Lost in a Good Book

Hi all, how was your weekend? Mine was wonderful. A few of my college friends were in town visiting and we all hung out most of the weekend. We even pretended it was 2006 on Saturday night and went out-out (which I have not done in literally years). It caused me a lot of stress leading up, but it ended up being really fun. I really wish a bar would open where you can dance at like 7pm, then I would totally go out more often- I still want to be in bed by 11 :)

I also spent lots of time with my best buddy Teddy, aka bff Katie's baby. 

I'm paying for the wonderfulness in exhaustion this week, but eventually I will catch up on sleep :) 

 

I have read SO many good books lately. I gave the last 5 books I read 5 stars on Goodreads. I admit I'm not the MOST difficult "grader" of books, but I only give a book 5 stars if I can't think of any real complaints about it. The first book I'll recommend for some light reading was our February blogger book club pick: 

I actually gave this one 3 stars. The premise of a woman losing her memory in a plane crash was interesting, but it was a bit too chick lit for me to love it. It might have been the fact that she used the word "fabulous" so many times…The good thing is, reading this book motivated me to give one the classics and try, and before I knew I was on to:

This is the first in my row of 5 stars. I mean, can anyone really give this book less? The story is incredible. I remember my first attempt to read this book was when I was in Washington DC in fifth grade. I wasn't able to finish it, which makes sense since I definitely had to re-read some of the language at times even now, but I'm glad I picked it up again because it was worth the time it took me to really enjoy this book. 

After taking a couple of weeks to get through Little Women, it was nice to plow through this book in basically one afternoon of waiting for Eric's tires to be fixed. I have always been obsessed with women's gymnastics at the Olympics and I remember Dominque Moceanu well. This was a fascinating read and will definitely make me look at gymnastics differently- as she said, I'll still enjoy the sport but definitely question some of the practices. I would never want my child to be a serious athlete for so many reasons...

Did anyone not love The Guernsey Potato Peel Society? Well I did, and this book takes place on the same island during World War II. A woman has an affair with a German soldier who moves in next door. It's hard for me to find a World War II fiction story I do not love, and this was no exception. 

 

I admit, I've heard good things about this book but I still would not have picked it up on my own. For some reason I find memory loss due to Alzheimer's to be really uncomfortable/difficult, and I thought I would have a hard time with this book. It was our book club book for March so I gave it a try and I am so glad I did. It was told from the perspective of a woman with early onset Alzheimer's, which really helped me get into the story and appreciate her as a character. Of course it was a hard to read book, but I didn't find it depressing. That being said, I was a little worried about following it up with a story about a woman dying, but this next book came in at the library so I just went for it. 

 

I wanted to read this book, but as I mentioned above I was a bit worried about following Still Alice with this story. I thought it might be too similar and after loving Still Alice, I was concerned. I didn't have to be though, because I really, really loved this book, maybe even more than Still Alice but I don't know- they were both wonderful for different reasons. This was a book I truly didn't want to end, and when it was over, I immediately considered buying a hard copy of this book because I had it on my Kindle and a library version. I have never done this (in my 2 years of owning a Kindle and many more years of using the library). I loved this author, and his mom. I bookmarked a million more books to read because he mentioned them. I messaged Lisa to talk about the book. I e-mailed my friend Sarah to tell her she has to read the book. I wrote down quotes. I had this book in my mind still days later. I think my favorite quote is: 

“We all owe everyone for everything that happens in our lives. But it's not owing like a debt to one person--it's really that we owe everyone for everything. Our whole lives can change in an instant--so each person that keeps that from happening, no matter how small a role they play, is also responsible for all of it. Just by giving friendship and love, you keep the people around you from giving up--and each expression of friendship or love may be the one that makes all the difference." - Will Schwalbe

But there were so many more lovely quotes. I will never ever be a movie person, but I will always have my books. Recommend a great one to me, please!