Fan Girl

This is a really cute YA novel. Cute characters and cute story. You see real life messy people who make mistakes and forgive. Good integration of struggles in life with comedy. It's snarky and quirky. Witty and all other synonyms for it.

It's about Cath, a girl who is obsessed with a book series (Simon Snow) that reminds me of Harry Potter. Wren is her twin sister. When they get to college, Wren goes crazy and Cath remains Cath. A crazy fan who is introverted and only interested in being the fan of Simon Snow. She is stuck in fandom. She gets involved with her roommates "boyfriend".

Super cute book and I'd recommend for an easy, quick, relatively shallow read.

Stolen life

This book was a mixed bag for me. It had a very juvenile voice, but understandably so. The author wrote this with a 5th grade education level.  It got really boring at the end. I get it. Therapy and all. Giving herself a voice. But some details she wrote about were just boring and I skipped it.

It jumps around a little which she knows and said it would from the very beginning. She's not a writer. And that's okay. This book is giving her voice back and her freedom of choice back. I applaud her courage and spirit of forgiveness and resilience.

Overall, this is an interesting look into the life of a kidnapped girl kept in captivity for 18 years.

Skipping A Beat

Plot: Honestly, I don't really remember. I just read it the beginning of January, and I don't remember enough a few weeks later to recall what happened. Something to do with a woman and her rich husband. Marriage not good. Near death experience on his part with a desire to become poor after he lived through it. Her anger. Almost divorce. That's about it.

Stupid. Dumb. Nice little bow at the end. I put it down too much because it wasn't captivating. When I picked it back up, I forgot the plot. Could see the end coming at the beginning of the book.

Overall, waste of time reading this one.

Eleanor and Park

I read this Young Adult book because I loved Attachments by the same author.

The plot: Eleanor is a girl in an abusive family. Park is a cool kid who's actually cool (you know, thinks drugs are stupid and doesn't care what others think about anything). It's the story of their animosity turned friendship turned romantic.

Here's the harsh:

1. I didn't like high school. So I didn't like reliving it in this book. I could see how if you are a teenager you might like this book. But as an adult or an even moderately mature high schooler, this book is too dumb.
2. I go crazy when characters don't communicate when they should. When they stay silent and get misunderstood instead of speak up and things become clear. This happens a lot in this book. Drove me crazy and not in a good way.

Here's the not-so-harsh:

The characters were great. I loved the complexity of them. The plot was actually good. However, this book would make a better movie than book. And I heard that's going to happen.

Overall, the book was okay, but misses the mark as a YA novel I have (think Fault in Our Stars).

Grace for the Good Girl

This is a great book. I read it over the course of a year. I usually don't do books like this unless it's a part of a study where I'm talking about it with others. Reading deep books on my own is just not how I think. It took a year to read it because it's not how I digest things. A chapter will leave me thinking for a good month.

Anyway, this book is written for the "good girl". I was not that girl. While I don't know what defines a "bad" girl, I'd say I was borderline one. Drugs, alcohol, rock and roll, boys, the whole shebang. A general I-don't-care-what-the-eff-happens-to-me-so-I'll-partake-in-destructive-behaviors attitude.

I say all of that to give amazing credit to this book. It's not written for girls like me, but I related to it enormously. If I can get so much out of the book and it wasn't even written for girls like me, I can only imagine the depth that the good girl would get out of it.

The conversational style of Freeman makes it easy it follow and get tons out of, regardless of your learning style (a rare thing indeed).

I'd highly recommend this book to just about anyone (well, girls).

Redeeming Love

This is an Interesting modern story of Hosea from the Bible. It started out extremely strong. It captured my attention from the first sentence in the prologue. I have several friends who love this book and I have heard about it for years, but never had the courage to read it since it's "Christian Fiction" genre. I don't do Christian Fiction. It's usually cheesy and poorly written. This one, while a little cheesy in parts, is very well written.

It's the story of a man named Michael Hosea who "hears" from God to pursue and marry a prostitute. She eventually marries him, but continues to leave him and go back to her former life.

I thought the book was actually very informative about prostitution and why she would have gone back to it. Reading Hosea is scripture, I always was suspicious if that could actually happen in real life and always leaned more on the side of metaphor. But reading Redeeming Love made me change my mind that it actually could be possible that a woman would want to go back/forced to go back/etc. to the life of prostitution.

I will say this: there are parts that are very cheesy. The dialogue with God is forced and cheesy. I wish she would have toned it down a little. Not to say I don't like prayer or hearing direction from the Lord. But, this was just too blatant and not subtle enough.

It also got old and tedious at about chapter 21 and was a challenge to finish at times. But I think that's part of the point that our running away from God is tedious, old, and oh-here-she-goes-again. That is what makes the story of God's relentless pursing love so beautiful.

It was worth the read though and I'm glad I finally bit the bullet and read it. Now to get the courage for the Mark of the Lion series that is also highly praised by many of my friends.

The Birth House

This book looked so interesting, but it just wasn't. The plot wasn't compelling enough and the characters were drab. I got to page 30 before giving up. Didn't even make my 50 page minimum.