There's Nothing Better Than a Good Book

On Facebook I saw several people ask for good books to read.  So I threw together this list of some of my favorite books.  Enjoy! 

Life of Pi

By: Yan Martel

Genre: Contemporary

Rated: PG-13 for some animal violence

Book Club Worthy: Yes

 If you liked the movie, you’ll the love the book!  The book goes into more detail of when Pi is in India, exploring different religions, explaining the zoo, connecting religion and zoos, and finding himself.  I suggested this book to my mom and she couldn’t put it down.

Watch for my review on this book this summer.

Till We Have Faces

By: C.S. Lewis

Genre: Mythical/Fantasy

Rated: PG

Book Club Worthy: Yes

Set in a barbaric town, Till We Have Faces, retells the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, this time from the point of view of on of Psyche’s sisters.  It explores the dimensions of love, both possessive and romantic.  I loved the depth of this book, the way it made me think, and the reality of the characters.  Lewis truly carves a masterpiece.  It’s a must read for everyone.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

By: E. Lockhart

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

Rated: PG

Book Club Worthy: Yes

A coming-of-age book, Frankie discovers she doesn’t want to be the stereotypical girlfriend of gorgeous senior Matthew Livingston.  She doesn’t want to be told what do to, what to wear, and how to act.  So when she finds out about his male-only secret society, Frankie takes matter into her own hands, showing Matthew, his secret society, and her boarding school the power behind a female mind. 

Bridge to Terabithia

By: Katherine Paterson

Genre: Children

Rated: PG

Book Club Worthy: No

A classic children’s book, this story touched my heart.  Jess is entering the fifth grade, and he knows he’s the fastest runner in the school . . . until he gets beat by the new girl in town, Leslie.  They form an unlikely friendship and discover the land of Terabithia where they reign as king and queen.  Leslie shows Jess a new meaning to life, full of stories and adventures.

This is a great book to read with the kids. Look for the review on this book, coming soon! 

The Adoration of Jenna Fox

By: Mary E. Pearson

Genre: Young Adult, Utopia

Rated: PG (There is some swearing in it)

Book Club Worthy: Yes

Jenna Fox has been in a comma for the last year and half.  She doesn’t remember anything about her life prior to the accident, or the accident itself, and no one is willing to tell her what happened.  The Adoration of Jenna Fox explores the relationship between parents and children.  I loved this book so much I couldn’t put it down, and neither could my mom. 

After you’re done reading it, read my essay on it. 

Lemon Tart

By: Josi S. Kilpack

Genre: Mystery

Rated: PG

Book Club Worthy: No

Sadie Hoffmiller loves baking and cooking and keeps up to date with everything going on in her neighborhood.  When her new friend and neighbor, Anne Lemon, is found dead in the field behind her house, and her two-year-old son, Trevor, is missing, Sadie is one of the first to know.  Sadie is convinced she has valuable information for investigators in regards to Anne’s murder and Trevor’s kidnapping.  However, they don’t want to hear what Sadie has to say.  In fact she becomes a suspect!  Sadie bakes her way through scrumptious cookies to delicious brownies in order to find out who is really behind the murder and to clear her own name.

If you are looking for a book to simply enjoy pick up Lemon Tart.  There isn’t an underlying meaning.  It’s simply a book about a fiery widow who solves a mystery. 

Read my review on it.

I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You

By: Ally Carter

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

Rated: PG

Book Club Worthy: No

Cammie Morgan attends the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women.  It’s not your typical boarding school though.  Instead of learning basic math, chemistry, and English, they learn the ins and out of spydom.  They break CIA codes, learn chemical warfare, and the martial arts, just to name a few subjects. 

In the small town by their school lives a regular boy.  Cammie, a not-so-regular girl, falls for him.  What happens when a future spy does the unthinkable and starts to date a regular boy?  Her friends confirm to her that it’s riskier to fall in love than to hack into the president’s computer. 

I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You, is a fun and exciting read.  I’d highly recommend it if you don’t want to read a book that will make you think too hard.

Harry Potter Series

By: J.K. Rowling

Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy

Rated: PG – PG-13

Book Club Worthy: Yes

Already read the whole series?  Great!  Read it again!  Don’t have time to read seven books.  Pick your favorite one and read it. 

