March Review

Four books this month... Four....It's not bad, I shouldn't be discouraged at all. I'm still four books ahead on my Goodreads goal.

Of those four I had

1- Contemporary Fiction
1- Middle-grade Fantasy
1-Young Adult Fantasy
and
1- Nonfiction memoir

of those I listened to one Audio book.

All of the books accumulated to 1520 pages, which is an average of 49.03 pages a day.

For my star ratings I had

0- 1 star
0- 2 star
2- 3 star
1- 4 star
1- 5 star

My average star rating was 3.75

I have completed four of the challenges for the Around the Year in 52 books Challenge, including:

14) Four books linked by the four elements: Fire.
24) A Book with a Map
27) A book about overcoming an hardship
36) A book published with in the last three years (2016,2017,2018) by an author you haven't read before.

Alright, let's get into the books:

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

Published August 2017, by Riverhead Books

This book follows a Muslim family living in London. Isma, the oldest daughter, breaks free from her duties and responsibilities to finished up school in the U.S. For the past several years she's been taking care of her younger siblings, twins Aneeka and Parvaiz, after their mother and grandmother died. But Isma is worried about them, Aneeka her beautiful head strong sister and Parvaiz who has disappeared to follow his own dream, to prove him self to a dark legacy that was the jihadist father they didn't know. When he resurfaces half a globe away, Isma's fears are confirmed. But when Eamonn, son of a powerful political figure with his own agenda, he becomes entwined with in this family. Is it a chance at love? Parvaiz salvation?

I'm trying to figure out how to review this book. Because, I know I'm going to talk a lot about it, which makes me think it needs it's own post, but I feel like I don't know enough to review it....because of what it's about. It's hard for me to review something I don't know much about.

But this book made an impact on me despite me only rating it a 3.5 stars.

This book started off a bit slow, it wasn't until towards the middle/end that it really picked up and the events that took place in it really hit me. But it didn't hit me in terms of making me cry, it was more in terms of an eye opener. There are a couple books coming to publication now that feature the Muslim religion, but they're still few and far between. So to not have read a book featuring anything Islamic before, this one was definitely interesting. Because we don't hear a whole lot about what the Islamic or Muslim religion/culture outside of terrorism, I heard a little about it in terms of their art in an art history class, but that doesn't help in terms of religious study. So I did get lost, but only briefly when reading this book, and only when I got lost did I realize the research I wanted to do enable to better understand this book. Nothing major, or at least that's how I thought of it, in terms of looking up the difference between a hijab and a turban, what the cultural/religious significance is, which lead to to video's and how-to's to style a hijab which lead to head wraps for black women and how it gives a regal sense of being. All very interesting and something I don't think I would have looked up before. Which I really really appreciated. This book was refreshing in a way that it was in a perspective other than a white male/female protagonist going through their daily privileged lives. This was a struggling family that all had different views on how they practiced their religion and what they found appropriate about their religion while dealing with biases and injustices through their hometown of London, getting spit on in the subway, to dealing with it politically, one quote of which stuck out the most to me: "don't make yourself stand out" as in this political figure, who grew up Muslim, but was "no longer apart of that" enable to move up in his political career, but was still "Muslim enough" to try and convince Muslims living in London (who all thought, at this point, that he was a phony) to conform to the social norm that was London. "Go ahead and practice your religion, but do it discreetly otherwise you're just asking for trouble." It was heart breaking.

Told you I had a lot to say about it. This book completed challenge 14) Four books linked by the four elements: Fire.

The Magic Misfits by Neil Patrick Harris

Published November 2017, by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Carter is a misfit. His parents disappeared, leaving him in the care of his "uncle" Sly, a con artist and a trickster. Despite his cons, Sly does teach carter a few tricks. Carter has fast hands and finds he has a knack for disappearing. But when Uncle Sly pulls one too many cons, Carter gets fed up and hops on a train to get as far away from Uncle Sly as possible. Carter ends up in Mineral Wells, a beautiful town that Carter would love to stay in, but he's worried Uncle Sly may have turned him into the cops, and Carter doesn't want to go into an orphanage, he also doesn't have penny to his name. When Carter starts getting hungry, he's nervous he might break his golden rule: Don't steal. Carter ends up meeting Mr. Vernon, a crafty magician with a good heart, where he is then introduced to kids with interests in magic! But when they find the traveling carnival that's been in Mineral Wells for a couple of days has been swindling the towns people, this group of magic misfits is determined to stop them.

