Book Report #5

Books 21-25 in my 52 book challenge! Current status - I'm one book behind schedule (45/52 books read), I need to pick up my reading!

Looking for Alaska - John Green: Another John Green, YA book about teenage love, angst, and death. I need to stop reading these. This one was pretty good though. The story was different than A Fault in Our Stars. It follows a group of quirky (they are always quirky and sound wise beyond their years) teenagers at a boarding school, with all of the associated antics that must go along with teenagers who have little parental oversight. After you get to know the characters, and actually start liking them, tragedy strikes and you get to see how each of these kids cope. If you are looking for an easy read that's a bit depressing, but overall a good story, I recommend this book!

Dark Places - Gillian Flynn: I liked Gone Girl, so I thought I'd try another by Gillian Flynn. Dark Places wasn't as good as Gone Girl. It's a creepy story - seven year old Libby's family is brutally murdered in their house while she escapes out the window. Based on her testimony her brother is convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in jail. As an adult, Libby is completely screwed up, understandably so, but I never could like her, and I didn't even really feel sorry for her. I think all of the characters were just a bit too out there for me, it took away from the story. I like her writing style, and the pages turn quickly. If you liked Gone Girl, give this one a try. I still plan to read her other book, Sharp Objects, which is the first book she published.

What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty: Moriarty's writing is very easy, the pages just turn and the story just goes. This book was okay but it wasn't as great as I hoped it would be. Alice knocks her head and when she comes to she thinks it is ten years earlier. She doesn't remember having kids, an unhappy divorce, her current friends, or her new boyfriend. Over the course of the story her memory comes back in flashes all the while she is trying to reconcile her current life of an ex-husband who hates her and kids who aren't that fond of her, to the life she can remember where they were happy and super excited to start a family. I had a hard time connecting to Alice, either one - the before the accident or after the accident Alice. She just irritated me, and I wasn't particularly happy with the ending, but that had nothing to do with the writing, just my preference for how I thought her life should have turned out. Overall the story was well written and a fast read.

Paper Towns - John Green: Okay, I tried one more and now I know for sure I need to cut back on my YA reading... I wasn't a fan of this John Green book. Maybe because I read it so soon after reading Looking for Alaska, but it was too much of the same, and no where near as good. I didn't connect with this book at all. I finished it, because I have a really hard time not finishing a book, but wasn't particularly thrilled I spent my time on this book.

The Emerald Mile - Kevin Fadarko: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon. I have always been interested in rafting the grand canyon. This book gives an abundance of the history of everything that has happened on or around the grand canyon since it was discovered in the 1500s. If you like a lot of detailed history then this book is for you. I didn't want so much. The first 1/2 - 2/3 of the book drug on and on. I feel he could have simplified and condensed a lot of that information which would have made it more interesting and faster to get through. The sections on the rafting, particularly the history of the dories and the huge floods on the river due to the overflow at the Glen Canyon dam, was very interesting, but it took way to long to get to those stories. Overall, if you are interested in the history of the area pick it up and read, if you just want to read about the actual fastest ride, maybe just skip the first half of the book.