I love to read. I just wish I had more time to do it.
My love for reading started out long ago. As a child, my mom would read to us a lot. A trip to the library was a weekly outing. Every single week, we would check out new books and return the old ones. I loved trips to the library. I saw my mom reading all of the time.
These things made an impression on me.
I am making more of an effort to read more books since I get so much joy from it.
Here is what I have read in the last six months.....maybe longer!
Book 1 in the series
An epic and gripping tale of catastrophe and survival, The Passage is the story of Amy—abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions. But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl and risks everything to save her. As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape—but he can’t stop society’s collapse. And as Amy walks alone, across miles and decades, into a future dark with violence and despair, she is filled with the mysterious and terrifying knowledge that only she has the power to save the ruined world.
Book 2 in the series
In the present day, as the man-made apocalypse unfolds, three strangers navigate the chaos. Lila, a doctor and an expectant mother, is so shattered by the spread of violence and infection that she continues to plan for her child’s arrival even as society dissolves around her. Kittridge, known to the world as “Last Stand in Denver,” has been forced to flee his stronghold and is now on the road, dodging the infected, armed but alone and well aware that a tank of gas will get him only so far. April is a teenager fighting to guide her little brother safely through a landscape of death and ruin. These three will learn that they have not been fully abandoned—and that in connection lies hope, even on the darkest of nights.
One hundred years in the future, Amy and the others fight on for humankind’s salvation . . . unaware that the rules have changed. The enemy has evolved, and a dark new order has arisen with a vision of the future infinitely more horrifying than man’s extinction. If the Twelve are to fall, one of those united to vanquish them will have to pay the ultimate price.
A heart-stopping thriller rendered with masterful literary skill, The Twelve is a grand and gripping tale of sacrifice and survival.
I am not into giving you summaries of the books- Amazon does that just fine. I absolutely LOVED The Passage. I never imagined I would get sucked into a book about the end of the world as we know it, but I did and I could not put it down. As soon as I finished Book 1, I immediately started Book 2 (The Twelve). I enjoyed Book 2 but Book 1 really blew my socks away! I'm not sure when Book 3 is coming out- it looks like Justin Cronin (the author) is still working on it.
I am not including a summary of this book because I HATED IT. The only reason I read it was because it appeared that millions of women had their world rocked and turned all sexy topsy turvy by the words/sex scenes in this book.
OK, sure the sex scenes were steamy and if you like the S&M kind of thing, it might rock your world, BUT all the words between the sex scenes were TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE and made me gag with the horrendous writing. The plot, the phrasing, the everything just did not agree with me.
I know I am not the most objective of reviewers- I know that I love reading books off the Bestseller list- I know this. But I just did not agree with the masses on this one at all. I realize I may be shutting myself out of mommy circles around the world that want to get it on with Christian but he annoyed me to the 10th degree and even more, Anastasia behavior made me want me yell at her to get a backbone and stop your whining, girlfriend. I did not read any of the other books in this series. What a waste of time.
Ugh.
Marriage can be a real killer.
One of the most critically acclaimed suspense writers of our time, New York Times bestseller Gillian Flynn takes that statement to its darkest place in this unputdownable masterpiece about a marriage gone terribly, terribly wrong. The Chicago Tribune proclaimed that her work “draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty addiction.” Gone Girl’s toxic mix of sharp-edged wit and deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn.
On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?
As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?
With her razor-sharp writing and trademark psychological insight, Gillian Flynn delivers a fast-paced, devilishly dark, and ingeniously plotted thriller that confirms her status as one of the hottest writers around.
I enjoyed this book up until the very end. The first 3/4 of the book- I was trying to figure it out- did Nick off his wife or did he not? And if he didn't do it, then what the heck happened to her? Once you get to the end and find out exactly what happened.....well, it freaking pissed me off! How do books do that? Anyone that has read this book agree with me?! You don't have to give the ending away but how did it make you feel?
AFTER FOUR HARROWING YEARS ON THE WESTERN Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.
Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.
Oh, what a very good book with tough decisions made and a lifetime to live through those decisions. Heartbreaking, heart wrenching, touching, and also- are you freaking kidding me?! It was a very very good read and it's hard to be mad at anyone in this book, even if you don't agree with how things go.
The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.
OK, this is another one where I disagree with the mass readers of the world. This one came with such high reviews and I am willing to give any book a chance but I just could not get into this. I tried and tried and read over a hundred pages waiting for the plot to *grip* me but in the end, I just couldn't do it. I finally put it down and said *enough*. I might give this book another chance if ya'll can convince me I should.
Dallas, 11/22/63: Three shots ring out.
President John F. Kennedy is dead.
Life can turn on a dime—or stumble into the extraordinary, as it does for Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in a Maine town. While grading essays by his GED students, Jake reads a gruesome, enthralling piece penned by janitor Harry Dunning: fifty years ago, Harry somehow survived his father’s sledgehammer slaughter of his entire family. Jake is blown away . . . but an even more bizarre secret comes to light when Jake’s friend Al, owner of the local diner, enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination. How? By stepping through a portal in the diner’s storeroom, and into the era of Ike and Elvis, of big American cars, sock hops, and cigarette smoke. . . . Finding himself in warmhearted Jodie, Texas, Jake begins a new life. But all turns in the road lead to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. The course of history is about to be rewritten . . . and become heart-stoppingly suspenseful.
In Stephen King’s “most ambitious and accomplished” (NPR) novel, time travel has never been so believable. Or so terrifying.
I haven't read Stephen King in a while.....a long while. However, I loved the premise of this book- enough to PURCHASE it (versus borrowing it from the library). Plus, this book is long and I didn't want to have to hold it upright in bed; hence, a purchase for my tablet and reading it was so much easier.
Anyhoo, I loved it. I really didn't expect to but I did. It took a little getting used to with all the time travel stuff but once the main character settled into the 50's and 60's to do what he set out to do (change history by preventing JFK's assassination), I was hooked to see what would happen.
Mr. King surprised me with this one, in a good way.
This book by far was my favorite of this group, and probably one of my all time favorite books, right up there with Life of Pi, Memoirs of a Geisha and Count of Monte Cristo (all favorites of mine). It swept me away from beginning to end, capturing my mind and my thoughts the entire time. I laughed, I cried, my heart swelled watching the relationship between Liesel and her foster parents grow, I got nervous for their family as other events developed around her foster family harboring a Jewish man in WWII Germany, how her love for books develops, the life she leads in her poverty stricken neighborhood and the relationship she developed with her new best friend.
Oh, this book was SO GOOD. Writing this makes me want to read it again.
I boo-hoo'd like a big baby towards the end. Oh man.
Perfectly written. OH, and written as YA Literature but I don't care.
Go read it now.
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I understand that what books I enjoy is a subjective matter, and not an objective one. What I like you might hate and vice versa. Regardless, I love being taken to another world by the written words of others. It truly is a gift and one that I truly appreciate.
Have you read any of these books? Agree or disagree with my pseudo-reviews? What books have you read lately and which ones did you love (or not)?
