I'm Here; 5 Book Reviews!

So I fell off the face of the earth again - oops! Things just got SUPER busy again with work and then, honestly, on the weekends I've been COMPLETELY unplugging. No blogging, no blog reading, hardly any email checking - just complete chilling! I had a fun book club dinner, lots of fun family time at home, took a couple of personal days from work to catch up on sleep, Austin's garden is thriving, the workouts are going well, and I've been doing a ton of home organization (as always). Really though, I feel like I've just been burning myself out, then recovering. Highs and lows. One extreme to the next. I'm DEFINITELY ready for a new normal (as work has now been this way for a year), but until then, and as much as I hate this saying, I suppose it is what it is as I love what I do and know that it will improve! I do have lots of book reviews to share - 5 in fact. Reading has been a great chill activity, although sadly some of these books were read in May and i'm just getting around to reviewing. SIGH. Here goes...

So Pretty It Hurts was a great treadmill read! I typically average about 60 pages/3 miles so I can read it in about a week of workouts which is nice. It focused on a mystery where a model was found dead. Who killed her? Why? It occurred during a weekend getaway so it was very whodunit. I normally LOVE the mysteries in this series, however, I thought this was kind of wah wah. I give it a 3/5. Normally, when she is risking her life for a mystery it doesn't seem like too much of a risk. This time I got very "DON'T GO THERE BY YOURSELF, SILLY!" which I find annoying. Also, a lot of the book seemed filled up a by a side story not related to the mystery that I really didn't care for. I'll definitely give the next one a try, but this one wasn't a favorite.

I read these three in Mexico. First, A Friend of the Family was a very interesting book. I couldn't figure out where it was going. It jumped around a good bit, focusing on a father whose life had fallen apart. You don't know why though - did he cheat on his wife? Her on him? What about his son? Who was this neighbor girl and what happened?! It definitely kept my interest as the beginning of the book was the end so it was great to 'get back there' and figure out how he ended up there. It felt real- I could see myself making the same choices he did and being blindsided by the results. It kept me engaged, but the ending was a bit disappointing. I felt like it wouldn't have gone down that way and I honestly felt sorry for the main character. :( I give it a 3.5/5.

Don't Breathe a Word was awesome. It was going back and forth in time from different perspectives, focused on the disappearance of a little girl in the woods behind her house 'to the land of fairies.' There was a lot of creepiness - what are 'the fairies'? Why are the town's children so afraid of them? What happened to the girl? What happened to her dad? What will happen to the present-day characters who are trying to find out what happened? I was very invested in this book and, while it took me a minute to figure out what exactly happened there, it was good, different, surprising and suspenseful. I give it a 4/5.

Fifty Shades of Grey was a bit of a boy meets girl in a kinky S&M dream/nightmare. Very strange. Never have I had to stop reading a book to google words like 'Butt Plug' but hey, it was all the rage so me and my book club were like why not? Needless to say, our book club meeting on the topic was hilarious as we were all pretty clueless on some of the 'toys.' I will say I was most interested in why the character of Christian ended up this way, and it was also kind of  interesting to see how she went from being this seemingly normal girl into a relationship with her role as a Subordinate. I have no other 'erotica' books to compare it, too, and will say that the writing got tired (if she mentioned her 'inner goddess' one more time I was going to be pissed), but it was a decent story and definitely different than anything i'd read before. I give it a 3/5. 

Something Blue was a reread from back before I started the blog, probably '07 if I had to guess as I believe I read it during my engagement, along with the prior book in this story line Something Borrowed. While Something Borrowed was definitely my favorite, and the movie was cute, too, I LOVED a second book told from a different perspective. The WHOLE time I read Something Borrowed I was dying to know what Darcy was thinking, what she was doing, etc., after she found out her best friend and fiance were sleeping together. To be able to pick up a book beginning with that, see her turn her life around, see her give birth and become a better person - well, I just loved it. It was such a 'feel good' book and I love how optimistic the ending was about the friendship between her and her best friend. I read this on the treadmill, too, and was just reminded of how much I love Emily Giffin's books - now I want to reread them all - this one, like the one before if a 5/5 for me. I just can't get enough of Emily Giffin's books!

So that's that - 5 book reviews. It's a shame only 2/5 were 4+ ratings but I'm always looking for books to love and unfortunately you don't always know until it's over! I'm now reading Shades of Grey II and Giffin's Baby Proof (re-read).

Q: What are you reading? Read any of the above?