Holding Up the Universe and meeting Cheryl Strayed!

TELL ME TUESDAY is put on by La La in the Library. Check out her blog to see what she has been reading.

This week’s blog is also hooked up with Saturday Situation and Stacking the Shelves and The Sunday Post. Check out these awesome blogs too.

Holding Up the Universe

by Jennifer Niven 4 stars out of 5

Another great book by Jennifer Niven! Jack has face-blindness. This means he can’t recognize faces. For example, he doesn’t remember what his parents, brothers or girlfriend looks like. He relies on voices and certain characteristics.  This can be a challenge, especially when he accidentally kisses someone else’s girlfriend!  Only one person knows that Jack has this neurological disorder. That person is the new girl, Libby.  Libby, is very overweight and is bullied by many of the students at the high school her and Jack attend.  Libby and Jack form an unlikely friendship.  They encourage each other to deal with their “abnormalities”. But being in high school, that is easier said then done.  I liked that this book was told from two points of view. (Jack and Libby of course.) My favorite character in this book was definitely Libby.  Years before, after her mom suddenly dies, she retreats into her self and starts eating everything in sight.  Libby weighed over 600 pounds before she was rescued by a crane from her house and hospitalized.  She loses a lot of the weight but is still considered fat when she starts high school. Libby is now such a strong person.  Even though the comments she hears bothers her, she is fearless! At one point, she walks down the school hallway in a purple bikini!!! One of my favorite lines from Libby  is ” I know what you’re thinking, if you hate it [being fat] so much and it’s such a burden, just lose the weight…but I’m comfortable where I am. I may lose more weight. I may not.  But why should what I weigh impact other people? I mean, unless I’m sitting on them, who cares?” I love this! Ms. Niven, through these characters shows us how we need to accept one another, celebrate our differences, and love truly can be face-blind.

I met Cheryl Strayed author of Wild!!!!

Cheryl Strayed came to my town and spoke this week.  It was so fun and her talk was great.  She talked a bit about how Wild came about, her time on the set of the movie, and the impact her mom had on her life.  My favorite story she told, however, was about her kids hang gliding in the Alps.  Her son said that he was terrified to do it but didn’t want that to stop him from doing something amazing.  That is such great advice for life isn’t it? Here are some photos from that night.  I am not including the one of me with her because I look like a dufus!

I FINALLY finished the fourth Outlander book, Drums of Autumn

After reading 1010 pages, I finally finished it.  Again, I loved it! Each book consists of its own story so I don’t feel like I have to rush and read the next one to find out what happens even though I want to rush and read the next one because they are so good.  I believe Ms. Gabaldon is currently writing the 9th book so I am half way through the series right now.  I plan to start book 5 next week.  It is a bit shorter, only 975 pages.

 

 

What Light by Jay Asher 2 stars out of 5

I was very hopeful about this book.  I had loved Mr. Asher’s previous book, Thirteen Reason’s Why.  I had a very hard time getting into the story.  After about 100 pages I almost didn’t finish it but I kept hoping the story would get better.  The characters and the premise of the book were well developed but I just found it boring and not interesting.  It was also very predictable, which I think is the reason it was not interesting.  After about 150 pages, I gave up and skipped to the last 25 pages and read until the end.  There were no surprises and it ended like I though it would. So I skipped about 80 pages and the story still made sense.

Have A Great Week READING WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY!!!