Tag: books

My current reading mission is to get rid of my TBR {to be read} pile. It’s sat for years in between our couch & love seat somewhat untouched. Now, the pile of books {& the laptop & plug beside them} are a main attraction for Lucy & Zach. I’ve been taking advantage of car trip & pumping reading recently trying to get that stack read & the books shipped off via paperbackswap. {I’m ldybugsuzi there if you want to help!}

A few years ago, I got obsessed with all things Philippa Gregory. I think I read like 75% or more of her novels within a few months. I believe The Red Queen wasn’t quite out yet at that time. I put it on my paperbackswap wish list & then in my TBR pile when it arrived.

The Red Queen reminded me why I got obsessed. The history nerd in me comes out while reading historical fiction. This one is more behind the scenes scheming & battle scenes than love stories like some other of her works. But it was good.

I was glad the story of Henry Tudor was told through his mother. I liked having her perspective & think it would’ve been a very different {but still been very interesting} novel had it been told from Jasper Tudor or Henry’s perspectives.

I have not read The White Queen {the first of the Cousin’s War series}, but I plan on requesting it from the library soon. I’ll be reading them out of order which I guess is fine if not slightly historically confusing.

If you’re a fan of historial fiction, England’s royalty & Philippa Gregory, you’ll want to make sure to read The Red Queen. It was a quick, pretty light read.

I finished Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult last Thursday {I’m a fast reader}. And I’m left feeling that I’m 62% sure I read it before. Maybe? Years ago, I went on a Jodi Picoult tear, reading everything of hers that I could get my hands on. And Perfect Match was left in my PBS wish pile. So maybe I hadn’t read it.

I feel like if I had, it would’ve left a mark on my brain. But at the same time, reading it {maybe again} as a mother, makes me see events & characters completely different. Where before I would’ve felt very bad for 5 year old Nathaniel & his mother Nina as they dealt with his sexual assault, now I was haunted to the point of almost having to put the book down. Perfect Match definitely caused me to open up some communication lines with the husband over when to discuss stranger danger etc with the babies.

I won’t go into all the details & spoil this book for you, but as a mother of young children, the thought of Lucy or Zach being harmed by someone we know or don’t know or by whom we entrust their care, scares the shit out of me. And I honestly don’t know what I would or wouldn’t do if that situation occurred. So I can’t blame Nina for the actions she takes in Perfect Match. As a county DA who prosecuted sexual predators, she knew the way our system can {& does} often fail the young victims.

Perfect Match is yet another {like Lone Wolf} Jodi Picoult book that I couldn’t put down. You know that I normally read while pumping. The last two novels, I brought home with me & had to read at night before bed to get just a few more pages into it before the day was done.

Perfect Match is one of Picoult’s earlier books, so while it’s told from multiple points of view {first person from both Nathaniel & Nina}, the different voices don’t have their own fonts in this one. But the author does a great job with diction & sentence structure so that you can easily tell which character is currently telling the story.

I’d recommend Perfect Match to any Jodi Picoult fan. But I’d warn a new or young mom before hoping into this one blind.

I’ve read almost everything by Jodi Picoult, but it’s been at least a year since I read anything from here.

I almost immediately remembered why I love her books. I like her style. The way the words flow & how you’re captured & taken into the story so quickly.

I knew little about wolves going into this novel. {Besides my beloved NCSU Wolfpack, of course.} I loved the fact that one of the main characters was a biologist who literally lived with & cared over packs of wolves. I found that aspect of Lone Wolf so fascinating. Like most Jodi Picoult novels, this one was told from the different characters perspectives {love that!} & I looked forward to Luke’s sections so much so I could read from inside his mind.

I think I was a little let down but not surprised by the way Lone Wolf ended. Often Jodi Picoult books have crazy twist endings {My Sister’s Keeper anyone?}, this one kind of didn’t. And I was okay with that.

I was too engulfed in Lone Wolf to leave this to the pump room alone; I was up way too late reading & finishing this last week. I was on such a Jodi Picoult high after I finished that I’ve moved on to the next Picoult novel in my TBR pile. My Perfect Match review will be coming soon.

I can’t think of another more appropriate book to read while pumping or sitting waiting at a pediatrican’s office than Robin O’Bryant’s Ketchup is a Vegetable & other lies mom’s tell themselves.

I think I scared other women who were using the restroom attached to my office’s pump room I was laughing so hard reading this. Over her big berthas. And that both her mom & her husband seeing her naked at the same time was too much. About dragging her screaming daughter across the mall. I was laughing because I’ve been there or know I will soon be there experiencing the amazing craziness that is motherhood.

The stories of her daughter’s made me happy to be a girl mom. And the chapter on boy mom versus girl mom made me be even more so glad I’m both!

I cried reading the last chapter. Because life is short. And I now can’t imagine it without Lucy & Zach. And even when they’re driving me batty in all the best ways, I’m so thankful to be there mom & to be the one that’s being needed & loved by them.

I’d recommend Ketchup is a Vegetable to all new moms. Or moms to be or Shuggies {her precious term for grandma} to be. Laugh & commiserate then pass it along to a friend.