Great day at Barnes and Noble!

Yesterday was my designated "sleep in day." I had been planning it for two weeks. I just wanted to SLEEP until I couldn't sleep anymore. I woke up at my usual time of 5:30am, but was able to fall back asleep a few hours at a time until 11. At 11 I woke up, drank some coffee, and then sat down to work on my progress reports for work. After about 3 hours of that, I got sucked into my speech therapy blog addiction. I follow about 3 religiously. ALL I did for the rest of the day until like 12pm that night was get therapy activities online, print, cut, and laminate them. I seriously almost had to call intervention was how bad it got. Anyway, I started planning my therapy for my Tuesday preschool class and I decided to do the book The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything. I was too late to get it at the library for the season so I placed an order for my local Barnes and Noble. It's a super good perk that the bookstore has if you ever want to reserve a book for pick up. So, today I go into Barnes and Noble to pick up my ONE book and I left with 5. The woman at the counter introduced me to the Educator's Card which entitles you to 20% off all educational purchases! She also told me that today was the last day of Educator Appreciation Week and that it would apply to personal books as well. I was PUMPED. I ran around the store trying to find other books that I wanted. I had been looking to buy Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberly a few weeks ago (super cute for Pre-K), but I bought that on my iPad yesterday.... It's awesome on the iPad. It comes with a song version! So, I found Where is Baby's Pumpkin? by Karen Katz. It's a great book for  working on basic concepts (under, behind, inside etc). I hammer basic concepts into my preschoolers so I thought this was a great book!! Can't wait to use it this week in therapy.

THEN, I found this section that was BUY TWO GET ONE FREE. I was so excited. Remember my post about When She Woke? The futuristic Scarlet Letter by Hillary Jordan? Well I picked up another book of hers called Mudbound which is apparently better than When She Woke. It has been on my list for a while. I also picked up Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, the author of Gone Girl. I can't wait to read this one. It's a short one (only about 250 pages) which is great. I keep reading really long books. And the last one I picked up is called The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow. I hadn't heard of this book until today, but it looks pretty good. Soo, I just added these three to my never ending collection of books that I have to read. I probably have 30 books on my shelf that I just HAVE TO BUY and then it takes me year to read them.... but I just love buying books. I think I need intensive therapy for my book buying and speech therapy blog addiction. Buy hey, I guess it's better than crack....

Here's a pick of my awesome buys today:

 

Anyone pick up any good books recently?

City of Thieves

So the first quarter of the new school year is over at my new job. I am loving my new district and my kids. This job is much more demanding than my last job, so I am sleeping less and working more. My part time job is keeping me busy, too. I get home at 7pm 4 days a week and am literally falling asleep on the couch by 9:30. So lame, I know. So I am getting through books I am actually reading pretty slowly, but I'm still listening to audiobooks quickly because I am in the car so much. This next book actually helped me to get in the car earlier each day before work because I couldn't wait to hear what was going to happen next.

Based during the siege of Leningrad, David Benioff, the author, takes us on a week long adventure with two unforgettable characters. Lev, the story's 17 year old insecure and virginal narrator, comes across a dead German body in his hometown of Leningrad. The army catches him looting the dead German's belongings and arrests him. While in jail he meets Kolya, a 20 year old deserter of the Russian army. Kolya is a romantic, mysterious, and confident womanizer. The unlikely pair form a bond as they are forced to find a dozen eggs for a Russian general in time for his daughter's wedding in exchange for their lives. 

Throughout the mission, Lev and Kolya discover the devastation that the war has brought to Leningrad. They find rooms draped with human body parts, homes inhabited by Russian girls living as German sex slaves, and they endure brutal cold and intense hunger. I literally wanted to close my eyes during the brutal and gruesome descriptions of what the Russian girls lived through. I gasped out loud as I learned what these German soldiers were capable of.

