The weather remained pretty cruddy in April. Cold. Windy. An entire weekend where it was a monsoon. Perfect reading weather. Which would be great if I could come here and tell you about the amazing books I read last month.
Except my April reading books? Kind of eh. Nothing spectacular.
I did finish seven books last month for a total of 2,334 pages. That brings the yearly total to 27 books and 9,571 pages. Remember my goal is 77 books this year, so with 27 done, I'm at 35 percent, which is ahead of schedule. Yay!
So what'd I read?
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
The Ex-Debutante by Linda Francis Lee
Defending Jacob by William Landay
William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back by Ian Doescher
Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo
Beautiful Day by Elin Hilderbrand
The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin
I guess you could say it was also the month of extremely long titles.
And now for the brief reviews, complete with number of stars given out on GoodReads. Follow me here if you’d like a more timely update on what I’m reading, what I think and what’s been added to my to-read list.
This has been made into a movie and World War II history has always been pretty interesting. Plus I'd been hearing rave reviews about the book. So I picked it up. Not going to lie, there was some heavy stuff in this book, but it was a fascinating read.
The Ex-Debutante by Linda Francis Lee ***
It was a fluffy piece of chick lit. A former debutante comes back home for family reasons and ends up organizing the debutante ball. And of course there's a love story involved too.
Defending Jacob by William Landay ***
I read a lot of legal thrillers, which isn't surprising since I write about crime for my day job. This one? Not my favorite. A prosecutor finds himself seated at the other table when his son is charged with murder. Like I said, not my favorite. It was OK though.
You really can't go wrong with hearing words of wisdom from Yoda in the style of Shakespeare. Seriously, this book and the first book (Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope) are pretty fantastic.
Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo ***
I think this is the first book in a long time that I didn't write a short sentence or two on GoodReads about what I thought. It was kind of preachy. Kind of unbelievable. And just a bit too much religion for me. Another one that was made into a movie. I will not be watching it.
Beautiful Day by Elin Hilderbrand ***
I didn't have high expectations for this, I think I picked it up off the new release shelf at the library. But it was fluffy chick lit, which is exactly what I was looking for. Would make a good beach or vacation read.
The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin ***
I liked parts of this, but then there were other parts that I completely lost interest. In my opinion, there were sections where she quoted too many blog comments from the blog she was writing during this year, but I guess it's her book, she can do what she wants. By the end of it, I was doing a lot of skimming.
So what'd you read last month? Any suggestions?
2 comments:
I really liked Unbroken and I am kind of worried they won't do it justice with the movie.
I agree with you on Defending Jacob... It was OK but there was something about it that just didn't work for me.
Do you read Emily Giffin? I can't wait for her new one to come out on Tuesday!
Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye. 1845 NYC, police, politics, murders.
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