how I was going to feel about this book. There wasn't anything specifically that I didn't like; making me not want to read it yet there certainly wasn't anything causing me to want to pick it up. The story is interesting. I enjoy any story related to ballet. I find that life so fascinating. I think what I struggled with what the point of the story. I felt like it just wasn't going anywhere. Nothing of significance happened. I didn't really connect to either Kate or Marine. There were a few times I had to go back and look to see who I was reading because they sounded the same. Everyone else, really was one-dimensional. I never really got their purpose to the story. In one word, despite the premise of the story line and the arc of the characters, the book was boring. I pushed through but It really didn't do anything for me. Based on my rating system it isn't enough to get a 3 but it's more than a 2. I probably would not recommend it.
It's Been A Pleasure, Noni Blake by Clare Christian
⭐⭐⭐⭐
This was a fun book. Not my usual fare as I don't generally do romance, even contemporary. I loved Noni's character. I felt I could really relate to her, especially the body image shaming she did to herself. There is something she said that really stuck with me when she talked about how she would not tolerate someone else saying to her the things she says to herself. I thought that was brilliant. I LOVED the way in which the characters talked to one another, Naz in particular was absolutely wonderful. I wish she was in my life, properly. One of the reasons I don't often venture into romance is because it isn't realistic. I realize that this is in part, why we read books but for some reason it never works for me. This book was no different. The other bit I didn't terribly really care for was the sex. I read Fifty Shades. I knew going into that book, what I was getting and I liked it as the setting was appropriate. In this case, I felt as if the sex was a little roncher than was necessary, for a romance book. I don't know. Perhaps I'm wrong but I just didn't love that piece of it. Ultimately, I like the book quite a lot. It was an amusing and entertaining book. I found myself laughing out loud often and re-reading parts just because they were so funny.
I really enjoyed this book. It was fascinating and heart-wrenching at the same time. To see into the cult that has claimed one sister and then the other. I really liked how the auth told the perspective of Lo from the present and the perspective of Bea from the past. I felt like the story was rich, the writing was smooth, and the outcome was as I expected and hoped.
If you haven't been directly affected by a war then you may not understand the gravity of what one can do to the human soul. Eden, along with his friend, the ghost that is there waiting with him and for him, and the rest of the men in his unit hit a plate in the Iraq war. Eden is alive but he lays in a hospital bed, a shell of the man he used to be. Burned literally beyond recognition, his wife Mary, for three years, waits by his side. The message, the writing, the impact of war, is profoundly described in this book. The way in which Ackerman puts forth the things that have taken place, from the dead friend's point of view, leaves you sad and hurting for these three characters. I'm thankful I've read this book and I would recommend it, I don't know if it will stick with me. Maybe because of the length, I don't feel like I really had a chance to get invested in the characters. Ultimately, I understand what Ackerman was trying to express was achieved and the point of the story was delivered.
I don't know what just happened but I certainly didn't like it. I almost get the sense there was something that was meant to be profound. Maybe I'm too daft and so I missed whatever it whatever it was.
Nonetheless, even if that is the case, I did NOT care for this one. By the synopsis, I believed this was going to be a heart-touching story about a chaplain who has a dog walk with her as she tends to the souls of others but alas that was not the case. It started out well but never really went anywhere.
