Books I didn't really like

I always write book reviews of the books I've read and liked or loved but, I never write about the books that I didn't really enjoy.

I realized that if someone read my blog they would think I loved every book I picked up and that I never wrote a negative review! I don't really want to write a negative review about these books because I know a lot of people absolutely love these books and I don't want to discourage anyone from reading them. So, here is the list-

The History of Love- I read so many glowing reviews of this book. As I read I just never felt a connection with the story of characters. I thought with a title like "The History of Love", this would be an outstanding book that I would fall in love with. I kept waiting for the story to grab a hold of me but, it just never did.

Room- I didn't like the point of view being from the little kid. It made it hard for me to read and the story made me sad.

The Art of Racing in the Rain- I know a lot of people really like this book but I just wasn't feeling it. Maybe if it had been about a cat I would have loved it.

The Cookbook Collector- I heard about this book on NPR and it sounded really interesting. By the end all I could think was that this book was extremely long and didn't give me much fulfillment. It was a very original story though.

Something Blue- By Emily Giffin

I loved this book! It was a fun read and satisfied my need to know what happened to the characters in "Something Borrowed".

As far as I can tell, Emily Giffin's books are great reads about life and love which I love to read about!

Darcy, a girl that has always led a charmed life, getting everything she has ever wanted, suddenly gets the wake up call she has never had from an unexpected friend in her life. For about 30 years, Darcy has been shallow and all about looks, money, men, sex, and fashion. After a string of decisions, Darcy's life is changed forever.

She can either continue to tumble downhill or change for the better.

This story is about love, forgiveness, finding out who Darcy really is, and the power of friendship.

Great book for those who like girly novels with a bit of drama.

Redeeming Love By- Francine Rivers

WHAT AN AMAZING BOOK!!!!

I have always heard good things about this book and finally got around to reading it. I'm so glad I did!!

There were so many moments while reading this book that I was completely frustrated with the characters and the author! I thought, how stupid can these people be! They keep messing up over and over with the same thing! They are so stubborn! Why can't the author move on!

I realize though that that is the point, people mess up over and over and over again with the same dumb stuff in life. An outsider can tell you what to change a million times but until it finally hits you and you realize for yourself, you will never change.

This incredible book retells the story of Gomer and Hosea from the Bible that shows God's love that will never let go, no matter what crazy terrible things you do. The story is about Angel, a woman who was forced into prostitution as a child. She is so damaged and bitter that she thinks her only way to escape the pain in her life is through death.

Amazingly enough, she is taken out of the horrific life of prostitution she has known for most of her life when Michael Hosea marries her. I thought this part of the story was odd but see now how amazing it was.

I hope everyone will read this great book and if you get frustrated with it or think it is going in circles at times, keep reading because it all makes sense in the end!

This book was a great reminder to me of God's redeeming love for all of us and what a powerful difference we as people can make on this earth by living as followers of Christ. By striving to be like him, we show love, to everyone, and you never know what that can do for someone's life!

Something Borrowed- By Emily Giffin

Something Borrowed was such a fun book! I felt like I was watching a modern day romantic dramedy as I read.

I've had Something Borrowed on my list of books to read for a while since I've heard a lot of people say that the Emily Giffin books are great and I have always thought the covers of the books are really cute (good reason I know, lol).

Something Borrowed has been turned into a movie with Kate Hudson,Ginnifer Goodwin, and John Krasinski so, many of you probably already have either read the book or seen the movie. 


I would classify this book as a great book to read while on the beach, or if you are looking for an entertaining light read. I was definitely drawn into the drama of this book and read it within about a week. This book is entertaining and I already have the next book in the series Something Blue ready to be picked up at the library. However, the drama in this story is a little predictable like most romantic drama/comedies.

If you don't know what Something Borrowed is about, here is a little about the book. The book is set in Manhattan in today's times. Two best friends, Darcy (perfect barbie doll with a PR job) and Rachel (good looking smart girl that is a lawyer) start the book out by celebrating Rachel's 30th birthday. Darcy is still 29, is engaged, and life always seems to go perfect for her. Rachel is responsible, plays by the rules, hates her job, and is 30 with no man. Rachel has always tended to take care of Darcy and puts Darcy's needs before her own. The two don't realize it, but, their friendship has always had an element of competition with Darcy always coming out the winner that is apparent to all outside viewers of their friendship.

Darcy breezes through life with Rachel taking care of her and Rachel is ok with playing by the rules, getting through life with as little conflict as possible.Things have always gone this same way for Darcy and Rachel until Rachel's 30th birthday when everything changes. Rachel starts to realize the control that Darcy has over her and begins to re-evaluate the friendship and starts taking what she wants (read the book to find out what Rachel takes from Darcy!)

