The New Year’s Resolution I am most excited about (again, post forthcoming) is reading more. It’s a good resolution because I WANT to do it, and I’ve set myself up to succeed. I’ve updated my Goodreads queue, joined a couple of online reading groups, and set up my Overdrive and Nook accounts through my local library so I can get free ebooks and audiobooks. I’m really, REALLY excited, because I know this one is gonna work out.

My plan is to blog the books I read and my reviews at the end of each month. But why wait for 2016 to do that? I started reading more earnestly in November and December and I can share that now, right? Think of it as a warm-up for 2016.

The Selection Series

When the heir to the throne comes of age, he selects his wife from a crowd of girls (one from each state/province) who are handpicked and brought to the castle for several weeks and months. America is your basic teen girl heroine, torn between two loves, torn between making friends or competing, torn between good and bad, and also torn between the existing government and rebel forces who wish to change or remove it. 

To be more specific, I actually just finished The Elite and read The One. I read The Selection and most of The Elite in the summertime, but came back around to it. I still need to read The Heir and the novella series which is bits and pieces of the story from perspectives other than America’s (she’s the main protagonist). I can honestly say I was surprised how much I liked these. Most people assume that when you like Harry Potter it means you like Young Adult Fiction, but that’s actually not a fair assumption. Harry Potter is kind of it’s own thing, and hard to compare to anything else except maybe Narnia or Lord of the Rings, in my opinion. Young Adult Fiction can always grab my attention, but I have difficulty sticking with it. As you can tell with my fragmented reading here, I had that problem with The Selection series, too.

Good

• Very interesting retelling of the Cinderella story. I love fairytale retellings, and this is probably the best one I’ve ever read. Think The Bachelor meets The Hunger Games meets Cinderella.
• Usually the love triangles and feeble morality crises bore me, but Kiera Cass did an ok job with this one. She fleshes out a lot of moral gray area for multiple characters, making it interesting.
• I like that America isn’t an empty shell. She definitely has some character outside of her situation and the boys she’s involved with.
• Twists and turns you don’t see coming – always fun!
• Like most YA fiction, very quick and easy to read! I had these as ebooks on my phone kindle app and they were perfect for fragmented, random reading. I’d catch a chapter before bed, a few pages when I was rocking Reese to sleep, a big chunk outside Walmart while Reese napped in her carseat before grocery shopping. YA fiction is great for that.
• I would LOVE to go see this as a movie, or even better – a TV series!

Less Good

• I didn’t super like America as a character. But then again I usually don’t like main characters, and that’s ok. She seemed really conflicted and even dramatic, but that’s probably good for YA fiction. Teens will like her a lot more.
• Very irregular pace. I would get SO BORED for chapters on end, then suddenly everything you’re waiting for and more happens in 2 paragraphs. Frustrating.
• Poor descriptions. I guess I’m used to more verbose adult writing, but I wanted more detail about all the beautiful dresses, banquets, the castle, the girls.
• So much happens in the second to last chapter of The One to resolve the series, but with so little exposition. It felt like you just slammed on the brakes, arriving in the middle of a surprise party, everyone cheers, and then you just go home. Where’s my long exit-interview with Dumbledore where everything from the entire book/series is explained?!!!!!
• The girl who reads the audiobook is THE WORST. I literally had to shut it off and return the audiobook after one (!) chapter and continue on ebook.

David & Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell

David beating Goliath is used as a crazy mismatch scenario, assuming that Daniel never should have won – but he did. Gladwell uses this idea/fallacy in our brains to point out that advantages (Goliath’s big, muscley body, armor and sword) can actually be disadvantages (he couldn’t move, and the disease which caused him to be so humungous also affected his vision) while disadvantages (Daniel’s small stature, lack of training, lack of protection) could actually be advantages (he was fast, difficult to see, and skilled with a sling). Underdogs winning is actually quite common when the underdogs exploit the assumed advantages of their adversaries, and use their own disadvantages differently.

I was VERY excited to read this book because I’m a big Malcolm Gladwell fan. I loved Outliers and Blink best, and I had heard that this book talks about education so I was certain I would love it. And for the most part I did! Malcolm Gladwell has a way of writing things so you feel like he’s just pointing out obvious things. It’s like when I lose something and The Beard can walk in and find it for me in under a minute because I simply get in my own way, mentally, which prevents me from finding it myself. I really like his anecdotal writing, and the way he uses data and stories from all different types of people, parts of the world, moments in time, areas of expertise, to illustrate his point(s). I got pretty bored of this one, though, and I’ll admit that I skipped a few chapters.

