This Weeks Books (week ending 3/26/17)

This week I finished...

The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns by Chris Colfer
Well, my nine year old niece was right, the second one was better than the first.  I will have to read the third to see if the second was the best.  I really enjoyed it.  I love how one of the protagonists (I am trying not to give anything away) used compassion and empathy to defeat the evil.  It is written for kids and it is good.  I have heard the audio book is good too (my nieces like it and they have high standards for audio books having listened to Jim Dale read HP many times).  If the size of a book intimidates you, don't worry, although thick it is a quick read once it gets going (and it seems to speed up too).

Recommendations

I Recommend...

Every so often friends ask me to refer a book to them.  Some you can read below as I read them this year.  But some of my recommendations are books that I read before 2017.

My current top 3 recommendations are:

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Especially for anyone into gaming or that grew up during the 80s.  It takes a little to get into it, but not as much as Game of Thrones.  After reading it, there are things you may question.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
This lives with you for awhile.

Americanah by Ngozi Adichie
It is written beautifully.  It is eye opening and amazing.  And it was just chosen as the One Book One New York book, which means if you are in NYC there will be lots of events around the book.  Even if you aren't in NYC, you should read it.
http://www1.nyc.gov/site/mome/initiatives/1book1ny.page

I also recommend:

Three books I read fairly recently.  They were gifts I received at Christmas...
The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (from my 12 year old niece),
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart (from my 9 year old niece),
and Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey which I got from my best friend from home.

and anything by Rainbow Rowell (start with Eleanor & Park, if you have the choice).

As I recommend other things to other people, I will add them.

This Weeks Books (for a few weeks)

For the week ending 3/19/17

So I could say I didn't finish any books this week, but I did.  I listened to a really corny Hallmark romance that I found on Hoopla.  I listened to it as I walked to school or work or as I ran errands.   I did read a bit of some other things, but nothing else got finished.  (So I fessed up and this weeks picture will be non-existent as you don't need to know the title of the book ;-))

For the week ending 3/12/17

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater.  

It is the last book in the Raven Cycle series.  It tied everything up.  It was a little darker than the other books and it was good.  I don' think it fits into any of the book challenge categories.  I did listen to this as I drove or walked.  

A Big Dose of Lucy by Marthe Joceyln.  

The protagonist is a 16 year old mixed-race orphan in Canada during the 1960s.  It is a story of gumption and courage.  It turns out it is something I had on one of my many book lists.  It also fits the all points-of-view characters are people of color as the whole thing is told from her point of view.   I enjoyed it.  There was a moment i put it down for almost a week as I thought something bad was about to happen and I didn't want to read it.  I had to remind my self it was a book for kids so what i thought might happen, probably wasn't going to - I picked it up again, and i was right - it didn't happen.  #readharder

March 12th was book club - I didn't finish the book in time and it is good (it is still not done- darn school).  

For the week ending 3/5/17

Alas, no books were finished the week ending March 5th.  Books were read, but none were finished.