October 16-22nd Wrap- Up

Current TBR List: 16
Currently Reading: 10
Books Finished in October: 12

I really need to get my “currently reading” books under control… I was able to finish four books this past week though! So that does help out. I started three more though so…

First book I finished this week was Skin Tight by Carl Hiaasen. This was my first book from the author and I really enjoyed it! My twin, @thesexylibrarian over on Instagram, let me borrow/recommended Skinny Dip which is the second book in the series so, of course, I had to get ahold of the first one first!

Mick Stranahan is a former Florida state investigator, beating up a judge, even if he was crooked, did not lead him to be a popular man. There is very little shock when a man shows up to try to kill Mick, he just wants to know the reason why, and fix the bill on his stuffed Marlin head. As he starts investigating the hit man his growing list of enemies continues to rise as well as the body count of people associated with him.

Mick’s character is a little overboard eccentric but the other characters love him and you can’t help but love him too. This story is packed full of bumbling villains and heroes, reality TV stars, crooked politicians and hack job plastic surgeons. I can’t wait for book two!

I then listened to 13 Bullets by David Wellington. I LOVED this cover. It just had terror all over it. I was unfortunately not as impressed with the book itself. I am not sure if it was the audio experience or the writing itself but it was hard for me to like the characters, Arkeley in particular.

State trooper Caxton runs into a nightmare when she is doing a sobriety check and runs into a half dead, the creation of a vampire, but vampires should be extinct. Arkeley is assigned to help Caxton and her small town. Why are the vampires so interested in Caxton, why is Arkeley so interested in Caxton. The ending was a bit of a twist and I was interested to see where the plot was going. I think I will pick up book two to see if it can redeem some of the issues in the first book.

The French Girl by Lexie Elliott. Expected publication date February 20^th, 2018. A free e-book form First to Read in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book! A decade after a French girl goes missing she is found, in a filled in well, throwing the group of 6 friends back into the limelight of the investigation. Kate is being haunted by the French girl next door, Severine. What really happened that night? With political pressure opening up the cold case and tension and old hurts pulling apart the once close-knit group secrets are coming to light.

I felt constantly behind in the story. Which is a good thing. Who is who, who did what, what changed that night, what happened before that fateful trip? This was a slow build story but the tension was palpable throughout and kept you frustrated and wanting to know what happened that last night?

I then listened to Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff. This book did not get off to a great start for me. I was a bit bored and was wondering if maybe I should just stop listening and get back to it at another time. Then the plot really starting picking up and I was hooked. I ended up really enjoying this story. Hannah’s best friend died, slowly, right in front of everyone. Lillian now haunts Hannah. The worst pieces of her, the skeletal angry girl right before her slow death from self-starvation. Lillian is not the only young girl to die recently though and not the only one to haunt Hannah. These other girls though were murdered. As the entire city is in turmoil Hannah is fighting to find her place. Who is she now that Lillian is gone? Who is she now as she can’t stop thinking of Finny Boone, the delinquent that once rubbed her face in hard snow. This was a beautiful story and a great mystery with some paranormal haunting involved.  

Instagram: @shelf.loving

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/shelfloving

October 9-15th Wrap- Up

Current TBR List: 17
Currently Reading: 10
Books Finished in October: 8

I have severe book commitment issues. My goal in October is to get my currently reading books down to 4. We will see…

I am in a bit of a reading slump. So much so that I am running out of time on borrowed items and having to return them before I am done reading. So a couple of my currently readings are on hold until I can borrow a copy again.

I was able to finish three books this past week though!

First I finished The Coldest Girl in Cold Town by Holly Black. I listened to the audio and really enjoyed it. I am not sure if reading it would have been a different experience but I thought the audio went by quickly and it kept me entertained. I did get confused in the world a bit. Cold Town I thought was a bad place and people didn’t want to end up there but I guess with any town some people want to leave and some people want to enter. I thought it was interesting how the current state of the world occurred and I can see this scenario playing out in today’s world as so many people are not aware or do not fully appreciate the extent of consequences that come from their actions. Worth the read (or listen)!

