Reading Recap: November 2019

Snowy morning!

Books I read in November:


Dry by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman: The answer to "what if the water stopped coming out of the tap one day"... and it's not pretty.

Pride by Ibi Zoboi: A retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in inner city New York with a cast of all black characters.

Call It What You Want by Brigid Kemmerer: A romance between a girl who is dealing with her own wrong choices and wrong choices of her sister, and a boy who is dealing with the wrong choices of his dad.

The Rest of the Story by Sarah Dessen: A summertime story of a girl who goes to stay with her maternal grandmother and finally learns more about her mom who died five years before.

Favorite: I really enjoyed ALL these books and gave them all four stars. How to pick a favorite? Dry probably stayed with me the longest and made me think too much and have nightmares about dying of thirst.

Goals for December:

• read the book club book The Bear and the Nightingale
• read more Beehive long list books
• don't stress that goals and challenges have not been met
• makes year end favorites list and maybe even some decade end ones!

Will you all be making year end and decade end lists? Is it still a thing?

Book Review: The Rest of the Story by Sarah Dessen

Book: The Rest of the Story by Sarah Dessen
Genre: YA Contemporary
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

This is an author you know you can go to whenever you want a fun, sweet, heartfelt coming of age story. Which is pretty much what I always want, so there's that.

In this one, we have our girl who's mom passed away several years before due to an overdose. Her mom gave her and her dad trouble a lot, and our girl only remembers the bad times, and has just a vague memory of the good. 

So when the dad gets remarried and goes on a honeymoon, our girl ends up staying with her maternal grandma, someone they have totally lost touch with, and in so doing, she reconnects with her mom's family and learns all about her mom...thanks especially to a childhood friend (who she can't even remember) who has now grown up into a way cute boy. It just so happens that his dad was really good friends with her mom and he has tons of pictures of them, and knows all the stories.

A perfect summertime romance. I really enjoyed it. 

Book Review: Call It What You Want by Brigid Kemmerer

Book: Call It What You Want by Brigid Kemmerer
Genre: YA Contemporary
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

So I've decided this author is one of my favorites and I need to catch up on on ALL her books. Seriously. I love her writing and her stories and her way of dealing with both an intense romance along with some real life issues. So good. 

So this one is about a girl who is frustrated because she has been judged because of a past deed where she choose poorly and now has messed up how everyone looks at her... which used to be the smart and perfect honor student. Also, she has to deal with her sister who has come home from college pregnant and the whole family is trying to deal with the consequences.

It's also about a boy who's father has been caught embezzling money from all his clients and because of that... the dad tried to commit suicide, failed, and is now disabled and dependent on his wife... and this boy... his son. Everyone now hates him (the boy) because they think he knew what was going down and they blame him for what has happened. So the boy has gone from really really popular, to no one talking to him.

So these two come together since they have to do a group assignment together... and they start learning more and more about each other and that the judgments everyone is putting on them aren't quite right. 

I really enjoyed this romance... and also all the underlying crazy things these kids deal with because of other people's choices mostly. It's really good.