Category: Book Review

If I stay by Gayle Forman

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Summary: 
Mia is a seventeen year old girl living in Oregon with her mother, father and little brother. She is very talented cello player. Mia’s boyfriend, Adam, also shares a strong passion in music. He is in a band that is gaining popularity and has started touring. Ultimately, with Adam’s band going on tour and Mia possibly attending Julliard for college, there relationship slowly starts to fizzle out due to the tension of knowing their paths will be going in different directions and different parts of the country. Mia has a lot of choices to make regarding her relationship with Adam and where to attend college. Should she follow her musical dreams or follow her heart? The biggest choice she has to make comes following the aftermath of a catastrophic car accident involving her family. Mia is the only member of her family to survive and she finds herself in a coma. While suspended between life and death Mia faces a choice that will decide her future.

Opinion:
I’ve seen the movie a couple of times and had no idea it came from a book so I was pretty excited to read it. There are specific scenes of the movie that make me shed a tear no matter how many times I’ve watched it. The book is no different when it comes to those same moments pulling at my heart strings. My heart always aches at the thought of Mia’s situation. The storyline is immensely devasting but I love it! It really makes you think about how every choice in life changes things. I won’t spoil the ending incase you haven’t seen the movie or read the book yet. But I have always wondered what the aftermath of Mia’s decision is. How it changes things and affects everyone else. I found out that there is a sequel to this book titled “Where she went” so I’ll be on the hunt for it!

Something Blue by Emily Giffin

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Summary: Darcy Rhone appears to have a perfect life… perfect fiancé, perfect job, perfect friends, etc. Darcy has depended on her good looks, outgoing personality and her best friend her whole life. Which allowed her to be cunning and selfish to say the least. But that soon changes when her fiancé and best friend get together and Darcy is left completely alone with a baby on the way. Follow her journey of redemption and rediscovery when she flees the country to a childhood friend living in London.

Opinion:
*You can read this as a stand alone book but its basically a sequel to Something Borrowed.

I loved Something Borrowed (and the movie too)! I was told through instagram, when I posted my review on Something Borrowed that Something Blue was the sequel from Darcy’s point of view. Naturally I had to get the book and it did not disappoint! It took me three evening to finish reading this book because I could not put it down! I mean it! One night I was under the covers at midnight with my phone flashlight trying to not wake up my husband as I turned each page!

As always, I won’t include any spoilers but I HATED Darcy when I began reading this book. I hated her character from Something Borrowed because of how selfish and self absorbed she was. So for the author to write this book from Darcy’s point of view is brilliant! I gasped a few times reading this book, so many surprises! I found my self starting to feel sympathetic towards Darcy and even cheering for her as she tries to prove that people can change. Ok ok ok confusion, I teared up while reading towards the ending of the book.

Both books raise a lot of questions about friendship, infidelity, and forgiveness.

If you’ve watched Something Borrowed, the movie, then you probably saw the little teaser at the end…. so Emilly Giffin, I sure hope that Something Blue is in the works to be a movie as well!

If you’ve read either books or watched the movie Something Borrowed, let me know what your thought were in the comments!

A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron

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Summary: Its an emotional and funny story of a dog that goes through multiple lives trying to figure out what its purpose is. It gives commentary from a dog’s point of view on how humans live and relationships within families and with pets.

Opinion: I saw the movie first, I tired not to but I did. I cried several times throughout the movie and literally laughed out loud. I don’t know if I was more emotional because I had just gone through a scare with my own dog but it got to me. My verdict is that although the movie was good! The book was simply better. The book had a lot of commentary from the dog and everything was from the dog’s point of view, but the author also does a great job at describing things, so we know exactly what is going on. The book dove more deeply into each “family” that the dog lived with and what it gained and learned from each of its lives. It was all tied beautify at the end. I won’t spoil the ending but it was different than the movie! I’ll leave the review stating that the dog really is a good boy!

And I also can’t stop looking at my own pup and wonder what he is thinking or how he views things!

 

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

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Summary: For over a decade, Jenna Metcalf obsesses on the disappearance of her mom Alice. She teams up with Serenity Jones, a psychic for missing people who doubts her gifts and with Virgil Stanhope, a jaded PI who originally investigated cases of Alice and her colleague.

My opinion, NO SPOILERS: This was my first Jodi Picoult book and it was definitely not the type of book I usually read, but I did like it! The writer goes into multiple narrators between Serenity – the psychic, Virgil – the detective, Alice – the mother who disappeared when Jenna was a small child, and Jenna. Alice is an elephant research so there is also a lot of information about elephants thrown in there which I personally liked (elephants are my favorite). However I can see how someone may get lost in all the elephant text or information. But there is a mystery to solve and that’s what keeps you going. What happened to Jenna’s mom? Why would Jenna’s mom leave her? Where is Alice now? Is she still alive? I won’t spoil the ending but it’s a nice tie in as to how elephants are these really big animals, so different then us, yet so similar when it comes to saying goodbye to their loved ones. I really want to spoil the ending and discuss but I won’t!

Citizen Girl

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cgaFrom the authors of The Nanny Diaries. This was a hard book to finish. After reading the first chapter I thought I would like the book, maybe even find it relatable to my life. I was so wrong! The book starts off with Girl (yup, that’s her name), working for a feminist non-profit, under one of those bosses that should have retired already. She gets fired and attends a networking event (with her pre-teen brother…what?) and then somehow in life gets hired at MyCompany (yup, that’s the name of the company). The majority of the book is her boss, Guy (yup, that’s his name), giving her tasks with zero direction or explanation and Girl having to ask 100000x about how to get it done. Ultimately, “MyCompany” fails at what it is trying to accomplish and needs to get rebranded by- Manly (yup, that’s her name) from the bank. I WONT SPOIL WHAT TYPE OF COMPANY IT BECOMES.
I guess the book is meant to be a satire of corporate consultation? It does have some very tough issues like feminism, sex trafficking, and glass ceilings. It shows that anyone can become a hypocrite and sacrifice their own moral ideas to make money and keep their job.
The writing was choppy. Characters and situations were not properly introduced and I found myself flipping through pages I had already read just to make sure I didn’t miss something. I hate leaving a book unfinished so I was really hoping the book would get better.
I kept wondering, “Am I missing something or maybe I should try to see it from a different point of view?” Citizen girl can be found on Amazon.  If you’ve read the book… please leave your opinion in the comments! I am genuinely interested.