Sunday, April 30, 2017

April Books

One of my goals for 2017 was to read 17 books. Well, had I known my reading speed (or the fact that the library would quickly become one of my new best friends) I probably would have adjusted that number slightly ;)

In case you missed the recent posts, I blogged about the books I read in January HERE, February HERE and March HERE. There were THIRTY-SEVEN of them in the first three months, so when I add April's four (yup, you read that right... a measly FOUR this past month) that brings the total to FORTY-ONE! In case you're interested in what I read or my take on them, feel free to check out my little write-ups (and how I'd rate them)!


  • Living with a SEAL by Jesse Itzler - I saw that a friend had read this book on her Instagram Stories and thought I'd check to see if our library carried it. Lucky for me, they did and I was able to pick it up. The premises is the writer has a Navy Seal move in with him and his family for a month to train. The book is sort of his journal of the experience. It's a super easy (and great) read. I loved seeing Jesse pushing his limits and going further than he ever thought possible. Seal was a no BS sort of guy and I think we could all use a little bit of that in our lives. I would give this one an 8 out of 10.


  • Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore - A friend recommended this book and I am so glad they did. This is a true story written by a "modern-day slave" and an "international art dealer". The two were brought together by an amazing woman of God and their lives will never be the same. The book had a little bit of everything (from history to healing and grieving to God), but the biggest thing that I took away is that one person CAN make a difference! You can impact a life, you can impact your community and you can impact the world! I would give this one a 9 out of 10.


  • Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson - I wasn't sure what to expect from this one, but any book with a super excited taxidermied raccoon on it should at least get the chance to be awesome, right?! Jenny not only shares a lot about her struggles with mental illness, but also about the craziness (and not in a mental ill kind of way) that is her life. I found myself thinking "this must be how the hubby's brain works" often (FYI - he isn't mentally ill, but he is super creative with his train of thought jumping all over the place that it is sometimes hard to follow or connect the dots). I really appreciate her openness and realness (as well as her humor). She reminds us that we are not alone and that we should let our freak flag fly... because all the best people do ;) I would give this one an 8 out of 10.


  • Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - A few friends had recommended this book but I didn't really know what to expect when it became available at the library. Come to find out, it was much deeper than I was originally expecting - a novel with love, race, identity, culture and more all wrapped into one. The only thing that I struggled with was the length of the book (and that might just be because this past month life got busy and I had less time for reading, so 600 pages was a little intense of an undertaking for me), but the content was well worth the time! I would give this one an 8 out of 10.


And with that, April is complete. This month my reading almost slowed to a halt, but when you have a handful of race recaps and an assortment of other projects that "must" get done, the recreational reading tends to take a back seat. PS If you have any suggestions on books to grab, let me know! I'm always down to throw them in the queue!

What are you currently reading?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I'll have to check some of those out. I've been visiting the library a lot recently too, such a great resource. For some reason I got on a kick with reading a lot of Holocaust books. Now I had to take a break from that and pick up some lighter fiction.