March Reading Wrap-Up!

March Reading Wrap-Up!

Well it's been a month since I have posted because a lot has been going on in my life and I have not been feeling motivated to write. I started to write an update post and just haven't gotten around to finishing it so I promise to get that done soon because I have some exciting things happening! March was a pretty good reading month for me! I am reading more non-fiction than I have in my life and it's not killing me so that feels great! I didn't have any new favorites but I had four 4-star books and three 3-star books this month. I did end up DNFing one book as well. Here are my thoughts! ~Em

This was a book that we had to read in our Senior Seminar class and outline a couple chapters from. It discusses how democratic governments can become engrossed in demagoguery. It is incredibly relevant to our society today and warns us against thinking that we are always right before assessing the other side's views. Rating: 4/5

 Now That You're Here is the first book in the Duplexity duology. It's an alternate dimension based sci-fi series where there are two different versions of Phoenix, Arizona and some of the people within those dimensions are accidentally switched into the other version. The main characters Eevee and Danny are switched into the alternate versions of Phoenix and have to figure out why that happens and what to do about their knowledge of the other version of themselves. I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi and this duology was mostly a cover buy for me. I liked the premise but just didn't really connect with the characters. Rating: 3/5

 I know the title of this one sounds morbid and yes, the two main characters do both die at the end. This book is set in a time where there is a company called Death-Cast that calls you to let you know that sometime in the next 24 hours you will die. Because this is the reality of this society, an app is developed called The Last Friend where you can meet up with someone to spend your last day with. I listened to this book on audio book and it was fairly well done. I loved the writing style and the characters in this book. It reminds us to live life to the fullest while we have the chance. Rating: 4/5

 You might remember that I started The Bargainer series last month and have really enjoyed it so far. This is a prequel novella talking about Des's life leading up to where the second book ends. I loved getting to read about Des's past and seeing all the grief and struggle that made him become the Night King. Rating: 4/5

 Some of the faculty in our department feel like we don't discuss our faith enough in the social sciences, or incorporate it enough into what we do, so the Dean of our school gave out copies of this little book to anyone who wanted it and we had a discussion about it over lunch on Good Friday. Brother Lawrence wrote about how to put God first in your life and how to design a life for yourself around what God wants you to do. Rating: 3/5

 Paranormal books are my favorite and this book deals with a girl named Mara who is followed by the ghosts of her friends who died in an accident. She moves schools to try to start her life over and weird things continue to happen. I enjoyed this book a lot, but it does have its problems. Mental illness/health is represented very poorly in this book. Being a student in psychology and sociology, I've learned a lot about how to refer to mental illness and terminology to avoid and this book does not do well with that. Rating: 4/5

 This is the second book in the Duplexity duology. It follows the same time frame as the first book, but it is set in the other dimension from the first book. I wish that this book would have continued after the events of the first novel but I understand why we needed this one as it was. I felt like the end of the duology was kind of  a cop out and I was just kind of annoyed with how things went in general throughout the book. Rating: 3/5

Unfortunately, this is the book that I DNF'd (did not finish) this month. It's about a world where slavery was never abolished and people have to serve 10 years before they can lead normal lives. The powerful people in this world have magic called Skill and they run the government basically. I only got about 85 pages in before setting this book aside. I did not feel attached to the characters and I wasn't enjoying where the story was going at all.