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THE MOMENT OF LIFE BY MELINDA GATES ★★★★★ (AUDIOBOOK)
Such a fantastic and engaging book by Melinda Gates! She is articulate, confident, and very intentional in her life and in her writing. She shares intimate details of her humanitarian work throughout the world as well as personal tidbits regarding her marriage and career. I loved listening to her own voice narrate the audiobook & fully support her mission to empower women! The stats she shares really caused me to consider the importance of this work. It’s not just hopeful thinking that empowered women can and will change the world. It’s clear the research backs this as the best effort to create massive change.
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THE LIBRARY BOOK BY SUSAN ORLEAN ★★★★★
This was both a nod to public libraries and a tribute to the Log Angeles Public Library & the fire it endured in 1986. The mystery involved in investigating the arson, as well as the intrigue of the rise of public libraries kept me turning pages! It was fascinating, but I’m a big history guru so I really dig this sort of thing. I loved Susan’s writing & I felt her genuine love of the subject came through. It’s very well researched and I was extremely impressed with her ability to weave such a variety of subject matters in a connected & compelling way.
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SKY IN THE DEEP BY ADRIENNE YOUNG ★★.5
Okay, this was confusing and had a lot of plot holes for me. Supposedly the two clans that they talk about in this Viking-era tale are bitter rivals and meet semi-regularly to fight and kill each other off, because of long held tribal loyalties and traditions which hinge on honor over anything else. Yet, breaking this honor is what the whole plot hinges on & I never fully understood why that was appealing & why the character made that choice. On top of that, the first half of the book is just angsty brooding on Eelyn’s part. Yeah, I get it! She’s mad, bitter, and doesn’t understand the traitor behavior either—but c’mon! We need to move the story along! I would have given up on this one but it was a book club selection. Now I’m eager to hear what others in our group have to say about it!
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THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US BY CHARLES MARTIN ★★★★★
This sucked me in & didn’t pop me out until the very last page! Honestly, I haven’t been this addicted to a book in a long time! I literally put life aside for 48 hours to keep reading. I love when that happens, but I’m glad it’s rare, because I can’t be an absent parent and wife all the time. 🙂 I’ve always been a sucker for a survival story, so that was the first thing that got my attention — a man and a woman are in the barren, cold wilderness after a plane crash (takes place in Utah so that connection was extra fun) and have little to survive. I could have gotten caught up in the unlikely parts of this story and sometimes my mind wanted to shout, “yeah, right!” but the story was compelling enough to help me overlook those minor occurrences. The ending, especially, made this a five star for me!
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ATOMIC HABITS BY JAMES CLEAR ★★★★★(AUDIOBOOK)
I love a good personal development book, and this one was next level for me! Here’s why: super simple actionable steps & super clear messages in each chapter. It’s easy for personal development to go the way of theory and philosophy and it all sounds good in your head, but it’s possible to finish a book and not know what to do next. I’m a thinker, so I love something that gets me thinking, but that also means I need clear guidance on what to do. We all know that thinking won’t change anything, it’s your actions that will! James Clear was the perfect teacher in this regard. He starts the book out really strong with a personal story about getting hit in the face with a baseball in high school, and from there he weaves a whole host of habits and research into an intriguing and motivating message. I’ll be re-reading this one.