On the surface this story appeared to be a serious novel, however, it was one of the funniest books I have read in a while. Kolya's accounts of his past sexual encounters left me laughing out loud. Lev's reactions to Kolya's endless stories were hilarious. Because he was a horny virgin, Lev was furious with Kolya. He was jealous of Kolya's vast experience. The relationship between Lev and Kolya was what made the book the most memorable for me. Now that the book is over, I find myself missing Kolya.

For those of you you enjoy historical fiction, sexual humor, and adventure this is a book for you. Men and women alike will be sucked into this fast paced story.

Lone Wolf

 

A few years ago I swore off Jodi Picoult. I loved My Sister's Keeper, Nineteen Minutes, and Plain Truth. After those I started to think they were all the same. Her writing was always the same. But, somehow I was in the library and picked this up on audiobook. I thought I would give her another chance to wow me. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, I was let down. I finished the book thinking SO WHAT?? This book is based upon the controversial topic of whether or not to take loved ones off of life support if there is little to no chance of life without machines. Basically, take that topic and put it into every other Picoult book.Not to say this topic is not interesting, but her books are just not the page turners they once were for me. I'm obviously not the best person to review a Picoult book because I have a bias, so here's her synopsis from her website if you are a Picoult fan:

Edward Warren, 23, has been living in Thailand for five years, a prodigal son who left his family after an irreparable fight with his father, Luke. But he gets a frantic phone call: His dad lies comatose in a NH hospital, gravely injured in the same accident that has also injured his younger sister Cara.

Cara, 17, still holds a grudge against her brother, since his departure led to her parents’ divorce. In the aftermath, she’s lived with her father – an animal conservationist who became famous after living with a wild wolf pack in the Canadian wild. It is impossible for her to reconcile the still, broken man in the hospital bed with her vibrant, dynamic father.

With Luke’s chances for recovery dwindling, Cara wants to wait for a miracle. But Edward wants to terminate life support and donate his father’s organs. Is he motivated by altruism, or revenge? And to what lengths will his sister go to stop him from making an irrevocable decision?

LONE WOLF looks at the intersection between medical science and moral choices. If we can keep people who have no hope for recovery alive artificially, should they also be allowed to die artificially? Does the potential to save someone else’s life with a donated organ balance the act of hastening another’s death? And finally, when a father’s life hangs in the balance, which sibling should get to decide his fate? 

http://jodipicoult.com/lone-wolf.html

-Jacqueline

 Are you on Goodreads yet? Check out more books I've read at this awesome site!! :)

Gone Girl

 

If you are a reader and haven't heard of this book, you have been living under a rock. It's currently #5 on the New York Times bestseller list. I bet it would be higher if it weren't for Fifty Shades. I'd never heard of Gillian Flynn prior to hearing about this book, but after reading this one I think I am going to check out her other books.

 This is not your typical husband allegedly slaughters wife mystery. It's a fast paced psychological thriller with haunting characters. I still find myself cursing the culprit..and being grateful for my normal life. Amy and Nick Dunne are seemingly normal on the surface, but underneath they are both complete psychopaths which is what makes the book different from other mysteries. 

I recommend not reading many reviews before checking this book out. You don't want to know anything before you pick it up. It makes it much more fun. All you need to know is that this book is exciting, full of plot, and will not disappoint you.

Bed

 

Malcom, or Mal, is over half a ton. He is the fattest man in England. He went to bed on his 25th birthday, never to arise again. This is the novel equivalent of the TLC special "The Half Ton Teen" or "Half Ton Man." 

Mal grew up as a fairly popular boy and teen. Girls liked him, his brother envied him, but he was eccentric. He began taking his clothes off in public, walking around naked never providing a reason  why. Mal's mother is a woman who only knows how to care for others. She is the type that cannot function if she is not doting on another person, doing everything for them. She enabled Mal to become the size of a whale. Mal's father, distant and full of regret, hides away in the attic working on various projects trying to overcome his demons. Mal's brother, the narrator of the story, falls in love with Mal's girlfriend and is often forgotten about. Even as I am writing this I cannot think of his name off the top of my head.

