This is For You is the continuation of Amy and Seth’s story from My Lullaby of You. Amy graduates college as Seth enters a rite of passage of his own. What’s next for the couple? Can their love last through yet another round of big changes in their lives? Has it even lasted up to this point?
The sequel to My Lullaby of You, I was chomping at the bit for this little guy and, confession, I got a sneak peak when I “beta read” it for the author. Generally when I hear “local author” I assume the book will be subpar. I don’t know why I assume a good book cannot come from a Michigan resident, but I am wrong. These two beach reads were so fun and so… normal.
Book 29: This is For You by Alia Rose
Genre: Young Adult, Beach Read
Published: May 2019
Synopsis According to Mandi: Without spoilers, This is For You is the continuation of Amy and Seth’s story from My Lullaby of You. Amy graduates college as Seth enters a rite of passage of his own. What’s next for the couple? Can their love last through yet another round of big changes in their lives? Has it even lasted up to this point?
Favorite Quote(s):
“I waited for her to come back into the living room, knowing I would get some form of a lecture, but if she was offering me coffee for it, I hoped it wouldn’t be too bad.”
– Alia Rose, This is For You
Awards (based upon my brief research): None yet.
Pages: 87
My Overall Rating: 4 – When I finished My Lullaby of You, the characters were so young that there was so much room for what would come next despite the ending that also left ample amount of room. I wanted to know where the characters went from there, and Alia actually took the jump and gave us an answer!
This is for You takes a leap over the next four years of Seth’s and Amy’s lives and gives a peak into their future from there. It’s short. It’s sweet. It answers lingering questions. It gives resolution without completely finishing their story, leaving room for the reader to imagine what comes next, yet feel good about where it’s landed.
And all-in-all, it’s just plain fun. Think beach read goes to Chicago and comes back to beach.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is about rebel, Huck Finn’s escape from civilization with runaway slave, Jim. The two set off on a raft down the Mississippi in search equally of adventure and independence. Along the way, they cross paths with people who challenge their perspective on friendship, morality and love – setting them in a trajectory of clinging to one another in a way that will change their lives forever.
I’m quickly approaching my library’s Summer Reading Program Book BINGO #2, but this one was painful. According to the bookmark I found in this book, I read one chapter in 2017 (following my reading of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer), and decided no, not now, I can’t. At this point in my life, it is the only book that could fill the “read a book you started but never finished” square in my BINGO card, because I have only ever quit two books and, well, now I’ve read both of those…
Book 28: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Genre: Classic, Fiction, Historical Fiction
Published: December 1884
Synopsis According to Mandi: Without spoilers, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is about rebel, Huck Finn’s escape from civilization with runaway slave, Jim. The two set off on a raft down the Mississippi in search equally of adventure and independence. Along the way, they cross paths with people who challenge their perspective on friendship, morality and love – setting them in a trajectory of clinging to one another in a way that will change their lives forever.
Favorite Quote(s):
“Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better.”
– Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Awards (based upon my brief research): I’m not actually certain many books published in the 1800s were given awards… Are awards a 1900s thing?
Pages: 292
My Overall Rating: 1 – I mean, this is considered “the first American novel”. It is like the classics of classics in American literature, and I. Just. Couldn’t.
I love the idea of reading classics. I think it’s generally good practice to do so – they wouldn’t require so many of them in school if that weren’t the case, right? But, as I mentioned with The Red Pony, I just don’t get it.
To give it some credit, I read the whole book as if Huck Finn were the actual author. The narration was on point. However, much of the story just felt fine. Huck and Jim were floating down the Mississippi river without a care in the world. There was room for so much adventure, but so much of their adventure was at the mercy of their imaginations and not lived out.
The final 50 pages in this particular edition (the time at the Phelps’ farm) were solid, funny and interesting. But that was still not enough to pull me out of my Huck Finn drudgery.
Little Fires Everywhere is about the disruption of a desperately planned and “perfect” neighborhood, Shaker Heights. In Shaker Heights, there are rules, there is structure and there is an ideal image to uphold, but all the planning in the world can’t stop the craziness of life from seeping in. New residents, a single mom and daughter with an interesting past, beg the interest of other residents. Another family’s questionable adoption situation splits the town in half. And then the model family, the Richardson’s house burns down. It seems in just one year, Shaker Heights gets quickly shaken up.
BINGO! This non-fiction read, passed on to me by my in-laws, completed my first BINGO for my library’s summer reading club. Score!
Book 27: Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
Genre: Nonfiction, Adventure
Published: 1997
Synopsis According to Mandi: Without spoilers, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is about Jon Krakauer’s May of 1996 Mt. Everest climb. Despite his summit success, Krakauer descended the top of the mountain in hurricane force winds and white out conditions, staggering back to the safety of his tent while the rest of his team fought for (and mostly lost) their lives. Deemed the deadliest season on Everest, Krakauer lived to tell the story of that storm and the affect it had on his climb, his team and his life ever after.
Favorite Quote(s):
“Above the comforts of Base Camp, the expedition in fact became an almost Calvinistic undertaking. The ratio of misery to pleasure was greater by an order of magnitude than any mountain I’d been on; I quickly came to understand that climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain. And in subjecting ourselves to week after week of toil, tedium and suffering, it struck me that most of us were probably seeking above all else, something like a state of grace.”
– Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air
Awards (based upon my brief research): Pulitzer Prize Nominee for General Nonfiction (1998) ALA Alex Award (1998) National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for General Nonfiction (1997) Boardman Tasker Prize Nominee for Mountain Literature (1997)
Pages: 293
My Overall Rating: 5 – Whew! What an exhilarating, fascinating and heartbreaking read! My prior experience with Jon Krakauer was Into the Wild, a story I was so captivated by – one that would set my minor obsession with Alaska into motion when I was just a junior in high school. I knew he was a phenomenal writer. I knew he, like me, must be captivated by the adventures that happen in the solitude of the edges and peaks of the earth. But I didn’t know he was such an adventure seeker himself that he would attempt to climb Mt. Everest.
In May of 1996, I was 6 years old. While Krakauer was probably making international news, having safely summited and descended Mt. Everest while numerous other people (including most of his team) were killed in a violent, unpredicted storm, I was most likely playing with my baby dolls in my parents’ basement. So no, I was not familiar with this story prior to reading this book.
What pulled me in was not the thrill of ascending Everest. It was not the climbing tactics or culture that I learned so much about. What pulled me in was the decisions Krakauer and his team had to make in such a critical time while deeply impacted physically, cognitively and emotionally by the assumed thinness of the air and the shock of the storm.
How do you rally as a team when rallying could mean losing your life? How do you say goodbye to someone who’s been with you through the most strenuous, most formational experience of your life? And how do you face your life after that situation, when you’re one of just a few who survived?
I commend Krakauer for not just making it through his Everest climb, but for the courage to share his story afterward. Without a doubt, he must have received much criticism for sharing, but in doing so, he gave people a peek into a bigger story. Triumphs and failures happen. Sometimes they look like the same thing. Sometimes life goes on after them.
Little Fires Everywhere is about the disruption of a desperately planned and “perfect” neighborhood, Shaker Heights. In Shaker Heights, there are rules, there is structure and there is an ideal image to uphold, but all the planning in the world can’t stop the craziness of life from seeping in. New residents, a single mom and daughter with an interesting past, beg the interest of other residents. Another family’s questionable adoption situation splits the town in half. And then the model family, the Richardson’s house burns down. It seems in just one year, Shaker Heights gets quickly shaken up.
Another square on my library Book BINGO card has been crossed off – reading while on “vacation” (I had to count the 4th. That counts, right?) – with this July book club pick. It is also my second book in a row that I checked out from my local library, which makes me really happy.
Book 26: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Genre: Contemporary, Fiction
Published: September 2017
Synopsis According to Mandi: Without spoilers, Little Fires Everywhere is about the disruption of a desperately planned and “perfect” neighborhood, Shaker Heights. In Shaker Heights, there are rules, there is structure and there is an ideal image to uphold, but all the planning in the world can’t stop the craziness of life from seeping in. New residents, a single mom and daughter with an interesting past, beg the interest of other residents. Another family’s questionable adoption situation splits the town in half. And then the model family, the Richardson’s house burns down. It seems in just one year, Shaker Heights gets quickly shaken up.
Favorite Quote(s):
“Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.”
– Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere
Awards (based upon my brief research): Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction (2017) Goodreads Nominee for Best of the Best (2018) NAACP Image Award Nominee for Fiction (2018) Book of the Month Book of the Year Award Nominee (2017)
Pages: 338
My Overall Rating: 4 – For the first 150 pages, I could not see what the hype was about over this book. The reading was going quickly, but the book felt like it was going nowhere. Then, all of a sudden, we zeroed in on a serious plot that got real deep, real fast and made the first half of the book worth it.
The book reads fast enough that you won’t give up on it, and then it gets engaging enough that you won’t want to set it down. It hits hot-button topics on both sides with characters you will care deeply about, but…
Jumpity jump, jump, jump. I can’t give a 5 – not because of the first half, I could see past that – because the story bounced all over the place. Some people love this writing style. For me, it is a struggle at times. You have to figure out whose story is being told and in what time frame multiple times even within the same chapter. Whew!
The Red Pony is about a young boy, Jody, who grows up on a California ranch as an only child to relatively strict parents. Through his various unique experiences on the ranch, four of which are told in this novel, Jody matures from boy to young man.
My local library landed on Book BINGO for their summer reading program, and I am just over here very strategically reading to get a BINGO or two. Therefore, this classic…
Book 25: The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
Genre: Classic, Fiction
Published: 1933
Synopsis According to Mandi: Without spoilers, The Red Pony is about a young boy, Jody, who grows up on a California ranch as an only child to relatively strict parents. Through his various unique experiences on the ranch, four of which are told in this novel, Jody matures from boy to young man.
Favorite Quote(s):
“I tell those stories, but they’re not what I want to tell. I only know how I want people to feel when I tell them. It wasn’t Indians that were important, nor adventures, nor even getting out here. It was a whole bunch of people made into one big crawling beast. And I was the head. It was westering and westering. Every man wanted something for himself, but the big beast that was all of them wanted only westering.”
– John Steinbeck, The Red Pony
Awards (based upon my brief research): None that I could find.
Pages: 100
My Overall Rating: 2 – Seeming, at first, like Charlotte’s Web, I thought I might enjoy this book, but I soon realized it was nothing like Charlotte’s Web. I don’t get classics. The four stories told in this novel were enjoyable. The fourth one, in particular, even made me laugh as it was too relatable to my life. However, the book as a whole seemed pointless. Sure, it’s a story of the journey from boyhood to manhood, but there are far better stories out there, in my opinion, telling of that journey.
This was just too common – nothing gripping me, no talking animals (lol), nothing making me want to read more… other than getting my BINGO. I mean, I just came off from Recursion where there was a mysterious epidemic that’s taking the world by storm, and The Red Pony had a grand total of like six characters.
