Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club!

Hello!

Once again it is Friday and time to link up with Heather from Blonde...Undercover Blonde. for Book Club!



This week I read two books.  One fiction and one non-fiction, both were quite good!

First I read "Why do Only White People Get Abducted by Aliens?" by  Ilana Garon (Catchy title - right?)

 Here is the synopsis from Goodreads.com: "According to Ilana Garon, popular books and movies are inundated with the myth of the hero teacher the one who charges headfirst into dysfunctional inner-city schools like a firefighter into an inferno, bringing the student victims to safety through a combination of charisma and innate righteousness. The students are then saved by the teacher s idealism, empathy, and faith. This is not that type of book. Here, Garon reveals the sometimes humorous, oftentimes frustrating, and occasionally horrifying truths that accompany the experience of teaching at a public high school in the Bronx. The overcrowded classrooms, lack of textbooks, and abundance of mice, cockroaches, and drugs weren't the only challenges Garon faced during her first four years as a teacher. Every day, she d interact with students dealing with addiction, miscarriages, stints in juvie, abusive relationships, and gang violence. These students brought with them big dreams and uncommon insight and challenged everything Garon thought she knew about education. In response, Garon a naïve, suburban girl with a curly ponytail, freckles, and Harry Potter glasses opened her eyes, rolled up her sleeves, and learned to distinguish between mitigated failure and qualified success. In this book, Garon explains how she realized that being a new teacher was about trial by fire, making mistakes, learning from the very students she was teaching, and occasionally admitting that she may not have answers to their thought-provoking (and amusing) questions."

My thoughts - Almost the whole way through the book I thought the stories were very interesting but that Garon was treating the serious problems plaguing these kids with a bit too much humor.  I then got to the Epilogue where she rounded up her thoughts a bit and it all became more clear why she told her story the way she did.  And honestly my issues with her story have to do more with the "overly" serious way I see the world than with her writing.  It is a very eye opening look into an inner city education.    

Next up - "Insurgent" by Veronica Roth

 

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads.com: "Every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves, and herself, while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love."  (shortest synopsis ever?)

 

 

My thoughts: I always like the 2nd book in the series it seems - (Same with Hunger Games and Delerium).  Tris got less serial killer-ish in my mind and more "real".  The only thing that I didn't really like is it seemed like 80% of the book is just a build up to the final book.  There's all these unknown things that no one can tell people, and secrets people are keeping that you know are going to be the basis of the third book - which I get (that's how you sell your next book).  I just wanted a little more meat to this part of the story.  Even the cover is kind of like I feel about the book - there's the broken city but the train is going out of the city on a bridge (this book) to the unknown that is very scary, but why?

Have you read anything great lately?

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday - Book club

Hello,

I got my act together and I am linking up once again Heather @ Blonde...Undercover Blonde, for Book Club.

This week I read 2 books.  The first was Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline:

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads.com -
"Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from "aging out" of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.

Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life - answers that will ultimately free them both."

My thoughts: Although you pretty much knew where this story line was going from the first few pages, the history about the orphan trains really intrigued me.  I want to find out more about the actual orphan trains and hopefully some autobiographies.  I know I have read another books about the trains to Kansas but I can't remember what it was called.  I also can't make up my mind if these trains were a good thing for the children.  On the one hand they got of the streets and got a "home", but then again that home was perhaps worse then what they could have ended up with on the streets.

The second book I read was Divergent by Veronica Roth:

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads.com: "In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, Tris also learns that her secret might help her save the ones she loves . . . or it might destroy her"

My thoughts: Well first of all I like this book because it takes in dystopian Chicago and the author went to Northwestern.  It also has the kind of hook that "Hunger Games" had - mild girl turns tough and faces all sorts of obstacles.  The whole five factions is interesting as well.  But as I read this book I was shocked at how violent it was - and violence without remorse or any kind of real emotional distress.  The main character Tris was sad for like 5 seconds and then like "this is who I am, I guess I don't care." I feel like that is serial killer mentality - I definitely want to read the second one to see if I feel the same.

Now I am on to a book about the civil war...

Until next week!

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club!

I'm back!

Time for book club so I am linking up with Heather from Blonde...Undercover Blonde.

This week I read "Twin Study: Stories" by Stacey Richter.