Rachel's new scandalous ways are still unnerving for her and she has a hard time being confrontational when it comes to getting what she wants in life and struggles to gain courage and understanding of what she wants. 

Overall, I enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who likes a good love story drama with a bit of scandal in the mix.

Corrie Ten Boom

I recently blogged about Corrie Ten Boom and her awesome book, "The Hiding Place". Check out the
post here.

I read another one of her books last week that was also great called, "In My Father's House".

Corrie Ten Boom is one of my favorite people I have never met! She is so faithful, wise, and full of life.

"In My Father's House" is about her life leading up to WWII and a little bit about her life after the war. Corrie and her family were taken to Nazi prison camps during WWII for hiding Jews in their home.

Corrie says in the book that life doesn't spring to life at 50 (when she was sent to the prison camp) and she wanted to tell people about what shaped her before that experience so she wrote "In My Father's House".

As I read, "The Hiding Place", I was constantly in awe of Corrie and her family's strength and faith despite their horrifying conditions in the prison camp.

Corrie Ten Boom was from Holland and grew up with 2 sisters and one brother. Her father was a watchmaker and later taught Corrie the trade too.

Corrie started many girl's clubs in Holland to help teenage girls to have a place to hang out together and to learn about God. Each club centered around a specific interest but each time the girl's met, they had a short bible lesson. Corrie was fearless when it came to telling people about Jesus. She wanted to tell every one of her girls about him while she had the chance and thought it a waste if she didn't.

Corrie had a great attitude about life and knew how to love everyone and have a good time.

I am so inspired when I read her books because she shows me the type of person that I want to be.

Corrie's stories are entertaining and inspiring. Do yourself a favor and read her books!

The Hiding Place- By Corrie ten Boom

I cannot rave about "The Hiding Place" enough! This book, written by Corrie ten Boom ( what an awesome name by the way! ) is the story of her and her family during World War II when Holland became occupied by Germany.

Even though Holland was a neutral country and the Dutch government assured their people that their neutrality would be respected, Nazi Germany soon took over. Corrie lived with her father and sister in their old beloved home. Corrie and her father ran the century old watch shop that sat at the front of their home.

The ten Booms were faithful Christians that read the Bible as a family twice a day. They opened their home to the outcasts, fed the hungry, and housed the homeless.

When the Nazi's began to persecute the Jews in Holland Corrie and her family began helping them without even questioning their own safety.

Corrie and her family slowly began to create a web of an underground operation that allowed them to take in Jews, find them a safe hiding place, feed them, and just protect them from the Nazis.

When a Jew was an exceptionally big risk for a family to hide ( they looked exceptionally Jewish or were too old and sick ) the ten Booms would take them in.

All of their work during the war was phenomenal. They risked their safety, their business, used their precious food rations, and spent their money to help the hunted.

The story does not end there though! In 1944, the ten Booms were finally caught by the Gestapo when a Dutch man tricked Corrie into giving him some information ( it was hard to know who you could and could not trust during that time ).

Corrie at age 51, her older sister, her 80 year old father, and many other underground workers were arrested at their home one night.

Corrie and her family were taken to a Dutch prison and two concentration camps before the war finally ended.

Even though she saw the horrors of prison camps Corrie still found that God is good and that Jesus is deeper still than any pit you could possibly be in. Even though it was hard, Corrie still thanked God in all things. The stories she tells in her book will reveal the living God to you.

I was reminded time and again as I read this book that our strength or talents to do anything to not come from us but from the Lord. Corrie would often just come out and ask for things from God that she could not do on her own. For example, after she was released from prison, she met one of the guards that had made her life so miserable in the prison camp. He came to shake her hand and she could not bring herself to do it. She could not forgive this man for what he had done. So, she asked God right there to give her his forgiveness because she was not able to forgive him on her own.

This book is full of wonderful history. It brings the power of God to life and shows the incredible strength of a family that trusted God and did what he told them to do.

The Hiding Place is an incredible story you do not want to miss. Corrie's mission, after surviving the horrors of prison camp, was to tell the world what she learned. You have the opportunity to hear her message through this book!

My Top Four Favorite Books

The Help

The Forgotten Garden

Half Broke Horses

A Thousand Splendid Suns 

All four of these books taught me something. I was sad to finish each of these books because I wanted them to continue, they were that good.

If you are looking for your next book I highly recommend these!

