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Book Reviews

Reading People by Anne Bogel

8/30/2017

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Raise your hand if you’ve taken a BuzzFeed quiz today?  More than one?  Yeah, you’re not alone.  I hate to admit I might have just taken a quiz titled “Choose Some Baked Goods and We’ll Predict Your Future” because if you know me, you know I love bread more than Oprah.  (Don’t worry, I received good results.  I’m going to travel the world.)  I’m a sucker for those silly little quizzes, and for good reason too.  It’s more than wanting to know if my choice in baked goods will lead me to have a good life; it’s wanting to know more about myself and my life.  

Anne Bogel’s Reading People goes beyond the silly check-box quizzes to help you deal with the complexity of real life.  She explores several of the leading personality frameworks, including Myers-Briggs, the Enneagram, Keirsey’s Temperaments, and the 5 Love Languages, to show you how they are set up and interconnected.  If you’re looking for a good way to get an overview on these frameworks, this is book for you.  Read more to hear my thoughts on this highly engaging read.
Disclaimer: I received a free advanced copy of Reading People as part of the Reading People Launch Team, which allows me to give you an unbiased review.  Thank you Anne Bogel, NetGalley, and Baker Books. All opinions are my own.)

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Love and First Sight by Josh Sundquist

8/17/2017

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Born completely blind, sixteen year old Will is embarking on his most challenging endeavor yet: public high school.  As he gains confidence in his ability to navigate his new world, Will finds himself with a fantastic group of new friends and a potential love interest, Cecily.  Everything seems to be going swimmingly in his new life, especially since he has been given the chance to have an experimental surgery that will give him his eyesight.  What Will soon realizes is that seeing is a language of its own, and it holds its own secrets.  Love and First Sight mixes light-hearted teen romance with a thought-provoking perspective on how we see the world and how it sees us.  I picked it up for a light and fun summer read and ended up having several great conversations because of this book.  There’s more than meets the eye with this lovely little novel.  Read more to find out why!

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Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown

8/10/2017

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Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley, Janelle Brown, Random House Publishing Group and Spiegel & Grau for providing Booked Up Blog with a free digital copy of Watch Me Disappear, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.  All thoughts are honest and my own.
A mother is missing, presumed dead.  As the first anniversary of her death looms closer, Billie’s husband, Jonathan, is finding it hard to let go as he continues to work on his memoir about the loss.  Their daughter, Olive, begins seeing visions of her mother, telling Olive to come find her.  Did she really die in a hiking accident, or has she disappeared out of their lives on purpose?  As Olive investigates, Jonathan’s doubts begin to cloud his every thoughts.  He learns that Billie may not have been completely truthful about her weekend hiking excursions, thinking that she may have led a double life.  Full of twists and turns, I couldn’t believe the ending to Janelle Brown’s mystery.  It’ll leave you staying up way past your bedtime to find the next clue to Billie’s disappearance and the truth behind her identity.  (I speak from experience because that’s exactly what happened to me several nights in a row.)  Read more to let me tell you what I loved, and why I’m adding this the “Page-Turner” Club.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

8/9/2017

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What would you do if you learned your cells were taken without your knowledge?  

What if those cells were used to develop vaccines, used for cancer research, and even helped create the cure for Polio?

Would you want to know?  Do you have a right to know? Do you have a right to compensation?

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks examines the mostly unknown story of the woman and her family that experienced just that.  Henrietta Lacks will forever be in the history books as the woman who gave us the HeLa cells, but those books do not tell the story behind the origin of those cells.  They don’t share the economic and social struggle her family endures, despite her cells being bought and sold for research by the billions.  Rebecca Skloot spent 10 years researching and getting to know Henrietta’s family to create this book.  Part scientific inquiry about HeLa cells, part medical mystery about what makes these cells immortal, part memoir about the history of the Lacks family, Skloot weaves a tale that I initially thought was fiction and was interested to find out was completely true.

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The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

8/7/2017

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​For those of you looking for a fun, lighter read as summer comes to a close-look no further than Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project.  Perfect for those of you who like your comedy with a bit of romance, this is a quirky read about genetics professor who thinks he can find his perfect partner by way of a sixteen-page survey (the Wife Project).  

Fans of The Big Bang Theory will fall in love with Don Tillman as the "Wife Project" suddenly takes the back seat when he meets Rosie Jarman.  She doesn’t fit Don’s criteria, but Don finds himself developing a friendship of sorts with Rosie as she searches to find her biological father (the "Father Project").  Don and Rosie are total opposites, and you know what they say about opposites...


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Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

8/3/2017

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Some days you just need to sit down with a good book of poetry and cry it out.  

Some days you just need to read one poem on the go to make you smile.

Milk and Honey is just that book. Pick it up at any time, read a few (or many) something you can pick up at any time, read a few (or many) poems, and find yourself changed a little bit for the better.  Broken into four parts, The Hurting, The Loving, The Breaking, The Healing, there is a poem for any occasion.  Short, sweet, and to the point, Rupi Kaur takes the hard in life and shows you how to learn and grow from it. ​

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Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka

8/1/2017

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It’s early in the morning, and a fresh blanket of snow has just covered a sleepy suburb in Colorado.  All is calm until the body of high school student Lucinda Hayes is found on the playground.  When the popular and beloved girl is found murdered on school grounds, her entire community is shaken to its core.  In the days following Lucinda’s death, we follow the aftermath through the alternating perspectives of three specific people: the boy that loved her from afar, the girl that was jealous of her, and the officer investigating her murder.  Through their collective eyes, we learn more about how Lucinda has forever connected them together.

The narrators are unreliable, the perspective shifts, and the ending hits you out of nowhere.  I have a lot of thoughts on Danya Kukafka’s debut novel, Girl in Snow (out today!), and I’ll tell you all about this chilling novel as you read more.

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    The way to Alexandra's heart is through a great book recommendation.

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