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads.com - "Cavemen Roam The Suburbs, Morality is questionable, teens are angsting, and alcoholics abound. This is the world as Stacey Richter sees it. In spite of--or perhaps because of--this alarming cast of characters, Richter's stories are infused with wit, humor, and keen observations of what makes humans tick. There is no sentimental hand-wringing about alcoholic or absentee parents, lost loves, or the most terrible suburban neighborhood Christmas displays. Richter's characters live, exist, play, and often drink too much because that is simply what they do. Carrying on is the only option. Richter writes with volatile energy, hurtling through her stories while coasting seamlessly between the regular and mundane. She sees the repercussions of bad parenting, forgotten kids, and while she may scoff, her caustic observations never demean her characters. By turns heartbreaking, mirthful, sardonic, and wise, her stories occasionally take a turn into the bizarre. Still, Richter's flights of fancy are not about whimsy or science fiction. They are one imaginative woman's clever and naked view of the absurdities teeming around her."

My thoughts: There are some wack-a-doodle stories up in here.  Each time you start a new story you have no idea where it is going to go.  If you are stuck in a reading rut, or don't have much time to read this collection of short stories will give you something new with a few page turns.  I really likes some of the stories and some not as much but in all it is a good collection.


Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday Returns! Book Club!

Hello!

Once again I am linking up with Heather from Blonde...Undercover Blonde, for Book Club!




I have read a couple of books lately.  First up Someone Else's Garden by Dipika Rai



Here's the synopsis from Goodreads.com : "
The eldest of seven children, born low-caste and female in rural India, Mamta is abused and rejected by a father who can see no reason to “water someone else’s garden” until a husband is found for her. Seeking escape in matrimony, Mamta begins her wedded life with hope—but is soon forced to flee her village and the horrors of her arranged marriage to the bustle of a small city. Saved from becoming one of the nameless and faceless millions of rejected humanity by the salvation of sublime love, Mamta struggles to find a precarious state of acceptance and make peace with her past."

My thoughts:  It took me a while to figure out when this book took place, I would have guessed the 1950's but it was the 90's (from political references in the book). The level of poverty and gender inequality these women live in is hard to believe, I don't doubt it, but it is shocking.  It makes for a very eye-opening read.

I also read The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol (and then translated to English):




The synopsis from Goodreads.com: "Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse, wife, and mother of two, is a compulsive do-gooder who can't say no when someone asks for help—even when she knows better. When her estranged friend Karin leaves her a key to a public locker in the Copenhagen train station, Nina gets suckered into her most dangerous project yet. Inside the locker is a suitcase, and inside the suitcase is a three-year-old boy: naked and drugged, but alive.
 Is the boy a victim of child trafficking? Can he be turned over to authorities, or will they only return him to whoever sold him? When Karin is discovered brutally murdered, Nina realizes that her life and the boy's are in jeopardy, too. In an increasingly desperate trek across Denmark, Nina tries to figure out who the boy is, where he belongs, and who exactly is trying to hunt him down".

My thoughts: At first it was a bit hard to keep the characters straight (probably because the cities they are mentioning are unfamiliar so your trying to keep geography straight too - thanks Google maps!).  But from the beginning it grabs you and you want to know what happened - I guess it's the first in a "series" about Nina Borg and her mystery adventures.  I might try another, but I worry it will be like Sue Grafton's "A is for Alibi" series and just get repetitive. 

That's it for this week - any must read suggestions?

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Review!

Hello!

It's Friday and time for Book Club!



This week I read 2 books - one good and one hooorrible.

So let's start with the good - Delirium by Lauren Oliver.  Which I received in a book trade from Martha @ Quick Cheap & Pretty!  Thanks again Martha :)

Here's the synopsis from Goodreads.com: "They say that the cure for Love will make me happy and safe forever.  And I've always believed them.  Until now.  Now everything has changed.  Now, I'd rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie.  Lena looks forward to receiving the government-mandated cure that prevents the delirium of love and leads to a safe, predictable, and happy life, until ninety-five days before her eighteenth birthday and her treatment, when she falls in love." 

My thoughts:  Ok that synopsis sucked ... The book is actually much more interesting than all that!  I really like the "alterna-world" Lauren Oliver created - it's believable.  Lena starts out the book as one of the whiny heroines I loathe -( a la Bella in Twilight), but she sheds it thru the book.  I thought I was going to have a negative review because she was all "I'm just a plain girl" "no one thinks I'm pretty" blah blah blah - but as there are 2 more books I think it was a plot thing.  At the end of the book she's a much more interesting character - and I'm excited to read the rest! 

