End of Summer

Nothing says summer's over like one of my students asking me a redundant question the first week of school.
"Ms. Baker, when it says 'show your work' do you need to show your work"
Annnnnnnddd we're back.
In lieu of that I realized I really let my writing slip in the summer months.  Instead I was consumed by horses, and making enough money to afford horses (it's funny how those two go hand in hand.)  Never fear, in spite of not writing, I still did a decent amount of reading.  There were far too many books to write individual posts about, but here are a few of the highlights:

The Good Girl

by Mary Kubica

This book was in my top two for this summer.  It is a page-turning thriller about Mia Dennett, the daughter of a high-power attorney who has been abducted.  The story is told from the perspective of multiple characters- Mia, the man who abducted her, the police officer trying to find them, and Mia's mother.  It brilliantly weaves in the personal lives of all of these characters, unrelated to the crisis at hand, and makes you feel sympathy for the most unlikely of the cast.

The book cryptically also starts every chapter with "before" or "after," and it isn't until the very end that you discover what event these are referring to. Having been compared frequently to Gone Girl (perhaps only because of the title) it is my opinion that this book trumps Gillian Flynn's counterpart by far.

The Girl on the Train

by Paula Hawkins

This book did not come to me highly recommended.  It was with more of a "eh... you should probably read it."  I think it was seriously undersold.  The book's main character is a struggling alcoholic who is recovering from her failed marriage.  He husband left her for another woman, and she has to ride by their house every day on the the train.

Let me tell you one thing about this book, if you've ever felt bad about the state of your life for any reason, Hawkin's book will make you feel much better.  The main character, Rachel, is a hot mess.  It's almost painful at times to read how much she is falling apart.  One day on her train ride however, she witnesses something strange and finds herself swept up in a kidnapping that took place one house down from that of her ex-husband.  Rachel becomes entranced with solving the mystery, and convinced that her ex-husband is involved all the while battling her addiction to alcohol and the memory-loss it causes.  Also, a great read!

The Nightingale

by Kristin Hannah

In the likeness of All the Light We Cannot See, The Nightingale is a period piece about the Holocaust and is set in France.  The book follows two sisters who are as different as they possibly could be, bouncing back and forth between Paris and a small country town.  One sister followed the cliche path in life- she married young, had a daughter, and finds herself husband-less in the war and struggling to put food on the table.  The other sister is rebellious and defiant and determined to fight for France.  Both sisters are trying to discover the part they are meant to play in the war.

The book was a little slow at times, and fellow readers have said to me "I honestly just skipped about 80 pages in the middle and didn't find that I had missed much."  I don't agree with this sentiment entirely, and I actually really enjoyed the book.  Although it definitely falls short to All the Light when it comes to World War II pieces from this year.

My favorite book of the summer is not on this post.  Stay tuned.... it deserved it's own post :)