All the Bright Places

Oh my word. This is a fantastic book. Beautiful and tragic. Sweet and funny. And Important. 

You shouldn't know a thing about it until you read it so don't try to know what it's about beforehand. Then you can deliciously discover the lives of Finch and Violet, two teenagers in high school. Violet is a popular girl and Finch is on the fringe. He's the musician who's a little odd.

You will feel many things throughout this book. It's lovely and difficult. It's full of heaviness, so its not a light read but it is an important one. I'm hesitant to say what the book is about for fear of 1. Ruining the surprise ending of a good well written important book. And 2. You won't want to read it anymore.

This is a favorite of mine now not just for the story or the writing, both of which are suburb. But also for the content. It's a piercing, funny, frustrating, sad book that is also a call to action. I highly recommend this book especially if you like messy endings. But even if you like happy endings because there is a bigger picture I this book than just the book. A bigger message that everyone should be aware of.

It's a YA, but it definitely not appropriate for elementary aged kids. Think along the lines of Me Before You and The Fault in Our Stars.

Palace of Mirrors

Cecilia is a normal village girl, but she has an important secret. She's actually the true princess. In order to keep her safe, the queen kid her before she and the king were murdered by power-hungry enemies.

She decides to spill her secret to her best friend, Harper. When danger comes to their village and her life is in danger, she and Harper decide to make their way to the city and go to the castle to tell the fake princess who she really is.

This book is a great follow up to Just Ella and I think it's a great series for young girls to read mainly because it's well written, creative, and not boy-centric.

Just Ella

Just Ella is the first book in The Palace Chronicles from Haddix. It's a modern, feminist take on the story of Cinderella. Prince Charming turns out to be shallow and Ella does not want to marry him. The book is about her trying to find her own life in the midst of the danger of trying to live in a palace of royalty who only cares about themselves. It's a great book for elementary girls. And 36-year-old moms.

The Forgotten Sisters

I didn't read The Princess Academy though its supposed to be great. I picked this up to make sure the series is still appropriate for my 10 year old and just to get a pulse for the kind of books she likes (she loved The Princess Academy). Apparently she and I have similar tastes. This was a really cute story and I love the feminist theme running throughout all her novels. I appreciate that the female characters in here are smart but without making the male characters dumb. They are empowered. And they can do things men can do and sometimes better. I love that they are strong role models yet have soft hearts and are honorable. Great book and I highly recommend for upper elementary girls.

This is about Miri having to leave to be a tutor to the King's cousins, Astrid, Felissa, and Sus. They live in a swamp and have learned to fend for themselves, even though they are royalty. It's a well written and creative book.

The Visibles

This book is good. Not great-read-it-right-away. But good. It's about Summer, a girl who loves science in high school and wants to follow in her dad's footsteps and become a medical researcher. However, her life falls apart and that shapes her future. Her mom leaves the dad and Summer. The dad gets diagnosed with depression and it's severe. Summer decides to drop out of college and move back in with her father so she can help him with ECT treatments he's going to try.

This is a good book for book clubs since it's full of life lessons. Our childhood affects our adulthood. Our parents are flawed. Our dreams sometimes don't get fulfilled. I enjoyed the book a lot.

Yes Please

I had big expectations from this book. I kept seeing lots of my trusted reading friends read it. Whew. It got old half through. I got extremely tired of the name dropping (98% of which I have no idea who they are). Some parts were really funny. Some were really crass (those parts were 59% funny). I put it down 75% of the way in. The book is over rated.

A Simple Change

A Simple Change is a cheesy christian novel about a young woman who moved to a German closed colony in the late 1800s from a big city to be with her dying mother. It;s over reaching. Mediocre writing. Okay story line in general, but a little daft. Hallmark movie material. Don't recommend unless you like cheesy Christian fiction.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Susan Cain hits a home run with this book. The title of the book is perfect. Introverts around the USA can tell you that the country is set up more and more for extroverts. We can tell you that we are being told to change ourselves. Be more outgoing. Be more social. Work in teams instead of on our own. Etc. Etc. Etc.

