'What Alice Forgot'

Author:  Liane Moriarty
Date Read:  05/03/17
Published:  May 2010
PanMcMillian Australia

Gosh, this book was good... like way better than chick-lit ought to be. It was entertaining, yet thought-provoking: Witty, yet also emotional. It was romantic, yet also a realistic portrayal of the evolution of relationships.

What Alice Forgot is about a middle-aged woman named Alice who suffers a head injury, thereby losing her memory of the last ten years of her life. She goes to the gym as a thirty-eight year-old mother of three who is going through a divorce and wakes up on the gym floor thinking she's a twenty-eight year-old woman with a doting husband and their first baby on the way. She awakens with all of the sweetness and naivete her younger self possessed, only to find that in the past ten years she has alienated every one who was dear to her a decade ago. Alice tries to make sense of how she and her husband lost sight of what's most important and how their love turned to contempt and disdain over the years, while also juggling the fact that apparently she has a boyfriend and has become somewhat of a snarky bitch. On top of all that, she also has to learn how to take care of three children she doesn't even remember existing. This all makes for one heck of an entertaining read as Alice slowly unravels the mystery of the last ten years of her life and her "past self" meets her "current self." Such an interesting plot and so very well executed.

Call me crazy, but What Alice Forgot made me laugh, cry, and do a lot of self-reflecting. I absolutely adored it. I think it's safe to say that I won't be forgetting Alice any time soon.

'A Man Called Ove'

Author:  Fredrik Backman
Date Read:  06/14/17
Date published:  08/27/12
Atria Books

"People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had." 

Oh, Ove... A Man Called Ove is the tale of a cantankerous fifty-nine year-old man living in what I picture to be a quiet gated community in Sweden. While the plot of this story appears to be a quite ordinary tale of the life of a man named Ove, it was actually the most meaningful novel I've read in ages.

Ove is one bitter, grumpy old man who distrusts and dislikes pretty well everyone and everything. Since his beloved wife passed away six months prior to the novel's beginning, Ove has felt as if he lost his purpose and wishes to die in order to be reunited with the woman who he loved more than anything. His deceased wife Sonja, who is brought to life in Ove's memories, is described as being one of those rare human beings who sees the good in everyone and spreads love and laughter to those who need it most. She was essentially the polar opposite of Ove who "has been a grumpy old man since the first day of second grade", yet they completed each other's souls. "He went through life with his hands firmly shoved into his pockets. She danced."

The basic storyline is this:
The old man called Ove has made up his mind that he will commit suicide rather than facing life without his soul mate; however, an infuriating situation involving new neighbors and a failed attempt to back a trailer that results in the ruination of Ove's flower bed, sets off a chain of events that turns Ove's life upside down and thwarts his seemingly fool-proof attempts at self-destruction. You see, the thing about Ove is that underneath the snide comments and thick layer of contrariness, lies a heart of gold. In A Man Called Ove we're taken back in time to various points in Ove's life that molded him in to the man he became.

This book made me giggle so many times with its charming, full-of-life characters, that I came to love wholeheartedly. You have no idea how badly I wanted to reach into these pages and wrap Ove's cranky self into a great big bear hug. And then the tears came... At first they were those rare "happy tears" when my heart was so thoroughly filled by this story that I thought it may burst, but eventually came the kind of tears that steal your breath. I haven't cried that loudly and thoroughly in quite awhile and I'm not lying when I say that I had to tell myself to breathe as I was keening so noisily that I'm pretty sure my dog thought I needed medical attention. Thank goodness she can't dial 9-1-1...
A Man Called Ove is an absolute treasure. I loved this book so much. ☆☆☆☆☆

P.S. I think part of why this novel resonated so deeply with me is that I've met countless Oves and Sonjas in my nursing career. They are exactly why I do what I do. 

'All The Ugly and Wonderful Things'

Author:  Bryn Greenwood
Date Read:  06/09/17
Published:  08/09/16
Thomas Dunne Books

Ugly...Wonderful...Disturbing...Emotional...

