4. Book review!
I read some books! There haven’t been many that are making me run out and buy them for all my friends, but they’ve still been good! The titles contain my Amazon affiliate link if you want to find it over there. So here is what I’ve been reading:
1. Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
“You were so distant i forgot you were there at all”
Synopsis:
I love a writer who packs a punch in few words. This book manages to tap into abuse, grief, intimacy and personal growth in small blips of poetry. I read her book in less than an hour, but I feel like I could read it 5 more times and pull something new from it each time. That being said, while I appreciate her writing style, I do wish the book itself were longer and I agree with many reviewers who felt like some of these poems didn’t feel like poems so much as they felt like single sentences and random line breaks.
My Rating: 3 Stars!
2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
“she’s the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty. If our mother is so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance.”
Synopsis:
This was interesting because I had never heard of HeLa cells or Henrietta Lacks, but I thought it dragged on quite a bit. There was a lot of repetition about how Henrietta’s kids were difficult to interview and felt tricked over the years. It took a lot for them to trust the author Rebecca Skloot and we hear a whole lot about that throughout the whole book. I did like how it bounced between the narrative of Henrietta’s life vs. the science behind her cells and how they took on a life of their own, but again it seemed to drag on longer then necessary. I’m glad the Lacks family finally has the recognition they deserve and their mother is now preserved and known as a human being and not just a bunch of immortal cells. They deserved that. (less)
My Rating: 3 Stars!
3. The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
“…we all have demons inside us, voices that whisper we’re no good, that if we don’t make this promotion or ace that exam we’ll reveal to the world exactly what kind of worthless sacks of skin and sinew we are. Maybe that’s true. Maybe mine just have louder voices.”
Synopsis:
Lo is either losing her mind OR she has witnessed a tragedy that could jeopardize her life. I spent the first half of the book trying to determine WHAT happened and the second half of the book hoping she makes it to the end in one piece. It was a little slow moving…I felt like I was at a murder mystery dinner party.
My Rating: 3 Stars!
4. Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly
“After that, we were like flies on honey, alive but not really living.”
Synopsis:
I loved the concept of this book with the three different point of views and bouncing between to see what common thread connects them all at the end. Definitely a page turner, but it left me with some unanswered questions.
My Rating: 3 Stars!
5. A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold
“The ultimate message of this book: you may not know your own children, and, worse yet, your children may be unknowable to you. The stranger you fear may be your own son or daughter.”
Synopsis:
I didn’t rate this book because ultimately it’s just tragic and I have a hard time rating another human’s life experience. Sue Klebold is the mother of Columbine shooter Dylan Klebold and I found her account of the events fascinating. I hadn’t really considered what attackers parents might be going through. It definitely had me re-thinking interactions with my own children. We just don’t ever know them as well as we think we know them.
6. A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas
“I would have waited five hundred more years for you. A thousand years. And if this was all the time we were allowed to have…the wait was worth it.”
Synopsis:
This is the third addition to Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series and I continue to love it. There are faeries and humans and witches and it’s nothing like the type of book I normally pick up, but I am INTO it! I actually cried real human tears for my favorite characters. I don’t want this series to end.
My Rating: 5 Stars!
So tell me, what have you been reading that I need to add to my every growing list?
Morgan says
What is up with books/movies with so many unanswered questions lately!?! It drives me nuts. I like concise conclusions! I guess I need to avoid the Lilac Girls. I have the Women in Cabin 10 on my reading list. I read In a Dark Dark Wood by the same author recently. I loved it.
Mama Kat says
Right!? I don’t want to get to the end of the book and be like, “wait what happened to this character that fell off the face of the book?” Unless there is going to be a sequel I really appreciate someone neatly tying up all the loose ends!
John Holton says
“We just don’t ever know them as well as we think we know them.”
Unless you’re my mother, who claimed to know everything there was to know about her sons…
So almost everything was in the middling range (ratings-wise) except the last one. Good to know…
Mama Kat says
Ha! Mothers think they know everything!
Hoping for more 4-5 star reads for my next batch of books!
Abby says
Wonderfully diverse list! I might have to check some of these out. “A Mother’s Reckoning” sounds so interesting, yet so disturbing – I’ve been avoiding it.
Mama Kat says
It is disturbing and surreal to read about what some of these families went through, but still a powerful message. I recommend!