I can’t believe it’s already June! The year is flying by.  May was a busy month for me with state testing/the end of the school year and homework for my classes.  I also moved 6 days ago! Despite the stress of it all and a serious case of decision fatigue, everything went well and I’ve enjoyed my first week of summer.   I get to pick the days I work in the summer so I only worked two days this week.  In all honesty, I probably should have taken the whole week off.  The move has been very stressful for my dog and I think I was away from him a little too long.  For that reason I am staying in this weekend and hoping he gets more comfortable with the new routine.

Once again my 30 minutes a day rule really served me well and I exceeded my book goal for the month.  I only failed to read two of the days!

Everything, Everything (Nicola Yoon) – I Loved this book! This is a YA novel (and the movie just released a couple weeks ago).  This would be perfect to take with you to the beach, the pool, or anywhere you know you’ll be mildly distracted. I read it in a day. My rating: 5 stars!

7 Women and the Secret of Their Greatness (Eric Metaxas) – It me longer than it should have for me to read this book.  It is rather dry from a storytelling perspective but it is well-researched and informative.  Metaxas shares a brief faith biography of seven women and I appreciated learning about their important accomplishments. I’d never heard of some of them and discovered how little I actually knew about the others.  My rating: 3.5 stars.

Water into Wine: Hope for the Miraculous in the Struggle of the Mundane (Kelly Minter) – this was Kelly Minter’s first book, but the last of hers that I read.  Having read her other works, I could see that this is not her best, but it does have great insights about Jesus’s first miracle.  If you were going to pick just one of her books, though, I’d skip this one (not because it’s bad but because the others are so much better). My rating: 3 stars.

Church of the Small Things: the Million Little Pieces that make up a Life (Melanie Shankle) – this book actually releases in October, but I received an advance copy from netgalley.com in exchange for my feedback.  I love Shankle’s voice and way of spinning a tale.  This was an enjoyable read, but not my favorite of her books.  I knew it would be difficult to follow Nobody’s Cuter Than You. My rating: 3.5 stars.

Notes from a Blue Bike: The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World (Tsh Oxenreider) – If you love Tsh’s blog and podcast I’m sure you’ll love her books.  I was not familiar with her stuff and bought this because it was a Kindle deal of the day.  I don’t want to criticize her writing or ideas – this just wasn’t at all for me. My rating: 2 stars.

The Sacrament of Happy: What a Smiling God Brings to a Wounded World (Lisa Harper) – I was so excited to be chosen to be on the launch team for this book, which released YESTERDAY.  Lisa addresses a rather difficult topic with humor and depth and draws attention to a side of the Father that can be difficult to understand.  She borrows many of her ideas from Randy Alcorn’s book Happiness, so I’ve added that to my TBR list.  My rating: 4 stars.

The Book of Unknown Americans (Christina Henriquez) – I picked this one up because of my goal to read one #diversevoices book every month.  This novel is set in Delaware and shares the experiences of several Latin American immigrant families.  It was moving and challenging.  My rating: 4 stars.

Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (Timothy Keller) – I will never be qualified to critique Tim Keller’s work so I won’t even put a rating on this one.  Comforting and convicting, I will be keeping this one close and reading it again.

Dark Matter (Blake Crouch) – I don’t normally read sci-fi….in fact, I think I’ve maybe read 4 total since I started tracking my reads 300ish books ago.  This one held my attention and I felt like I was reading a movie, but the premise (of parallel universes) is one that doesn’t usually pique my imagination.  That being said, if you like that kind of thing, you’ll probably love this.  My rating: 3 stars (but a 5 could be justified).

Everything I Never Told You (Celeste Ng) – this book was on my TBR list for a long time. I was hooked from the first line – “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.”  This is a powerful story of a Chinese-American family in the 1970s, a moving portrait of families in general.  I loved this book.  My rating: 5 stars.

Love Story (Karen Kingsbury) – This is another netgalley.com find and the book will release next week.  The more I read the less I like Kingsbury’s books because I think she (or her publisher) far prefer getting out new books quickly at the expense of quality writing.   Her stories are beginning to feel like Christian melodrama and I find it disappointing.  That being said, this is another in the Baxter family series and I do love those characters so I will always read these books.  If you’ve read and enjoyed others in the series, you will enjoy this one as well.

The Girl You Left Behind (JoJo Moyes) – I’m a Moyes fan, but this one started out slow for me.  I almost abandoned it, but I am glad I persisted.  The story did not take the path I expected, and I appreciated the twists. I wouldn’t call it suspense, but there is an air of mystery.  My rating: 3 stars.

 

Total Books Read in 2017: 50.

What have you been reading lately?