I've never had a book leave me so unsure of my feelings before, with my heart so brutally at war with my head. All the Ugly and Wonderful Things is a glimpse into the ugly scene of methamphetamine labs, drug addiction, abuse, neglect, and other components of what life is like for many children in rural America. I grew up in a county that was once considered "the meth capital of the world" and I'm all too aware of what the "Vals" and "Liams" of the world look like: the gaunt faces; crazy eyes; constant, twitchy movements; and paranoia so strong that standing beside them in line at the store makes you want to crawl out of your skin. Luckily, I don't know what it was like to be raised by the "Vals" and "Liams" of the world, but this book gives a glimpse into that particular kind of hell.

Surprisingly, the abuse and neglect suffered by the main little girl in this story (Wavy) are not the main sources of discomfort in All the Ugly and Wonderful Things...

Have you ever read Nabokov's Lolita? I loudly proclaim my disgust for that literary classic at every chance I get, as the eloquent writing was just not enough to overshadow the desires so vividly described in the point of view of a perverse pedophile. Try as I may, I can't not give a shout-out to Nabokov's novel when reviewing this book. I just can't, as this is the only other book I've ever read about a relationship between a grown man and a prepubescent girl. 

The differences between Lolita & Humbert and Wavy & Kellan are profound. While things most certainly eventually take a highly inappropriate, disturbingly explicit turn in All the Ugly and Wonderful Things, this is not a book about pedophilia. It truly is a love story, just a highly unconventional one and I wish I had the right words to articulate the power of this story. To Wavy; Kellan was shelter, safety, sustenance, and home. To Kellan; Wavy was the sun and stars in a world that had always been nothing but darkness. I honestly think they would not have survived without each other. 

I just... don't know how to feel. I'm all mixed up inside. Only the best books have that power. 

☆☆☆☆☆

'The Roses of May'

Author:  Dot Hutchison
Date Read:  08/26/17
Published:  05/23/17
Thomas & Mercer

Since I featured The Butterfly Garden on this blog, I feel it is only right that I include the second book in The Collectors series, Roses of May. I told a close friend of mine that I preferred Roses of May slightly more than The Butterfly Garden; however, as I clicked on my four star rating while writing my review on Goodreads, I had this strong feeling that I gave The Butterfly Garden five stars when I finished it (I was right). This means one of two things: A) I liked it a lot more than I remember or B) I was more in the mood back then for a story about a disturbed and deranged serial killer than I was when I read the last 50 pages of Roses of May.

Besides centering around a totally different serial killer, the biggest difference between the two books for me was the fact that the first book was about survival, whereas the sequel was more about living and possibly a healthy serving of vengeance/justice... Whatever you prefer to call it.

The FBI agents from the first book were still key characters in this storyline/case and there were some appearances made by two of the "butterflies" from "the garden", that helped tie the two novels together. Otherwise, I feel that they are two pretty separate entities and each could potentially be read as a stand-alone, if you so desired.

As disturbing as they were, I loved the little snippets told in the murderer's point-of-view, as he stalked and studied his victims and arranged their bodies with specific flowers after he killed them. I also loved that the "victim" was so strong, resilient, and colorful. As seventeen year-old Priya (our main character who is still haunted by her sister's murder that occurred five years ago), told her story in a voice that was so much older than her years, I became quite attached to her.

These characters and the plot were very on point (and this is not my typical genre). I hope Hutchison decides to write a third book featuring the Quantico Three. I'd totally read it in a heartbeat.

'Winter's Bone'

Author:  Daniel Woodrell
Date read:  08/31/17
Published:  07/20/2010
Little, Brown and Company

Winter's Bone depicts rural Missouri (specifically in the Ozarks region) in a way that is not often seen, but is nonetheless very real. Two years ago we went on a fishing trip on The Lake of the Ozarks and stayed in this somewhat rundown little "resort" called Sleepy Bill's in Stover, Missouri. We drove through the backwoods one day to eat at this amazing little restaurant in the middle of nowhere and I was shocked by the little communities we drove past in the middle of the woods that were essentially clusters of trailers and old cabins with rotting porches and rusting old cars parked in the lawns. This is exactly the way I pictured the Dolly clan living in Winter's Bone, which is set in southwestern Missouri. This level of poverty is real-- as is the anti-law sentiment and tight-lipped frontier justice showcased by Woodrell's characters. In Ree Dolly's world, methamphetamine manufacturing is most families' bread and butter and with that comes violence and death. It's a sad reality, but reality all the same.

