Hello Book, So Long Sleep...

Have you ever put a hold on a book and then forgot all about it?

You get that call

"Hey Kelly"

(well not Kelly, they probably say your name right there)

"it's the library, your book

A Head Full Of Ghosts  (<--the book you can not recall requesting)

is in for you."

I quickly pull up GR to see what the book is about and when I added it.

June 25th...of this year. Crap my memory is really going.

I have no idea how this got on my list, must be I added it after seeing a post on BL about it.  I hope it's a good one!

So I was suppose to go over this HUGE list of books and pull the ones I wanted to do this year for school.

yea...needless to say I didn't.

I have FIVE days to read thru the list and try to gather them up.

Books I know I need to get :

Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to His Children

Modern Times, by Paul Johnson

Testament of Youth

Some of Us Survived

The Napoleon of Notting Hill

The Men Behind Hitler: A German warning to the world

Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze

E=Mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation

Under the Tuscan Sun, by Frances Mayes

There are several Essays I need, but I'm sure I can get them online. (hoping!)

If anyone has read any of these on the list and absolutely HATED them please let me know.

*if you were wondering, we do our schooling with Ambleside Online. It's a Charlotte Mason approach to schooling.

I don't know what this book is even about but the cover of it has lured me into adding it to my WTR list.

(after looking it up more)

It's a twisted Historical Thriller? hmmm...

I've been on Vacation for three weeks. (and yes that picture really is me!)

I've been in NY visiting my mom & dad & siblings.

this is us taking a selfie. I'm the crazy one in the middle

So what did we do for three weeks....

we played cards

We geocached.

(this is what it looks like when you geocache with short people)

We visited Presque Isle where I rode a surrey for the first time.

If you've never done this you really need to. Just don't try to bike 7 miles in and hour, because that sucks!

Here's what a surrey is.

and we camped!

I had a great time and I love spending time with them.

but I'm also happy to be back home, in my tiny house in the south.

These books were waiting for me at the library:

Armada - by Ernest Clines

A Darker Shade Of Magic - by Victoria Schwab

and next month's book club book -  The Book Thief.

So be on the look out for those reviews.

Also started binge watching Gu Family Book.

p.s.

I've lost my sunglasses some where and it's making me sad that I have to actually shop for a new pair.

Emma Watson & Tom Hanks will play in the movie adaption of this book.

Read more Here.

So it seems that my reading has definitely taken a backseat. Between doing end of year testing, getting the pool ready and getting ready for vacation I can't find time to get all wrapped up in a book.

BUT, I have found time (between 11pm - 2 am) to finish up a Korean drama I started months ago.

Fated To Love You.  While I thought it was okay, there were several parts that made me laugh out loud. Especially the “sex scenes” Which were really comical.  One had the two actors pounding Rice, with the actress blushing and giggling

the other was Rice & Barley game where they try to catch each other’s fists in their hands. I know you can’t imagine it, but it really was well done. (still laughing over it)

On to the books..

These Broken Stars by Kaufman & Spooner

I don’t know why I couldn’t get into it the first time I tried reading it, but this time I started reading and it just clicked.

Things I did like : the book is sci-fi, the interview pages and Tarver.

I’m not sure I’m gonna jump right into the next book, but I’ll read it eventually.

I’m giving this one 3 stars.

Now let’s talk about Andy Weir’s The Martian.

Why did it take me so long to read this one?? It pretty much had me from the very first line

“I’m pretty much fucked.”

I loved it. I was really worried it was going to be a lot of technical jargon that was going to go way over my blonde little head,

but ah ha! It didn’t and it was so well done.

“The problem was exhaling. Do you know how much oxygen you absorb out of the air when you take a normal breath? I don’t know either, but it’s not 100 percent.”

So many quotes that I liked! I may have to buy my own copy so I can highlight the crap out of it.

“Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshipped.”

“I’ve looted that poor Hab for everything it could give me, and in return it’s kept me alive for a year and a half. It’s like the Giving Tree.”

(show spoiler)

I can’t wait to see this one on film! I'm giving this one 4 1/2 stars.

Anyone watching SUITS? Last night I watched the last episode in season 4 and all I can say is Really Harvey? That's all you got?

I'll let you guys know when I finish up the next K-drama: Secret Garden

I actually finished this one up a week ago. I just don't have a lot to say about it..

I felt myself being pulled into the story, but then the thing

in my opinion Winter Garden Was a better book.

Let's talk about the cover photo. yes, he's cute, but what gets me is his belly button. yes you heard me right. Belly Button. Look at it. That's not normal is it? I mean, it's way up near his rib cage. 

Every time I pick the book up to read it that's what my eyes are drawn to. The belly button hiding in the letter "H". Waving at me.....

Creepy.

