For a month where I'm never home this was a surprisingly strong month of books! I first read Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore. This was another book club book and was a very fast read. You could easily read it within one day if you are looking for something to pass the time. Unfortunately the book is rather disjointed where you have the main character as an older woman reflecting back on one summer of her life as a teenager. The issue is that you really don't get a feel for the character as an adult so the parts where she is talking about "present day" seems out of place and awkward. Also, the flashback is just that-a flash-it felt like stepping into a story midway through and not fully understanding the characters. Not my favorite read of the year.
Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson has been sitting on my shelf for a while. A quick trip to Colorado provided me about 10 hours of flying time and thus plenty of time to focus on reading this book. It was a bit slow to start but really grew from there! Reading the story of the 1908 hurricane that completely devastated Galveston, Texas was both interesting and frightening. There are a number of people mentioned in the book who come and go quickly so it can be difficult keeping them all straight at times, but even just going along for the ride and understanding the overconfidence that quickly turned into fear amongst all the people is quite strong. Also, since this is a book based on as much fact as possible, I also felt like I learned something!
I finally got around to finishing the Maze Runner series by reading The Kill Order by James Dashner! Kill Order is actually the prequel to the series. It's always a bit weird to me when the last book is actually the first chronologically. Maybe it's that I know what ultimately happens that it takes away from the book a bit. Don't get me wrong, just like all the others in this series, this is still a great book. Full of action that's for sure! Makes you hate the government a little bit as well. You are following a completely different group from the rest of the series and taking place directly after the "sun flares" that are talked about in the other books. Scary to consider how society could go downhill pretty fast.
Lastly I read Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. So good!!!! My bookclub almost read this book earlier in the year, but now I'm thinking I should bring it up again as another potential! The orphan train's were real from the early 1900s where orphaned children (typically immigrants to the States) were shipped to the Midwest on trains and people could literally just come to the different train stops and pick out a kid to take home. As you can imagine these kids didn't always have the best of lives. While the characters in the story are fictitious, they are still remarkably realistic. I love that this book bounces between the early 1900s and 2011 seamlessly. Joining together two characters who have a lot more in common than they may think. I love that this book also has very strong female characters. This was a book I both didn't want to put down, and didn't want to end. Highly recommended!
Books Read in 2014:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Burned by Ellen Hopkins
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
A Grief Observed by CS Lewis
The Monument Men by Robert Edsel
The Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith Beer
Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass Isak Dinesen
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Looking for Alaska by John Green
When Life Comes Undone by TJ Addington
Number the Stars by Lois Lowery
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
Where There's Smoke by Jodi Picoult
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson has been sitting on my shelf for a while. A quick trip to Colorado provided me about 10 hours of flying time and thus plenty of time to focus on reading this book. It was a bit slow to start but really grew from there! Reading the story of the 1908 hurricane that completely devastated Galveston, Texas was both interesting and frightening. There are a number of people mentioned in the book who come and go quickly so it can be difficult keeping them all straight at times, but even just going along for the ride and understanding the overconfidence that quickly turned into fear amongst all the people is quite strong. Also, since this is a book based on as much fact as possible, I also felt like I learned something!
I finally got around to finishing the Maze Runner series by reading The Kill Order by James Dashner! Kill Order is actually the prequel to the series. It's always a bit weird to me when the last book is actually the first chronologically. Maybe it's that I know what ultimately happens that it takes away from the book a bit. Don't get me wrong, just like all the others in this series, this is still a great book. Full of action that's for sure! Makes you hate the government a little bit as well. You are following a completely different group from the rest of the series and taking place directly after the "sun flares" that are talked about in the other books. Scary to consider how society could go downhill pretty fast.
Lastly I read Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. So good!!!! My bookclub almost read this book earlier in the year, but now I'm thinking I should bring it up again as another potential! The orphan train's were real from the early 1900s where orphaned children (typically immigrants to the States) were shipped to the Midwest on trains and people could literally just come to the different train stops and pick out a kid to take home. As you can imagine these kids didn't always have the best of lives. While the characters in the story are fictitious, they are still remarkably realistic. I love that this book bounces between the early 1900s and 2011 seamlessly. Joining together two characters who have a lot more in common than they may think. I love that this book also has very strong female characters. This was a book I both didn't want to put down, and didn't want to end. Highly recommended!
Books Read in 2014:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Burned by Ellen Hopkins
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
A Grief Observed by CS Lewis
The Monument Men by Robert Edsel
The Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith Beer
Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass Isak Dinesen
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Looking for Alaska by John Green
When Life Comes Undone by TJ Addington
Number the Stars by Lois Lowery
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
Where There's Smoke by Jodi Picoult
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen
The Peppered Moth by Margaret Drabble
The Peppered Moth by Margaret Drabble
