Book Review

I always tell myself to write down book's titles after I've read them so I don't forget them in my "reviews", but I never do! So here are a few that I remembered over the past couple months.

When I asked my MIL what her favorite book was (after Gone With the Wind), she said the Williamsburg novels. The first one in the series is Dawn's Early Light, so I gave it a try. I guess each book is about one of the major wars in America, so this one dealt with the Revolutionary War. It's historical fiction (my favorite genre) and I liked it pretty well, although it took some time to get into the story, and you have to get used to the old fashioned language. Paula did amend, that the best ones are later in the series.

I saw this at the bookstore and wanted to read it just because the cover made me laugh. Luckily, the rest of the book makes you laugh too. It's basically just a bunch of anecdotal stories about her life, but it is hilarious. I didn't want to put it down and was constantly laughing out loud. My only hesitation in recommending it, is the language. She had combinations of swear words I'd never even heard before! That said, it really is pretty d#$% funny.

I heard about this book through book club and LOVED IT. I couldn't recommend it enough! I even made Travis read it and tried my darndest to convince my mom and sister to read it. It's a true story about a man named Mosab Yousef, who grew up in the Middle East. His father is one of the founding members of the terrorist organization, Hamas. I learned so much about the Israeli/Palastinian conflict. Even though he is an Arab and was raised Islamic, he eventually converts to Christianity. His stories are truly fascinating... sometimes gruesome, with the violence and torture, but I couldn't put it down most of the time. Do yourself a favor and READ IT! :)

I ended up hosting for book club earlier than I thought I would and had no idea what to pick! I eventually picked Water For Elephants, mostly just because it had been on my "to read" list for some time. When I found out it was really about the circus I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it, but turns out... I did! Mostly because the author did tons of research and really sold it on the authenticity of the details being true to that era. I felt like I was reading historical fiction in a way. However... I had no idea about the language! Or "naughty" parts... *grimace*. Our book club isn't exactly a "church" book club, but it's still all LDS girls from our ward! Luckily, no one stoned me. I thought the story was really interesting and found myself all nostalgic and sad at the end when {old Jacob} is talking about his life with Marlena. How crazy and hectic it was with 5 kids, and then just like that, they are all grown up and it's over. The movie was pretty good... but of course... the book was better! :)

This is one of those classics that I've always wondered about and now I don't have to anymore! I was anticipating an abstract, hard to understand novel but it was quite the opposite. Just a story written by a boy about a couple days out of his life. I was warned about the language, but my gosh... WAY worse than I thought. It seemed every sentence had a bad word, or two! I'm the type to read every word on a page, so it was an adjustment to get myself to skim so much. So it's weird to give an opinion on this book because I'd say I didn't like it, however I found myself not wanting to put it down........ maybe just to get it over with??? Or maybe because I just kept waiting for it to get to the "story". It was just so weird and all over the place and I didn't get where it was going. I assumed there had to be some sort of plot or storyline, but it really was just a first hand account of all the things that happened to him over his weekend. I asked a friend of mine who taught it in her high school English class to tell me what the big deal is about it so she went though some symbolism and that made it a bit more interesting. But all in all I'd just say it's WEIRD! It's like a book made up of all the parts of other books that you would normally skip over. And he complains a lot. Really, it could be called just a book of complaints. OK, so that probably doesn't lend itself to inspiring anyone to pick it up, but actually I would recommend reading it. I mean, it's the Catcher in the Rye... you gotta read it at least once, right?! :)