I loved the way this book was written. Woodrell's mastery of the Ozark vernacular helped draw me into this Ozark mountain setting just as effectively as the descriptive language and sensory details included in the prose. In the author interview included at the back of the book, Woodrell names Cormac McCarthy as being one of the author's from whom he has been inspired and that makes complete and total sense. Read McCarthy's The Road and then read Winter's Bone and you'll see some similarities (stylistically).

Note to self: Read everything by Daniel Woodrell.
Note to everyone else: Read this book AND watch the move. Both are spectacular.

See all my reviews here!

'The Foretelling'

"I was born out of sorrow, so my mother named me Rain. 
Ours was a time of blood, when the sky reached on forever, when one horse became a hundred and then a thousand, when we wore our hair in long braids and rode as warriors. Everything we had was given to us by the goddess, and everything we lost was taken away by her."

The beauty of The Foretelling took my breath away and gave me that tingly feeling that only Alice Hoffman seems to be able to stir within me. Of all of her literary works, I feel that this is the only one that comes close to touching The Dovekeepers and that gorgeous way in which magic meets harsh reality and history meets mythology.

The Foretelling is a tale written for young adults about the mythological Amazon warrior women and the horses they rode into battle. Bloodthirsty and wild, with a spiritual connection with the earth and its creatures, this was a people made up of Queens and archers and priestesses, and mercy was not something in which they believed, until a Queen-to-be named Rain faced her first battle.

"Our word for this is never used. It is a curse upon our own people when speaking of our enemies. Mercy. Those burning things."

Rain's story was tragic and empowering and an absolute joy to read.

'The Butterfly Garden'

Author:  Dot Hutchison
Published:  O6/01/16
Thomas & Mercer
Date Read:  02/05/17

“In terror she spoke, letting sink her wings till they trailed in the dust—in agony sobbed, letting sink her plumes till they trailed in the dust—till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. But my wings couldn’t move and I couldn’t fly, and I couldn’t even cry. All that was left to me was the terror and the agony and the sorrow.”

The Butterfly Garden was one of those books that immediately sucked me in to it's dark and stormy plot. The suspenseful and calculating characteristics of the story's narrative made it chilling and unique. It's the kind of story that makes you feel such pity and remorse for the victim, while still maintaining an unhealthy dose of suspicion that the victim is possibly a snake in a habitat of beautiful, fragile butterflies.

This was actually probably the most intriguing book I've ever read about a serial killer. The butterfly garden created by the sociopathic "Gardener" was unlike any other I've encountered in literature. It may sound strange, but there was some beautiful imagery mixed in between the layers of kidnapping, rape, mutilation, murder, and the preservation of broken bodies (like the quote at the beginning of this review).

“At night, the creature that was the Garden peeled back its synthetic skin to show the skeleton beneath.”

What I'm trying to say is that while this is a horror novel that will make your skin crawl, the writing was not Dean Koontz or Stephen King-ish... It was more eloquent and sophisticated than your typical "bloody" horror novel. The Butterfly Garden actually reminded me a lot of Stieg Larson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I think mostly because Myah's strength, intelligence, and cold detachment kind of channeled Lisbeth Salander to me. Myah is definitely a captivating character whose secrets kept me awake until I read the very last page, and haunted me even after the last page was turned.

Dot Hutchison's writing is p h e n o m e n a l!

'Where'd You Go, Bernadette'

Author:  Maria Semple
Published:  2012
Little, Brown and Company
Date Read:  04/04/17

It's been a while since a book made me smile and giggle like a mad woman as much as this book did. Seriously... Just looking back now at the quotes I highlighted to potentially use in this review has me giggling all over again. There's just something about sassy, spunky, neurotic Bernadette that totally won me over. Here lately I've found myself identifying with a lot of really eccentric, slightly unstable characters--but I'm totally at peace with this because these characters are lively and fun and hilarious.

