Third Quarter Reading

Life this quarter was much less crazy than the second quarter of this year, but I still wasn't able to find much time for reading. Partly because I was busy unpacking, decorating, and getting us settled in our new home, but also because I didn't read anything that I really got into. My nightly reading with Corbyn saved my numbers yet again.

Excellent:

1. Keep Me Posted by Lisa Beazley. Two sisters living on two different continents decide to rekindle their relationship by writing letters to each other. One of the sisters scans the letters and posts them to a private blog to preserve them. The blog's security settings accidentally are changed to public and the blog goes viral. This book was fun and light without being too light. It also included some good insights about parenthood, marriage, and relationships. This was definitely the best book I read this quarter.

Great:

2. Raising the Barre: Big Dreams, False Starts, and My Midlife Quest to Dance the Nutcracker by Lauren Kessler. Lauren falls in love with ballet and the Nutcracker as a young girl, but quits ballet at the age of 12 when she overhears her teacher telling her mom she will never be a dancer. Years later she embarks on a transcontinental Nutcracker tour and then makes it her quest to dance the Nutcracker with the Eugene Ballet Company. I thought for sure this was purely fiction as it seemed impossible to me that this could ever happen, but I was surprised when I got to the end and realized this actually happened. There was a big part in the middle about motivation and what it takes to do something scary which was kind of interesting, but at the same time significantly slowed down the story. It was fun to read a book set in Oregon and I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look at what it would be like to dance professionally.

3. The Twits by Roald Dahl. Mr. and Mrs. Twit are smelly, nasty, and ugly. They play mean jokes on each other, catch birds to put in their bird pies, and make their monkeys stand on their heads all day. This is definitely not one of the books Roald Dahl is famous for, but it was pretty fun and very entertaining. Corbyn especially enjoyed it.

Good:

4. We Bought a Zoo by Benjamin Mee. Benjamin uproots his family and moves them to a dilapidated zoo. (If you've seen the movie, you know the basic story.) I had heard the book was not even close to being as good as the movie, but I decided to read it anyway. I love the movie and was surprised by how very different the book and the movie are. (The book of course being the true story.) It was interesting, but at times I felt like there were just too many technical details that bogged the book down. I thought it would have been a lot better if it focused more on the family's story instead of the details about buying and refurbishing the zoo. 

5. George's Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl. George decides to make his own medicine to give to his horrible grandma. What happens when he gives it to her is quite surprising. Another of Roald Dahl's lesser-known books and not his best, but it wasn't bad either.

6. How to Break a Dragon's Heart by Cressida Cowell. We took a break from the Dragon books when we started reading all of Roald Dahl's books, but Corbyn wanted to start reading them again. I thought this was one of the better ones in the series. (Or maybe it was just that I had gotten burnt out and enjoyed it more after having a break from them.)

Meh:

7. Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl. This is the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that I had no idea existed. I didn't enjoy it as much as his other books because it just seemed so far fetched (even for a Roald Dahl book) and I didn't really care for it.

Hopefully I will find some books I can really get into, so this next quarter's reading can be a little better. I just started Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty, so things are definitely looking up.