The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman (16/100)

The Lake of Dead Languages: A Novel by Carol Goodman

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I had a hard time getting into this book. I think it may have to do with the sort of blah main character. She doesn't really seem to have much enthusiasm for life, and that is hard to get into. I also might have had a hard time with all the Latin / classics references. But once I got a little into, I really liked it.



It is a sort of whodunit where the past comes back to haunt someone. Again, I thought the main character could've used a little more pizazz, but I found myself really wanting to pick the book back up to see what happens.


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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (15/100)

I chose this book because of raves on the nest. It is about Lily, a young girl in ancient China, who is paired up to be life time best friend of Snow Flower. The book talks of the trials and tribulations of growing up as a girl in China. It was a good book, and my heart was beating really fast when they were talking about foot binding. It was heartbreaking and painful to be a woman in China. I thought it was a bit slow though, and I didn't think it was nearly as good as Memoirs of a Geisha. 3 stars

Graditude Part 1

I have not started my gratitude journal yet so as I was thinking of things that I am happy about just now, I decided to write them down. There will most likely be a lot of these since I want to get 1,000 and I don't want to just write things down for the sake of coming up with numbers. I want to write things as I think of them.

So, in no particular order.
I am grateful for:
1)Books. I was thinking about how happy reading makes me and I am so grateful for being able to lay out on my deck swing and read with Daisy
2) The library. Holy cow I have really killed them this summer. I have gotten every book I could have dreamed of and all for free!
3) Knitting. I am so happy I learned how to knit. It frustrates me at times but it is great to be able to produce something.
4)My job at Re/Max. Seriously, could I have gotten anything better? Well, sure I would like to be paid more, but do you know where I am right now? Work! Doing what I want. And getting paid for it.
5)Target. In Manahawkin. With a Starbucks. Heaven.
6) My relationship with my father. I love him so much. Truly. He is one of my best friends.
7)The shopping day I recently had with mom. It was actually fun. I am so glad we had a good time together.
8)Game night. The whole reason I decided to start this post right now was because I was excited for game night tonight. And best of all, it is free!
9) My in-laws. I really lucked out and got wonderful in-laws.
10) My stomach growling. With my new diet plan, I am really glad my stomach is growling to tell me that I am hungry. Therefore I am not just constantly shoveling food in my mouth all day.

Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison (14/100)

Ahh adolescence. This book reminded me exactly why I am so glad to not be a teenager anymore. However, it was sort of like reliving the most awkward parts of my own adolescence without any of the fun. I thought the book was going to be funnier than it was. Maybe I am too old for young adult reading, so it may not be fair to rate it, but I wasn't really amused. 2 stars

The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle (13/100)

Finally! After reading some books that were a chore to get through, I FINALLY found a book that I couldn't put down. I absolutely loved this book. I began reading it after work and ate up 200 pages before bed. I finished it within 24 hours of starting. Warning to the faint of heart: this book deals with VERY heavy material (incest, child abuse, etc.) but it still somehow comes out on top. I loved the 3 characters chosen to tell the story from their perspective.

The story is about a boy who tries to kill himself but is saved by his former best friend's mother. At the hospital, it is discovered that he has been the victim of sexual abuse. His father flees and his mother is jailed as an accomplice. The woman who rescued him, Sarah, who also happened to be best friends with his mother, takes him in as a foster child. Everyone involved is torn over their prior relationships, and try to mend for the future.

My only complaint (although a minor one) is at the end. I don't really understand why the younger brother wound up being gay. I just didn't think it was necessary and didn't really add anything to the story (in my perspective at least) so I thought it could've been left out. But it didn't affect anything in a major way, so it wasn't a big deal. Overall, one of the best reads this summer. 5 stars

Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella (12/100)

Sophie Kinsella is a huge British chick lit author that I am pretty sure I tried before but did not like. This book was long-ish but it was a quick and easy read that I finished within a couple days. At first, I thought it was way too hokey - amnesia, wakes up to the perfect life, etc. On page 178 I told Dave that it must all be a dream and that was how it was going to end. Luckily, that was not the case. Overall, it was cute, and I liked the ending. 3 stars

The Constant Princess by Phillippa Gregory (11/100)