If you knew me well at all, you would totally immediately pick up on how I see myself in Bernadette Fox. So, basically, she works really hard to avoid social interaction and displays a lot of agoraphobic-type tendencies. Okay, yeah... I'm a nurse. I take care of people as my profession, but I also have pretty bad social anxiety and being around people exhausts me some days. (Just being candid here.) None of that is really why I see myself in Bernadette either.

The reason I see myself in Bernadette Fox is essentially the plot of the book: planning a vacation causes her to have a psychotic break and she kind of up and disappears without a trace. I could totally see that happening to me! You probably think I'm joking, but I'm not. This girl gets all worked up planning a shopping trip.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette is hands-down the most creative epistolary novel I've ever read. It is mostly comprised of letters and emails compiled by Bernadette's daughter, Bee, to help her unravel the events leading to her mother's disappearance. The narrated parts of the novel are told in Bee's point-of-view and let me tell you... Maria Semple better write a book about Bee's future mid-life crisis that will develop from taking care of an elderly Bernadette, because it's going to happen and it will be hilarious.

Here's a "Bernadette Fox-ism" that I found particularly hilarious because it was totally random and out of the blue--all because someone on the phone sounded Canadian:

"One of the main reasons I dont like leaving the house is because I might find myself face-to-face with a Canadian. Seattle is crawling with them... The way you might fear a cow sitting down in the middle of the street during rush hour, that's how I fear Canadians."

Why does she fear Canadians? Because they're too nice.

Oh, Bernadette.

☆☆☆☆☆


Review originally posted on Goodreads.

'Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things' By Jenny Lawson

Author:  Jenny Lawson
Publisher:  Flat Iron Books
Date Read:  03/18/2017
Rating: 4/5 Stars

The thing about reading a book about an author's mental illness and finding so many pieces of your self scattered among the pages is that it makes you feel a slightly discomfiting combination of "well, at least I'm not alone in this" and "does this mean I need psychiatric care?" Like Jenny Lawson, I've struggled with my own demons and my biggest enemy has so often been me and, also like Jenny Lawson, I am usually able to laugh about it. But then again, sometimes I can't laugh about it and it's everything I can do to remain minimally functional: get dressed, go to work, go through the motions of what I absolutely have to do before I hit that point where I absolutely can't.


A particular quote I highlighted in Furiously Happy really spoke to me in that regard: "You can accomplish everything a normal person does for hours but then you hit a wall and fall into bed thinking, 'I wish I could stop breathing for an hour because it's exhausting, all this inhaling and exhaling.'" Sometimes normal, every day activities like small talk, being around other people, being in any position other than supine, etc. are just exhausting. Thank you, Jenny, for being a successful person who understands how that feels.


Back to the book... The title really says it all: Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things. That's exactly what this book encompasses. It made me laugh pretty often and it only made me sad a couple of times, despite having some occasional heavy subject matter. I mostly feel that Jenny Lawson was so brave to write this. She even talks in the book about being afraid that her readers would shun her if she wrote about her mental illness; however, instead her readers felt a lot like I felt upon completion of the book: just thankful that she shared her story in such a lighthearted, honest way. In the beginning of the book, she says: "This is a funny book about living with mental illness. It sounds like a terrible combination, but personally, I'm mentally ill and some of the most hysterical people I know are well. So if you don't like the book then maybe you're just not crazy enough to enjoy it. Either way, you win."


That's pretty on point, right there.


Jenny Lawson: "I've HAD IT. I AM GOING TO BE FURIOUSLY HAPPY, OUT OF SHEER SPITE."

Me: "Right behind ya, sister." 


Review First Posted on Goodreads ✰✰✰✰

My Favorite Books of 2016

So, the other day, my mom made some kind of remark about not seeing me post anything yet about my favorite books of 2016. I'm at least 99% sure she was mocking me when she mentioned it, but I started thinking... Although it was probably the toughest year of my life so far, I did read a lot of great books last year and it would be a shame if I didn't share that list with you. It's always quite the challenge for me to narrow it down to ten books, but we'll see what I can do. I barely reached my goal of 150 books this year, so at least there are about fifty less to choose from than last year. ☺ I hope you find something on this list that stands out to you and finds it way onto your own book shelf. Note that these are not necessarily books published this year, I just happened to read them in 2016. Happy reading!

