Summer Reading Reviews...

So, I've been running, but I'm also on vacation in the LOVELY VA beach! (Past posts from April will show you what it looks like around here!) I was in Rochester Last week, tons of pics to post, that will come later. I figured I'd do a fun little post about some books I've been reading and give them some reviews! My opinion of a good book is one that is decently clean, a little love, a little intrigue, and many changes in a character! So, here goes nothing!

BFF Forever was a really good book. It really made me think of my past childhood friends, and how strange it would be for those I've lost touch with to come back into my life suddenly; how much I've changed, how little we now know about one another despite having once shared EVERYTHING. An interesting aspect was that one of the main characters was formerly obese, so being inside her mind and thoughts was an interesting espect and hopefully eye opening for people who have never dealt with weight. I've never been obese, but I've been 20lbs overweight and often people just don't understand, even when you've lost the weight, it still feels like you have it sometimes. It was an easy book, decently clean and still though provoking.

Dune Road was a pleasant surprise. Jane Green has been one of my favorite authors for quick fixes and quick reads, but I DID NOT like her book last year, The Beach House. It felt rushed and silly. I didn't even finish it. This book was well thought out, many overlapping characters and plot twists but wasn't "heavy". I still figured out stuff before she wrote it, but it was ok because it was a good way to write the book. It is definitely geared more toward her age range (middle aged women), but I liked it because it spoke about friends, love relationships, and how typical materialistic behavior can bite you in the butt. My kind of lesson! The one thing with Jane Green you must know is that she never gives a definitive ending. I questioned her at a book reading in Manhattan about whether or not she would write sequals or why she doesn't give complete endings, and she said she likes to leave things open to interpretation like her life and real life; more often than not there aren't clear cut answers etc. Alright Jane Green, I'll try to comply.

Barefoot might be my favorite book of the summer. I cried, I laughed, I identified with how the main character was feeling, it was a great beach book. It got a little dicey with the love stuff, but I enjoyed it all the same. (I don't need to read about people's love lives, I HAVE ONE OF MY OWN! Ha ha) The premise is a woman has cancer and wants to have chemo in her favorite place, Nantucket, with her two young boys and her sister and a friend. All their lives are dysfunctional in one way or another, and Hilderbrand REALLY develops the four main characters evenly, while still surrounding them around the mom who has cancer.

Summer Reading is not for Summer Reading. I did NOT like this book, but read it because I had nothing else to read and it was only 250 pages. The characters were underdeveloped, they were spacey, nothing was really cohesive, and nothing was really solved or discovered. It was a silly book that really read like a smart person wrote it with hopes you would interpret a deeper meaning, when there was none. I didn't know enough about the characters to even think about what they might mean. Sigh.

Well, that's all for now! Tell me about any good books you've been reading this summer! These are my current conquests for the rest of my vacation while laying lazily on the beach after early morning runs (It's going to be in the 90's the rest of the week!):