The next book I read was "The River Sweet" by Patricia Henly

Here's the synopsis from Goodreads.com: "From all appearances, Ruth Anne Bond is enviably lucky. Her husband, Johnny, still treats her like a young lover. Her grown daughter is a staunch friend. Her steady work and devotion to the church have quietly made her a pillar of the community. Then one long Indiana summer brings some unexpected communiqués—including one she has both craved and feared for thirty years. As long-hidden truths threaten to emerge, for the first time in her marriage Ruth Anne is faced with memories she and Johnny never discuss: of a year spent in Saigon in 1968—and a past she has yet to acknowledge. Probing questions of family and faith, Patricia Henley offers us a tender, far-sighted novel about seeking answers and achieving grace."

My thoughts: Sounds interesting right?  But the book was so dis-jointed and overly wordy and descriptive - I feel just for the sake of being "picturesque" that it was like Get On with It!  I appreciate that it was emotional in the way people really are, and that our feelings aren't always clear, but it just dragged and dragged.  I rarely only read a page or two at a time, but this book bored me to pieces.

I'd love to hear about your recent reads :)

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club!

Hello!

Once again it's Friday and time for book club!


This week I read a interesting book about Crete and Leprosy!  It still exists in some areas of Asia - but don't worry there is a cure (and has been since the 1960's).

 

The synopsis via Goodreads.com:
"The Petrakis family lives in the small Greek seaside village of Plaka. Just off the coast is the tiny island of Spinalonga, where the nation's leper colony once was located—a place that has haunted four generations of Petrakis women. There's Eleni, ripped from her husband and two young daughters and sent to Spinalonga in 1939, and her daughters Maria, finding joy in the everyday as she dutifully cares for her father, and Anna, a wild child hungry for passion and a life anywhere but Plaka. And finally there's Alexis, Eleni's great-granddaughter, visiting modern-day Greece to unlock her family's past.
A richly enchanting novel of lives and loves unfolding against the backdrop of the Mediterranean during World War II, The Island is an enthralling story of dreams and desires, of secrets desperately hidden, and of leprosy's touch on an unforgettable family."

My thoughts -  I sure learned a lot about leprosy! The story is a bit predictable ( the synopsis pretty much sums it up), and this family has a LOT of bad luck, but it is interesting and an easy read.  Definitely something you could get thru in a week and the kind of easy read that still leaves you feeling like you learned something.

Until Next Week,

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club!

Hello!

It's Friday and time for Book Club!



This week I read "In the Shadow of the Banyan" by Vaddey Ratner



Here is the synopsis from goodreads.com:
"For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Soon the family’s world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus.

Over the next four years, as she endures the deaths of family members, starvation, and brutal forced labor, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of childhood—the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival."

My thoughts: This is loosely based on the author's life.  (I never know what loosely based means, like one thing actually happened?...) But even if it was just a little bit of this, it was a harrowing experience to live through.  The language is very poetic, which considering it is "narrated" by an 8 year old seems improbable at times (No 8 year old has that kind of running commentary - no 30 year old that isn't a writer has it either).  But the topic is so interesting and something that needs to be understood that I can get over it :)

Jasmine


 

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club!

Hello!

It's Friday, so once again I am linking up with Heather at Blonde...Undercover Blonde for Book  Club!

This week I read "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn:

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads.com: "Marriage can be a real killer.  On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

My thoughts: This book is good! It gets my highest praise which is - it's Interesting!  I appreciated that most reviews I saw about this book didn't give away plot elements - so I'm not going to say much, because anything you say literally will ruin plot twists.  I just think that even if some elements are a bit over the top - I liked it!  And the end ... it is what it is.  I don't know how I would have ended it so for me it works.
 
Until next week!

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club

Hello!

Once again I am linking up with Heather from Blonde...Undercover Blonde for Book Club!

This week I read "A Casual Vacancy" by J.K. Rowling:

First and Foremost - (and lets just agree to disagree) - I am not a Harry Potter fan. I read the first 4 books when they came out and I just couldn't read anymore, it's not interesting to me.  I think it got a bunch of people reading that normally wouldn't so that's great, just not my taste.

