New Moon by Stephanie Meyer

I just finished the second book to the Twilight series and I loved it just as much as the first. I don't want to really write about it because then I will give everything away, so I am just documenting that I read it for my own purposes.

Adam by Ted Dekker

This was the first book that I have ever read by Ted Dekker. My sister reads him all the time, but I have never been able to get into one of his books. He is a Christian writer, but his stuff is really strange.
This book was about a serial killer. Serial killers interest me, so I knew I would love this book. It kind of switched from news articles written about him and his sister to the present day when they were trying to find out who he was and capture him. It also had to do with demon possession which was a little strange, but made me realize that it does happen and we just don't want to think about it. The main character of the book (besides the serial killer) was an FBI agent. He saw the killer right before he was shot by him. He spends the rest of the book "killing" himself several times to try and go back and remember who he saw.
This book was very different and was a little confusing at times, but I was definately hooked.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

I had read about this book on several other blogs and just knew that I had to read it. My sister had already purchased it so I patiently waited my turn to read it and I am hooked. This is a book about a girl that falls in love with a vampire, though this is no ordinary vampire. He and his friends fight the urge to feast on humans and rather they feast on wild animals. There are 4 books in this series and I can not wait until my sister finishes the next one so that I can read it!!!

The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf

This book was captivating. I could not put it down once I started reading it. It was set in the 1920's-1970's. It started with an 80 year old woman being charged with murder. You did not know who she murdered until the very end of the book because after the first chapter it went back to when she was born and told her life story through the eyes of her neighbor. Her mother died when she was about 13 and she had to take care of her dad and brother. The dad lost his fingers in a farming accident and was just crazy. Her brother was a little on the looney side too. If you like a little mystery in your books, then check this one out. I have liked both books that I have read by this author, but I think this may be the better of the 2.

The Romance Reader's Book Club by Julie Cannon

This was a book that caught my eye when I walked into the library. It was about a teenage girl in the 1970's that fell in love with romance novels. Her grandmother was a very strict Christian so she had to hide the books while she read them. She made a club with her friends and aunt. There was also a drought going on and she convinced herself that it was being caused by her reading the books. The book ends with the Grandma confessing a sin that she herself had committed and then all of a sudden it rains for 4 days and the drought is over. It was a pretty good book until I got to that end part and thought, that is just not right. God does not punish a whole state because of 1 person's unconfessed sin.

Vanishing Act

This is yet another book by Jodi Picoult. I love her stuff and once I start a book of hers I can not put it down. I am on my way to the library today to see if I can find anything else.
This book was about a woman who was raised by her father and was told that her mother died when she was a little girl. It turns out that the father actually kidnapped her when she was 4 years old and he changed their identities. It has been 28 years since the kidnapping took place and the police have now found him with some new evidence. It is very captivating. It also talks a lot about prison and makes me sure that I never want to go there nor have anyone I love there. Go and get this book because it is too good!!!

Where Yesterday Lives

This book is by one of my favorite authors, Karen Kingsbury. She is such an easy read and is a Christian writer, so you know things are going to be clean. I tried to read this book several years ago and for some reason just could not get into it. It is about a lady whose father has died and she is going back home to her mom and 4 siblings to bury him. Her family has not gotten along for the past 12 years or so and it is about them learning about eachother as they are dealing with their father's death. It was very moving and made me think often of my Papa and the week that we were planning for his death and funeral.

Sundays at Tiffany's

This was a really cute book about a woman who falls in love with the imaginary friend that she had as a child. It was really interesting just to imagine an imaginary friend. It talked in the book about how all children forget about their imaginary friend as soon as the friend leaves them. I know as a child I had an imaginary friend named Carrie. I know this only because my mom has told me, but yet I can not remember 1 little thing about her. Isn't that weird???
This book was another quick read, but was romantic. I always like reading James Patterson love stories.

Elizabeth Berg

I read another Elizabeth Berg book while I was on vacation for 4th of July. It was Pull of the Moon. This was about a woman who had decided to go out on her own for a while and do a road trip. It is about her finding herself again.

While I was on jury duty I had a lot of time to read. I read 3 Elizabeth Berg books in about 1 week. I told you, they are easy reading.

1. Joy School - This book was the sequel to the first book that I read of Elizabeth Berg's. It was about a young girl who is living with her Army dad in a new city. She is making new friends and finding love for the first time.

2. Open House - This book is about a woman whose husband has walked out on her and her 12 year old son. It is about her finding herself again without a man and finding some new friends and love along the way.