The End of Overeating- By David Kessler

“The End of Overeating- taking control of the insatiable American appetite“, is not the type of book I typically read, there is a lot of scientific studies and stats quoted but the subject really interested me and I learned some good info. As the title suggests “The End of Overeating” is a book about how to stop overeating. The author starts off by telling the reader why we overeat, what makes overeating so easy then tells us how to not overeat and why it is so important not to overeat.

The info that I got out of this book boils down to this-

Our bodies love sugar, fat and salt A LOT.

The food industry (i.e. restaurants and food producers) know this. Because people love sugar, fat and salt so much, they take it to the extreme in their foods to give our bodies what we are craving most. Also, portion sizes have gotten enormous because they sure don’t want you leaving their restaurant feeling at all hungry.
Over time people have started thinking they need to eat everything on their plate and end up overeating.

It is not your fault that you overeat. The food industry knows how to get you to eat their food and serve it to you in very large portions. Restaurants know how to make good food, know how to combine flavors to they are irresistible to us and then market them so that we are always thinking about them. HOWEVER, just because something delicious, huge and unhealthy is on the menu does not mean you have to eat it! This is difficult for most of us because if something looks good to us, we want it and we want all of it!

There is no magical way to avoid overeating, you just have to use your brain. Remind yourself that just because the food is there, it may smell great and taste great does not mean you need to eat it. Food is great and you can enjoy it but only as much as you actually need.

Will power is not enough. You have to remind yourself of the consequences of eating certain things (or too much of those things). You have to make a decision to have rules in your life (this stinks I know). Rules are decisions that can keep you healthy in the long run though.

It is tough that there are so many temptations out there. It would be so much easier if all food sold was good for us and exactly what our bodies needed. It is not your fault that restaurant owners choose to sell donuts instead of fruit. This makes it harder to make good choices when the temptations are out there but it is up to you to avoid temptation.

When you are in the moment and you are deciding if you will eat a certain thing or not, a good thing to keep in mind is, if I do not eat this now, I will feel better about myself later and that will be totally worth it.

Food is instant gratification and pleasure for us but if we remember how good it feels to be thin and healthy we can overcome the strong desire for instant pleasure and instead make a decision that is good for us in the long run.

Proper calorie consumption looks like this for most people- 300 calories for breakfast, 400-500 for lunch and 500-700 for dinner.

The book had some great info. It just reinforced for me that health and weight management are not complicated. What you eat is directly correlated to your weight and health. There is just no getting around that!

Into The Wild

By, Jon Krakauer

My Rating- 4 stars

Into The Wild, what a great book. This is a quick read about a young man in his 20s who decides to take his ideals and make them his reality. Krakauer tells the fascinating true story of Chris McCandless, who traveled all over the western U.S. and part of Mexico as a hitchhiker and adventurer for a couple of years making many unlikely friends along the way. 

His ultimate goal was to live in the Alaskan wilderness, solely off the land which he eventually does successfully for a few months. Something happens to McCandless however while he is alone in the wild and he ends up starving to death, Krakauer will tell you exactly how in the book.

Krakauer does a great job of telling the reader why McCandless did what he did and where he got his ideals from. The amazing tales of adventure in this book make me want to take an adventure of my own.

The Distant Hours- A Book Review

My Rating- 4 stars

The Distant Hours, By Kate Morton, is a great, eerie and intriguing novel! From the very beginning, this book lured me in and I could not wait to read what the next big secret would be.

The Distant Hours bounces back and forth in time between WWII and the early nineties. The characters in this novel are mainly three mysterious sisters who have lived in their family's castle all of their lives. During WWII a young girl named Meredith moves in with them for about a year as an evacuee from London.

Fifty years later, Meredith has lost touch with the sisters and receives a letter that was lost in the mail for the past 50 years from one of the sisters of the castle. Meredith's daughter, Edie, is intrigued and takes it upon herself to learn more about who her mother was 50 years before and what went on when her mom was a resident of the castle.

Figuring things out are not easy though because Meredith and Edie do not have a very close relationship. Years of suppressing who Meredith truly is has caused her to come across as a snobbish and cold to her daughter and others in her family.

The long lost letter that Meredith received starts Edie down a road of figuring out why her mother is the way she is now.

The author paints such a vivid picture of the old castle, the old sisters and does a great job of laying out secrets and then slowly unraveling them until the very end of the story.

Compared to Kate Morton's other two novels, The Forgotten Garden and The House at Riverton, this book is not quite as good. It seems like there is not as much going on in The Distant Hours as there is in the other two books. I still really liked it though and can't wait for her to come out with another book!

A Secret Kept- By Tatiana De Rosnay

My Rating- 4 stars

A Secret Kept is set in France, mostly Paris sometime in this decade. The story is about a brother and sister in adulthood that go back to a childhood vacation spot for a long weekend. They are surprised to have a lot of forgotten memories pop up. In the months following their trip, the siblings piece together a puzzle that they never thought to question until now.

