Meadowbrook Lane ReadsALot

  Alright.  So. After another sweet Kristin Hannah book I went back to the thriller/psychological/mystery kind of book.  This was pretty good. It keeps you reading to find out what will happen next. A good synopsis of the book that I actually found online says this about the book (sometimes I just don’t know how to describe it without giving it all away!  Lol): “ When a young man is found gruesomely murdered in a London houseboat , it triggers questions about three women who knew him. Laura is the troubled one-night-stand last seen in the victim's home. Carla is his grief-stricken aunt, already mourning the recent death of yet another family member.”  I will also add that from my point of view, right when you get going, there a quite a few characters to keep straight and how they all relate—or don’t relate—to each other. So that was a bit tricky because there’s a lot going on in this book—with several different people. My take at the end was kind of a, “Wow…th...

 I ran across this book from someone else reviewing it on some site that I saw.  It interested me not only with it being historical WWII era, but also a memoir.  Someone’s life…as they experienced it …in their own words.  It was a pretty incredible story of a young girls life during WWII but was also different from other things I’ve read because this individual’s (Gerda’s) experiences were all first living in ghettos and then being a slave laborer, not ever being necessarily at a “concentration” camp per se —-so very different than most books centered around the Nazi’s, ect. Her story is still quite horrendous and she did lose (like the book title implies) basically EVERYTHING but her own life.  Incredible person. Makes you have so much gratitude for your own life and to see truly just how easy we have it…..that the things that get us all worked up are really nothing at all.

  As usual, Kristin Hannah does not disappoint!  I love reading her books when I just need to immerse myself in “a story.”  Nothing scary, or mysterious, or edge-of-your-seat kind of stuff….just a good story that pulls you in, and where you feel like you end up knowing these “characters” so well that you could walk up to them on the street and have a conversation!   This book again takes place in the Pacific Northwest for the most part (also a bit in the LA area).  A middle aged women basically has to rediscover herself after 20 years of losing herself to be the perfect person for others—-her too-busy-for-the-family husband, her almost grown daughter….  I think in part we can all relate in that at this stage, our last 15ish years have made us solely identify as wife and mother and not a ton else.  For the main character, Annie, it takes going back to her hometown—still while helping others of course—to see who she actually is and what SHE wants.  ...

  Oh my gosh. Great Christmastime read!  Light, funny, romantic!  Would make an amazing movie. It has a bit of a Groundhogs Day theme to it. It is basically about this group of people that get together at a cabin every year for the week of Christmas. The main character is a 26 year old woman who for some reason is basically like trapped in a time loop this year where she does the whole week at the cabin …and then Bam !  All of a sudden wakes back up on the plane heading there again and the date is that in which they first arrive. So she lives this same Christmas cabin vacation week several times over trying to figure out what she is supposed to do or change.  Like I said—great light, fun, holiday read!  Definitely recommend to read this month!  :). Probably a 4ish out of 5 :). Hard to say I guess just because there are not many books in this Christmas themed genre that I’ve read :)

  So. I read this book after having read Before We Were Yours—which was sssooooo good… and I just couldn’t believe the fact that while that particular story being told may have been fiction, the premise was true. That this baby and child snatching and selling, basically disguised as adoption —and also the start of adoption as we now know it, was really happening here in the United States—-yet in the 1940’s!  Crazy to me!  So this book was a non-fiction then that someone wrote looking into this whole thing….lots of interviews of people, facts found from that time, ect.  I wanted to love it and get a ton more info than what was provided by just reading Before We Were Yours, but I really didn’t. It was a bit redundant and most of the info you can honestly find on the internet.  I still read the whole thing because I find the topic terrifyingly interesting…. But not a “must read” for me.  If either of you have read it, you’ll have to let me know what you though...