But I wanted to see what her adult fiction was like - here the synopsis from Goodreads.com: A BIG NOVEL ABOUT A SMALL TOWN ...
When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.
Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.
Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils ... Pagford is not what it first seems.
And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?

My thoughts: There are a couple of things I do when choosing a book that are weird - I never read the synopsis or the reviews first.  I want to be surprised by the book, and I don't like outside influence.  I read a lot of books based on the cover, or by author.  Which is probably why I end up with books I don't necessarily like (but I think that's good - it makes you broaden your comfort zone).  This book falls into the category of "ok plot - but all the characters are bad people, and you just don't connect with them, so you don't care what happens" And then when I went to read the reviews for this book, to see if others felt the same on Goodreads, I was shocked to see that literally 100's people "reviewed" this book and gave it 5 stars just because J.K. Rowling wrote it, they hadn't read it.  Really people?  Or they described it as "beautifully written".  I am not in publishing so my opinion is moot, but it is NOT a "beautifully written" book.  If it had been by anyone else it would have just been "meh" for most.

But I just started Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn yesterday and I am enjoying it - so yea!

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club!

Hello!

I FINALLY finished my book!  It took 2 weeks - I usually read a new book every 4 days.  But once I start reading something, I don't "quit".  I have only stopped reading 2 books in my entire life.  This one almost made 3 - It was soooo boring.  Anywhoo... Once again I linking up with Heather from Blonde...Undercover Blonde for Book Club!



This is the book that almost took me down - Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips


Look at that it's a National Bestseller & a National Book Award Finalist!
And here's the synopsis from Goodreads.com -
Lark and Termite is a rich, wonderfully alive novel about seventeen year old Lark and her brother, Termite, living in West Virginia in the 1950s. Their mother, Lola, is absent, while their aunt, Nonie, raises them as her own, and Termite’s father, Corporal Robert Leavitt, is caught up in the early days of the Korean War. Award-winning author Jayne Anne Phillips intertwines family secrets, dreams, and ghosts in a story about the love that unites us all.

My thoughts- "Wonderfully alive novel?"  It is the description of the same 3 days over and over from different character points of view and they all are just overly descriptive like "the sky was so blue it was like a river flowing, and it could be a river flowing and you felt it deep inside like a river flowing through you like the river outside"  That is NOT a direct quote from the book - but that's what the whole thing was like sentence after mind numbing sentence.  Also "the author intertwines family secrets, dreams and ghosts in a story" WHAT?  The ghost is SO RANDOM you are like why was that in the book? And the family secrets aren't really secret from anyone but one person.  I'm assuming you can tell I did not enjoy this and I feel it got awards for being "wordy & descriptive" which a good book does not make in my mind. 

But you need to read some bad ones to know when you got a good one :)

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday...Book Club!

Hello!

It's Friday so I am linking up with Heather at Blonde...Undercover Blonde for Book Club:


This week I read "Ladder of Years" by Anne Tyler -




Here is the synopsis from Goodreads.com:
BALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION, declares the headline. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. But for Delia, who feels like a tiny gnat buzzing around her family's edges, "walking away from it all" is not a premeditated act, but an impulse that will lead her into a new, exciting, and unimagined life . . . .

My thoughts: It's kind of a really interesting premise, to literally just walk away from your life and start anew.  I like the first 4/5 of the book because it was interesting and almost plausible that someone could do it so easily.  And I also liked a lot of the self realization that came to her.  We all need time to reflect on our life choices and realize WE made those choices, as well as coming in to your own self.  The only odd part was the end, it wrapped up so quickly it was a little off-putting.  But otherwise a solid read.


Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday! Book Club

Hello:

Once again it is Friday and I am linking up with Heather at Blonde...Undercover Blonde for Book Club!


This week I read "Thirteen Reasons Why" by Jay Asher~


Here is the synopsis from Goodreads.com ~ "Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers thirteen cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker, his classmate and crush who committed suicide two weeks earlier.

Through Hannah and Clay's dual narratives, debut author Jay Asher weaves an intricate and heartrending story of confusion and desperation that will deeply affect teen readers."

My thoughts ~ For at least half the book all I could think is "they are making suicide sound like a game."  I don't think the author intended it that way but overall I think most people don't like to hear about suicide so this can be a hard book to read and I empathize with Hannah at the end.  I heard they are making this into a movie and I just think that it may come across as a valiant act of retribution.  Now I definetly need to read something cheery!