As young children, Antoine and Melanie Rey's mother dies leaving them grief stricken. The siblings accept the story they are told about their mothers death and don't give the event much thought until decades later when their return to their childhood vacation spot triggers a curiosity in them to figure out who their mother was and learn the details of her death.

I enjoyed this book and really liked that it was set in France. There was a nice mixture of mystery, romance and plenty of surprises to keep you turning the page.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, By Jamie Ford- A Book Review

My Rating- 5 stars

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

I loved this truly heart warming novel about two kids forbidden to be friends because of their ancestry differences.

Henry's parents are Chinese and Keiko is second generation Japanese. Both kids are American citizens though. The hatred towards people of Japanese ancestry during WWII made it difficult for Henry and Keiko to be friends and many people, Henry's father especially, tried to stand between them. 

When Keiko and her family are sent to the Japanese internment camp Henry makes a promise to wait for his friend no matter how long the war lasted.

This story reminds us all of the irrational behaviors that war can cause. Innocent American Citizens of Japanese ancestry were wrongly sent to prison camps for years during the war. It also reminds us how damaging racism is and how alive it was not so long ago.

This novel is a great story about love, devotion, and living life. You will be glad you read this one!

On Folly Beach, By Karen White- A Book Review

My Rating- 5 stars

What a great novel! On Folly Beach has everything- a great story line, mystery, scandal, romance, and you learn a piece of little know history.

Emmy, a young woman who's husband is killed in Afghanistan, moves to Folly Beach, South Carolina to start her life over after she realizes that the life she had planned wasn't going to happen, and a little encouragement from her mother.

It is hard for Emmy to let her husband go after his death. Each day is a struggle but one thing gives her a reason to keep going, a mystery from WWII. Emmy discovers love letters written in the margins of some recently purchased books.

The family that Emmy got the books from are locals of Folly Beach and have been around for generations. The family never noticed the mysterious love letters in the books and Emmy was eager to solicit their help in figuring out what it all meant hoping that with their help, she will be able to put the pieces of a long forgotten past back together.

One person knows the whole story; Lulu, and she has worked her whole life to make sure the secret never gets out. Lulu is in her 70's and was only 9 years old when the intriguing but forgotten mystery was unfolding. Lulu was able to keep buried secrets about her sister Maggie, her cousin Cat, and their love interests for 60 years with few questions from the family. Emmy, an outsider, is asking more questions than Lulu really appreciates.

This novel is great and I could hardly put it down! You will get an added bonus of learning what things were like for the people on Folly Beach during WWII and a little know fact about something that happened on Folly Beach during the war.

Remarkable Creatures, By: Tracy Chevalier- A Book Review

My rating- 4 stars

Since the weather here is hovering around 10 degrees this week, reading and staying warm have been my activity of choice! This week I read Remarkable Creatures and really enjoyed it.

This story takes place in Lyme, on the English coast in the early 1800's. Three spinster sisters are sent to live in a cottage by the ocean by their family and each sister takes up her own hobby. The story mainly focuses on Elizabeth who takes on fossil hunting and collecting. Elizabeth meets a strange girl, Mary, who is famous in Lyme for being struck by lightening as a baby and surviving.

Mary and Elizabeth develop a bond over their love for fossils. Eventually their similar interests drive them apart due to jealousy, class issues and men.

This book brings up issues early fossil hunters faced. People started to question how old the world really was, why there were dead creatures in the ground that no longer walked the earth as far as they knew and how God was related to all of their questions. Had God wiped out these mysterious monsters in Noah's flood? If he created them then why did he destroy them?

Remarkable Creatures covers a very unique and interesting topic through the lens of a novel. I recommend this book!

Water for Elephants, By Sara Gruen- A Book Review

My Rating- 4 stars

Water for Elephants is an entertaining and unique love story about the lives of the people in a traveling circus in the 1930's.

The story is centered around a young veterinarian, Jacob, who happened to stumble upon a job with the Benzini Brother's Circus and decided to run away with the circus after the tragic death of his parents. The novel bounces between Jacob as a 93 year old man and his time with the traveling circus.

The author uses real scenarios throughout the book that happened in the traveling circuses of the early 1900's (some of the things they did to draw a crowd are mind blowing!). The entire circus crew traveled together on a train across the U.S., set up the big top, and did there show week after week.

I definitely enjoyed this heartwarming love story. I found myself cheering for Jacob in his every endeavor throughout the book.

Water for Elephants will ultimately remind you that "old people" were once young too and have a story to tell!

