Weekly Reading Thread - Week of August 3rd

I read Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes this week. It was awesome. The man is a genius. This might be one of my favorites of his, but I do love crime thrillers. He just has his finger on the pulse of human nature.

I also read The Big Tiny: A Build-it-Myself Memoir by Dee Williams. This one was the story of a woman who builds herself a tiny house. The writing wasn't stellar, but the ideas were interesting. How much/what do we really need to be happy? The value of a connection with nature. It was interesting and I'm glad I read it.

I haven't posted in a while, in the past month or so I've read:

11/23/63 by Stephen King-  I liked it, but found it a little slow to get moving.  I always wanted to finish it, and know how he wrapped it up, but I didn't love it.

When Good Friends Go Bad by Ellie Campbell-  Not bad, but not great.

The Almosts by Em Barrett-  I've read her other books with these characters and enjoyed them all.  Not the greatest books, but I enjoyed them.

The Ocean At The End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman is what I'm currently reading.  I'm about 55% of the way through and enjoying it.  My husband reads all of his stuff, and thought I'd like this one.  So far, so good!

Melanie

I really enjoy Elin Hilderbrand's books. If you like Chick Lit (or Mommy Lit), don't give up yet. Try The Castaways or Blue Bistro. Might be that I'm in love with Nantucket, but I do really like her (and Nancy Thayer's) books. Nancy Thayer also has books set on Nantucket.

I went camping this weekend and read the book "Catching Air" by Sarah Pekkanen. I really liked it and would recommend it (again chick/mommy lit) I felt it was kind of set up for a sequel- or at least I hope it is because I want to know what happens to the characters.

I started Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs tonight and I'm already 143 pages into it. I like it!

This is making me happy :-)

I finished the Help this week. I felt it ended before I wanted it to but otherwise really enjoyed it. 4/5

Also finished a Deadly Affection. I felt this was hard work but no idea why. I came back to it a few weeks later and the last quarter was easier. 3/5.

Started Wolf Hall on audiobook.

I'm so excited! I LOVE this trilogy. I always have to go back and read a summary of the previous book--so many characters and locations to keep track of. I just do not remember the details of the last one. I will probably buy this for my Nook even though it's much pricier than what I would normally pay for a book.

I recently finished The Odd Thomas series on CD. I think there is one more book coming out this December. I listened to the whole series in my car these past few months. I thought it was really good. The narrator, who voices Odd Thomas, did such a wonderful job bringing this character to life.

Now, on the recommendation of a friend, I am listening to Missing You by Harlan Coben. I'm undecided on this one so far.

In books, I just finished reading Everything Changes by Jonathan Tropper. I read This is Where I Leave You by him a few months ago and loved it so much that I wanted to read something else by him. Everything Changes was good but so dismal at times with all of the family drama. He seems to love to write about that but I thought more humor was used in This is Where I Leave You to help balance the dysfunctional family and all their drama. There was some of that in this other book, but not as much. Still, I would recommend it.

I also recently finished Before We Met by Lucie Whitehouse. I read this based on a recommendation here and really loved it. It was a good page-turner and I found it suspenseful. Psychological thrillers are probably one of my very favorite books to read and this fit the bill.

I made a couple of big boo boos recently though. I bought two books based on recommendations here. I read the summaries of each of these books and they sounded great. One of them, Rooms, after I bought it I read MULTIPLE reviews that said "If you loved The Shack, you'll love this book." I hated The Shack! Darn! For anyone who read Rooms, should I still give it a try even though I hated The Shack? The other book, Testimony by Anita Shreeve, I realized AFTER I bought it that I had read it before! I was looking forward to starting it in bed last night, I read the first page and it was like.....wait a minute.... Please tell me I'm not the only person who has ever done something so stupid!

So after that, I decided to start reading The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty because I always love her books. I was too bummed to start it last night though so I'll start that today.

I don't think I have posted in a few weeks.

I read: If I Stay, which I liked. 3/5 stars.
Top Secret Twenty-One which was a typical Stephanie Plum novel. 3/5 stars.
After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid (mentioned earlier in this thread by finaledition), which I also thought was really good. 4/5 stars.

I am waiting on Where She Went(the follow-up to If I Stay) to come in at the library.

I read two last week.

First was That Night by Chevy Stevens. It is about a girl who, along with her boyfriend, is convicted of killing her sister. The book takes place when she is getting out of prison and going home with flashbacks to when her sister was killed. I liked this one, but occasionally thought it really could not be possible for one person to have so much bad luck and all the cards stacked against them always, but maybe it could happen if someone was really determined.

And I am just about 50 pages from finishing The Maze Runner which my son recommended to me. It has been a pretty good read and I am anxious to see how it ends.

I've been reading a lot of heavier things so I thought I would try some light stuff. I found the Kingdom series by Marie Hall. The books are set in a place called Kingdom that includes places we know from fairy tales. A fairy is given the task of finding mates for the bad boys of fairy tales. Each book is a bout on of the bad boys. So far I've read Her Mad Hatter, Gerard's Beauty and Red and Her Wolf. They are light, a bit corny and an easy, quick read. I enjoyed them.

I also read the short story Old Girls In Low Cotton by Helen Childress. I liked it, but for me it seemed to end abruptly.

I'm currently reading The Giver by Lois Lowry. I'm more than half way through and I really don't want to put it down at this point.

Next on the list, since I'll finish The Giver today, is Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy. It's the story of one of only 12 children that survive the Lodz ghetto in Poland to the end of the war and liberation.

I'm about half way through The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan. Liking it - but then I've liked all her previous books so it wasn't too much of a gamble.

I have a stack of books 3 feet high that I've picked up over the last 12 months, and am having a hard time getting to them. I don't know what I'm doing wrong lately, I used to have time to read a lot but now I'm lucky to get through a chapter every 2 - 3 days. It's annoying me.

I read Always Watching and Never Knowing both by Chevy Stevens. I loved her first book Still Missing and read both of these pretty quick. I thought they were both good thrillers without making me scared to go to bed.

I just finished My Name Is Resolute by Nancy E. Turner. It was recommended here and I can't thank you enough! It is a long book, but I loved all the details about our country in the 1700's. Amazing stuff - especially if you love American History! I never read These Is My Words - I'm saving it for my cruise in 3 weeks.

I read Red Hill by Jamie McGuire, which a Pea mentioned last week. It was okay, not great, but I was interested in reading a zombie story written by a woman. It had a different kind of perspective I appreciated. The Kindle version had some really egregious spelling/grammar errors, though.

We are on the same reading track! I read My Name is Resolute two weeks ago. I loved the story, but it was long.

And I finished Chevy Stevens's new book this past week. I have read all her books and really enjoy them!

I finished The Book Thief (audio) last week. I was so sad to finish it! I was expecting it to be longer and was caught off guard when it ended. I want to actually read it instead of listening - such a good book!

I started If I Stay last night. Only a few pages in but liking it so far.