This book was over all pretty cute. I again had trouble connecting and relating to the story at first, and actually didn't get into it until I was about finished. But I do appreciate the effort of this book. Every few chapters there are how to's for magic tricks, as well as secret coded messages at the beginning of the chapters that we can solve. It gave a Lemony Snicket vibe as the narrator talked directly to you, which I liked but also question if that's what kept me from engaging with the story. I also felt that the twins appearance towards the end were almost unnecessary. It felt a little forced.

Over all cute and I'll continue with the series as they appear. 3.5 our of 5 stars. This book completes challenge 36) A book published with in the last three years (2016,2017,2018) by an author you haven't read before.

Eldest by Christopher Paolini

Published August 2005, by Alfred A. Knopf

Well this took a bit. I had started this back in June 2017, got about half way through and stopped because I was just not feeling it. I picked it back up this month wanting to read fantasy and kind of flew through the rest of the book. So I can't tell you much about it as it is the second book in the Inheritance Cycle. What I can tell you is that the book centers around Eragon, a young boy who finds what he thinks is a stone up in the mountains. Only to find that the stone is a dragon egg. Not just any dragon egg, as dragon's were supposedly wiped out during the Fall, when King Galbotorix took power of the land for himself, and rid the land of any and all opposing dragons, this Dragon egg only hatches for a Rider. And hatch it did for Eragon, a blue dragon, Saphira. Recruited to work with the rebel Varden, Eragon and Saphira have much to learn about Riders, the land's history, and most importantly magic, if they want to over throw King Galbotrix's tyrannical rule over the land.

One of the reasons I couldn't connect with the first half of this book was the changing of point of views, I wanted to know what Eragon was doing, but the book also followed his cousin, Roran's point of view from Carvahall the small village in which Eragon called home, as well as Nusuada's point of view in the Varden. I understood why they were there, half of this book and all of Eragon seting up for the rest of the series. But at the time I just didn't care. By the half way point in Eldest I came to tolorate and eventually enjoy Roran's point of view, but still got irritated with Nusuada's, as it was mostly political. Bu tbut the end of the book I became enthralled. When before I kept thinking I would need a break between Eldest and the third book Brisinger, after completing Eldest I wanted more and immediately picked up Brisinger

So yeah it took a while, and yeah it was alright in the end but I still give it a 3.5

This book completed challenge 24) A Book with a Map

Educated by Tara Westover Narrated by Julia Whelan

Published February 2018, by Random House

This is Tara Westover's memoir. I didn't know who Tara was before I read this book, and because I read this book I wont say that I know who she is now, but her story was interesting and full of thought provoking topics. She grew up in a survivalist Mormon family that didn't believe in the education system or the medical system. Tara's dad scrapped metal and her mom was an herbalist whom her dad believed could heal anything and everything through faith. Tara and her 6 siblings didn't go to the hospital when they were born, Tara didn't have a birth certificate until she was 9. Nor did they go to school. Tara and two of her sibling's managed to study themselves and pass the GED and were able to further their education. This book dives into the idea of self persistence, family values and practice, religious values and practice which was really an eye opener to a religion I had little to no information about, to family standards that I knew were out there but again didn't know much about. I have to note though that yes Tara is Mormon, as is her family, but her father and the practices her family abides by are "out there" as Tara puts it. This was also just hard to read at times as it did have domestic violence and manipulation which in itself was hard but to have Tara try to justify and excuse it at the time was just....nearly unbearable. I work for a non-profit that helps Native American victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse and stalking. Admittedly I am not an advocate, nor am I a Social Worker, I am a program assistant, so I assist in making sure paper work is organized and grant money is available. I answer the phones, I hear the stories. It doesn't happen every day but to have that kind of work day where we're helping clients left and right, I typically go home and unwind, read usually, but it was hard to do with this book because it would put me back into that head space. I can't really describe what that means..."that head space"...cynical?  Moody? Depressed? It was negative whatever it was and it was a looming sense of dread. When this happened I had to shut the book off and go do something fun, or something that took my mind of....that.

Over all though a really really good read, favorite book of 2018 so far, five out of five stars

This book completed challenge 27) A book about overcoming an hardship

And that was it for the month of March!

I'm excited to see what April brings! You can check out that TBR -> Here
If all goes well, it's going to be a good one!

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If you've read any of these books and would like to discuss them with me please do! I'm always looking to talk books!

Until next time!

Litta