#1: A Song of Ice and Fire series

Author: George R.R. Martin

Published: Bantam Books

Dates read: June 27th-Aug 7th

Other than getting my puppy, of course, the highlight of 2016 for me was officially joining the Game of Thrones fandom in all of it's nerdy, fantasy-loving glory. Other than some really crushing character deaths and GRRM's procrastination on giving us a sixth book, there is nothing about A Song of Ice and Fire that I do not love (okay so there were some major issues with A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, but it didn't take away from my overall love of the series--but that's a story for another time). I just can't even begin to describe the enormity and complexity of this series and all of the different plots, sub-plots, settings and characters. This series makes my heart race and my palms sweat and fills me with rage, elation, and often outright fear. If you read this, you will see villains and                                   heroes rise, kings and queens die, the dead walk,direwolves prowl, and dragons fly. 

“When you play a game of thrones you win or you die.” 

― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms . . . or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.” 

― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

And my personal favorite, as an avid supporer of House Stark who knows no King but the King in the North whose name is Stark:

“Winter is coming.” 

― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

#2:  Lady Midnight

Author: Cassandra Clare
Published: 03/08/16 by
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Date read: 03/14/16

There's just something about Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunter world that I find irresistible. I first fell in love with this author and world with The Mortal Instruments series, but my absolute favorite (possibly my favorite series of all time) was The Infernal Devices. I have fond memories of feeling like my heart would burst and sobbing a mixture of sad and happy tears at the conclusions of both series, but I must say that I do not recall feeling that way with the first books of either series. Miraculously, with Lady Midnight, I most certainly did.

I honestly feel that Lady Midnight is by far the strongest series debut that Clare has written yet. I had an immediate emotional connection with these characters and felt that their chemistry and the ferocity of their bond was so palpable and visceral. Cassandra Clare depicts Julian and Emma's passion and incomparable love for one another in a way that I felt in my gut. I love these two and I feel for them so much, even  though I know so much more lies ahead for them.

This lovely, lovely book is full of magic, murder, curses, Downworlders, Nephilim, betrayal, loyalty, love, and so much more. I absolutely can not wait until the next book is released. I'm madly in love with this series already. This is Clare's best work yet.

#3: The Glass Castle

Author: Jeannette Walls
Published: 1/17/06 by Scribner
Date Read: 06/19/16

The Glass Castle is a stunning memoir that I'm so glad was written. Despite the overall bleak content of the book, there was a whimsical quality to Walls' storytelling that made parts of her childhood seem otherworldly. She was able to let in a little sunshine even in the darkest moments of her life and every little triumph experienced by the Walls children kept the first three parts of the book from being too unbearably depressing.

This was a book I read slowly, as it was draining and somewhat painful for an empathetic reader such as myself. Predominantly, I felt anger at Jeanette's parents, for failing their children in order to fulfill their own selfish whims, but at the same time (like Jeanette) I felt a very conflicted loyalty towards her father. Despite his failings and never-ending battle with alcoholism, Jeanette's bond with Rex Walls wrung my heart out. Although she faced years of near-starvation, molestation, being beaten and bullied at school, and living in deplorable conditions, it was the times she was let down or betrayed by her father that seemed to be the most significant hardships of her life.

This book is a pretty bleak look at life well below the poverty threshold... It speaks harsh truths about the reality of poverty, homelessness, mental illness, and addiction and will undoubtedly make you appreciate your family, the food in your belly, and the roof over your head. For these reasons, I think it should be required reading for all Americans.

#4: The Bird and the Sword

Author: Amy Harmon

Published: CreateSpace

Independent 

Publishing 5/2016

Date read: 08/21/16

" Swallow Daughter, pull them in, those words that sit upon your lips. Lock them deep inside your soul, hide them 'til they've time to grow. Close your mouth upon the power, curse not, cure not, 'til the hour. You won't speak and you won't tell, you won't call on heav'n or hell. You will learn and you will thrive. Silence, daughter. Stay alive.” 

