Year 2, week 23: Spinning Starlight

This week's book:
Spinning Starlight
By R.C. Lewis

This week's book is the first book of the new year for my book group. Spinning Starlight is the retelling of the fairy tale Wild Swans or Seven Swans, depending on what version you have read in the past. I had loved the original fairy tale when I had read it in highschool and I was excited to read it when this book was pitched to my book group.

The young adult novel is set in a future and is really science fiction like. I'm going to be honest with you, I struggle with sci-fi sometimes. I like the plots and all but sometimes I'm not smart enough or technically savvy enough, and I don't quite understand all the items that they are explaining. I still enjoyed the book but I might have done better understanding it if I had my husband read it too so he could field the tech questions. I would say that this book is a great adaptation of the classic fairy tale. If you enjoy the fairy tale you definitely need to check it out. If you haven't read the original I still think you can enjoy the book.

Year 2, week 22: Becoming

This week's book:
Becoming
By Michelle Obama

This is late again, sorry guys! We had two two-hour delays that threw off my whole flipping week. But I finished Becoming by former first lady Michelle Obama this week. My amazing husband bought me the book for Christmas and it might be the only time in our 11 years of being together that he surprised me with a book. (To clarify he has bought books in the past, but this was the first time he surprised me with a book). This book is also the first time I have gotten all the way through a memoir of a person who has resided in the White House. I have bought both of the Clinton's book and couldn't get through them. I had read President Obama's first book, Dreams of My Father, before he had even become president. I actually saw Obama when he came to Ball State when I was a senior in college. He was and still is the most well spoken person I have ever seen. He was so filled with hope and calmness that my twenty-two-year-old heart just melted. I was excited to read Michelle's book, and I will be honest here, I wanted to see what she said about her husband and her children.

As much as I liked the book, I was a little disappointed in some elements of it. She hardly spent any time on the second term they were in office. Maybe it's a case of second child syndrome, where the second child doesn't get as much fanfare. And speaking of second children, Sasha (Obama's younger daughter) gets literally a sentence about Michelle being pregnant with her and delivery. Perhaps with Michelle Obama being more of the career centered woman, she focuses much more on her various jobs than to speak about her children in her book. I guess it's a book about her and not her children, but I would have liked a little more of an insight about her daughters. I did enjoy that she did speak about her miscarriage and difficulties of getting pregnant, it was very honest. But another element I was a little disappointed in was the lack of support she gave her husband any time he was running for office. She doesn't like politics and didn't really want her husband to go into it. She even goes as far as to tell him that he probably will not win whenever he's on the verge of running for office. Not that I am all “stand by your man no matter what” or anything, but come on, support your partner's dreams. Perhaps the case of the Obamas not becoming a couple until their late twenties/early thirties and both had made their owns lives are the explanation of their relationship.

I'm assuming that if you like the Obamas you will enjoy the book. If you don't like them you wouldn't want to pick the book up.

Year 2, week 21: What Alice Forgot

This week's book:
What Alice Forgot
By Liane Moriarty

This week's book is another book written by Liane Moriarty. She is the author of Big Little Lies and a whole bunch of books you'll see fellow soccer moms reading while they wait for practice and school to get out while they sit in their minivans. This is the fourth of this author's novels that I have read. I would say it's pretty good.

This book is the story of a woman in her late twenties who is madly in love with her husband and is pregnant with their first child. She wakes up after hitting her head, only to find out that about ten years have passed and she doesn't remember any of it. She has three children, she's getting divorced and her life has become far more glamorous; think the real housewives of wherever. She tries to figure out where her life has gone right and wrong and what she can do to “fix” her life, or if she even really wants to “fix” it?

I'm not going to lie, there are issues that are brought with veils of mystery that are anticlimactic. You think you have it figured out, and then out of nowhere you find out the problem wasn't that big of a deal after all. The ending is kind of a slap job finish, but it's still a good book.

Year 2, week 20: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

This week's book:
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
By Donald Miller

This week's book is a good book to start the year. It tells the story of a man who had written a book and how a few people wanted to make the novel into a movie. The problem was that the original book wasn't exactly exciting enough to make an interesting film. The author had a problem with the filmmakers saying his novel wasn't exciting because the novel was semi-autobiographical. The book was called Blue Like Jazz and was eventually made into the film. But this week's book isn't Blue Like Jazz, it's the book the author wrote while trying to “write a new story” for his life.

I'm in a Mom to mom group which happens to be held at our church. Our associate minister's wife kept bringing up a book that absolutely changed her life and always suggests it to people if they are looking for a new book to read. So of course after hearing her suggest a book a couple of times, I grabbed a copy on eBay lickety split. The whole book is about writing your own story. If you don't like the way your life is going, change the path it's on. It sounds so simple, but it's true; no one else can make choices in your life but you. No one else can make you stop eating rubbish. No one else can get you off that couch and stop streaming whatever Netflix show you love. Why not start 2019 on the right foot and make those changes you have been complaining about for all of 2018.

So many new year's resolutions going around but maybe, just maybe 2019 will be our year?