Book 21 of 2015- "Where She Went" by Gayle Forman

This was another 1 day read. It's the sequel to "If I Stay", and takes place about 3 years after the first book.

Big surprise, Mia is alive. She went to Julliard and left Adam, and just kind of cut him out of her life. Adam's band got famous, and he was just part of the rock star lifestyle. So he was in New York City for a tour date before they went to London when he saw that she had a concert at Carnegie Hall. He went just to listen to her, and got called back to her dressing room. They spent the rest of the night awkwardly trying to get to know each other and figure out what had happened those years ago.

It was pretty fluffy, and luckily just about 200 pages long so I got through it quickly. But enjoyable for the time I took to read it.

Book 20 of 2015- "If I Stay" by Gayle Forman

It has been so easy to read books here without my laptop distracting me and helping me waste time. I just read while I'm trying to feed Cora or get her to sleep or if someone else wants to play with her and I want a break. They have a ton of books here that I have wanted to check out that I haven't gotten around to yet. Add that to having easy quick reads and you get lots of books read in a short period of time. I'm almost done with the sequel to this book, which will make 7 in less than 2 weeks. Almost back on track!

Anyway, this book was a SUPER quick read. It's about a girl who is in a bad car accident that kills her family (not a spoiler alert, it happens in the first 10 pages don't worry), and spends the rest of the book in a coma, trying to decide if she should come back to live or go to wherever the rest of her family is. She sees people coming in to visit her body, and watches operations being performed on her, and waits. She also has flashbacks to earlier, with her cello playing and auditioning to Julliard and her rock star boyfriend Adam. So, she ultimately decides whether she should stay or not. Now, I won't say if she did, but I AM reading the sequel... so that should tell you.

Book 19 of 2015- "Allegiant" by Veronica Roth

So I will just warn you now: SPOILER ALERT.

That said, more caps lock... WHAT IS WRONG WITH VERONICA ROTH??! I was looking at how many pages were in the book, and read "Tris' ashes"... Seriously. The girl that we have been following for 3 books dies at the end. Seriously. I was so mad.

But, I think that made it a little bit easier to read, even though I had a pit in my stomach the whole time. Would this chapter be the one where she dies? Would this one?

 I still don't think she should have died... I hate movies and books where the main character dies. But perhaps due to my knowing what would happen beforehand, I thought it was done ok. It wasn't super drawn out or terrible. She just gets shot and dies. I am still so mad.

So the premise of the book is that they escape the city (which turns out to be Chicago), and find a compound nearby. It turns out their city is a result of an experiment by the United States government. They had manipulated the genes of people generations back, and realized that was a bad idea. So the Divergent were the people whose genes had been made whole again through generations of reproducing. Why this meant they needed to die in the first book? No idea. But then they realize that there is going to be a rebellion against the rebellion that was against the rebellion that was against the rebellion... you see how it gets repetitive and tiring after a while. Tris manages to save everyone, but not before she receives a fatal gunshot wound and dies from it.

So, overall the series wasn't too bad. It was like "Hunger Games", in that they obviously had not planned for it to be a series and had to stretch the plot further and keep adding twists and turns. Will I go see the movies? Maybe. I'm still smarting from her dying.

Book 18 of 2015- "It's Good to Be Alive" by Jack Rushton

This was a good book to read in a lot of short periods, because it is a series of observations Patriarch Rushton had from the vantage point of being a quadriplegic. I remember meeting him before, as he was somewhat of a celebrity in the church around Southern California. And he just seemed so normal.

I liked his optimism in life, and the fact that he admits that he struggled. But he still had his sense of humor, and his matter-of-fact way of stating things. He seemed like a great man who had his priorities straight, so that something as big as an accident like that didn't completely derail him.

Book 17 of 2015- "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

Ok, I confess. I have never read this book before. I remember seeing the movie a long time ago, but I never had to read the book in school so I never did.

But I finally read it, and I really liked it!

To me, the book was interesting and frustrating. The whole trial aspect of the book was so interesting, how it was obvious that the man was innocent but he was still convicted because of the color of his skin. I appreciated the fact that the children seemed to be the ones who weren't racist, and saw the world through innocent eyes. Atticus seemed to be the only adult in the town who wasn't racist. He also was not ruffled by the fact that people called him a "******** lover", because he was just out to defend the truth.

When I saw the movie, all I remembered was about Boo Radley. I wasn't quite sure how he tied into the trial, but I was glad to see it all worked out. I do wish he had more of a backstory, and wasn't just known as some crazy person. Again, I liked that Atticus didn't show the children his prejudice, if he had any. He just treated Boo like he was a normal member of society.

Well, now I feel like a normal member of society, since I have read this book.

Book 16 of 2015- "Heaven is for Real" by Todd Burpo

I had heard about this book, but I hadn't been able to read it until now. It was REALLY good. It is the story of a 3 year old who undergoes an emergency appendectomy and is in the hospital for a while. A few months later, he tells his family about how he went to heaven and saw Jesus. His dad is a pastor, but didn't tell him many of the details that this little boy knew.

It was fascinating! I believe that this is real, and that the boy had an out of body experience. He met his great grandfather, who died more than 25 years before he was even born. It was also very sweet that he met his sister, whom his mother had miscarried before he was born. I know some friends who have had miscarriages, and as much as you want to believe that children go to heaven it is a relief to hear it from a first hand account.

What is most interesting is that there is another girl who has had visions of heaven and paints what she saw. When they showed Colton the picture she painted of Jesus he said that was it.

Book 15 of 2015- "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch

I read this book in one day. It was a pretty quick read! 

It is a series of small lectures that Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, wrote as a way for his children to remember him by. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and only had a few months to live when he was asked to give a lecture.

The lectures themselves were not that groundbreaking. He talked about why he was the way he was, and his outlook on life. He talked about rules he lives by ("sometimes all you have to do is ask"), and things he remembers about each of his children and his wife. He talked about how he is preparing for their future without him, and the way he was raised.

When you read it like that, it could be seen as a boring book. But then I thought about how he was trying to leave a legacy for himself for his family to remember him by. It made me think of what I would want to leave behind if I were to pass away. (Not too soon!) I'm glad I have this blog so I can have Cora remember me as I am now, and not just as she will remember me starting in a few years.