May Reads... I know, I know, its the middle of June

I'm a little embarrassed at the lack of posts/writing I've done this year.  When I went to write today's post on what I read in May I was shocked to see I've only written 24 posts this year.  Part of the reason for my lack of writing has been my lack of running and racing, which for so long has been a great source of my writing.  I've also been working on this online writing class that has been taking up my time and the writing I'm doing for that has been no "post worthy".  So the class is almost done and I plan to move forward with working on my writing, so I hope to be writing more posts. 

But for now here we go with what I read in May.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

"Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet."  Pretty powerful first two lines in chapter one.  I'm being taught the importance of strong lines to start a story, because, as it makes sense, this grabs the reader and they keep reading.  These lines grabbed me and I kept reading.  The story is about Lydia, who is dead.  However, it is a mystery how she died.  It is a story of a family, mixed race: Caucasian and Asian.  The father is a professor, the mother was suppose to go to medical school and be a doctor and instead doesn't, and two sisters (one being Lydia) and a son.  It is a story of a family and all that comes with being a part of family.  It wasn't a feel good book, but I enjoyed it.  It was a combo of family drama + mystery.  Well written and another I'd suggest for you to pick up. 

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Our book club book.  This was our 13 year anniversary of book club.  It was a good book, but I kind of felt like I didn't enjoy it as much as other bookies did.  However, many of the bookies read this book awhile ago, some of them reading it again, because they liked it so much the first time.  The story was a sad one and shows all of us just what a life of poverty looks like.  It also reminds us that just because you are poor doesn't mean you can't be happy.  It is a family story and the characters were well described.  I think it just didn't hit my emotional side as much as I would've thought it would have.  Francie Nolan, the main character, was  a strong, inquisitive, determined young lady.  I really liked her character.  Again, good book, but not my fav of this month's reads.  I always feel like I pick books with such high expectations of being great that my expectations just set these books up for failure or disappointment. 

Noodle The Puppy Place #11 by Ellen Miles
We, daughter and I, are continuing on with reading about all the wonderful puppies that need homes.  She, my daughter, would love a dog, but alas that just isn't going to happen so I'm going to try and keep her love for puppies and animals alive by reading books with her about them.  She enjoys them and they are fast reads that help our chapter a night goal be realistic. 

The Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke
This was our kid's book club at church read for the month of May.  It was an entertaining story and the length of this book challenged me to get finished in time for the kid's book club.  I read about the first half to my daughter out loud, son finished it early May, the fast reader he is.  I liked this story and the characters were quite interesting.  Ben (an orphan boy) and Firedrake (a dragon) befriend each other and go on a journey searching for the "rim of heaven".  This "rim of heaven" will be a safe place for Firedrake to live and also he's hoping to find some dragon friends there too.  Ben and Firedrake aren't the only interesting characters in the book, but you will have to read it either by yourself or with your kidos to discover the others.  

The Day After Tomorrow by Allan Folsom
This book was on my parent's bookshelves while I was growing up.  I think I picked it up a couple of times, but never really dived in.  Then last year my parents were moving out of there home into a smaller home and needed to unload some of their things to either my sister or I or to Goodwill/garage sales.  So my sis and I went through their library and picked out books that we wanted and I picked this one and added it to my box full.  I picked it up in April and started reading it and just couldn't get it done by the time April ended so I finished this one early May.  The protagonist is a doctor who is in Europe for a conference/speaking engagement.  He finds a young medical student quite beautiful and quite interested in him- they hook up and then they part.  He has to go back to California and she needs to go back to med school.  He can't leave her though and so follows her back to France.  Game changer- he sees the man who killed his father when he was a child and the mystery begins.  It was at times far fetched, but I thought it was a book that definitely grabbed my attention.  Interesting twist at the end.