Are you reading anything good?  Any suggestions?

Jasmine 

Inner Beauty Fiday - Book Club!

Hello!

I am once again linking up with Heather at Blonde...Undercover Blonde for Book Club!



This week I read "The Shadowy Horses" by Susanna Kearsley :


Here's the synopsis from Goodreads.com: "Archaeologist Verity Grey has been drawn to the dark legends of the Scottish Borderlands in search of the truth buried in a rocky field by the sea.

Her eccentric boss has spent his whole life searching for the resting place of the lost Ninth Roman Legion and is convinced he's finally found it—not because of any scientific evidence, but because a local boy has "seen" a Roman soldier walking in the fields, a ghostly sentinel who guards the bodies of his long-dead comrades.

Here on the windswept shores, Verity may find the answer to one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time. Or she may uncover secrets someone buried for a reason."

Duh duh DUH!

My thoughts - Its an easy read, and the characters a predictable.  I actually got my degree in Archaeology so that's why it piqued my interest, and they actually described the technical aspects pretty well.  Archaeology is not glamorous, it's a lot of paperwork.  And I wish all the archaeologists I knew were hot Scotsmen and we were on an illustrious dig - not so much in real life.  But it was an ok book and kept my interest!

Until next week!

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club!

Hello!

Once again I am linking up with Heather at Blonde...Undercover Blonde for Book Club!

This week I read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse:


The Synopsis (from Goodreads.com)~ "Born into wealth and privilege, Siddhartha renounces his place among India’s nobility to wander the countryside in search of meaning. He learns suffering and self-denial among a group of ascetics before meeting the Buddha and coming to realize that true peace cannot be taught: It must be experienced. Changing his path yet again, Siddhartha reenters human society and earns a great fortune. Yet over time this life leaves Siddhartha restless and empty. He achieves enlightenment only when he stops searching and surrenders to the oneness of all."

My thoughts:  This is a short book but my copy has a whole forward section about the author which was really interesting. Herman Hesse (a German) wrote this book right after WWI and it would have been full of very foreign concepts to most.  In fact it wasn't translated into english until the late 1950's.  While the book may be a quick read (technically) it makes you think, and it has a lot of foot notes so you can understand the Hinduism references.  I really liked it because it reminds me that no matter where you are in time, or what religion we practice, the inner I is always searching for a certain peace.

Until next week!

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club!

Hello!

Once again I am joining up with Heather from Blonde...Undercover Blonde for Book Club!

This week I read "Astray" by Emma Donoghue -



Here is the synopsis from Goodreads.com: "The fascinating characters that roam across the pages of Emma Donoghue's stories have all gone astray: they are emigrants, runaways, drifters, lovers old and new. They are gold miners and counterfeiters, attorneys and slaves. They cross other borders too: those of race, law, sex, and sanity. They travel for love or money, incognito or under duress.

With rich historical detail, the celebrated author of Room takes us from puritan Massachusetts to revolutionary New Jersey, antebellum Louisiana to the Toronto highway, lighting up four centuries of wanderings that have profound echoes in the present. Astray offers us a surprising and moving history for restless times."

My thoughts:  I really enjoyed this book.  The short stories are quick to draw you in and then the little historical basis to the story at the end is sooo interesting.  A great easy read - but one that actually leaves you feeling educated.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club!

Hello!

Again my apologies for not posting on the regular!  We went on a 4 day trip for New Year's and I never realized how badly I need to be at HOME with MY STUFF, to even begin a post.  I don't know how people do it from their phone. 

Anyhoo... With out further ado I am once again linking up with Blonde... Undercover Blonde for Book Club:

This week I read "All Over But the Shoutin'" by Rick Bragg


Synopsis from Goodreads.com: "This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. It is the story of Bragg's father, a hard-drinking man with a murderous temper and the habit of running out on the people who needed him most.

But at the center of this soaring memoir is Bragg's mother, who went eighteen years without a new dress so that her sons could have school clothes and picked other people's cotton so that her children wouldn't have to live on welfare alone. Evoking these lives--and the country that shaped and nourished them--with artistry, honesty, and compassion, Rick Bragg brings home the love and suffering that lie at the heart of every family. The result is unforgettable"

My thoughts: I wouldn't go so far as to say this book was unforgetable, or a "soaring" memoir - it is interesting but oddly unemotional.  I also felt like it skimmed the surface of his life rather than gave an in depth look.  I see he has written other books about his family so maybe he was saving up material for those!  All in all, it was ok. 

