Book Check-In 6/21/20

I totally missed checking in last week, so this covers the past two weeks. But even though it covers two weeks, I still only read one book! It's been a little slow going recently. I finished Always and Forever Lara Jean by Jenny Han, which I mentioned I was reading in my last check-in. Usually I read one or two books a week, so this is pretty slow for me! I started a new tv show and podcast, and also downloaded a new video game, so that might have something to do with it...

In this book, Lara Jean is grappling with going to college and possibly being further away from Peter, and if their relationship will be able to last. They're getting a lot of conflicting advice from friends and family, saying it's not good to start college while dating somebody because then you don't get the "real" freshman experience. I'll be honest, I liked this one the least out of the three, I found the ending unsatisfying. But also in general I found this book the least relatable. This one really felt like a teen high school romance, much more than the other two did, even though all three are. I guess I'm just a little old for this book, I'm not the target demographic. Overall it was pretty good, I liked it pretty well, I just think I would have liked it more if I were in high school. But who knows. In high school I hated romance, so it's hard to say.

I'm still working on reading My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (and I'm loving it!) and I also started Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia. I'm nearly done with both, so next week's check in should be a little longer.

As always, you can see all the books I’ve read on my reading list.

Book Check-In 6/7/20

I read 3 books this past week! Like I mentioned in my last check-in, I was almost done reading The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, so I was able to finish it and read two more books. I read Aru Shah and the Song of Death by Roshani Chokshi as well as In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware.

The Glass Castle is a memoir, and I more or less generally like memoirs, but I loved this one! It was really interesting. I’m pretty late to this party, it came out in 2005, so half the people I tried to recommend it to had already read it. It’s about her childhood, growing up in extreme poverty with parents who don’t necessarily want to work, and how she and her siblings managed to get it together enough and get out from the toxicity of their household and grow to have good lives. And how even though her parents didn’t take care of her the way she wanted, she still loved them. I was riveted, there was some crazy stuff happening in this book, but part of what made made it so compelling was that it’s true. Sometimes with fiction, you think, that’s interesting, but it couldn’t be true. With this, nothing is unbelievable, and the things that maybe you wish weren’t true, you know they are.

Aru Shah and the Song of Death is another one from the Rick Riordan Presents collection, which I talked about a lot in my last check-in. This one comes from an Indian author, and is about a handful of girls who are the reincarnated souls of the ancient heroes from Hindu legends. This is actually the second in a series, I had  liked the first, but it’s been a while since I read it, so I didn’t remember the story that well. It did a good job of refreshing me, without being overt about it. It was longer than I expected for a middle grade book, so it took me a while to get through it. The plot of this one is that the main character, Aru is accused of stealing a magical weapon, and if she doesn’t manage to get it back within 10 days, she and her friends will be banished from the Otherworld, the magical realm that they’re allowed to be a part of due to their powers. I really loved the characters in this one. They felt real and well fleshed out, and I cared about them and their goals. And another thing I loved, they didn’t all necessarily want the same thing, or for the same reasons. I’m looking forward to the third book, but unfortunately my library doesn’t have it yet.

In a Dark, Dark Wood is a thriller. I’ve read Ruth Ware before and I really like her. This one I whipped through in just like two days cause it had me on the edge of my seat. I went to bed super late one night because I couldn’t put it down! Our main character is invited to a bachelorette party for a friend she hasn’t spoken to since they were in high school - 10 years, and she wasn’t invited to the wedding for. She agrees to go with one of her other friends who she’s still in touch with and was also invited. It ends up being in this weird glass house in the middle of the woods where she keeps feeling watched. The story is interspersed with her in the hospital, after some accident has happened, which she can’t remember from head trauma, but she knows the police are guarding her door and somebody may have died. The story flips between chronological order, and her in the hospital trying to remember what happened. I was racing to find out what happened and who it was, and I loved the ending. Definitely would recommend if you’re into thrillers.

I’ve started two new books! Always and Forever Lara Jean by Jenny Han (the third and final in the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before series) and My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult.

As always, you can see all the books I’ve read on my reading list.