Two Thumbs Up

So, thanks to my blogging buddies, I recently read three books that I really enjoyed.

The first is These Is My Words by Nancy Turner. This book came highly recommended by a few people and I can whole heartedly agree. The book is written as a journal of a woman living in the Arizona Territories in the 1880s. It was fascinating to me to see how the writing actually improved as the character became more educated and mature. Quite honestly, I thought that the book sounded a little boring at first (not another pioneer story!) but once I got into it, I couldn't put it down. This was one of those finish-at-midnight-sitting-on-the-bathroom-floor-so-I-don't-wake-my-husband kind of books. Two thumbs up.

The second was My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. The premise of this book is the controversial subject of having a child for the purpose of saving another who has leukemia. The second daughter is suing her parents for medical emancipation so that she won't have to donate a kidney to her sister. At first I was totally disgusted by the idea of this-- what kind of parent would sacrifice one child for the good of the other? Exactly. It occurred to my that I practice a religion based on that same idea.

Every chapter of this book is written from the perspective of a differernt character. I found it interesting how well the author changed voices between a 13 year old girl, a pretentious attorney, a firefighter-father, an 18 year old rebellious brother, etc. The whole book made me think about how things are so very rarely black or white.

There was some bad language in the book and some sexual content that I could have done without-- so I can't whole-heartedly recommend this one for the squeaky clean club. Still, it was a good, thought-provoking read with a pretty big twist at the end-- be prepared.

The third (well, I guess it was actually the third and fourth) were volumes 3 and 4 of the Fablehaven series. I'm such a sucker for a good fantasy series. It was actually funny because Emalee finished up volume 3 in school and we were play-fighting over who got to read volume 4 first. It is strange to want to read the same book as my daughter. We both loved it-- also strange, but nice.

Anyway, I've been using reading to distract myself from the crappy weather. Now that things are starting to look up in that regards, I probably won't be reading as much for a while. (I got to ride 16 miles today. Twice!) But, if you run into something great, let me know! Chance are, it's going to rain again soon. . .