What I've Read Lately...

I've read some good books over the past several months! I thought I'd share some of them here. If you have any recommendations please share! I'm always looking for new books. I really like books that are pager turners. I want to be hooked from the first few pages. But I also like books with some depth. I definitely read my fair share of "fluff" but I also like to have to use my mind when I'm reading. I don't necessarily like ALL of the books I read to be written on a highschool level, ya know? ;) So, without further ado, here are some books that I've enjoyed recently:

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
This book was really different than the typical books that I read. It was funny in a really quirky way. But I found myself laughing out loud a few times, so that's a success in my book. It was hard for me to figure out of I should take this book seriously or just laugh it off. So I ended up doing both. Definitely an entertaining read.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
I read another book by this same author (The Husband's Secret) that I didn't enjoy as much. I did like Moriarty's writing style, though, so I gave her another chance. What Alice Forgot was very interesting to me. It was a page turner like I enjoy, but it was very thought provoking. It's about a lady who falls and hits her head in a spin class. When she wakes up, she can't remember anything about her life from the past 10 years. Nothing is as she remembers when she wakes up, and she realizes that she's changed so much over the past 10 years that she doesn't even recognize herself. The changes aren't necessarily good ones, either. Anyway, it was just interesting to look back and try to remember myself 10 years ago. If I couldn't remember the last 10 years of my life, would I like who I am today and be happy with the decisions I've made?

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
This was one of those books that I loved because it was beautifully written. It took me a little while to fully get into it (it's a LONG book) but I kept picking it back up because I enjoyed the writing so much. It was just a pleasure to read because of the writing style. There was also amazing character development. It tells the story of a young girl who is blind and lives in France during World War II. At the same time, it also follows a young German boy. Their paths eventually collide at the end of the book, and it's just a beautiful, heart wrenching story. I definitely recommend this one.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
I LOVED this book. I couldn't put it down and read it so quickly. It's about a girl who spends her childhood in the foster system. She's in and out of different foster homes and has some terrible experiences. She becomes a very hard, difficult child. She has one last chance to be adopted before she's labeled "unadoptable." A single lady takes her in and finally breaks through her tough exterior. Everything is going well until something happens to mess up the whole situation. The book flashes back and forth between current day and the main character's experiences as an adult and her experiences with her foster mom as a child. I cared about her so much as an adult and I wanted to read about that to find out if she is finally able to accept love and find her "happily ever after", but I also wanted to breeze through those chapters so that I could read the flashbacks to find out what happened with her foster mother. To me, that's good story telling right there - when the reader is equally invested in a character's past and present. Loved this book!

The Antelope in the Living Room by Melanie Shankle
This one was hilarious to me. I love Big Mama's blog, and I've loved both of her books, too. Her books make me laugh out loud like no other books I've ever read. I guess I just really appreciate her sense of humor. This was her memoire of her marriage, and I really enjoyed it.

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
I wanted a book that would be easy to read and a page turner, so I decided to go the Kate Morton route. I do enjoy her writing style, but I thought this book was a bit hard to follow at times. She doesn't tell stories chronologically, which keeps things interesting, but for some reason, this one seemed a bit all over the place to me. I did enjoy the story, though, and it was a page turner like I hoped!

I know I've read more, but those are the ones that are immediately coming to mind. I've misplaced my Kindle (I refuse to say I've lost it - IT WILL TURN UP!) so I can't just grab it to see what else I've read. But those are apparently the ones that have stood out the most since they're the ones I'm remembering. ;) So, what should I read next??