It's exhausting to constantly be told to be someone you are not. To feel like you are not whole, good, or living life correctly unless you are (or act like) an extrovert. Introverts are under-valued. And over-looked. And Susan Cain tells how America got to where it is today. Why extroversion has become such a highly valued personality trait. And also why America is getting it wrong. She sites research after research. She gives her own antidotes. She tells stories.

This is not just a book for introverts to feel validated, although it is that. It is a book for extroverts as well. So that they can understand introverts better, but more than that. It's a book about how America can perhaps get back some of its technological, mathematical, business, and economical edge on the world.

Read this book. And I will read it over again and this time, with a pen and highlighter.

Age of Opportunity

I have decided that I need to get better at reading non-fiction. I decided to start with this book, Age of Opportunity. It's a book about biblically parenting teenagers. And no, I don't have teenagers yet. My eldest child is 10. However, my third child is 5 and very much a teenager. I picked up this book on a recommendation from a friend and read it hoping to glean some good things about my kindergartner. And my emotional and dramatic 10 year old.

The title says it all - so many in our culture disdain the teenage years. I've even said it time and time again: "I'm not looking forward to the teenagers years. I mean, I have four girls." What a fallacy. I read the introduction and it shifted my view on any years of a child's life, but mostly on the teenage years. They have more potential for opportunities than for dismay.

This is a great book for all parents and it's about sanctifying the parents just as much as training the kids. I highly recommend.

Enna Burning

Enna Burning is the second book in Shannon Hales Books of Bayern series. So far, this is the only book of hers I've not let Morgan read. It's extremely violent and has graphic descriptions of people being on fire and burning to death. And there is an almost rape scene.

That being said, it's a good book. You do have to read this one in order to follow the book after it, Forest Born. But I just explained what happened to my daughter and she was fine.

This book is about a girl named Enna, who's brother finds a vellum which contains written instructions on how to learn the gift of fire speak. He learns and ends up burning to death in a war, saving the day. Enna then decides to learn and thinks she can better control it. We find out she cannot.

Enna Burning brings back the sweet characters from The Goose Girl with a focus on Enna instead of Isi.  The whole book is basically war scene after war scene. So, it's a bit graphic and intense. But I enjoyed it and loved seeing the characters again.

Forest Born

This is another Shannon Hale YA fantasy novel. I am really enjoying these even though they are pretty shallow compared to other YA novels. It's more like an in between of YA and Juvenile. But this one was also appropriate for my 4th grader, so there's that. It's the fourth book in the Bayern Series.

It's about a girl, Rin, who doesn't know who she is. In the emotional and self-realized sense. She's grown up in the forest and had a special connection to trees. Her brother is Razo, who we've seen in the other Bayern books, Enna Burning and The Goose Girl and River Secrets (I will read this one soon).

So Rin goes to the city with Razo in hopes of fixing what feels wrong in her. She ends up working in the palace with Isi and the others from Enna Burning. There is more war on the horizon, so she travels with the Queen to go try to stop it. Selia is back in this book (she got away in The Goose Girl, which we don't find out until this book). And of course, Rin saves the day.

Overall a great book and I'm enjoying the series. It's nice to have a series both me and my daughter like.

The Goose Girl

Guilty Pleasure confession: I love fairy tales. Brothers Grimm are some of my favorite people.

The Goose Girl is about a Queen who sends her princess daughter off to the surrounding village to marry the prince there. As a gesture of friendliness and political peace. She is sent on the 3 month journey with soldiers and her lady-in-waiting. All did not go as planned though and by the end of the journey, the princess is on the run for her life. She ends up as a Goose Girl, taking care of the kings geese.

As far as fairy tales go, this one is excellent and I would highly recommend this book. I let my 4th grader read it and she loved it. There is some violence in it, so beware of that.

The story was great (I guess we can thank the Brothers Grimm and not Hale for that), the writing was great (thanks Hale), and it's a great retelling of the original.