What I’ve Been Reading

It’s time to show you What I’ve Been Reading! I love sharing my latest book adventures with you and I hope it helps you add another book to your reading list. 

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell:

I can’t say it enough: I LOVE Rainbow Rowell.

She is brilliant.

I don’t know how she does it, but she makes you love the male character for all of his awkwardness and extreme attractiveness so thoroughly. Through all of his faults. Or maybe I’m strayed too easily by the thought of a pretty face? But I truly love her characters and how she makes me feel about them (usually there’s a guy in a story and I have a “eh, he’s ok but I’ll play along” feeling about him).

Anyways, this one is about Lincoln, an emotionally bruised late-20s guy living in a small town (in his mom’s house), and he works in a newspaper. But he works at night. Reading company emails that have been flagged. Got it?

So, we’re also reading the email exchanges between two ladies he works with, Beth and Jennifer, and just like Landon, we get to peek into their lives and wish we knew them, even though we’ve never seen them.

Have you ever fallen in “love” with someone just based on their words? Based on a text or emails or FB status updates or anything like that?

I love this. I love that Lincoln is torn between how much he hates his job and how much he wants to keep reading Beth and Jennifer’s emails, and he hates that he’s basically dug himself in a hole (how do you meet someone in real life and tell them you already know them because you read their emails AND expect them to still want to get to know you? Tricky tricky).

READ THIS ONE. You’ll love it too. Plus, it’s super quick. It takes a couple days and you wish it could go on and on.

 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn:

I’m pretty sure I was the last person to read this book, but if you haven’t (and you’re the last person), then this review is for you.

I get some sort of sick satisfaction from reading a book that messes me up mentally. The kid of book that you finish and think, “oh my God I must be a sicko because I felt BAD for that person, I was on their team until I really knew what was going on!!” I love when an author is THAT good, that I feel awful for defending a character and then I find out how very wrong I was. That’s good writing.

I’m sure you know the gist, based on movie previews, but all I can say is this book is told from two points of view. It’s about a man and a wife, and the wife goes missing, and the frantic search that ensues and mystery of the whole situation will suck you in and have you re-hypothesizing during almost every chapter.

It’s crazy.

My mom told me that she didn’t think she liked it but that she needed me to discuss it with her as I read it…well I loved it up until the last few chapters. I was screaming, basically. And at the end, I felt so worn out and stunned that I told her I didn’t know if I liked it anymore either even though I loved it (make sense?).

Oh, and yes, it ends. One of those. It ends and you’re left (if you’re like me), yelling “noooooooo!!!!!!” and making up your own ending just so you can sleep that night.

   

The Nesting Place by Myquillyn Smith

This book took me by surprise.

My husband and I just bought our first house, and ever since then, I’ve been a mess, paralyzed by decorating ideas. I can’t seem to actually do anything, due to financial reasons and mental reasons. Yes, mental. I have a deep fear of things not looking like I hope they look in my mind, so walls remain blank and we have practically no furniture (we moved from a 1 room apartment).

I’ve been reading a lot of crafty books that follow my personal style, which only leads to more things crammed into my brain. This book really helped me work out some of my issues. Although I’m not particularly religious and the author clearly is, I could definitely see where she was coming from with all of her advice.

You may know Myquillyn from her blog, The Nester, but if you don’t, then this is a great read to get to know her and YOU. She kind of knocks on your noggin: hello, it’s only paint, they’re only nails, and wood is wood. Paint the walls (it only takes a couple hours out of one day of your life!), hang up pictures and rehang them if you have to (holes are not the end of the world…blank scared walls are), paint that old dresser that you hate because you’ve had it forever but you’ve never painted it because your mom told you “it’s good wood.” Um, if you don’t like it and you’re living with it, why not change it and make yourself and your space happy?

Her words were really encouraging and inspiring. It’s not so much a “in this room, do this” kind of decorating book, it’s more of a “here’s some therapy so you can do whatever your heart desires” book. Got it?

And if you’re a renter and you want to bang your head on the wall because you feel stuck (but you can’t do that because you won’t get your deposit back), she has amazing advice for you too! She and her husband moved SO many times and were dirt poor, and she collected the experiences and compiled them.

This book will give you some new-found hope for your space.

 

 

And that’s it! I’ve been reading a lot of cookbooks and home books, but I didn’t know if you’d consider that a “book” and if you’d want reviews. If so, let me know! If not, that’s cool too, we’ll keep this going (it adds balance to my food-filled life).

 

What have you read lately?! Has anyone read Lena Dunham’s new book? I’ve been contemplating reading that one next.

 If you want more suggestions, check out my other book review posts here…and here…and here…

Note: this is not a sponsored post. Links are affiliate links through Amazon but just to show you which books I bought and read.