Collective Reads June - July
- Sarah Schoggin
- Jul 24, 2016
- 5 min read
I didn't get through much this month. Mainly because the first book I read took me about twenty days to trudge through. I just couldn't get into it, but once I start I have to finish. Even though it was a slow month, I still got four checked off my list! Super proud of that!
Here we go!
A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks. Gods of reading I ask you to forgive me, but it has to be said. The movie was better than the book. I was so excited to finally get my hands on this book and I was so disappointed. This book bored me to tears. It bored me so much that it took me over two weeks to finish it just because I could not get into the story and I would let myself get distracted with something else. I think Nicholas Sparks is a wonderful author and I enjoy the stories that he creates, but this one was so boring and I absolutely hate saying that because the movie keeps me in tears from beginning to end. Oh well, time to give another one of his books a try. I'm glad I read just to say I gave it a chance.
A Shore Thing by Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi. Okay, so my love for Jersey Shore aside, I actually truly enjoyed this book and would have even if I didn't love Jersey Shore. It was such a breath of fresh air to finish it in a couple of days after the last book I read, which was so boring it took over two weeks. Yes, everyone at my job was like "Really, Sarah?" Don't y'all judge me! This story literally had me cracking up from beginning to end. My husband couldn't believe I was reading it, I don't know why! He knows my affinity for the show. I would make him pause his TV show at all hours of the day and night to recap the ridiculous scene I had just read. I did find a few spelling and grammatical errors thus forcing me into a 4 star rating. Even though this book was ghost written, Snooki and her wild personality shine through completely. The hilarity that ensues as troubles follow her don't stop. As silly as the book is, it also hits on some very emotional and real subjects. Body image issues, bullying, family dynamics, divorce, bad relationships, good relationships, friendships, date rape, and eventually self respect and self esteem. This book was a rollercoaster but a fun one for sure! I really loved how she used a different POV for each character for usually each scene and you got to see things and hear thoughts from each side. It does have quite a bit of foul language and NSFW material, so be warned before you give it to a kid. Overall, I friggin' loved this book and will most likely read it again.
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. This book absolutely sneaks up on you. At the beginning, I kept saying, "Man this book is starting out so slow!" Then I would realize that I had just read 30 pages without looking up. I absolutely loved this book. Having not read Gone Girl, I wasn't really sure what I was in for because everyone said they are pretty similar plot lines. I have read the synopsis of the Gone Girl movie and it was completely different! First of all, I totally felt for Rachel through the entire story. I felt like she couldn't catch a break. No, I do not condone alcohol abuse AT ALL. It seemed though, whenever she would finally start trying to get it together someone or something was there to knock her back down. I did really like her character though. I thought she had an actual full range of emotions which you don't get often enough with characters. Secondly, I absolutely LOATHED Anna! Literally from beginning to end. She honestly didn't redeem herself much at the end for me either. Maybe slightly because she finally got her head out of her behind and did what needed to be done. However, it still seemed like she hated Rachel. LIKE GET OVER YOURSELF FREAKING HOMEWRECKER. YOU ARE THE BAD SEED NOT RACHEL. Geez Louise. I am sure that is the way Hawkins wanted her portrayed and believe me, she hit it right on the money. To be honest, I had the killer pretty much pinpointed from the middle of the story. Normally I am so bad with skipping ahead. This time I actually made myself go through the entire story without reading ahead. The only thing I looked ahead at were the chapters to see which characters had a POV used in the story. I definitely went back and forth for a while between who I thought the killer was. I proved to be right most of the time though. I will say though, it wasn't until the last 2 or 3 chapters from Megan that I finally pieced together the who, why, when, where, and how. It was so sad to say the least. It is almost the same as Rachel in the fact that she was FINALLY get her head on straight and someone had to do that to her. I really felt like each character was written perfectly for their role. Crazy, sad, alcoholic, home-wrecker, narcissistic, innocent, heartbroken, worried. I also felt like Hawkins used the perfect AMOUNT of characters to tell her story. The only problem I had with this book was the summary was a tad misleading. You think you are about to see her witness a murder from the train and she feels like she HAS to tell the police but that is not the case. I mean, it did technically say she saw something from the train that changed everything, which is the truth. Just not what I was expecting necessarily. All in all, this book was terrific and turned me on to psychological thrillers for sure. I may be a year late in picking it up, but it will end up on my top 10 of 2016 reads!
October Mourning by Leslea Newman. I needed a filler book in between novels to give my brain a break for bigger reads. Okay Sarah, why in the world would you choose this book to give your brain a break?! This was a beautiful story about love, life, loss, and tragedy. What happened to this young man goes way beyond awful and sickening. To be honest though, the poems that got to me the most were not the ones made from a person's POV, it was from the fence and from the deer. For whatever reason, those poems sat on my heart the heaviest. I really can't say much else because the book pretty much left me speechless and wanting to sit in the quiet and think about how lucky I am in life to not have met such horrors. I wonder what this man would be doing today. Who he would be. Would he be married? Have kiddos? Have a good job? His life was way too short and this story will stay with me forever.
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