Good

• I loved his approach – challenging us to question our most basic assumptions about life and love and the entire world.
• I’m all about sports metaphors, especially short little blonde girls being good at basketball.
• Everyone loves the idea of an underdog, for the most part.
• The idea that we can take “disadvantages” and use them as advantages is one of the most hopeful (and Gospel-centered) principles in the world.
• He reads the audiobook and I really loved his voice.
• The parts about dyslexia, schools, and colleges were particularly interesting, and I think important for all teachers and administrators to read.

Less Good

• It seemed really repetitive and slow about 1/2-3/4 of the way through.
• I was excited to read more about the Civil Rights movement, because I feel like that’s an area I don’t know much about. I was really turned off by it, though. Not only was it repetitive, confusing, and boring, but I also didn’t love reading about the activists purposely using children and orchestrating scenarios to have them publicly hurt because it helped their cause.
• As with all of his books, I wish for just a *little* more application. Ok. This is all great. Super cool. But what does it mean? How can we use it? What should we be doing? He skims it a little bit but the whole purpose of research, writing, and education in general is to better the world, right? Let’s see a little more of that.

Girl on the Train

Rachel is a divorced alcoholic, still recovering physically and emotionally from her previous married life. She takes the train every day, past the house she bought with her ex-husband, but instead she watches the couple in the home next door. She doesn’t know them, but after catching glimpses into their lives day in and day out as she passes on the train, she’s constructed a false reality in which she DOES know them. One day she thinks she sees something criminal happen to them, and debates getting involved when a missing persons’ report circulates. The story and her life are messy and intertwined, culminating in a crazy ending, which you might expect. (Not that you’ll predict the ending, but that you expect there to be a crazy one!)

Ok, ok. I actually read this one clear back in the summer. But I realized I never actually blogged about it somehow? I took this book when we went on our California vacation and read it in about 2 days, even though we were pretty busy. It came highly recommended by everyone who loved Gone Girl, so I was immediately in. It’s a thriller, switches perspectives, and has quite a few confusing twists and turns. Definitely NOT as good as Gone Girl, but worth reading. [A better recommendation for you if you liked Gone Girl would be Reconstructing Amelia. SO GOOD.]

Good

• Her descriptions are amazing. I’ve never had a sip of alcohol, much less experienced alcoholism, but from her colorful and distinctive description I feel like I know what it’s like. Crazy.
• You kind of hate everyone, but you also kind of root for everyone? It’s weird. It’s the kind of conflict that makes you want to talk to someone about what’s going on after every chapter.
• I have to say the ending was pretty unexpected.

Less Good

• As much as the pace made me want to keep going, the negativity and darkness made me need to take frequent breaks.
• It’s dark. I mean, Gone Girl was also dark. But this one… I don’t know how to explain it. At least in Gone Girl the people seemed autonomous and fairly healthy. Everyone in this story seems to have serious, serious problems and darkness in them.
• Don’t read this if you’re a new mom, for a variety of reasons. Just trust me.
• Much like Gone Girl this one leaves you with that overwhelmingly icky “WTF?????” feeling.

You’ll see this again in my resolutions post – but my goal is to read at least 3 books a month this year. So you’ll be seeing a post like this at the end of each month with the 3 (or more!) books I read, quick synopsis, and what I thought of them. I actually field a lot of book recommendations and this is much more fun for me to write about than most of the topics I try to brainstorm. 🙂

Wanna Join My Book Club?

And I don’t mean Harry Potter Book Club. I’ll be co-hosting Bon’s Book Club in January and maybe a few more times throughout the year, and I’ll be participating every single month. This year we are going to implement an IRL book club, meaning we’ll meet to discuss the book – but you don’t have to! You are welcome to come join us, but the best thing about Bon’s Book Club is that it can all be done from the comfort of your bed and jammies.

If you’ve been looking to interact more and make new friends, or have a New Year’s Resolution to read more this year – this is your sign. This is probably the easiest and best way to ease into book clubs and regular reading. For January we are going to read These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner and we’ll be discussing it on January 28! Request it from  your local library, download the kindle, or head to your nearest Barnes & Noble and get reading!