This book is too good. Not as in -  it was the best book I've ever read. - no. I mean , everything went a little "too good" to believe, which means I just couldn't stop shaking my head and saying "oh come on!"

yes we all want this perfect thing to happen, but you can't write a book where the guy (who had a girl he slept with at every airport basically) suddenly fall in love with a girl at first site. Then on top of that, we're suppose to believe he WANTS her to become pregnant at their first encounter.

Really? this sounds totally F'ed up. I want to believe it...I really do. Cole is a cutie. 

but I'm just not buying it.

Olivia is shy, unsure of herself one minute and then the next she's some take control chick in the bedroom, even tho she was a virgin..believable? Umm..No.

AND there was one spot in the book I think I actually talked out loud. something like

"yea, I don't 'effin think so."

Cole was informing Olivia that they were going to have sex, even if she did have her period.

"I won't forget it, and you are having sex with me. Right now."

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm a raving lunatic when I have mine and some guy telling me , no worries It's all good we're gonna do it, would probably push me over the edge. And not in a "yes yes right there" edge. you know what I mean?

I'm not sure if I'll read any more by this author. Is it bad that I'm giving this such a low rating because it was painted up too good. there was no story because every thing just worked out. 

I love Sherrilyn Kenyon so I can not believe I've abandoned this book at 149 pages in.

maybe I'll try again next year.

What did I just read?

I didn't even like the water color illustrations (sorry fans).

It's basically Lord of the Flies meets Alice in Wonderland meets The Borrows.

I would have given it a higher rating if the story made any sense, any!

Like... is Aurora really the little girl lying dead in the woods.

Is the woodsman a killer?

If you've read this I'd like your take on it.

More images:

Here  and Here

Things I immediately liked

 The book cover illustration by Julianna Swaney . it draws you like a fairy tale, which this is not.

The uneven pages of the book. I know some people hate this, but to me it fits this story. Like an old journal from the past kinda feel.

The beginning of the story had this old time movie feel. Like an old black & white show that I just happened to catch on TV.  Peggy walking with her father, the doll she carried. 

The story was pretty much the same thing, page after page. Their survival.

Checking traps

preparing food

arranging shelter

almost starving,

*repeat

it wasn't until page 195 that something new was introduced. 

"But as I drew closer, under the wintereye, I saw footprints."

 

"The boots I had seen go past were not my father's." pg 223

 

Overall this book was slow moving.

if you're thinking about reading this here's what you should know:

•  you will read the word "breathe" many many times. so just be prepared.

 you will "HATE..hate, hate , double hate . Loathe entirely..." Carol.

• (every time I read the name Carol I get this image of "Carol" from The Walking dead.)
• Think to yourself - "What the F*ck, really? F*ck this book."

then you'll tell yourself you're gonna put it down because it's so frustrating because Emma's thought process is stupid.  Then Evan will turn up on the page and before you know it you'll be smiling and reading way past your bedtime because you've told yourself..."just one more page . I have to see if Emma smarten ups."

I'm not saying this book is great. It's not. But it had something that made me keep reading and put the next book on hold.

   ...oh yea, about that. If you're gonna read this one, you're gonna need to put the next book, Barely Breathing, on hold too.

Things that didn't make sense to me:

on to the next book....

So disappointing. The pacing was wrong off. It felt like she took her time all through the book (her younger years) then decided to hurry the story along the last 50 pages. Is this book suppose to have one that follows it?

I saw some complaints from readers saying the rape was explicit. I didn't think so. 

I just saw the new teaser trailer for Star Wars.

I got Goose-bumps! and yes I got tears in my eyes.

I was born in 72 and I have to tell you this teaser just brought the whole "first time I ever saw Star Wars" feeling back to me.

I CAN NOT WAIT!

if you haven't seen the trailer check it out HERE.

I couldn't like this book. I really did try.

I disliked Marilyn, Lydia's mom. I saw what was happening and I just wanted to smack her.  How do you totally ignore your youngest child,  put the nursery up in the attic??

I understand the need to be something different, not like your mother, but to destroy your own daughter by pushing your dreams on her. Just sad.

She just couldn't see that her daughter needed love and acceptance, not to be different.

"Everything that she wanted for Lydia, which Lydia had never wanted but had embraced anyway. A dull chill creeps over her. Perhaps-- and this thought chokes her-- that had dragged Lydia underwater at last."

 

"It had not been science that Lydia had loved."

 

"All their lives Nath understood, better than anyone, the lexicon of their family, the things they could never truly explain to outsiders: that a book or a dress meant more than something to read or something to wear; that attention came with expectations that -- like snow -- drifted and settled and crushed you with their weight."

Which was funny because all her father wanted her/them to be is "not different" to be "normal" to blend in. Do what everyone else was doing.

I'm not even going to pretend I understood Nath.

Hannah - so sad. A child that is totally ignored.

"All her life, Hannah had hovered at a distance from her brother and sister, and Lydia and Nath had tacitly tolerated their small, awkward moon."