#30: On the Island

On the Island by Tracey Garvis Graves has been recommended to me by several people.  My SIL loved it and recommended it a while back because the author lives in Des Moines, a co-worker loves any books with romance, and a friend in my book club read it as her "tropical" themed book.  I finally decided to grab it from the library to read as a back up to my other summer read.

This is the story of a teacher named Anna who is supposed to be tutoring a boy named TJ during the summer.  TJ missed a lot of school due to having cancer and needs to catch up during the summer holiday by having a tutor come on summer break with his family to the Maldive Islands.  Instead of TJ traveling with his family.  He waits and travels with Anna who wasn't done with work yet.  On the way to their final destination, the sea plane they are on crashes and they end up stranded on an uninhabited island.

We can all guess what will happen, even though Anna is way older, they are the only 2 there so they fall in love.  This story is not a new idea.  Some of the things that happened on the island were unique.  I really liked the stories of how they learned to survive on the island, but for me the "love story" felt forced.  I can see when TJ loved Anna, but for me Anna's love for TJ was a little lacking.

This was a really fast read and a good guilty pleasure read.  While I liked it, I don't feel it was one of the greatest books I've read recently.  I do think I will read the sequel to this just to learn a little more about the island they were on.

Up Next:  The Dinner

#29: The Girls in the Garden

Our next book club theme is "summer".  I didn't take any summer themed books with me on my vacation, so I was looking for a quick read when I got back.  I don't remember exactly how I found this book, but I must have seen it on some kind of book list.  I saw the word garden and thought of summer.  Reading the description, it takes place at a garden party in the middle of summer, so I feel it works for the theme.

The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell is the story of families living a in communal garden area in London.  Clare and her 2 daughters move to this neighborhood after Clare's husband has a psychotic break down and sets the house on fire to avoid alien rats.  (This part was super cheesy, but the rest is good.  I promise.)  The girls, Grace and Pip, start hanging around a group of friends,, referred to as the "gang".  There are some unfriendly feelings between some of the girls and Grace.  Most of this is because the boy in the gang, Dylan, likes Grace and some of the other girls are jealous.  During a summer garden party, Grace ends up unconsious in the garden and found by her sister Pip.  That is where the story acutally starts.

The story starts with Pip finding Grace.  It then tells how Clare's family ended up there and we meet all the people who live there.  We also here some history of people who live there, including a girl named Phoebe who was murdered there when she was 15.  People start to question what really happened to Phoebe and if it is connected to what happened to Grace.  Several times I thought that a certain person was guilty and then didn't end up being guilty.  After some questioning by the police, the story then jumps back to what actually happened that night.

I have never read anything by Lisa Jewell before, but it was a pretty good book.  Great for a quick read and mini suspense book.

Up Next:  On the Island by Tracey Garvis Graves

#28: When I'm Gone

Okay, something is messed up with this blog.  Several of my last posts had to be typed out 2 or 3 times and aren't getting saved/published.  Anyway, a few days ago I finished When I'm Gone by Emily Bleeker.  This was another book that Levi book on the Nook for me for our vacation.

It is the story of a man named Luke, whose wife dies of cancer.  It starts on the day of her funeral.  After the funeral, Luke notices a letter in the mail.  He opens it to find that it is from his wife Natalie.  She had wrote him letters before she died and planned to have them sent out on certain days.  At first he finds the letters very calming, but then he starts to question some of the things in the letters.  He begins to think that his wife was keeping terrible secrets from him during their life together.  He tells Natalie's best friend/neighbor about the letters.  She received 1 only, and tells Luke maybe he shouldn't believe what is in the letters.

I was very interested in this story.  It really had me at a point where I couldn't book the Nook down and finished it fairly quickly.  It was overall a very good story.  I do feel that it had a lot of details thrown in and at the end it was a little cheesy and predictable, but I still liked it.  Definitely worth the read.

#27: Not Another Superhero

I had my first experience with an e-book on our train trip.  Levi didn't want us to haul a bunch of books in our luggage so he downloaded books for us.  The first one I read was Not Another Superhero by Tara Lynn Thompson.  I was hooked on this book from the beginning.

It's about a girl named Samantha Addison.  She is a single woman who works in journalism.  The book starts with her getting mugged.  I immediately loved the dialog between Samantha and her mugger.  She was very sarcastic and nonchalant about the whole thing while speaking to him.  The mugger plays along for awhile and then decides to shoot her.  The bullet doesn't kill her and Samantha can't figure out why she isn't dead.

After the mugging, other things start happening to her.  She always comes out alive thanks to the help of a co-worker named Jackson Christy and a mysterious hooded superhero.  Samantha is put under police protection, but always finds a way to create more trouble for herself.

I found myself laughing in some parts about how sarcastic and crazy she is.  I also felt sad for her and the other characters in other parts.  She kept reminding me of Stephanie Plum in some parts of the book.

The unveiling of the "superhero" was not a surprise to me, but some information in the epilogue was.  I will definitely be reading the 2nd book when it comes out to see what happens.

Currently Reading:  When I'm Gone by Emily Bleeker

#26: The Mystics of Mile End

The Mystics of Mile End by Sigal Samuel was a free advanced copy that I grabbed off of the library table.  It was about a boy named Lev who is growing up in the Mile End neighborhood in Canada.  He goes to both regular school and is being taught about his Jewish religion from his neighbor.  Throughout the book, Lev and his sister Samara struggle with telling their father that being Jewish is very important to them.  The father, David, started doubting his religion shortly before his wife died.

There are several interesting characters in the book.  I really liked how the story was told first from Lev, then Sam, then David, and then a summary of everything.  Even though I didn't understand some of the Hebrew text with the Tree of Knowledge, I still thought it was a very interesting and heartwarming story about the Mile End neighborhood.