This was my first foray into audiobooks (stupid broken Ipod) and I actually enjoyed it. In my new quest of (sort of) reading for the satisfaction of finishing a book and adding it to my list, I have been staying away from books that have more than 350 pages. Therefore, an audio book was a perfect way to get in some Phillippa Gregory. I loved TOBG and The Constant Princess was a sort of prequel to it that explained the life of Queen Katherine and the childhood (and then adulthood) of King Henry VIII. Although it was long (16 CDs!) I thought it was very well done, and I hope to get the third in the series, The Boleyn Inheritance on audiobook as well. 4 stars

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (10/100)

So I started reading the prologue for this book and just kind of skimmed through it and thought, I am going to LOVE this book. The author has such a sense of humor! Well, not so much. I felt like I was reading a rambling, incoherent stream of consciousness. Sometimes he would be describing what he would do in a hypothetical situation only to find out like two pages later that the hypothetical situation had actually happened, and we are past it. Or on one page, his brother is 15 and the next he is 12. Just totally not my thing. AT ALL. 1 and a half stars

Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger (9/100)

I thought that I would like this book after starting to read another book I was despising (more on that later) but I wound up really kind of hating it. It was SOOO predictable. Not to mention I really REALLY hated the characters. They just kind of made me mad. They were so self-absorbed and just plain rotten. The only parts of the book I really liked were Bette's time in her hometown, away from the nastiness of New York City. 2 stars

MySecret: A Postsecret Book by Frank Warren (8/100)

I don't know if this book should really count, since it has so few words, but after realizing that my goals seems to be overly ambitions as far as the # of books I am going to read, and since it is a real book, I am counting it.

I think the author of this book is a genius, really. What a great idea, to have people write down their deepest darkest secrets, and submit them anonymously. With that being said, I think the need for a book is a little excessive. I mean, this started as a grassroots Internet project. Why shouldn't it stay as one? Does one really need to purchase the book? But I did enjoy reading the stories. 3 stars

Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster (7/100)

I had previously read her second memoir and thought it was funny, but just kind of eh. But I decided to give her another chance because she loves Target and Trader Joe's so I know we are kindred spirits. I have to say that I really enjoyed this book. I found it hilarious and I didn't want to put it down. For some reason, my library does not have Bitter is the New Black but I am going to try to get it elsewhere so I can complete the trio. 4 stars

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charles Perkins Gilman (6/100)

I am not sure if it is even fair for me to rate this book. It is only 26 pages long, and it is a tiny book as it is. The only reason I read it was because it was on the list of "1,001 books you must read before you die" and I wanted to try out their recommendations.

Stupidly, I read it a page or two at a time, so I thought maybe by the end I was missing something. But no, that really was all there was to it. I think I will stick to the nest for my book recommendations more than listening to books to read from the 1800's. I don't care that much about enlightenment.

Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult (5/100)

I really really love Jodi Picoult. She has the type of book that you can read 100 page and it feels like 20. You just want to keep going. I also like the fact that her books are thought provoking. In the middle of reading this, I explained the premise to my husband (who normally couldn't care less about what I am reading) and we had a good conversation about capital punishment.

The premise of the book is that a man is on death row for murdering a man and his young step daughter. The wife/mother of the victims was pregnant at the time of the murder and now (11 years later) the new daughter needs a heart transplant in order to live. The man on death row volunteers his heart and says he needs to give it to the girl in order to find salvation.

The only reason I am not giving this book a 5 is because I felt it was fairly predictable and I was not really a fan of the "supernatural" type occurrences (although I guess they could be classified as religious miracles, I am not really into that type of thing). 4 stars

Madness by Marya Hornbacher (4/100)

I read this book because mental illness has touched my life before and I wanted to try to get a better understanding of bipolar disorder and those who suffer from it. Before reading this book, I thought bipolar simply meant being depressed sometimes, and then quickly having "high" moods. I was entirely wrong.

The author of this book actually didn't seem to experience depression too often. Instead, she was gripped by madness and bouts of mania. It wasn't a high mood like I thought, but basically insanity, not knowing who you were, what you were capable of, etc. There was hospital stay after drugged up hospital stay.

Some pages were hard to read because sentences lasted nearly the whole page. I can only imagine if it was that hard to read it, how it feels to think that way all of the time. I really hoped for a happy ending, but as I neared the end of the book I realized that truly wasn't possible since the disorder was managed but never cured, and the next bout of madness could easily be around the next corner.

At first I wanted to read her previous memoir about her eating disorder, but now I am not sure that I do since I know what happens "after" and it is not a happy ending, or an end to the eating disorder. I feel for the author and truly, anyone who has suffered with this disorder.
3 stars