Tag: my resolution

Becoming by Michelle Obama

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I’m not sure what made me decide to read Michelle Obama’s book. I don’t think I’ve ever read a memoir before, I guess I was just interested in hearing more about her life. I will admit, I was more interested in her after I found out that she’s a Capricorn like me.

I honestly really enjoyed reading this book. At some points, I couldn’t put it down and needed to know what part of her life she was going to discuss next. It was so interesting to see everything from her point of view throughout Barack’s political career and how much her life changed.

She’s a very interesting person and after reading this I feel like Barack and Michelle were too good for this country. They genuinely wanted to make things better and tried to do so. It’s a shame that we’ve taken so many steps back with the current presidency.

It really made me sad to hear how personally she took a lot of the attacks against her and her family. I don’t think we even think about these public figures as normal people and we don’t think about how our words could hurt them. It’s a shame to think that there are so many people, especially with the internet, who felt it was important to shame them or bring them down for things like their appearance. People are so hateful and really need to take a step back and assess their own lives if they really feel the need to do these things.

I would absolutely recommend this book, and I’ve actually been telling people they need to read it since I first picked it up. Her voice is very strong throughout the book and there’s this honesty and rawness to her storytelling that makes me feel almost like I know her now. I realize that I don’t actually know her, but she seems like the type of person who I could easily have a conversation with and I’d actually really love if I ever got the chance to do that.

Highly, highly recommend!

Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton

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I’ve always been interested in mythology, but never really put a lot of time into reading the stories. I think in seventh grade we spent some time reading about mythology in my English class but I remember not doing well with it and that there were too many stories and names to remember.

I’ve taken up an interest in astrology lately, and I think the connection between the planets and the gods sort of sparked my interest in mythology again. As it turns out, if you’re interested in mythology there’s basically an unlimited amount of reading material out there for you. It’s a bit overwhelming to say the least.

While I was researching, I kept coming across recommendations to read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. In my opinion, it’s definitely a good resource for beginners. The book does a good job of explaining the myths and organizing them in a way that makes sense. It’s still a bit overwhelming and I still don’t have all the names straight, but I really enjoyed reading this.

The stories about Persephone and Hades really stuck out to me and I think if I continue to read into any mythology, it would need to have a strong focus on these two. I guess mythology is sort of all over the place so that everyone finds something they like or can relate to and dive deeper into that. If anyone has any good recommendations for further reading, I’d really appreciate it!

Dear John by Nicholas Sparks

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I’ve been going through this weird sort of dating thing with a guy for the last two years. It really doesn’t make any sense to my family and friends, and I know that it isn’t healthy for me anymore, so I’m working on ending it completely and letting go.

I’ve avoided love stories for this reason, but I actually think reading Dear John may have been what I needed.

John is in the army and has really struggled throughout life. He meets Savannah, they fall in love quickly, but then he has to go away. They write letters, but eventually the distance becomes too much and she ends it. She moves on, gets married, but it’s obvious that they both have a lot of love for each other.

I think reading this book made me really think about how you can have these intense feelings for someone, but that they might not be the right person for you, or that the timing may not be right and it just might not work out for that reason only.

I think it’s important to recognize this and use that as closure so that you can move on. John wanted the best for Savannah and was okay with letting go of his own desires so that she could move on and hopefully be happy. I really like that. I like that they didn’t have their happy ending together, but they both could be happy with how things ended up. It’s more realistic than the fairy tale stories about love.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

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I remember being little and watching The Haunting when it first came out in 1999. I’ve seen the movie about a million times since then and honestly can’t believe that I never knew it was a book.

It wasn’t until Netflix adapted it into a series that I realized it was based on the novel of the same name and absolutely decided that I had to read it. (Side note: Netflix is becoming a bit of a theme here isn’t it?)

The movie is definitely a closer adaptation of the book than the show was, but I feel like all three were done really well and told the story of Hill House.

I actually don’t think I’ve ever read a “horror” novel before, so this was a first. It was really creepy and I really liked the little scenes here and there that showed the house was haunted.

All of the characters had very strange, very different personalities. It was interesting to see how their personalities meshed together. It was obvious from the beginning that Nell was being affected by the house the most. I honestly was absolutely positive she was going to jump off that tower (probably because of Nell’s fate in the series).

The crash at the end happened pretty quickly, so I wasn’t sure that Nell had actually died. I hoped that she didn’t, or that if she did there would be a little bit about her ghost.

