Meadowbrook Lane ReadsALot

 Wow. This was so good. Same author (and intensity!!) as Behind Closed Doors— which is one of the more terrifying books I’ve read in the last year or so.   This one also does NOT disappoint!  A woman and her boyfriend decide to move in together in a new house—so it’s theirs together—not his or hers. Too bad this new place comes along with secrets and problems all of its own! A tight knit group of neighbors…friends..???..or do they all have something to hide?  Hmmm who to trust… So good! Definitely worth the read. Solid 4.25 out of 5 (only because thrillers aren’t my favorite genre of book – – I am more into dramas/romance/comedy I think I have a sound…)

  Another really good one!  The premise of this book  is basically what do you do when your heart is broken….how do you ever move on?  Do you ever really move on??  Is it possible to love different people at the same time for completely different reasons?  Different loves.  Oddly enough I saw so much of myself at times in this book it was a bit startling to be honest.  I could absolutely identify with the main character Lucy…which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. I’m not sure if in order to really connect with the book, you need to be able to identify with the feeling of being absolutely crushed at some point is your life….maybe… 4 out of 5.

 Oh my gosh. Another Kristin Hannah. Aaannndddd she does it again. Seriously. Her books are SO good. This is a really old one (and by REALLY old I mean 2001! Lol) that no one talks about either, and yet, still amazing!  This one is mostly about about the reconciliation of a mother -daughter relationship but also addresses more—relationship issues and failures, first loves, friends, careers and how all of those things intertwine and what they mean.  It’s about divorce, forgiveness, sibling relationships….about how we also really don’t know our parents as “people” when we are growing up…just as mom and dad —and that they have whole sides to themselves and their lives/stories too —that have nothing to do with us.  It is so worth the read. It’ll have you bawling too, in true Kristin Hannah fashion ;). Really good. 4.5. I honestly though don’t think I’ve read a Kristin Hannah book that I’ve given much below that. They are all very close to the 5 star range to me. I just l...

  Ok. This book is a must read. So incredibly good.  It basically follows the life of a boy, Sam, who has ocular albinism.  Lots of interesting topics are themes throughout the book also such as bullying, being an outsider, and faith struggles.  A strong Catholic theme runs though the entire book as well which I thought was kind of fun.  For whatever reason I’ve read a lot of book that will touch on faith just a tiny bit or oftentimes characters are Jewish in the books I read (????)….so I think this is the first “Catholic” one ;).  It’s really hard to summarize this book other than just that you must read it.  It’s that good. Probably ….4.8……. 

  Memoirs of a Geisha is a fictional book (not actually a memoir—-which I had to keep looking up online to believe!) that follows the life of a fictional Geisha—from her being a 9 year old girl named Chiyo (whom is later called Sayuri) in a small fishing village in Japan, to the city of Kyoto, with its 5 distinct Geisha districts. It starts in 1929 when she is 9, but then her adult life revolves around the time of WWII—both before, during, and after, and the stark differences in her life due to this. I think with the plot occurring around the war, it almost reads as historical fiction in some ways—yet doesn’t get into the politics or details of the war….just more the affects on the people.  This book was SO interesting to me.  The story had me FULLY immersed, but I was also so awed by the amount of research/interviews that it took to make this accurately portray the life of Geisha as well as that specific snapshot in time.  Completely kept my attention and one of the...