I love all the book recommendations I have gotten from this link-up! Thanks Steph and Jana for hosting! It has kept my library hold list full. I pulled a quote(s) for all of my reads this month, it was fun! I tried to tag quotes as I read, but sometimes I would forget to actively keep that in mind. The descriptions are pulled from Goodreads to make it a little easier to relate to my reviews, and to give you an idea of what the book is about. The top title is linked to Amazon and the book cover is linked to Goodreads.
Yes, Please! by Amy Poehler
In Amy Poehler’s highly anticipated first book, Yes Please, she offers up a big juicy stew of personal stories, funny bits on sex and love and friendship and parenthood and real life advice (some useful, some not so much), like when to be funny and when to be serious. Powered by Amy’s charming and hilarious, biting yet wise voice, Yes Please is a book is full of words to live by. -Goodreads
Like most of what blogland already knows, what’s not to love. She’s funny, cute, positive, and writes in a no bs voice. I could see her sitting up at night, writing thoughts down to form this book. It came across more honest, maybe a bit less buttoned up than BossyPants. It read very easily, and made me like her that much more. I loved that she included little bits about the Parks & Rec crew. One thing that struck me as funny is how Poehler’s description of Aubrey Plaza sounds so close to the of character of April that she plays on Parks & Rec. I could totally see April dressing up as an alien to greet Leslie to cheer her up. It’s a great book, maybe a bit rambly, but that is part of it’s charm.
“Good for her! Not for me.”
I realize that this is a well known quote from her book, but it’s just so true, it is the one that stuck with me. There of course tons of little tidbits of knowledge and quotes that come from this book to choose from. I also really loved her discussion of the “little demon living in your head”.
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Most people ignored the outrageous reports on the news. But they became too frequent, they became too real. And soon, they began happening down the street. Then the Internet died. The television and radio went silent. The phones stopped ringing. And we couldn’t look outside anymore. Malorie raises the children the only way she can; indoors. The house is quiet. The doors are locked, the curtains are closed, mattresses are nailed over the windows. They are out there. She might let them in. The children sleep in the bedroom across the hall. Soon she will have to wake them. Soon she will have to blindfold them. Today they must leave the house. Today they will risk everything. -Goodreads
I flew through this one in one night, so the story hooked me. It was an easy read and I felt like it grabbed you from the beginning. The story goes back and forth, from present to past, but flows nicely. I wish you learned a bit more about the things or what was happening with the rest of the world. Thank you Kathy, for this recommendation!
“Two worlds whose compounds were entirely foreign might cause damage to one another if they were to cross paths.”
The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes
In 1916, French artist Edouard Lefevre leaves his wife Sophie to fight at the Front. When her town falls into German hands, his portrait of Sophie stirs the heart of the local Kommandant and causes her to risk everything – her family, reputation and life – in the hope of seeing her true love one last time.
Nearly a century later and Sophie’s portrait is given to Liv by her young husband shortly before his sudden death. Its beauty speaks of their short life together, but when the painting’s dark and passion-torn history is revealed, Liv discovers that the first spark of love she has felt since she lost him is threatened… –Goodreads
This reminded me a bit of Those Who Save Us. I enjoyed this one, but I liked Me Before You better. The ending was good and the book kept me interested, but overall I was not wowed.
“I often think that the ability to earn a living by doing the things one loves must be one of life’s greatest gifts”
“Nobody listens anymore. Everyone knows what they want to hear, but nobody actually listens.”
The Gemini Effect by Chuck Grossart
A single raindrop opens a Pandora’s box when the spawn of perverse genetic research performed during World War II is unleashed on an unsuspecting modern world. By dawn, only a dead city remains, eerily quiet and still, except for mutant beasts that hide from the light, multiply, and await the shadows of night to continue their relentless advance.
Ordered to investigate the unfolding crisis, biowarfare specialist Carolyn Ridenour barely escapes the creatures’ nocturnal onslaught, saved in the nick of time by Colonel Garrett Hoffman, who lost hundreds of his troops to a swarm that neither bombs nor bullets can stop. –Goodreads
I liked the premise of the book, but the writing was blah. I hated how the Vice-President & Chief Security Advisor, two women, were portrayed. It was like they were “this close” to having a cat-fight over the president. The “romantic” relationship side of the characters were presented in a clunky manner and did not fit the story well. Poor character development overall. I wouldn’t recommend this book. This was a Kindle first book.
“We all have to know things we wish we didn’t have to these days. It was a sad thought.”
“Nature had been fucked with. And Mother was pissed”
Monday’s Lie by Jamie Mason
Dee Aldrich rebelled against her off-center upbringing when she married the most conventional man she could imagine: Patrick, her college sweetheart. But now, years later, her marriage is falling apart and she’s starting to believe that her husband has his eye on a new life… a life without her, one way or another. -Goodreads
This was a really well written book. I tagged 10 passages to use as a possible quote. I was less drawn in by the plot, but more by the words on the pages, which sounds weird. The plot was good, but it was the little bits of wisdom that were thrown in the dialogue from mother to daughter that made this book excellent. The way she expressed passages/ideas was what set this book apart for me, not the plot itself. I totally stole this book from Lauren when she mentioned currently reading it in her February book re-cap, so make sure to hop over to post and see what she thought of it too!
This first quote was from her acknowledgments, I was struck with how she expressed this:
“But it’s the reader I don’t know who is back here with me now, at the very end–the end that’s just slight after The End, who I want to thank especially. It doesn’t matter that I wrote this in my office, all through a morning that is threatening a storm that I’m now starting to doubt is ever going to do its thing. Through the art and science of words and publishing, the real now is the now of you reading this, the now of you having given this book a slice of your time, wherever and whenever you did it, and whatever the season and the weather where you are. Thank you for doing that.”
“But a story is a house, a home for something that happened. The truth lives there forever, along with its cousins, the half-truths, and also with everyone’s servants-the lies. And no house has only one door. There’s always another way in.”
“There is certainly freedom in all the things that everyone wants, all the things they tell us we should be. Who is smarter than me, who is prettier than me, faster than me, richer than me? And then my peculiar jealous question: Who is more normal than me?”
“You know what to do, my darlings. And if you don’t, do what you think you’d do if you were exactly the person you wanted to be.”
What have you been reading lately?
