RTW 186: Best Book of June

Road Trip Wednesday: Best book of June. (Click here to see details)

Let me first say, it's crazy to think that June is already over! I feel like it was just yesterday that June 1st hit and I thought, this summer is going to be long! Now I have little over a month until I have to go back to training for work at school. Luckily it's my senior year.

Back to the best book. The book that really made me say, "wow" was The Mourning Hours by Paula Treick DeBoard.

I won this book on the Goodreads giveaway section. If you haven't noticed, quite a bit of my book collection comes from this website. (Tip: If you don't have much money, the giveaway section is a great place to win free books, just make sure you leave a review as a thanks.)

It's about Kirsten, a young girl who idealizes a teenage girl that ends up dating her brother. The teenage girl goes missing and Kirsten's brother is the last to see her. The town, and even the family, start to implode. When I started reading this book I was weary. While it sounded interesting, it wasn't a book I'd normally pick up.

After I started reading it, I got more and more into the groove of the story. It was interesting reading the book with the teenage girl as a character, knowing she was going to disappear; just waiting for it to happen. (By the way, I didn't spoil anything, it says on the back of the book that the girl disappears!)

Then, I hit a spot in the book where I just felt like I was done. I knew what was going to happen, and I wanted to stop reading. I felt like I had all the answers and the book was just dragging it out to make a page length. I almost put the book down, and almost skimmed parts. Boy am I glad I didn't.

The ending hit. And when I say hit, I mean HIT. This book has one of the most mind boggling endings I have ever read. Others said it was out of nowhere, but looking back there were clues to this ending. I can usually see endings coming when watching movies, tv shows, and reading books, and this often takes the fun out of it. However, upon completing this book my jaw literally dropped and I said "holy crap" really loud, causing my boyfriend to give me a weird look. This ending goes down as one of my favorite endings of any book of all time. (Next to Divergent and Insurgent, which both pleasantly surprised me!)

Definitely give it a read if you get a chance!

RTW 182:What book swept you off your feet?

Awesomely hilarious.

The book that really swept me off my feet was Recipes for Disaster by Tess Rafferty.

Now I know what you're thinking, who is Tess Rafferty, right? Yeah, I said the same thing. In fact, when I woke this book on Goodreads in a giveaway, I didn't even remember entering into the contest. I can't say how happy I am that I did win it. Tess was once a writer for the show, The Soup, and it really shows through in her writing.

I've read food memoirs (the cover says memoir but don't let it fool you, it's a food memoir) in the past, Toast sticks out in my mind whenever anyone says food memoir, but this one was different. Tess goes about food in a way that is not only honest and true, but hilarious. She always seemed to have a positive way to look at things even if they were unbelievably terrible. She focuses on having dinner parties and makes them seem horribly stressful and extremely fun at the same time. She also gives advice on how to cook for picky eaters (picky by choice and picky by food allergies) that will come in handy to anyone who cooks for someone with food allergies. For example she is allergic to most fruits and vegetables, something she talks about a lot during the memoir.

Her tips, and recipes, that showed up at the end of each chapter were hilarious and totally doable, many of which I plan on trying out (all with alternatives for food allergies). The entire time I was reading this memoir I felt more as if I were talking to a friend rather than reading a book. Her positive attitude and ability to make extremely stressful things seems fun have made me want to start having dinner parties of my own! I recommend this book to anyone that likes to laugh, cook, or drink (there is a lot of drinking involved).

Books, books, and more books.

As you can see, I like cats.

This is pretty much what I've been doing for the past two weeks while lying in bed, thinking about all the homework I have to do. It is quite a nice time waster.

I have been so swamped with end of school things that, to be honest, made me have no time for this blog. I apologize for that! However, school things are starting to wrap up so I will be on Blogger more and posting every Friday, as promised.

Although it takes up a lot of my time, my schoolwork does introduce me to quite a few good books along the way. I have recently read Donald Duk by Frank Chin and White Teeth by Zadie Smith. My teacher informed us that Zadie Smith is quite popular, especially with her newest novel NW. They actually offered NW as a goodreads giveaway not too long ago. I did not win that one though!

Both books are quite good and I would recommend them to anyone who likes to read about people coming to terms with their identities. Donald Duk is about a Chinese boy living in America and not wanting to be Chinese. It's really very good and it's a quick read. White Teeth is about many different cultures and beliefs coming together with a London setting. It's very well written and informative. If you can, pick them up and give them a read.

Any book recommendations you people out there have for me? With summer coming up I will have plenty of time to read!

RTW 170: Best Book of February

Hey all! I know I'm breaking my 'posting on Friday' thing, but as I said before I will do this from time to time!

So I have decided to participate in my first ever Road Trip Wednesday put on by the good people at YA highway. (If you don't read their blog, you should, CLICK HERE to get to their blog.) It's just something to get people to write about either reading or writing topics. They're quite fun and I suggest you take a look at them! A lot of great people take part in them!

Anyway, this Wednesday's topic is the best book you've read in February. Unfortunately, with how busy I've been this past month, I haven't been able to get much reading done. However, I just today finished a really amazing book:

The Animal Gospels
By: Brian Barker

This is actually a book of poetry. I know for a lot of you out there, this may make you cringe. For a long time, the thought of reading any poetry made me cringe. (Still to this day a lot of older poetry makes me scratch my head in confusion.) However, this book is really great. It's a quick read that really draws you in. Some of the poems in the book aren't as good at the others, but there are multiple within that really are a must read. His voice is fresh and stays modern throughout all of the poems. Some are sad, some are funny, and some are just out there. This book sells for rather cheap on Amazon (I had to buy it for a class) and I would definitely recommend picking it up!

What was your best read of February?