I confess that I forgot about these a little bit with all the summer fun we've been having around here. I'm still plugging along at a steady three books per month pace, though!
13. Prodigy by Marie Lu: The sequel to last month's Legend, I enjoyed this one about as much as the first, I'm sorry to say. Something about the plot lines just doesn't really grab me for some reason and I am the opposite of invested in the main romance. I may pick up the third one down the road if I find myself at a loss for what to read next, but I'm not chomping at the bit to see how it all ends by any means.
14. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green: I picked this up on a whim on my way out of the library one day after having seen the movie trailer a million times that week on television. I assumed it would be exhausting teenage romantic angst, and in some ways it was. But I'll fully admit that I really enjoyed this one also. I can never quite get invested in teen romance as True Love but the relationship between Hazel and Gus was sufficiently adorable and tragic. More than the romance part of the plot, I appreciated the roles that the parents played in the book (as I put myself more in the parents' shoes these days than the teenagers) and the look into the daily realities of living with a terminal cancer diagnosis. One idea that has stuck with me in particular is the idea that a life doesn't have to be Big and Meaningful to be important. Lives lived small and quietly are just as significant, even if only a few people are likely to remember you once you're gone. I have many thoughts on this idea, but I'll leave it there for now.
15. From Scratch: Inside the Food Network by Allen Salkin: Brandon and I love watching the Food Network, so I read this in hopes of getting some good dirt on our favorite celebrity chefs. Sadly, about half this book was taken up with droning on about market shares and the technical aspects of developing and marketing a television network. Total snoozer. The parts that did contain the dirt were quite enjoyable, however, so the book wasn't a total loss.
16. Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Kurcinka: My mom picked this one up for me after a particularly trying day of tantrums from Lucas. I found it very enlightening in giving me insight into my child's personality, who fit almost every single aspect of the "spirited child' as described in the book. I really appreciated the new framing and vocabulary the book provided me with to describe my child as opposed to calling him "strong willed" or "bratty." Understanding the motivations behind Lucas's overwhelmed tantrums (as opposed to his defiance tantrums) has really helped me in avoiding them and minimizing them when they do occur. This was a lifesaver in Florida, where he was overwhelmed for a good portion of every day. This is definitely one I'll keep to refer to again as Lucas gets older.
17. Wool by Hugh Howey: Goodness gracious, it took me such a long time to get through this book! I started it in mid-April and it took me almost two months to finish because I kept stopping to read other books in between. It wasn't that this book wasn't well-written and interesting, because it definitely was. The problem was that I found the post-apocalyptic setting to be so unrelentingly bleak that I could only read so much of it before I had to take a break. The concept was fascinating and the characters very well-developed, but despite that I don't think I'll be picking up the next two books in the trilogy any time soon. Life is too short for a book to be this depressing.
18. Fortune's Fool by Mercedes Lackey: This paperback came into my possession via Paperback Swap. This website is great in theory: you ship your unwanted paperbacks to other users who request them, and in turn earn credits so people will ship paperbacks that you want to read back to you. The problem is that none of the books I really want to read are ever available for swapping, and having to go to the post office (my least favorite errand of all time) all the time and pay to mail people my unwanted books was exhausting and ultimately not worth it. I still have a few credits left as well as a wish list, and occasionally books still get sent my way. Anyway, this book was terrible. Lackey is an author whose early works I really enjoyed as a teenager, but I'm afraid anything she's written in the last decade has been completely phoned in. I think it's time for me to break up with her as an author and move on.
There is the list for now! This month I've been rereading a couple old favorites in anticipation of a new book being released next week, so next month's list will be pretty one-note as it will likely include only a single trilogy.
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