November Wrap-Up!
This month was a weird reading month for me. I kind of felt like I was in a slump for most of it and I only finished six books but I'm in the middle of four others so I did quite a bit of reading but didn't finish a whole lot. In December I have nine books that I really need to finish to complete my year long challenge so I'm going to be a reading machine throughout this month! I'm about done with my first semester of grad school and should have a lot more time to read, so I'm super pumped about that. Without further ado, here are my feelings on the six books I read this month.
This book is a really interesting take on personality types based on how people react to the expectations of others and themselves. There are four tendencies that the author has decided upon upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels. Upholders meet the expectations of themselves and others readily, questioners meet their expectations but question the expectations of others, obligers meet the expectations of others but struggle with meeting their own expectations, and rebels do not meet the expectations of themselves or others. Though the author performed a large study for her theory, I can't in good conscience say that this is scientifically sound. However, it's still an interesting way to think about how to interact with people and fun to find out what category you fall into by taking her quiz.
Rating: N/A
I tried to continue my re-read of the Uglies series back in September and didn't finish this third stinkin' book until early November. I honestly hated re-reading this book. The main character, Tally, did not grow as a character throughout this series. In fact, I'm fairly certain she digressed in any positive growth she may have had. She was whiny and complained throughout most of this book and consistently only made decisions that reflected on what she wanted and not what was best for the rest of the group. I'm not even going to try to re-read the fourth book and I don't think I'm going to pick up the new spin-off series either, which is a bummer because that was the whole reason why I decided to re-read this series in the first place.
Rating: 2/5
I went into this book thinking it was going to be similar to the documentaries
Forks Over Knives and
Fast Food, Inc. However, this book was more about how the fast food industry was started (thanks Walt Disney) and the woes of the meat industry. There was some interesting information but the book was written in 2001 and it reads as outdated. I was hoping to read more information about how unhealthy fast food is and that was not one of the key points for this particular book.
Rating: 3/5
This book was really stinking good. It's about a girl who has had a lot of terrible things happen to her in the last several months and ends up in rehab. After a short period of time, the therapists at the rehab facility decide they can't help her anymore and that she is prepared to leave. They call the girl's mom, who has been pretty absent in her life, and the mom gives the girl some money and tells her to find a place to stay. The rest of the story follows the girl trying to get better, trying to start a new life, and just trying to make ends meet. This book was dark, raw, and emotional. There are LOTS of trigger warnings though: rape, drug abuse, self-harm, suicide, alcoholism, and probably more that I can't think of right off the top of my head.
Rating: 4/5
Y'all. Historical fiction is usually not a genre I pick up. Especially World War II historical fiction. But one of my challenges for this year was to read a book that has won the Pulitzer Prize and so I picked this one up. It is a chunker but oh my gosh is this story fantastic! The first thing that blew me away is that this is a World War II story set in France and does not mention concentration camps ONE SINGLE TIME! It was so interesting to read about people whose lives were impacted differently during the war. The book follows two main perspectives, a blind girl and an orphan boy turned soldier. The writing in this book reads as if it were a contemporary and is beautiful and lyrical. I highly recommend this book!
Rating: 5/5
After I finished All the Light We Cannot See I got super busy and wasn't finding time to read so I decided to pick up the second volume of I Hate Fairyland because I just needed something that wasn't going to take long to finish and didn't take a lot of thinking to read either. The second volume is potentially more gory and gruesome than the first and it follows the events right after where the first one ended. The story felt like it jumped around a lot in this one and I didn't enjoy it as much, but I will be continuing with the series. Rating: 3/5
Be prepared for a lot of reading-related content on the blog in the next month because I will be posting three wrap-ups: my December wrap-up, my year-long challenge wrap-up, and my end of the year/what books I loved wrap-up, as well as my reading plans for next year! ~Em