   --Amy Harmon, The Bird and the Sword

The Bird and the Sword was so beautifully, flawlessly written that I simply wanted to live inside of it forever. While I'm classifying this as a fantasy novel, it reads so much like a fairytale that I'm confident it will appeal to anyone with a love of princes and princesses, curses and true love. While I loved the plot and fairy tale type qualities, the real magic was in the words. I'm finding it impossible to really describe the writing style for the sake of this review, so just believe me when I say it was gorgeous. I love a book that doesn't just tell you what happened to a character, but allows you to experience every sight, sound, and feeling firsthand. The Bird and the Sword isn't just about magic, it is magical.

#5: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

Author: Anthony Marra

Published: 2/4/14 by Hogarth

Date Read: 11/15/16

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena takes place from 1994-2004 in war-torn Chechnya. Anthony Marra provides just enough historical fact and detail to allow a rudimentary understanding of the Chechen-Russian conflicts, but the main points of the novel have nothing to do with the Chechen republic's quest for independence from Russia or Russia's claim to a "war against terrorism" in the primarily Muslim region of Chechnya. The true treasure of this beautifully devastating book is that it gives a voice to those who suffer the most during these types of conflicts: the ordinary people who are just attempting to stay alive and maintain a sense of humanity among so much suffering and strife. The book covers multiple such characters: a failed doctor with an ailing wife, a brilliant surgeon with a missing sister, an arborist who lost his fingers during an interrogation, an elderly man living with someone he loves who is now a stranger, an informant who hates himself almost as much as he wishes to stay alive, and a little girl who has lost everything but her life.

Between the beautifully written prose and the delicate way in which these characters' lives were intertwined into a web of unimaginable loss and uplifting hope, this novel is one I won't forget. As I described to the friend who recommended this book to me, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena was awful and devastating and yet still one of the best books I read last year.

"Only one entry supplied an adequate definition, and she circled it in red ink and referred to it nightly. Life: A constellation of vital phenomena--organization, irritability, movement, growth, reproduction, adaptation." --Anthony Marra, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena 

#6:  We Were Liars

Author: E. Lockhart
Published: 5/13/14
by Delacorte Press
Date Read: 02/06/16

"My name is Cadence Sinclair Eastman.

I suffer migraines. I do not suffer fools.
I like a twist of meaning.
I endure."

I can see why E. Lockheart's writing style in We Were Liars may have been too "over the top" and tedious for some readers, but it was absolutely my kind of writing. I adore; crave; heck, worship fluff and flowery prose and novels that step outside the box stylistically. The short, choppy sentences that pack a punch... The line breaks mid-sentence... The poetic, metaphor-rich descriptions of thoughts and feelings... Like: 

  "It tasted like salt and failure. The bright red shame of being unloved soaked the grass in front of our house, the bricks of the path, the steps to the porch. My heart spasmed among the peonies like trout." Ahhh.. 💙

This book feels like summer, which I love, and is set on a private island in Massachusetts, which I love much more than the idea of a Florida beach for some reason. There is a lot of family drama that I imagine is the quintessential picture of "old money Democrats" who own their own island. What I loved most though was the suspense and air of mystery and how I felt so connected to these characters, while simultaneously being held at arm's length and left in the dark.

I feel like you'll either fall madly in love with this one (like me) or else you'll find it over-written like some of the other fuddy-duds out there (just kidding...kind of).

#7: The Cellist of Sarajevo

"There was a moment before impact that was the last instant of things as they were. 

Then the visible world exploded."

Author: Steven Galloway
Published: 5/15/08 by
Riverhead Hardcover
Date read: 04/10/16

The Cellist of Sarajevo follows four individuals during the siege of Sarajevo that lasted from 1992 to 1996 during the Bosnian War. The siege is experienced through the eyes of a baker, a father, and a sniper--three strangers whose lives are touched by the cellist who plays Albinoni's Adagio every day for twenty-two days at the site where twenty-two people were killed while waiting in line for bread...