There is a movie coming out based on this book and I am excited to see it. I think this book will make a really good movie!

The House at Riverton, By Kate Morton- A Book Review

My Rating- 4 stars

This is the second novel I have read by Kate Morton and it is safe to say she is one of my favorite authors!

The House at Riverton is a mega intriguing page turning mystery! The story is set in England during the early 1900's and is centered around the family that lives in the House at Riverton.

The narrator of the story is one of the maids, Grace, that started working at Riverton when she was 14. As Morton unwinds the story, you learn that Grace knows more about the events that took place at Riverton than anyone ever knew. At age 99, Grace decides it is time to tell a big secret she has kept to herself for decades to her grandson.

What I love about this book is that it paints a picture of what life was like for British society people and the people that served them. The story takes you through WWI and into the 20's and paints a vivid picture of a way of life that is long gone. Like I said, this is a page turner, but I could tell early on that I wouldn't get the answers to the novel's mysteries until the end of the story. It was a satisfying read but I wish the excitement was spread throughout the novel a little better.

Overall, it is a GREAT book and I can't wait to read Kate Morton's third novel, The Distant Hours!

A Thousand Splendid Suns, By Khaled Hosseini- A Book Review

My Rating- 5 stars

A Thousand Splendid Suns

When I look at the world through my American lens, it is almost impossible to imagine that in this past decade, women and children anywhere in the world are experiencing oppression and abuse as extreme as Khaled Hosseini describes in his novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. It seems impossible that women in this decade could have no voice, but, in Afghanistan this is life.

This powerful novel will open your eyes to the past 40 years of history in Afghanistan by following the story of two unbelievable women. This book helped me understand more about the rise of the Taliban and how people caught up in the transition really feel about it.

This is definitely not a light read but I certainly learned from it and feel compassion for the voiceless in this novel. It is maddening the way women are treated in this society. I'm glad Hosseini has been able to educate us on what Afghanistan and it's people are like through this novel and his other novel, which I also highly recommend, The Kite Runner.

Read this book if you are looking for an educational and convicting read.

Half Broke Horses, By Jeannette Walls- A Book Review

My Rating- 5 stars

Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel

I love reading books, especially when I learn something from them. Half Broke Horses is a true-life novel because Jeannette Walls wrote this story about her grandmother's life mainly from her mother's memories so she had to fill in the story a little bit.

Mainly this book takes the reader back to a time in American history when the frontier was still wild (the early 1900's). The main character of this novel, Lily Casey Smith, is a no-nonsense, strong woman who grew up on a Ranch in Arizona. Lily pulled her own weight on her dad's ranch as a kid and her hard-working spirit stuck with her the rest of her life.

At the age of 15, Lily rode her horse a few hundred miles across the Arizona desert by herself to become a teacher in a one room school house. Her journey at age 15 did not include hotel stays either. This woman camped outside with a campfire, her gun, and a family too far away to do anything to help her out if she needed it. What courage! The other stories filling this novel are just as fascinating (and maybe even more so). The stories of Smith's life left me longing for a time when rules and laws were not as defined. I couldn't hop on a horse and ride across any state now for just the cost of food and water, even if I wanted to! I was amazed with all that Smith endured, her spirit, and her strength. It is fascinating to hear a true life story of someone who actually lived and all that they saw, did, and accomplished.

The author of this book also wrote The Glass Castle which I will review at another time. If you liked The Glass Castle you will love this book too!

Half Broke Horses brought a piece of America's history to life for me through the life of a woman that was exceptional. I wonder how many more stories there are of amazing people that never get written down?!

The Forgotten Garden, By Kate Morton- A Book Review

My Rating- 5 Stars

The Forgotten Garden: A Novel

 

While reading The Forgotten Garden, I got so into it that I sad when I finished the book. This long novel held mysterious twists and turns on every page! There was not a single lull or boring section in the story. If you are looking for an enchanting mystery, this book is for you.

The book starts in 1913 with a 4-year-old girl mysteriously ending up on a ship from England to Australia by herself. When she arrives in Australia, she seems to have no memory of who she is and is adopted by two loving parents. On her 21^st birthday, her father tells her the truth about her origins. To complicate matters more, the father has very limited information for his daughter, making her quest to find out where she came from extremely difficult.

With her new-found knowledge, the girl, Nell, begins to unravel her story with the help of many along the way, discovering secrets that span the generations of her family.

The author unravels the story at a steady pace, luring the reader further into the twisted tale of the Montrachet family. This is a very satisfying novel and all loose ends are tied up in the end, which I really love. There are hints throughout the novel of the end discovery but so many twists and turns in the plot will leave you changing your mind the entire story.