Second Quarter Books

I love sitting down to review the books I've read in the past few months.  By far my favorite this quarter was The Nightingale, but there were plenty of other great books I enjoyed.

9. The Crossover by Kwame Alexander - This was really great, it's neat to find a sports book for middle-graders that is also really well written.

10. One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson - I hadn't realized what a historic year 1927 was, but it was fun to hear the stories of that summer from Lindbergh to Babe Ruth to a few notable murder mysteries.  This was great to listen to while doing house projects.

11. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - I hadn't read this since high school and was surprised at how much it resonated with me as a mom.  This was one of my favorite book club discussions ever.

12. Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty - Nothing lives up to What Alice Forgot, but I enjoyed this fun story about triplet sisters and the unexpected twists and turns their lives take in the year before their 34th birthday.

13. Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson - Isaac Cline was the head meteorologist in Galveston, Texas when the Galveston hurricane of 1900 devastated the city.  This was Erik Larson's first book, and definitely not his best, but still an incredible story.

14. The Complete Book of Home Organization by Toni Hammersley - One of the things that really annoyed me about Marie Kondo was how much she hated any kind of storage container.  And that's why I liked this book, Toni was all about the containers which gave me all the justification I needed to run out and buy some containers to organize my kitchen cupboards (at least organize them a little more.)   This book was fun and useful, nothing life-changing but still worth a read.

15. Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein - I have lots of thoughts on this book, and you should be grateful you aren't Bryan and weren't subjected to hearing all of them.  Orenstein makes some good points, but overall she had very different opinions than me.  I don't doubt that there are some negative effects of the princess culture, but I think many of these effects can be countered with positive female role models and parent involvement.

16. The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups by Leonard Sax - I thought this was SO interesting and it has really made me think about how I'm raising my girls.  His premise is that in the past 30 years the trend has been to give kids more independence and control but we're hurting them in the long run and need to take more of an authoritative parental role.

17. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow - After listening to Hamilton the musical 8 billion times I thought I should actually read the book.  It was quite fascinating, and believe it or not, I learned even more about Hamilton than I did listening to the soundtrack.  My only stumbling block was that as a proud Virginian I had a hard time hearing about what a terrible person Thomas Jefferson was.  Two sides to every story.

18. Keep Me Posted by Lisa Beazley - This was really fun chick lit, perfect to start out the summer.  Two sisters living continents apart decide to write letters to each other to rekindle their relationship.

19. The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo - I've read this three times now and hard as I've tried, I just don't like it.  There are some parts I really enjoy but for the most part I just think the whole story is a little silly and too idealistic.

20. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah - This was so, so wonderful.  It's a great story of two sisters dealing with the terrors of living in France during WWII.

21. Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly - I kept with the WWII theme and read this immediately after finishing The Nightingale.  This book follows three women- a New York socialite doing all she can to help the war effort, a Polish girl who terrifyingly is sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, and a female German doctor trying to find her place in the Nazi world.  I was really captivated by this book and couldn't put it down, but there was also A LOT of unnecessary little plot lines and parts that were just kind of awkward and incomplete.  Overall it was a great story, but not the most well-written.

First quarter books here