The Good Nurse

This is a compelling, crazy, make you angry at the system story of Charles Cullen. He is the serial killer nurse thought to have murdered hundreds of people in the hospitals in which he worked.

I now have a hatred for "risk management" in large institutions. Because of that department of many hospitals, hundreds of people died. I also have a larger understanding of how complex people can be and how deep rooted hurt can manifest itself later in life.

This is an eye opening biography and one that changed my view of hospitals and those that may be working in them.

The Always War

This was a book I read to make sure it was okay for my 10 year old daughter to read. And I got sucked in as quickly as I knew she would (and did). It's a great YA novel about a war that has latest as long as anyone can remember. That's all you need to know and do not read more about it. Loved this and if you like YA as a genre or like dystopian, you'll like this one. There's more depth than meets the eye and would be an interesting book to talk about.

Audacity

Have I mentioned how much I love historical fiction? It's the best genre because I actually learn some good stuff while being entertained.

This is a gem. It's a great book about Clara, a Jewish immigrant / refugee from Russian in the early 1900s. She arrives in New York with her family and has to get a job in a sweatshop while her brothers and father study the Torah all day. She has always had ambitions of becoming a doctor and loves to learn. Audacity is about her dreams to make a better life for women (especially Jewish women) in that time. She eventually becomes involved in the making of a union.

It tells of her life in the form of poetry and is absolutely beautiful. The way the word form pictures on the page is stunning and each line is full of more meaning than the words themselves.

This is perhaps the most beautifully written book I've read in a really long time. If you don't love poetry (like me), it takes a little while to get used to the style. But, once you do, the depth it adds to the story is astounding.

And an added bonus - I'd let my 4th grader read it.

The Ghosts of Heaven

This book is nuts. And I liked it. It was really confusing, but extremely beautifully written. The basic premise is that all throughout history, the helix or spiral shape occurs. The book is four parts, four different people in time and place whose lives are somehow briefly intersected with one another because of the spiral. That's all you need to know before reading this book. Don't read the book sleeve to find a little bit about the stories - it will ruin so much for you.

Where it gets confusing is the last part. It's just weird. It's time travel, ghosts, and just plain difficult to understand. But, I think it's still worth the read - the first story told in poem is worth the novel.

Paper Towns

According to a Pinterest list, this is a must read before it turns into a movie. So, I read it.

It's about a teenage boy named Quentin and his neighbor Margo. The novel starts off with the two of them seeing something tragic when they were kids. Fast forward to high school and the story picks back up with the two of them. 

This review is mixed. While I could say the book has a ton of depth and would be a great one to discuss that with others, I could just as easily say that the book is forced and the depth is actually not there. The story line is just okay to me. The writing is well, it's John Green. So it's amazing. 

I did love all of the literary references, especially Walt Whitman. And really I think that maybe the book is one big explanation of the poem Leaves of Grass. 

If you absolutely love YA and novels about high school angst, this would be a great book for you.

Landline

Fun, fluff book. It's about a marriage on the rocks because the wife works all the time as a tv show writer. The husband goes away for Christmas to see his family and leaves the wife behind to work. That's what it gets a little interesting.

There is a landline phone that is almost a character in the novel. At the end, I never really figure out what, why, or how which bothers someone like me who wants to know. But I wasn't frustrated enough to give the book a bad review. It was a cute read.

Big Little Lies

This was a great book. One of those books that's a little bit of work to get into because of all the characters, but is well worth it and I didn't want it to be over at the end.

It's the story of 3 kindergarten moms in Australia and how their friendship unfolds in the midst of tragic pasts, school-mom politics, current domestic violence and broken homes. It has lovely characters. Lovely juxtaposition of forgiveness and grudges. A look into the conflicting world of right and wrong, especially as it relates to domestic violence. You get a good picture and understanding of how hard things in life which seem like they should be black and white are often not. Especially in the eyes of whom it's happening to. Highly recommend this book, but probably just to women.

The Ransom of Mercy Carter

This is an extraordinary little book. It's a historical fiction about a girl named Mercy Carter, among others, and how she was kidnapped by the Canadian Indians in the early 1700s. The writing was no-nonsense, non fluff, tell it like it is. Which I really appreciated. I loved the simplicity of the telling of this horrendous story.

There's not much character development, but it's an interesting peek into the life of English-French-Indian relations in the early 1700s and I highly recommend it to anyone! It's a bit violent, so probably not appropriate for young elementary kids, but there's no language, sex, or anything else that would cause concern for letting a mature kid read it. I think I'll let my 4th grader read it next year.