Jasmine 

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club!

Hello!

I can't believe I haven't posted in the last few days ... The holidays caught up with me!  But I'm glad to be back for Book Club Friday!  Once again I am linking up with Heather at Blonde...Undercover Blonde.

This week I read Water Cooler Diaries: Women across America Share Their Day at Work

by Joni B. Cole & B.K. Rakhra.

 

The Synopsis from Goodreads.com - "What’s it really like to own the company...work from home...occupy cubicle-land? On March 27, 2007, over 500 women kept a diary of their workday-including drama and laugh-out-loud moments-for Water Cooler Diaries. Featuring 35 full-day accounts and hundreds of highlights, you’ll go behind the scenes with a hot new fashion designer, a McDonald’s manager, a trauma surgeon, a mechanic, a life coach, a boxing promoter. More well-known contributors include actress Angie Everhart, celebrity chef Sara Moulton, race-car driver Sara Fisher, and "Go Fug Yourself” blogger Heather Cocks, all inviting us to work a day in their shoes."

 

My thoughts: I wish I had read this book when it first came out in 2008, as it's a little dated, but it was still really interesting to read about so many different occupations and lives.  My only complaint is (Of course) all the jobs were either really prestigious or wild, with just a couple of "normal" jobs thrown in.  I want to hear more about the masses and not the 1%.

 

 

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club!

Hello!

It is Friday and the Mayan doomsday is upon us.  But if you still need something to read while you wait for the world to end,  I am once again linking up with Blonde...Undercover Blonde for Book Club!

This week I read a little non-fiction that is near and dear to me - Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep by David K. Randall.

The synopsis from Goodreads.com : "In Dreamland, Randall explores the research that is investigating those dark hours that make up nearly a third of our lives. Taking readers from military battlefields to children 's bedrooms, Dreamland shows that sleep isn't as simple as it seems. Why did the results of one sleep study change the bookmakers odds for certain Monday Night Football games? Do women sleep differently than men? And if you happen to kill someone while you are sleepwalking, does that count as murder?"

My thoughts:  As I said this book resonates with me as I have one of the rare sleep disorders described in the book (REM Behavioral Disorder - I act out my dreams and "sleep" with my eyes open when I'm not medicated).  So it's always nice to hear about others like you and how they treat it (same as me!).  But even if you sleep like a baby, I think anyone would find this book fascinating.  They have discovered so  much yet so little about sleep, we spend a third of our lives doing it, and remember very little.  And ohhh the things you don't realize your body wants to be able to sleep!  And all the crazy things that happen to yo if you don't sleep enough, yet can be cured once you "sleep it off".  Just fascinating.

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club!

Hello!

Once again it is Friday and I am linking up with Blonde...Undercover Blonde for Book Club. 

This week I read The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian:

From Goodreads: This spellbinding tale travels between Aleppo, Syria, in 1915 and Bronxville, New York, in 2012—a sweeping historical love story steeped in the author’s Armenian heritage, making it his most personal novel to date.
When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Syria, she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke College, a crash course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language. The First World War is spreading across Europe, and she has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide. There, Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter.

 

 

My thoughts - This book was a very interesting look into Armenian history and the first World War.  It's kind of confusing because Chris Bohjalian narrates the book as a female writer; and he is Armenian and so is narrator and sometimes I wondered how much was fiction.  But overall it was an interesting and thought provoking book. 

 

Jasmine

Inner Beauty Friday - Book Club!

Hello!

It is once again time for Book Club Friday hosted by Blonde...Undercover Blonde & the Nerdy Katie

This week I read "Still Missing" by Chevy Stevens :

Here is the Synopsis from Goodreads: "On the day she was abducted, Annie O’Sullivan, a 32-year-old realtor, had three goals—sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever-patient boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she's about to leave, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all. "

My thoughts:  I don't usually care for mysteries or suspense novels, bt this was really interesting.  I also thought "oh my goodness this could actually happen!" and there was an nexpected twist at the end.  It was fast, interesting and a bit different from my usual reads.  Good stuff.

In a little bit my post will pop up for the Book Swap also hosted by Blonde...Undercover Blonde - I got 2 awesome books, stay tuned :)

Jasmine