Skip to main content

Week in Review & March Recap

       aaa1

April is here and Spring has finally sprung in North Carolina. The trees have bloomed and are already changing over to leaves. The daffodils and tulips are full of color. The kids have had their first big water fight in the yard and I've finally gotten back into running regularly, which is good since I have a 5K coming up next month. It is this time of year, every year, that I most appreciate our decision to leave Massachusetts and move to North Carolina. Seeing sunshine and flowers instead of remnants of snowstorms makes me so happy.

Reviews and Blog Posts
Book Review: The Precious One by Marisa de los Santos
Book Review (by my son): Emperor Pickletine Rides the Bus by Tom Angleberger
GIVEAWAY! Win a paperback of One Plus One or The Invention of Wings

Reading
I was reading Unbecoming: A Novel by Rebecca Scherm, but just couldn't get into it last week. There's nothing wrong with it; I just was in the mood for something different. So now I'm reading Not Without My Father: One Woman's 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace by Andra Watkins, and I'm really enjoying it. I'll get back to Unbecoming later in the month.

What are you reading this week? It's Monday! is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, so hop over there if you'd like to see what others are reading too. You can also check out the younger version of It's Monday!


Month in Review: March

Since this is the first Monday in the month, I'm also going to share what I read and reviewed in March, and a running total for the year so far.

BOOKS READ IN MARCH:5
REVIEWS WRITTEN IN MARCH:7

  1. Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley - reviewed
  2. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn - reviewed
  3. Because of Winn-Dixie - read and reviewed
  4. The Daughter by Jane Shemilt - read and reviewed
  5. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry - read and reviewed
  6. September Sky by John A. Heldt - read and reviewed
  7. The Precious One by Marisa de los Santos - read and reviewed

TOTAL FOR 2015

Total Books Read: 15
Total Reviews: 17


Historical Fiction: 0
Middle-Grade Fiction: 3
Elementary Fiction: 1
Young Adult: 0
Contemporary Fiction: 4
Mystery/Thriller: 4
Science Fiction: 2
Nonfiction: 0
Memoir: 1

For review: 5
For book club: 2
For me: 8


2015 CHALLENGES

Cloak & Dagger Reading Challenge - 4/10
Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge - 2/10
Library Challenge - 5/6
Finishing the Series Challenge - 3/7
Follow my progress here
Labels:

Comments

  1. fredamansApril 6, 2015 at 9:26 PM

    AJ Fikry is HIGH on my list. You did great though. Happy April reading!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JulieApril 7, 2015 at 2:38 PM

      Thank you! I'm glad my book club read it so I had a reason to get to it sooner. It was very good.

      Delete
  2. Cheriee WeichelApril 6, 2015 at 11:48 PM

    I loved your son's review. This series is very popular in our school library. Dark Places sounds like a good read, but a bit too creepy for me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JulieApril 7, 2015 at 2:38 PM

      Yes, that one is creepy. My son has loved all of the Origami Yoda books. He's sad the series has ended.

      Delete
  3. GatheringBooksApril 8, 2015 at 7:26 AM

    This is a new-to-me title, sounds like a powerful title.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JulieApril 8, 2015 at 9:24 AM

      It was good. It was powerful to some extent but plenty of lightheartedness too. I'll have my review up next week for the tour.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Popular posts from this blog

Getting back to blogging

It seems that blogging has dropped to the bottom of my list for the past year, and was pretty low for the year or two prior to that. I love to read, and am continuing to do so, but as my regular readers know I haven't been around much. My last blog post was almost a year ago!!

There are many things that have taken me away from blogging. Work has been much more challenging and interesting these past few years, but that means I really don't want to get back on the computer when I get home at night - or on the weekends.

Family life has been more busy with kids having multiple activities in the evenings, leaving little time to just hang out and write about the books that I read.

I will admit to a bit of a Facebook addiction, which means way too much time spent scrolling through my newsfeed instead of doing something more productive. This is one of the things I'm working on and hoping that this will free up some time for getting back to the blog.

Overall, life is good. Work is …
Post a Comment
Read more

Book Review: The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett

Peter Byerly is distraught over the loss of his wife nine months ago. He has retreated to their cottage in the English countryside, hoping to return to his love of collecting and restoring rare books. But when he opens a book about Shakespeare forgeries and finds a Victorian watercolor of a woman who looks just like his wife, Peter is soon on a search for the origin of the painting and the truth about Shakespeare's real identity.

The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession by Charlie Lovett is a wonderful journey for anyone who loves books. It follows Peter's search in 1995, which turns into a bit of a thriller at times. But Lovett also takes the reader back in time a bit so we can learn the story of his relationship with his wife and how he came to be a bookseller. He does a beautiful job of expressing Peter's feelings about the rare books he encounters, and his feelings are contagious.

And then he takes us back even further to the history of one particular volume, whos…
3 comments
Read more

Banned Books Week: Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park

This is the end of Banned Books Week and unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of time to write about banned books this year. But I did want to include at least one post about it, so today I wanted to share one of the book series that it seems most people are surprised to find on the list: Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park.

According to Wikipedia:
The Junie B. Jones series came in at #71 on the American Library Association's list of the Top 100 Banned or Challenged Books from 2000-2009. Reasons cited are poor social values taught by the books and Junie B. Jones not being considered a good role model due to her mouthiness and bad spelling/grammar. This is an interesting example of a banned book. Many times there are serious, controversial topics featured in books that are challenged. Things like homosexuality, drugs, vulgar language, etc. You can actually understand why people may not want their children to read those books, and why they may challenge their inclusion in school libra…
10 comments
Read more