On the bookshelf from August

Not much to share this month, unfortunately! I did a lot of reading but it was mostly training documents & textbooks as I started back to school. I do have two to share with you though, so I figured something was better than nothing, right?

The weather has taken a big turn & it is much cooler here, so cuddling up with a blanket, a cup of tea & a good book sounds delightful!

One of the first books I read this month was Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon. This book tells the story of an eighteen-year-old girl named Madeline who has a very rare disease where she can become incredibly sick & die due to an incredibly weakened immune system. Maddy is not allowed to go outside, or eat certain foods, or meet people in person unless they spend a certain amount of time in a 'decontamination room'. Madeline is pretty used to her life being this way, until she meets Oliver, her new neighbor across the street. Madeline poses the question, "what's the point of being alive if you're not truly living?" Surprisingly, that question hit me hard. I found myself feeling sympathy for Madeline & wanting her to get to experience the world, but then I would completely switch sides & want her to stay inside forever so that she stays alive & safe. I went back & forth for pretty much the whole book.

This book hit kind of close to home for me because one of my younger sisters has severe asthma (as well as other health concerns) which puts her in the "high risk" category with Covid-19. While I want Bethany to stay safe & healthy & well, I also want her to experience life -- her senior year of high school. I think that if I would've read this book before "Covid times", it wouldn't have hit me as hard as it did, but because I was able to relate to it & compare it on a personal level, it was very interesting to read & to analyze what thoughts I was having as I was reading.

Last summer I read Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. This story is beautiful & heartbreaking all at the same time. It makes you really think about where you come from & what kind of lives those before us have lived. A great book that hits you right in the feels. Realizing that it was loosely written about a real life sandal (the Tennessee Children's Home Society) made it all the more heartbreaking. A few months after Before We Were Yours was released, Lisa's email became flooded with messages from people who either were adopted or had a family member who was adopted out of TCHS. The follow-up book called Before & After was written to capture some of the true stories relating to TCHS. It tells the story of regret, gratitude, deep sadness & loss, but also the beautiful gift of hope & resilience. I'm not typically a history buff, but these two books absolutely fascinated me & I couldn't stop reading them. It's incredibly hard for me to wrap my mind around some of the things that took place at the TCHS & I'm thankful that that is not a part of my story.

Have you ever heard of the “goodreads” app? It’s a free app that lets you track your reading progress, rate books you’ve read, keep a list of your want-to-read books, set yearly reading goals & follow along with what your friends are reading as well! It even gives you suggestions based off of your ratings & the types of books you read. We both really like it. You should check it out!

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past book reviews...

We've been doing book reviews for almost a year! I'm linking all of our past months' book reviews below, or you can click here to go to the 'book' section of our blog & scroll through them. ;)