3. The Year of Pleasures - This book was about a woman who was moving to a new town after her husband died from cancer. He was the love of her life and she is pretty much lost without him. She finds her way back to some old college friends and makes some new friends in this new little town. It is a pretty good book.

After reading several of her books in a row, I still like them, but they are seem to be about kind of the same thing. They seem to all be about someone finding themselves and finding love. I need a little break from her right now.

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

This was a very moving and interesting book. It was about a school shooting in which the jocks of the school were shot and killed by a kid that they had picked on his whole school life. It made me really think about how kids are treated in school and how many of them get picked on. The week that I was reading this book I was having to set up appointments for a bunch of high school kids to get their fingerprints done so that they could work for us. They were all working for the tech department. Some were very shy and quiet and then there were a couple that were really loud and rude. I kept thinking the whole time they were in the office that the quiet ones were probably just like the shooter and could snap at any moment. The loud ones were like the jocks who were killed. This was a book that you should definately read as it really makes you think about what high school is like for some kids.

Durable Goods by Elizabeth Berg

This book was about a young girl that lives with her military dad and teenage sister. Her mom died a few years earlier and left her with her abusive dad. It is just about her life. The daily life of a teenage girl who is friends who a girl next door. It is about her growing up and learning to live with her dad and make him happy. It was a very easy read (I read it in 1 day), but it now has me hooked on this author. I can't wait to read another one of her books!

The Rescue

This was another book by Nicholas Sparks. It was about a woman that was rescued in a car crash by a volunteer fireman. Her little boy does not speak and she stays at home to take care of him and teach him while also working night hours at a diner. It was Nicholas Spark's typical book where they fall in love with each other.

Sex, Romance and the Glory of God

This was a book that I got S to read while I was reading the Intimate Issues one. He wanted me to read it so that I could know what it said. It said all of the same things that my book had mentioned, it was just a lot shorter. This would be a good book for a guy to read though if he is not much of a reader.

As Nature Made Him

This book was kind of weird. I saw the guy on Oprah a few years ago, so when I saw the book on my sister's bookshelf I thought I would give it a try. It was about a little boy who had had a circumcision back in the 50's and something had gone wrong with it, so his parents decided to raise him as a girl. The problem was that he had a twin brother and he always had this feeling that there was something not right with him. Finally, when he was 15 his parents told him the truth about what had happened and he decided to go back to living as a boy. He has had several surgeries to repair everything and now he is married and has 3 adopted children. It was kind of a weird book and hard to read because there was a lot of medical stuff in there that I don't really get into. But overall, it was a good story.

Intimate Issues

This is a book that I read at the very end of last year/beginning of this year before I started this list. It is "Intimate Issues: 21 Questions Christian Women Ask About S*x" by Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus. I would recommend this book to any Christian woman that is a newly wed or has been married many years. I don't like to talk about the "s" word on here because I don't want a bunch of weirdos finding me when they do a Google search, but this is a book that you have to read. It will completely change your way of thinking about S and I am sure your husband will greatly appreciate it. I gave this book to my sister as soon as she got engaged because I feel like it is something that she should read before she enters marriage. Don't pass it up!

The Choice

I finally finished reading "The Choice" by Nicholas Sparks last night. It was a really good book, I just got busy with things and did not have a chance to read. It was your typical love story that Nicholas Sparks writes, but I actually did not cry at the end of it. It was about a man and woman that were neighbors that fall in love with each other. It starts off with the man going into a hospital that his wife works at to visit her. Then the book flashes back to 11 years earlier when they first met. I don't want to say too much about it because it will completely give away the whole story, so you will just have to read it yourself.

Currently Reading

The book I am currently on is "The Choice" by Nicholas Sparks.

I get to read this book while I am on the bike at the Y. It makes the time go by really fast.

Sea Glass by Anita Shreve

I finished reading Sea Glass. It was set back in the 1930's and was about a group of mill workers that went on strike. It was pretty interesting because I didn't really know anything about this time. It was kind of confusing at first because there were so many different people in the book. Each chapter was written from a different person's point of view. Finally in the middle of the book all of the characters came together in the story because they all started working together for the strike. The title of Sea Glass came because one of the characters would collect glass that had been swept through the ocean and then placed back in the sand. It was flawless and beautiful.

Catch Up

A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve
Light on Snow by Anita Shreve
Sea Glass by Anita Shreve (currently reading)

I will try and write a little blog post on each of the books that I have read as I go.