I then read/listened to The Reader by Bernhard Schlink. I LOVED this book. I can’t fully explain why but I do. I borrowed this from a friend so I have added it to my growing list of “books already read that must be purchased”. I loved how the author humanized these characters. I was very uncomfortable with the relationship at the start but you grow to appreciate the characters and what they went through in their various life stages. I used this for my Romance category for Battle Boards

I also read/listed to Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. This was a book I selected back for one on my July categories and it also fits Pennsylvania for the Road Trip Challenge! I enjoyed this story. It is about the Yellow Fever epidemic that hit Pennsylvania and killed thousands of people. The city became isolated as the death toll rose and neighboring towns didn’t want potentially people to spread the disease. The story follows a young girl on the brink of being a woman and shows the crisis that came from the town being cut off from their resources. I used this for my Literature and Fiction category on Battle Boards

Instagram: @shelf.loving

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/shelfloving

October 1-8th Wrap- Up

October 1-8^th Wrap- Up

Current TBR List: 21
Currently Reading: 8
Books Finished in October: 5

So true to form. My TBR list has already changed. I feel like I am in a huge reading slump even though I am getting books done I am not deriving as much pleasure from them which is sad…I am hoping this is just because work is about to get super busy and stressful.

To start off the month I read Classic Ghost Stories edited by Molly Cooper. I read this for the @thecharmedbookclub bingo challenge over on Instagram. I enjoyed these short stories written by classic authors. Each story started with a brief intro on the author and how that specific piece came to be. I can see where these stories have built into our modern day tropes.

I also enjoyed the illustrations that went with the stories. I think they aligned well with the main point and conveyed the haunted image well.

With all anthologies though I had favorites and least favorites but overall this was a solid 3 star read for me.

I was then able to finish Don’t Let Go by Harlan Coben. This was a free e-book in exchange for an honest review. It was an okay book for me. I liked the overall plot but the execution was a little off on my personal taste. Detective Napolean “Nap” Dumas lost his twin brother one fateful evening in High School. He has forever been changed by that event. To make matters even worse, the one person that might know something has disappeared, until her fingerprints show up. As the body count starts ticking up again 15 years later the conspiracy theories start looking more like fact. What I didn’t like was that Nap talks and narrates to his dead brother. “Leo did you see that, Leo you liked that remember, Leo she used to do this, etc”.

I think I will try another of Harlan Coben’s novels since I did enjoy the overall story he told. I was able to use this to satisfy my first Road Trip square for “New Jersey” as well as my Mystery/Thriller category for the playoff rounds (both of these are @thecharmedbookclub challenges!)

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak was my next read. I used it for the Young Adult category on the battle boards!

I can see why this is marked as young adult and why a lot of readers loved this book. I personally loved The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah more but that was more adult and I was better able to connect to the characters. That being said, The Book Thief was a really good book. I liked that it was told from Death’s perspective and followed Liesel almost exclusively. The side stories into the other characters were a nice touch. This is a story about a young foster girl living outside of Munich. It starts before Hitler was fully in power through to the end of his terrorist reign. It shows that the hews suffered but so did German citizens that dared to stand up for basic human rights. I think I loved Liesel’s foster father, Hans Hubermann, more than I loved her character.

Liesel loses her brother on her way to her foster family. As he is being buried she finds a book in the snow, The Gravedigger’s Handbook. As her nightmares grow Hans Huberman steps in and teaches her how to read from this book. As the war progresses and resources grow ever more scarce Liesel still manages to steal other books or are gifted them on special occasions. As she learns to read she shares them with her neighbors during bombing raids and the Jewish man hidden in her basement. I loved the importance that is placed on books and how they can keep light even in the darkest places. Books saved these people just as they saved me. It was very emotional read.

More creepy books for October, I listened to the audio book for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This is a classic for a reason and I loved it as much as I did the first time I read it. I love the idea that multiple personalities can live in one body and not only distort the mind they inhabit but the physical appearance as well. Dr. Jekyll is a strong tall man and his twisted counterpart is small in stature. This is such a short story I would have loved for it to be longer but I guess it would have lost a lot of its appeal?

