The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

 Fiction. Inspiring and thought provoking story about a boy who decides to be a shepherd in Spain but through a series of good omens travels to Egypt to find treasure.  Along the way he learns about people, nature, himself, and his destiny, or "personal legend" as he calls it. There were several quotes in this book that caused reflection on my part. Here is one of those,

"I'm alive," he said to the boy, as they ate a bunch of dates one night, with no fires and no moon. "When I'm eating, that's all I think about. If I'm on the march, I just concentrate on marching. If I have to fight, it will be just as good a day to die as any other. Because I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. You'll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living right now." 

It reminded me of a children's book that was published 10 years previous to this one, The Treasure by Uri Shulevitz. Both have similar plots and express similar ideas and both cause reflection on my life's journey.  

Recommend: Yes

The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West

 Teen fiction, romance. Kasie West is a go to author for teen clean romance reads without a ton of predictability. I like her characters and the story line moves along well. I was having one of those unable to get to sleep because I have a cold and my brain wouldn't shut off nights and as I went out to the couch so as to quit disturbing my husband's sleep with my tossing and turning I discovered the light on in the living room and my daughter on the couch. She had just finished this book. So as she went to bed I picked it up and read the entire book from start to finish. It was the perfect insomnia book and I finished it in a couple of hours and then, thankfully, went to sleep. 

Gia is an uber popular girl, student body president at her school, and the center of lots of attention. In the midst of her perfectly scripted world her boyfriend dumps her as they are walking into prom. In a panicked response she grabs a random guy who happens to be in the parking lot and convinces him to pretend to be her date so she doesn't have to walk in alone. This decision sets off a chain of unintended consequences that gets uncontrollable as Gia has to spin more and more lies to make everything work. To her credit she is able to own her poor choices and go forward even when things don't tie up nicely in the end. 

Recommend: Yes.

Loving Lieutenant Lancaster by Sarah M. Eden

 Yet another regency romance by Sarah Eden! This one is among the series about the Lancaster family and focuses on the only son in said family. The setup is familiar to Eden's books: a house party where the unassuming reticent girl attracts the eye of the handsome yet awkward young gentleman. Other more forward women are thrust into his attention, yet he chooses the quiet, interesting, beautiful girl instead of the obvious boisterous, flamboyant ones. It's not a bad plot to relax into on a return flight home after spending time with wedding preparations for my daughter. 

Recommend: Yes

The Fortune Café by Julie Wright, Melanie Jacobson, Heather B. Moore

 This is the first book in the Tangerine Street Romance series. I had an upcoming plane flight and I wanted to something short and easy to read on the plane. I have read Melanie Jacobson's books before and enjoyed the light hearted banter and solid characters she writes so I decided to give this one a try. It's three short stories all centered around a Chinese restaurant called The Fortune Café. Each story has some of the characters from the other two stories intertwined in a subtle way. As the title of the book suggests, the fortune cookies at this restaurant tend to come true and help the characters overcome odds to find solid relationships. 

Recommend: Yes. 

24 Hours in Nowhere by Dusti Bowling

 Book #2 read aloud to my kids. I originally read this on October in 2021 and loved it. Bowling wrote two other books that are excellent, Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus and Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus. Both are worth the read. Bowling has a knack for telling stories that are believable and engaging. Her books take place in the hot desert of Arizona and address bullying and not succumbing to peer pressure to be someone you are not, two really important subjects for young readers and for adults as well.

Nowhere is a town in Arizona that tops all the charts: highest poverty rate, lowest high school graduation rate, most likely place to die by cactus impalement among others. Gus is stuck there like most everyone in the town and sees dead ends everywhere he looks, but within a matter of 24 hours hope blossoms in a most unexpected way. Gus discovers truths about others and himself and things don't look so bleak anymore, even though they are in the middle of Nowhere.

 Recommend as a read aloud? Yes.

 

The Unteachables by Gordon Korman

Goal for 2023: read more to my children.  I started the year out with four books for them to choose from, three of which I was familiar with and had already read. They chose The Unteachables by Gordon Korman that I read in 2021. I have enjoyed other books by Korman (Masterminds trilogy was wonderful) and didn't mind this revisit. It tells the story of a group of middle school kids who are considered "unteachable" and are lumped into a classroom together and forgot about. The teacher that is assigned to these kids is at first as disengaged as his students. Through some unexpected chance encounters both the teacher and the students see past the labels that have been applied to them and surprise everyone, most importantly themselves.

 All three of my kids (ages 14, 16, 19) and my husband listened to me read each night. This book is engaging and short enough that we got through it in a week or so. They had a good time trying to guess what would happen next and even got a few things right.

 Recommend as a read aloud? Most definitely

56 Books read in 2022!

 I was surprised as I was counting the books I read last year to reach over 50!  It was difficult to pick my favorite, but two of them do stand out. 

Duet by Elise Broach belongs at the top of my list because of the uniqueness of the narrator: a goldfinch named Mirabelle. I've read books with animal viewpoints before but this one was more than just a bird personified. I felt I was getting a bird perspective of human life and it was fascinating. I loved how Mirabelle sees the young budding pianist as a kindred spirit and how she fights for his success. It doesn't hurt that my favorite composer, Chopin, is the passion of the boy pianist and his frail teacher. And finally the ending is not perfectly tied up in a bow with a comfortable dominant to tonic ending chord. It does, however, give hope in more work to come, more progress to make and more joy to create. 

100 Days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons. I read this by accident really. I needed a book with a yellow cover and this seemed to fit the bill. It was a wonderful surprise. A little bit of romance and some teenage angst made it a typical young adult novel, but what stood out were the lives of the two main characters and most importantly their character. Tessa has been in an accident that robs her of her sight. Weston has also been the victim of an accident which left him a paraplegic. Tessa does not know that Weston is a paraplegic and so treats him "normally". This gives Weston a much needed break from the pity he is constantly shown. Tessa wants to be left alone in her misery, but Weston doesn't give up and is constantly there for her. Together they are able to help heal each other from their unseen wounds that their very visible problems have caused. I really enjoyed their journey.