It’s super creepy how the house seems to consume the people in it. The series did a really good job showing that too.

I’m interested in seeing what the next season will be about since they’ve stated that it’ll be an entirely different storyline. It’s kind of sad honestly because I really fell in love with those characters, but it did have a good ending.

I did really like how there were subtle nods to things in the book in the series like the cup of stars, throwing rocks at the glass greenhouse, and the poem that the flapper woman recites.

Highly recommend the book if you’re a fan of the show. It was definitely worth the read.

Bird Box by Josh Malerman

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I definitely jumped on the Bird Box bandwagon when this movie first came out on Netflix. It was crazy how much it blew up on social media and how popular it became so quickly.

I really enjoyed the movie but there were a few things I had questions about, so I hoped that reading the book would explain everything better.

There were a lot of differences right off the bat. The story starts a lot slower, Malorie is living with her sister for awhile when it all starts happening around them and she saw an ad in the paper that mentioned a safe house. Definitely understand why they sped things up in the movie. I’m not sure it’s very believable that with all this panic going on someone took the time to go out and pay for an add in the newspaper.

The whole thing with Gary was really crazy, both in the movie and the book. I definitely liked how it was written better than how it was portrayed in the movie. It just didn’t make sense that he seemed normal and then was crazy out of nowhere. The book explains that he’s sort of immune to whatever is going on outside and believes that others can be immune too. That just makes more sense to me.

I can’t believe that after they kicked him out he was hiding in the attic and that Don was the one that pulled down all the curtains and blankets. I also can’t believe that everyone died and Malorie had the patience to wait that long by herself with babies before attempting to go down the river.

Ending at the school for the blind is definitely interesting. I’m curious why the author  chose to have people there who blinded themselves. It’s definitely understandable given the situation, and she understood because she almost blinded the babies. Maybe it makes her trust them because she could relate and they’re honest about it? Just felt like a weird detail to throw in at the end.

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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In high school I was assigned The Great Gatsby and absolutely fell in love with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s storytelling. My grandmother had a collection of his short stories and I read through them pretty quickly. I’ve always meant to read more of Fitzgerald’s work, but have definitely let other books take precedence over them.

I finally decided to sit down and read This Side of Paradise.

From the beginning, Amory is an odd child. He’s definitely privileged, thinks he’s smarter and better than everyone else. He doesn’t believe that the people around him, other than his mother, can hold intelligent conversations with him.

He believes that he thinks differently than other people. I’ve read that Fitzgerald based Amory on himself, which is actually kind of funny because I do think that creative people believe that they think differently from other people and that others won’t understand their ideas. I feel like I’ve felt that way about myself a few times, not to say that I’m necessarily the most creative person in the world, but I think my brain sometimes works differently than others.

The story continues and Amory moves to Chicago where he meets a girl that he sort of likes. Throughout the story, he basically will fall for every girl that’s beautiful and slightly different from how he expects a woman to think or act. I guess this relates back to him thinking that he’s different and he’s attracted to anything that also seems to stray from the norm.

He eventually goes away to school and again doesn’t fit in with anyone. He still has this mindset that he’s a free-thinker and that he’s above everyone and everything, doesn’t really try to fit in. It’s surprising honestly that he finishes college.

He then goes to war. I was a bit surprised that there wasn’t much to this part of the story. I guess maybe Fitzgerald didn’t think it was relevant enough?

Amory returns home and falls in love with Rosalind. Once again it’s a very quick and sort of shallow love. She was probably right that it wouldn’t have lasted, but he couldn’t accept it because he wasn’t the one to end their relationship.

It’s hard to feel sorry for him honestly. He’s so entitled and really makes poor decisions very spontaneously. After Rosalind breaks his heart he feels sorry for himself, becomes an alcoholic, loses his job, and spends the rest of his family money on alcohol.

By the end he’s still struggling to fit into society and there’s a long conversation he has about socialism in the back of a taxi.

I’m just not really sure what this book was about or if there was a point to it. I guess Fitzgerald was just sort of writing about his personal feelings and things that he’s experienced in his life. It was interesting, but it’s sort of shocking to me how much people seem to love this book. I’m not sure that I’d ever recommend it to someone or that I’d choose to read it again.

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before (Series) by Jenny Han

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After hearing a lot about the movie, I finally sat down one day and watched To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before on Netflix. I absolutely loved it. It was so cute and relatable. It made me laugh and cry. I just really loved it.