To finish the week I finished another bingo book, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. I absolutely loved this book and have no idea why it took me so long to get around to reading it. Merricat lives on an estate with her sister Constance, Uncle Julian and cat Jonas. They live very secluded lives after her sister is acquitted of murdering her entire family using arsenic laced sugar. They are content in their isolation until their Cousin Charles arrives. Merricat will do anything to keep her sister safe from the threat she sees in him.

This book is short but packed with horror. Read it slowly, carefully. Look at what the characters do and say. I can see why some people do not find it eerie if they do not pay attention to the little details.

October TBR

I am so excited for this October! I am participating in the Charmed Book Club challenged, check out Instagram @thecharmedbookclub and see #charmedreadersbewarebingo 

I will also try to participate in @booksandlala #spookathon challenge. I will be posting pictures when I can and trying to meet all the categories during the reading week!

Instagram: @shelf.loving

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/shelfloving

September Wrap-Up

What a great month! I was able to read (and listen to) a lot of books and I also amassed a lot of books! I got a ton of great books for my birthday and treated myself to just a few as well! I cannot wait to see where they will fall into my upcoming TBR.

For this month’s wrap up **check out previous posts for more information on previous weeks.** otherwise scroll to the bottom for a table view of the complete month.

This last week I was able to finish a lot of books mainly due to most of them being started earlier in the month,  I only managed to start one book this week and it was a little novella that I read in twenty minutes over lunch.

 I finally finished Fox by Kelly Oliver. I received a free e-book copy of this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I really wanted to like this story. I really like the kick off. It fell flat for me though. I am not sure if it’s because you need to read it as part of a series (this would be the third book). Or if it was really just not that good. Jessica James wakes up naked behind a dumpster with severe pelvic pain. She thinks she has been raped and decides she doesn’t want to report it because it just too embarrassing for her… yeah, already losing me. In the end though, she does end up at the hospital and reports what she knows. She had drinks with a cute guy in scrubs and woke up behind the dumpster. The hospital lets her know she wasn’t raped and sends her on her way with ominous notes about how she had surgery recently. Again, the story loses me. A girl walks in thinking she is raped, she isn’t, you hint at surgery but don’t explain what type you think she had even though she adamantly refuses that any surgery has taken place in anytime during her life…It was hard to get my interest back after that and it was overly obvious what was happening and who was doing what or not doing what. Maybe start with the first book and see if you like it?

 Then I finally finished Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore. This was another free e-book copy in exchange for an honest review. I will let you I liked this one much more. The cover illustrations are as unique as the story. I will say though, I did get bored with it after a while and the only thing that kept me going was the romance between Death aka Suzie and Milo.

Milo is nearing his 10K life. He is one of the oldest souls and he argues the most wise as well. If he is so wise, and had so many chances to reach perfection, why does he keep failing? I really enjoyed how uniquely this story was told. We experience some of Milo’s lives in chapter form while others are limited to brief sentences. Some are “normal” existences while others are amazing and far reaching. Some stories were relatable and others too odd/weird/other worldy to even consider trying to rate/explain. If the story was a bit shorter I think I would have rated it higher but it did get to be much of the same towards the end.

Catching up on book club reads I finally re-read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I really enjoyed this as a re-read especially after going through and reading the comments that this book generates. It made me giggle that some people read it almost as a self-help book versus the business book it was meant to be.

Knowing the age of this book, it is starting to show unfortunately. As Google celebrates its 19^th year in business it just shows gaping holes missing from this text when it comes to the Internet and social media. It would be nice to see someone from the foundation or another respected business guru step in and make some edits and inclusions to allow for the modern day happenings.

A random selection using Libby by Overdrive I listened to Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris. Honestly, I don’t know what kept me from sleeping more, It by Stephen King or this read. My wonderful friend Michelle received a copy of this as an ARC a while back and was honestly creeped out when the publisher sent a follow up note written as a woman trapped in her hotel room. Great marketing I tell you! This is totally worth the read and or listen. I might even just have to go buy myself a physical copy so I can stare at it horrified…

As mentioned, I was also reading It by Stephen King and was able to finish that as well. The book club was reading this (them for the first time, me as a re-read) so that we could do a girls day to see the movie together on the 28^th. I believe I was 10, maybe 11, the first time I read this book. It took me 17 years to read it again. The scene with the sink bubbling out blood, yup, still creepy as all heck. I loved it the second time around but found the same problems as I did when I was younger. There are a lot of rambling on that could have been whittled down a bit and not lost the building dread and the ending was hugely disappointing. King does such a fantastic job with building his stories but I often feel like he gives up on the endings, or doesn’t have a firm vision on where he wants the endings to go. He is still the master of horror for me though and I still highly recommend this book. Maybe not to a 10 year old though…King is pretty messed up and does love his racial slurs as well as graphic sexual scenes that can be perverted or violent at times.