This is a beautifully crafted novel that is simultaneously powerful and sentimental. Despite all of the carnage, violence, and death, Galloway managed to paint scenes in which beauty and dreams of peace managed to surface from beneath the shades of gray that war had forced upon the city of Sarajevo. Those rare moments when the sun peeked through the clouds took my breath away. While this book made me feel fear, it also made me feel such a great appreciation of life and made me realize how trivial my problems are. I'm alive. I'm healthy. I have food and clean water. I can walk down the street without fearing a sniper's bullet will pass through my head. This is the type of book that may change your life and the way in which you view the world.

#8: Bright Side

Author: Kim Holden

Published: 07/04/14 

by Do Epic LLC

Date Read: 11/04/16

The Bright Side undoubtedly proves that Kim Holden can do epic. When I read this, I couldn't remember the last time I was this emotionally invested and devastated by fictional characters, but my level of grief and the amount of mascara stained tears I shed in response to this novel reminded me a little of the time I met a man named Will Traynor and a girl named Louisa Clark within the pages of another book that sits on my "favorites" shelf... Yes, this book was that good and yes, it hurt that much.

You see, hundreds of pages before Kim Holden made me cry, she first made me laugh and grin ear-to-ear and fall in love right along with these heartwarming, charismatic, and life-like characters. These characters are realistically flawed, with bad habits, quirks, and nuances that brought them to life for me and made me wish that they were within my (admittedly small) social circle.

The bottom line is that Kate, Gus, and Keller were worth every tear and the debilitating headache I had upon completion of Bright Side.

Be brave.

Do epic.

#9: In the Shadow of Blackbirds

Author: Cat Winters

Published 4/2/13 by Amulet Books

Date Read: 02/20/16

In the Shadow of Blackbirds focused pretty heavily on the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918 that killed somewhere between 20-40 million people from 1918-1919. Between that deadly endemic and the Great War, it's no wonder that spiritualism became so popular during the Victorian era. There was a good chance that someone, maybe even everyone you loved, was no longer among the living. In grief and desperation, people turned to seances, spirit photography, and the use of psychic-mediums to attempt to contact loved ones. 

The book touches base on all of these fascinating subjects (as well as opium addiction and some really interesting Victorian era home flu remedies, such as eating kerosene-soaked sugar cubes) and like the books I love so much by Simone St. James, couldn't have possibly been more perfectly suited for me. Mary Shelley Black (named by her father after the author of Frankenstein) was one of those forward-thinking, strong-willed female characters I love to see in a historical fiction novel. Her love interest, Stephen, also was a character I instantly adored and had my heart broken by. Although the book featured a lot of paranormal experiences that if one lived through would be quite scary, don't expect this to read like a horror novel. Expect a focus on both science and spiritualism and what happens to the soul when we die. Expect to experience the fear, loss, and grief of 1918...

#10: Firefly Lane

Author: Kristin Hannah

Published 2/5/08 by

St. Martin's Press

Date Read: 04/25/16

Firefly Lane is a book that I found impossible not to love. It was like a soundtrack of the '70s and '80s and I felt each decade as if I had lived them: the carefree, lackadaisical vibes of the '70s; the "big haired", wild '80s. The attention to detail, down to the fashion, hit music, popular TV shows, and big social and political events of each decade made this novel seem like real life because, well, so much of it was. Little touches like that were what made this book fun and made it feel as if Kate and Tully were real best friends with real lives and real experiences. 

Firefly Lane wasn't just fun though. I know without a doubt that in the future, when I'm asked if I read this book and whether or not I liked it, I will not describe this book as being fun. It was so much more than that. A simply "fun" story doesn't consume your mind and fill your heart with an abundance of raw emotions, leaving you wanting to pick up the phone and/or go hold your loved ones. Kate and Tully's friendship was so powerful and realistically full of all of life's highs and lows. The beauty of Kristin Hannah's writing ensured that I felt every triumph just as deeply as I felt every devastation that life dealt them. This gift of hers is why every book I read of hers drains me emotionally, while simultaneously filling my heart to the point of nearly bursting.