Old Soul, Young Heart

I find a lot of books randomly from the magazines I read. I have these subscriptions that came free because of miles I earned from booking on Orbitz. I particularly enjoy my People subscription; it is one of my life's guilty pleasures. (Saturday morning coffee with celeb gossip and a crossword puzzle... what's better in the world?! That's right.  Not much. ) So anyway, most of these magazines have a page dedicated to novels that have been recently released. I always read the descriptions and almost all of them sound intriguing to me, so I make a note of them in my phone and then later add them to my "Favorites" within Heartland's library app. After I save them, I usually forget what they are about, so I'll just randomly pick one every once in a while and that's how I came across The Sea of Tranquility . This book may have been described as a late teen novel when I first found it. I definitely picked up on that fact early on. It's set in a h...

It's my annual blog post on the anniversary of my mom's death. Today it is the 13th anniversary. A couple of times today I've had to check that it's been 13 years. Is my math correct? It is. Thirteen. I was at my dad's about a week ago and looked through the family photo albums, as I usually do when I get over to his house. I took a photo of my mom and I. I was probably 5 and I could tell it was around Thanksgiving by the pilgrim girl window cling. I was on her lap and we were smiling at the camera. Her arms were on my arms, her hands holding my hands. I looked into her eyes in that photo and wondered what she was thinking. Was she actually happy? Was she fulfilled? Was her life what she wanted and thought it would be? What dreams did my mom have? This is the question that made me keep looking into her eyes, wishing she was here to share the answer with me. What have you done in your life, Mom, that you are most proud of? What do you regret not doing? What h...

Despite how inviting I find the cover of this book to be, I just couldn't get into this one. I saw it recommended several places, I think originally in People magazine. I believe it was one of Oprah's Book Club picks and I know I saw Reese Witherspoon post it on Instagram. From what I can tell, it included a couple of families, some cheating spouses, and a dad with cancer. It started out at a christening party which seemed to last for multiple chapters. It included a lot of characters with obscure names (which made them hard to remember) and flashbacks between when a kid was young and when a kid was grown (which, for me, made it difficult to know where I was at and when, as well as where the plot was going in general). I gave this one a try for about 75 pages and then moved on. Perhaps you would like it, though? I wonder where the title comes from, but didn't want to stick around to find out.

Well, I did terrible in 2016 with my book reviews. I think I kind of forgot that I was planning on doing that. The last one I wrote was in May, but I promise I read quite a few books in 2016! Let's start 2017 off strong with the book I just finished! It's "The White Princess" by Philippa Gregory. Now don't be put off by the word princess in the book title. That word reminds me of something I would've begged my mom to buy me from the book fair in elementary school. This one is not a fairy tale; in fact, it's based off of true events. Historical fiction is one of my most favoritest book genres and many of Philippa Gregory's books are about English history and the monarchy. This one follows the story of Henry VII (Tudor), who married Elizabeth of York in 1486. Their union joined the two rival families who both had claims to the English throne. Unfortunately, their enire marriage was plagued by "pretenders"--relatives coming forward and...

This year has been a bit of a shit show. In general, I believe I'm pretty good about keeping life in perspective. A lot of times I see things that others complain about to be rather inconsequential. I am able to see the good.  But this year has been a bit of a shit show. It could've been worse... yes. But it definitely could've been better. Philip took a job that he despised. I was in a bit of a funk for part of the year (sort of depressed?). My dad was in the hospital. We dealt with cat drama. My car was broken into and my purse was stolen. A lot of friends and family dealt with crazy situations. Our country elected a clown for president. I've struggled with my job a bit. Some of that is #firstworldproblems. We have jobs! Everyone's depressed! People are in the hospital! Cars get broken into and identities get stolen! I understand, but it is what it is. In the midst of a not great year, I still tried to remember (every once in a while... when I was...

I thought it would be good to read a book that is kind of a classic. I never was assigned this one in high school or college, but I know a lot of people were required to read it, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I had no idea what to expect going into this. The title is kind of mysterious; I'm not sure if anyone knows what it means prior to reading the book. I didn't know when it was written (1951, if you're curious). I just learned that this book was banned in the 1960s because people believed it was linked to Communism? It was considered to be very controversial during that time. I guess I can see how it could be viewed as a little scandalous, but Communist? Not so sure on that one. Anyway, I really liked this book. It was very entertaining and wasn't at all what I thought a book written in 1951 would be like. It follows the story of a kid who was kicked out of a prep school in Pennsylvania and then sort of wanders around New York City, his hometown. I wa...

I think I heard of this book when I was in grad school and the title caught my attention. I've had it in my queue for awhile and finally got around to reading it. We learned briefly about race identity development in grad school, but this went into more detail. I was kind of concerned with this one that it would be very academic, jargony, and hard to read. I thought I might start and not finish it because it wouldn't hold my attention. It was a surprisingly easy read that did keep me interested. There were a lot of first-hand experiences that made it feel like a personal narrative.  I'm always interested in the life experiences of others, especially those that are very different from me. Some of the stories were pretty eye-opening. To be honest, there were parts in it where I was like, "Really? C'mon." This is a true testament to how much I don't know about the experiences of black people. (And the book taught me it's okay to say "b...