Then to save my sanity and be able to sleep at night… I read Dataclysm by Christian Rudder. This was the nonfiction pick for the Charmed Book Club. This was an interesting read. As a woman over the age of 22 the first two chapters were very brutal and aggressive to get through. Look at the source though, a male that started an online dating site. It was all true, data driven analysis but didn’t make it any easier to read. Rudder relies heavily on his research from his own dating site so you need to take that into account. It got a little old towards the end how heavily it was relied on, his exclusive access to OKCupid data. I like psychology though and it was an interesting peak and jumping off point for research. Worth the read but don’t get heavily invested in everything he says, its one opinion based heavily on one source pool.

I also sneaked in another graphic novel, Avatar the Last Airbender Vol 1 by Michael Dante DiMartino, Shopaholic on Honeymoon by Sophie Kinsella and finally managed to finish Requiem for A Dream by Hubert Selby Jr.

Avatar was cute and reminded me of the TV show. I did borrow up to volume three from the library but not too sure I am interested enough anymore to read them. It wasn’t bad, I just think it fell outside my current interest zone.

This was a short novella and super cute. I just love her voice in these stories!

Requiem for a Dream, I have no idea why it took me so long to read. This was part of October 2016 challenge… Yeah, I was a year behind on my reading challenges. This book just kept getting pushed down but I am so happy I finally read it! I have a love hate relationship with the movie. I watched it several years ago for the first time and it freaked me out. The different, interconnected story lines were beautifully woven together and showed many paths addiction can take. I think the movie is a must watch and book must read for those entering high school and adulthood in general. It was very emotional and eye opening.

Final recap below:

Source	Format	Title	Author
B	A	When the Bough Breaks	Jonathan Kellerman
BT	E	Loud Music	Gloria Geiger
B	A	The Sun is Also a Star	Nicola Yoon
B	A	The Lightning Thief	Rick Riordan
F2R	E	Spellbook of the Lost and Found	Moira Fowley-Doyle
P	A	The Count of Monte Cristo	Alexandre Dumas
B	P	Bakuman Vol 1	Tsugumi Ohba
B	P	Bakuman Vol 2	Tsugumi Ohba
P	P	Rogue Lawyer	John Grisham
P	P	Inferno	Dan Brown
GR	P	The Show-off Monkey and Other Taoist Tales	Mark W McGinnis
B	P	Bakuman Vol 3	Tsugumi Ohba
F2R	E	How to Find Love in a Bookshop	Veronica Henry
P	P	The Tea Planter's Wife	Dinah Jeffries
B	A	Partners	John Grisham
B	E	Fifty Shades Freed	E. L. James
P	P	The Zookeeper’s Wife	Diane Ackerman
B	P	Coraline	Neil Gaiman
NG	E	Fox	Kelly Oliver
F2R	E	Reincarnation Blues	Michael Poore
P	P	How to Win Friends and Influence People	Dale Carnegie
B	A	Behind Closed Doors	B.A. Paris
A	E	Shopaholic on Honeymoon	Sophie Kinsella
P	P	It	Stephen King
B	E	Dataclysm	Christian Rudder
B	P	Avatar	Michael Dante DiMartino

I am so excited for October and all the fun challenges hosted by @thetallented who is running @thecharmedbookclub on Instagram. This lady comes up with the best challenges!

Source:
A = Amazon Top 100 Free
B = Borrowed/Library
BT = Book Tour – Honest Review
F2R = First to Read (Penguin) – Honest Review
G = GoodReads – Honest Review
NG = NetGalley – Honest Review
P = Purchased

Format:
A = Audio
E = E-book
P = Physical

Instagram: @shelf.loving

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/shelfloving