Of course I had to read the books. They were so good, I could seriously read about Lara Jean and Peter all day long. I actually wish that was an option in life.

I read the three books in this series so quickly that it doesn’t make sense for me to make three separate posts about how great they were and how much I loved each one. Definitely light reading compared to some of the other books I’ve read, but they were all so so enjoyable to read.

I was actually pretty upset after reading them all that Jenny Han said she wouldn’t be writing any more books about Lara Jean. I want to know about Korea, college with Peter, the rest of their lives, etc.!

I’m so glad that Netflix announced they’d be making the second movie and the cast looks really great. Definitely looking forward to it’s release!

The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro

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So this is actually pretty interesting because I believe Guillermo del Toro released the book after the movie came out. If I’m wrong about this, please let me know.

I was at Books A Million one day and they had a whole table full of books that had been adapted into movies and I saw The Shape of Water there. It wasn’t until later that I actually downloaded it onto my Kindle and realized that it was more of a movie adapted into a book. At first I was a little put off by it, to be honest. I really enjoyed the movie and just felt like maybe del Toro did this to explain things better and to me that meant that he felt he didn’t explain it well enough in the movie.

The beginning of the book was really slow for me and it actually took me a really long time to read it because of this. I just didn’t care about the tracking of the creature in the Amazon or Lainie’s move to Baltimore. The only parts I was interested in reading were from Elisa’s point of view because she was deaf and it was actually interesting to read her thoughts.

It’s actually funny that I had to drag myself through Lainie’s parts at the beginning because she ended up being one of my favorite characters. She didn’t have a large role in the movie from what I remember, so it was nice to get to see her story line evolve in the book.

The second half of the book was much more interesting to read. I usually don’t read science fiction-type stories, but I actually liked the love story between Elisa and the creature and how they went through awful things to end up together. I think that’s relatable enough for a reader, without hoping you’ll one day meet the fish man of your dreams.

Despite some parts being slow, this was incredibly well written from the different points of view. You really get a good sense of each character’s personality and that’s really important to telling a good story.

The fish/creature/man’s point of view was pretty weird though. It definitely added to the story, but it was an odd choice to make when the lack of communication between it and everyone else was such a strong focus. I also find it hard to believe that it’s thoughts would be in English.

Overall really interesting to read and definitely added something to the movie. Would 100% recommend to anyone who loved the film.

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

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Man, Gillian Flynn really writes about the worst women. I mentioned in my last post that I watched this movie when it came out and wasn’t really impressed, but I must have totally forgotten the ending. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention or it was too hard to follow?

This story was much more graphic than Gone Girl and Sharp Objects. I actually read the majority of this book while I was waiting for/on my flight home from Scotland. I was worried that the guy next to me on the plane would read it over my shoulder and judge me because of it (lol!).

This book was really so good. I really enjoyed how it jumped back and forth between the past and the present to slowly tell the entire story. It helped build the suspense and really made me want to keep going to get to the next part of the story, if that makes sense.

I really felt bad for everyone involved in this one. At the beginning I felt like Libby was very unlikable and acted childish, but she’s actually very easy to relate to and I did really like her by the end. The only person I didn’t care much for is Diondra.

The entire thing with Ben and Diondra sucked. I wanted to scream at him for being so dumb and going along with her on everything. I really felt so bad for him, and it was all her fault.

This story really shows the chain reaction of how one thing could change your entire life and that you should be careful how you treat people and what you say about others. It’s really sad how so many people were affected by what happened.

I do wish there were more details about the other sisters. I feel like I didn’t really care about them so much because I didn’t know anything about them. It mentions that one liked to gossip and the other liked pretty things. I just feel like that’s not enough. I guess Libby wouldn’t really know much, so I’m not sure how they would have done that.

I really need to go back and watch the movie now because I completely forgot the ending.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

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Took a little break from Harry Potter before coming back to read the final book, but it felt so good to come back and all I have to say is WOW. This book was seriously sooooo good.

It’s definitely the best out of all of them. Seriously there was so much action from beginning to end, I’m not surprised at all that they decided to break it up into two movies.

I am so sad that so many characters had to die in the end. It was hard to read about the deaths of so many of them.

I really can’t believe I never read these books before now. I grew up with these books around constantly and I’m so sad that I missed out on the hype of the new books being released and the movies coming out, but I’m so glad that I’ve read them now. Better late than never, right?

Seriously this series is just so amazing and the writing is so good. Everyone should read these books. I can’t believe I’m done!