The Round House

This is one of those books where you should understand what you're getting into before reading it. When I first started reading, I didn't know what to make of it. My husband read it beforehand and was able to let me know it was a cross between a mystery and a coming of age story.

That description was helpful. Because as a mystery, it was lacking. As a coming of age story, it was lacking. But together, it was good. I did find it hard to connect to the main character, seeing as he's a 13 year old boy. As I've written before, I have 3 sisters. I have 4 daughters. I have no idea how to relate to a 13-year-old boy. Thankfully, there were sweet moments in the book between the friends that redeemed the crudeness of the boys.

This plot itself is about a 13-year-old Native American boy who lives on the reservation. The author pulls the reader into the book quickly. The tragic event that becomes the mystery starts within a few pages. The ending was interesting and had depth in some way. But, really it's just a coming of age story.

The narrator is the boy, but as an older man. He's looking back to the summer of 1988, when he's 13 and a tragic event happens. I enjoyed the complexity of the characters and how it was narrated. Louise Erdrich wrote the book without quotations marks around the dialog, which adds an interesting note to the book.

It was a well researched and written book. But if you don't like crude language of 13-year-old boys, skip this read.

The Orphan Master's Son

Beautifully written, yet still tiring to read. Johnson did his research. His insight into North Korea, while I don't know how accurate, is amazing. I can only imagine what North Korea is actually like, but when I do - it's something like The Orphan Master's Son.

As interesting and well written as this book it, I still didn't finish it. It wasn't engaging enough. There wasn't a smooth enough flow from story to story. I put this book down because I didn't have time to read, and when I went to pick it back up, it felt like work. And there are too many good books to read to force myself to finish one. I can't recommend this book to many people. Maybe if you are really intrigued by North Korea and unspeakable evil. Or maybe if you like well researched books and don't care as much about character.

The Fault in Our Stars

This book would make a great movie. It's about teens with terminal cancer and the writing was very good. Cleverly written, great plot, interesting characters. The book was a little pretentious though. The main characters, Hazel and Augustus, were a little too unreal in their speech. My only hope for that is that cancer ages people's language and makes them smarter. Otherwise, the characters aren't believable.

It's worth the read, even though it left me sad. Not because it's about terminal cancer in kids, but because of the over arching theme of nothingness after death. The no hope in life or death makes this novel sad. I saw how the lack of faith in SOMETHING makes living and dying pointless.

But maybe that's the point? To make the reader enjoy the story and characters, yes. But, also perhaps to question their thoughts on after. After life is over. After someone you love is gone.

Overall, this is a good book. A quick read and very well written.

Me Before You

This review will be short. Me Before You is one of those books I just can't say much about because knowing too much will spoil the book's effect for the reader.

Macro scale speaking though, this book is about the lives of two people - Louisa Clark, a 26-year-old woman who has yet to leave her parents' home and find herself and Will Traynor, a privileged 34-year-old man who has a new challenge in his life. The book is about if Will can overcome that challenge with the help of Louisa.

It's a romantic comedy of sorts, though it wouldn't be if played on the big screen. It'd be drama all the way. But the writing is clever. The characters are precious. The ending is well, I can't tell you that. I'll just say I loved it. And for those who know me and my book loving ways, you probably know how this book ends.

For anyone in a book club - you must read this as it would lend to amazing discussion on a controversial moral issue (again, not going to say which one). The range of emotions I felt when reading this book was broad. This book and the characters in it will stay with me for a long time.

Kisses From Katie

This is an amazing story. Especially for an American to read. While I wasn't engaged the whole book (I skimmed some of it), the writing wasn't great (she's not a writer so I didn't expect it to be), and some of her statements about Americans seemed off target, misunderstood, or naive (typical socialism sentimentality regarding the rich in America), the story is amazing.

An 18-year-old girl, just out of high school left her privileged life to move to Uganda to be a teacher. She ended up starting a nonprofit organization to help send poor kids to school, help feed the starving, and some other amazing things. Her organization is Amazima Ministries and if you are reading this post, you should stop right now and go take a look at the organization. If not to financially give, to see what a 18 year-old girl is capable to starting.

While I found the book a little tedious to get through due to some personal dislikes of her style (won't go into detail as to not offend others), her story is inspiring.

I mean come on. She's 22 and has 14 children. Unmarried. Who isn't inspired by that?!

Don't Go

I loved Look Again by Lisa Scottoline. Interesting, the book review I did is my most popular post. Her latest book just came out - Don't Go. I had high expectations for this book and let me just say that I was disappointed. I didn't want to be. And I tried to not be. But I just was.

The style of writing was similar to Look Again, but not quite as well written. The twists and turns weren't nearly as interesting, exciting, or surprising as in Look Again. And the story line was ho hum.

I don't regret spending my time reading it; it's good. It'd be a good beach read. And I think men will like it since the main character is a man and there is a lot of military lingo and action.

The plot is about an Army doctor who is a month shy of his release when he gets word that his wife died in a household accident. The very first chapter of the book opens with what happened, which was fantastic. Scottoline's opening was strong.

The novel is about Mike and his infant daughter, Emily and how they reunited, if they reunite, and some other interesting plots along the way.

And while the book started out really strong, it ended in a fizzle. There was a nice bow wrapped up at the end and much of it seemed very unrealistic. There were two characters in the book that end up in a romance, but there's no development that got them there.

Don't Go was too formulaic for what I expected and wanted from her.