On the bookshelf in April
The first book I read was The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens. This was the chosen book for my book club this month & I’m so glad it was because I loved it!!! I didn’t really enjoy the last few books I read & had told my mom that I was in need of a really really good one. This book follows main character, Joe Talbert, as he tries to distance himself from his abusive + alcoholic mother by going to college. In doing so, he leaves behind his younger brother, Jeremy, who has autism & needs a constant caretaker. For Joe’s biography class, he has to interview an elderly person & write their life story, so he heads to a nursing home since he does not have elderly relatives in his life. Unfortunately, reality rears its ugly head & many of the residents at the nursing home are not able to remember enough about their lives to be able to answer questions from Joe. This is where Carl Iverson, a convicted child-rapist & murderer, who is dying of cancer & living in the nursing home, comes in. Carl claims that he is innocent & he’s willing to answer Joe’s interview questions as his dying declaration. The biggest question that looms over the whole book: is Carl Iverson actually innocent???
There was a lot of depth to this story that I really loved. Like each character had their own personal story of resilience (& y’all know how I feel about resilient characters lol). There was mystery & love & trauma. I couldn’t get enough it! I gave this book five out of five stars.
Next I started the short little three book Modern Love series by Alisha Rai. The first book is called The Right Swipe. The last little romance series I read I was not a huge fan of, but this first book totally redeemed the genre! As you can tell by the title of this book, it does have to do with dating apps. Quite a lot, in fact because one of the main characters, Rhiannon (Rhi for short) Hunter, who is single, super independent with a side of trust issues (oops I’m already noticing some similarities hence the reason I enjoyed this book so much lol), owns one of the top online dating apps (Crush) & she’s in the market to buy out another (MatchMaker). She teams up with hottie retired pro football star, Samson Lima, for some marketing opportunities & to get her foot in the door to buy out MatchMaker. It wouldn’t be a good romance novel without some juicy drama, major flirting, & a couple plot twists. There were quite a few scenes that were rated R, but they only lasted a couple of pages & were fairly spread out. I gave this book four out of five stars.
The second book in this series is called Girl Gone Viral. This book was about Rhi’s best friend, Katrina King. I liked that it continued with characters that I already knew, however, THIS BOOK WAS SO UNREALISTIC!!! For example, Katrina’s biological mother died so her biological father ended up taking her in (after he had peaced out for awhile). Katrina’s bio dad was super psychologically abusive & controlling so when Katrina met this super rich old dude at a party, he was like “yo I’ll marry you, pay your mean dad off, & we don’t even have to do the nasty, we can just be friends”. Nope. That doesn’t happen. Oh also, Katrina was kidnapped once, shortly before her hubby-friend died. & also her bodyguard has major PTSD from being in the war & he’s got weird drama with his family. But of course, they are secretly in love with each other & none of this stuff really matters. There were so many different plot twists in this book but I was so bored because they were so unrealistic. I gave this book two out of five stars.
The third book in this series is called First Comes Like. Bummer for me, this book turned out to be even more unrealistic than the others — a catfishing situation turned love story, including grief, lies, cultural divides, insecurities, & downright poor communication. These kinds of things aren’t just smoothed over with a wink & a smile in real life. This is why we all have unrealistic ideas of what dating is / should look like! The one part that I did like is that the main character, Jia, was saving sex for marriage so there was not rated R scenes as frequently as in the previous two books. I gave this book two out of five stars.
My heart was so full heading into the 2023 Christmas season! I finished up reading the entire Bible. Bible Recap: A One-Year Guide to Reading & Understanding the Entire Bible was such a great resource that helped me better understand what I was reading & how it applies to my life! It was amazing to me how much was familiar & how much I didn’t know I was missing. Having a better understanding of the Bible & being in the word every day has brought so much peace into my life! If you’ve been feeling the pull to read your Bible more, I highly recommend Bible recap to help you on your journey. I’m excited to start over & eager to see what new things I will pick up on & learn.
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