A dysfunctional family saga, "Bed" chronicles Mal's and his brother's childhood leading up to the day the family home must be opened with a crane to finally remove Mal after 20 years. 

David Whitehouse attempts to write with humor; however, I did not find this to be a comical story. I found it depressing, yet real. The family dynamic is one that is often seen throughout America; the Black Sheep, the enabling parent, the distant non involved parent, and the forgotten about "decent" child. 

 I was often horrified by this book just as I am when I watch Hoarders on TV. How can someone feed their son to be over 1,000 pounds? How can two other family members allow it to go on for over 20 years? How can this happen in real life?? This book is a complete train wreck, and I am still not completely sure about my thoughts of it. I recommend it because it is so different, but also do not recommend it because it left me feeling sickened.

Read at your own risk.

The Litigators by John Grisham

 

The school year is officially underway. So far, I have not stopped reading. I hope that I can keep it this way. I have a few books that have been on my list because they were on my grandmother's kindle when she passed away. If I read a book that she read close to her death, I somehow feel closer to her. Her favorite author was John Grisham and this was on her kindle. I knew I wouldn't be able to get to it my huge "to-read" list anytime soon, so I decided to pick it up at the library on an audiobook.

The story was entertaining, but not memorizing like past John Grisham novels have been for me. Every other Grisham book has kept me up all hours of the night. The plot was fairly "ho hum." The storyline is about two sleazy lawyers (Findley and Figg) and their small practice. They chase after ambulances to try and get clients and advertise on bingo chips. A big firm lawyer, David Zink, leaves his old demanding job behind to work at the small firm of Findley and Figg. Wally Figg chooses to go after a big drug company because one of its cholesterol drugs supposedly causes heart problems. This case is the premise of the story. The book is marketed as a legal thriller, however, I didn't find anything thrilling about it. Never once was I on the edge of my seat to find out what was going to happen next. I would simply call this a predictable novel based on a boring law suit. Not John Grisham's best. I look forward to "legal thrillers" for big court room scenes. There was a courtroom scene in this one, but it was only a fraction of the story and I knew the outcome before I even heard the verdict.

Maybe I didn't LOVE it because I was not really interested in what the case was about....A cholesterol drug case didn't really do it for me. There was a side case that David Zink pursued about a little boy living with permanent brain damage due to lead poisoning. In my opinion, there could have been an entire book written on that story. I kept wanting to hear more about how David was going to get money out of the toy company for the family. 

For anyone wanting to read a good legal thriller, this is not the book for you.

Girls in White Dresses

 

While perusing Barnes and Noble one day, I read the back of this book. The synopsis reads as follows: "Wickedly funny and utterly recognizable, Girls in White Dresses tells the story of three women grappling with heartbreak and career change, family pressure and new love--all while suffering through an endless round of weddings and bridal showers." So I thought, hmm, this sounds like a book I could relate to. 

Erin picked it for our book club. It was on her "to-read" list also. I was excited to have a "girly" book for a change. I hadn't read many of those this summer. I just have to say it. This book was MISERABLE. I wouldn't even call it a book. It was a collection of short stories about, supposedly, three main characters named Isabella, Mary, and Lauren. I didn't know that these girls were supposed to be the main characters because each chapter talked about another "character." The author chose to not develop characters, a setting, or a plot. I think she literally just wrote random stories and put girls' names on them. There was NO story line in my opinion. There was NO beginning, climax, or resolution. NO story grammar elements whatsoever.  I don't even classify myself as someone who only reads "excellent writing." If you read my blog, you know I read some books with poor writing, but this book can only be described as BAD WRITING.

The book was actually a quick read. I somehow was able get through it in about 3 sittings. Maybe this was because I wanted it to be over. I would not recommend this book unless you are a fan of poor character development and invisible plot lines. I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't. 

Has anyone else read it? I hope not. 

Right now I am listening to The Litigators by John Grisham. I am loving audiobooks right now. I also have two highly rated books in line for my next posts. Don't worry. They are supposed to be good.