Happy Wednesday!
Today I am sharing with you my November Book Review. I read about 3-5 books every month, so I thought I would do a post at the end of each month and let you know my feelings about each book.
Hope you enjoy and please feel free to comment and let me know what books you love to read! I am always looking for a good book.
P.S. I NEVER buy books and am a fan of getting them from my public library or borrowing from a friend, but I am linking each book to where you can purchase it from if you want.
The first book I read this month was Karen Kingsbury’s A Baxter Family Christmas. I have read EVERY book by Karen Kingsbury and just love her. She is a Christian author who writes such inspiring, hopeful novels. The first book I read from her was part of the Redemption Series books about the Baxter Family. I feel like I personally know the Baxter family and love all of their characters. A Baxter Family Christmas starts where the book Coming Home left off. In Coming Home, John Baxter lost his daughter, Erin, and her husband and three of their kids in a tragic automobile accident. Erin had one daughter, Amy, that survived the crash and she was adopted by Erin’s sister, Ashley Blake. This book is based around the fact that John Baxter wants to meet Kendra, who received Erin’s heart through organ donation. To make matters worse he wants to meet her at Christmas time. Ashley resists her dad’s request to have a big Baxter Family Christmas celebration and thinks it is a horrible idea. She wants to protect Amy, who is only 10, from meeting the lady with her mom’s heart. At the same time you learn that Kendra’s marriage is a mess and she is longing to believe in God and make sense of her life. The book ends with a happy ending and once again Karen Kingsbury doesn’t disappoint!
The second book I read this month was Two By Two by Nicholas Sparks. I have said it before but I’ll say it again, I am a true die hard Nicholas Sparks’ fan. I am a hopeless romantic and love a good love story. However, I will be honest and say I was a little disappointed by this novel. I think it’s because it was about a couple falling apart and headed to divorce instead of his normal couple falling in love. Two by Two is about Russ, who has the “perfect” life with his wife, Vivian, and daughter London. But then things unravel and Vivian ends up taking a new job, cheating on him, and going to live with her new boyfriend/boss in a new town. I wondered while I was reading how Vivian and Russ ever liked each other or fell in love in the first place. After Vivian’s affair, Russ is left with London and trying to juggle being a full-time dad and starting his own advertising business. There is A LOT of action that happens in this book, with Russ’ sister getting sick and then him falling back in love with his college romance. Overall, to me this book fell short and just wasn’t written very well. Too many story lines to follow and not a very good ending. Oh, well…I will still read all of Nicholas Sparks’ books!
The third book I read this month is actually a young adult’s book, but you will find that I usually like to read a few of these. Blame it on my elementary teaching days or how I can relate as a mom, but I like to read a few of the more popular young adult books. Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt really hit home for me! It was about a girl named Ally who suffers from dyslexia. She was from a military family who moved around a lot so she was always labeled a “problem” kid at her schools. It wasn’t until she had a new teacher, Mr. Daniels, that helped her discover she isn’t a “problem” child, she just has a learning disability. This book really opened my eyes up to just how difficult it is for kids with dyslexia like Ally (and my Emily). It was written from Ally’s perspective and showed how smart she truly was, she just had trouble relaying that information with written words because of her dyslexia. With the help of Mr. Daniels, Ally flourishes and becomes a great student and learns to read. This was definitely a feel good, happy ending.
The last book for this month was The Rumor by Elin Hilderbrand. I had actually never read any of her books and took the advice of some of my blogger friends and decided to try her books out. Boy, am I glad I did! She is an excellent writer! The Rumor is about two best friends, Madeline and Grace, who live on the small island of Nantucket. Nantucket is known for being a gossiping town and these two best friends give them lots to gossip about. Grace is a wealthy mom of twin daughters and is having an affair with her gardener and shares every detail with Madeline. Madeline is a writer and is having trouble coming up with a new idea for her novel, so she ends up writing about Grace’s affair! There were lots of twists and turns in the plot, and this book definitely had me guessing about what was happening next. I loved how it ended and I will be reading more of Elin Hilderbrand’s books in the future.
Hope you have a great rest of the week! We have a busy few weeks ahead and love this time of year.