Haven’t read these books yet? Have you lived?  GO TO THE LIBRARY RIGHT NOW AND CHECK THEM OUT!  You haven’t lived until you’ve read the Harry Potter series.

Shackles of Honor

By: Marcia Lynn McClure

Genre: Romance

Rated: PG

Book Club Worthy: No

Though McClures writing isn't Ernest Hemingway, she can weave a great story.  If you’re looking for a fun, clean, sappy romance, this is a great choice. 

Cassidy Shea’s life is blissful. She has a secret lover, wealth, and beauty.  But when Mason comes to the Shea mansion to take Cassidy away, her life is turned upside down.  Secrets follow her wherever she goes, and uncertainty hides in the shadows.  Maybe these secrets and uncertainty are the very things that may bring Cassidy the happiness she seeks.

The Secret Journal of Brett Colton

By: Kay Lynn Mangum

Genre: LDS Fiction

Rated: PG

Book Club Worthy: Yes

If you haven’t read this book, you need to.  Warning, it can be a tearjerker! 

Kathy Colton dislikes her older brother Brett.  Though he’s dead her family talks about him all the time.  He died when she was a baby, and because of that no one remembers the first word she said, when she cut her first tooth, or even her first birthday.  Then on her sixteenth birthday she finds his journal; life as Kathy knows it changes. 

At the same time Kathy is supposed to be tutoring some stuck-up jock on the football team.  Worse is that he’s Mormon. 
Mangum laces the story of a dying brother, and a coming-of-age sister into a masterpiece that’s hard to forget.

Releve Jenna, Releve

An Essay on The Adoration of Jenna Fox 

Ballet—the perfect art.  There is a perfect height, perfect weight, perfect grace, and perfect feet expected of every prima ballerina.  Every step is perfect, beautiful, and graceful there is no room for improvisation. Only the perfect ballerina’s can please audiences.  Jenna Fox, the protagonist in Mary E. Pearson’s The Adoration of Jenna Fox, is the ballet of her parent’s world.  Jenna feels she must do everything perfect in order to stay on the pedestal her parents have created for her.  If she falls she disappoints her audience, which will cause her to break.  She is controlled by the love of her parents until they push her too far to the edge of the pedestal.  Though she falls she doesn’t break; Jenna realizes she can find more peace in life when she does what she needs instead of living up to her parents expectations.

Jenna obeys to please.  When she wakes up from her year and a half long coma she does things only to please her mother.  “[Mother] puts her arm around me and squeezes.  I lift the corner of my mouth.  Then the other: a smile.  Because I know I am supposed to.  It is what she wants” (Pearson 3).  Because she doesn’t have a high functioning brain yet, Jenna doesn’t understand why she does things to please her parents.  But even before the accident and ensuing coma, Jenna’s body took command of her, which aimed to please her parents.

In her last ballet recital she only finished her dance gracefully to stay on the pedestal her parents had created.   On stage Jenna is tempted to “stomp and grind and swing [her] hips” (Pearson 229) instead of preforming her last releve.  But she releves.  Her mind wants so desperately to do something else, but her body won’t let her.  It is woven into her muscles to stay on the pedestal.  The “new Jenna,” upon watching her last performance, realizes how unhappy she was staying on her parent’s pedestal.  “The performance is all in her arms and legs and muscles, and none of it is in her heart” (Pearson 229).  Jenna stays on her pedestal because she is afraid of disappointing her parents;  “Maybe I was eager for a fall, the thing I feared most” (Pearson 225).  After her coma, once she realized she was placed on a pedestal, she again battles with what she wants and what her parents want.  Lily tells her, “[Your parents] won’t break, you know” when Jenna is having a hard time coming to terms with this fact. (Pearson 232). It is this assumption that leads Jenna to always releve instead of stop and grind. 

It is not only Jenna’s fault that she stayed on the pedestal before her accident and after it.  Her parents never listened to her, nor gave her what she really needed.  Jenna told Clair she wanted a red skirt (Pearson 233).  Though Clair told Jenna she would get her one, she never did because “It’s not important.  It never really was” (Pearson 236).  This suggests that what Jenna wants never was important.  It was always what her mom and dad wanted.  Jenna says,

“All of your pieces fill up other people’s holes.

But they don’t fill

your own” (Pearson 231).

It was Lily alone who saw this.  She saw what Jenna’s parents were doing to her and helped Jenna achieve what she wanted despite her parents protests.  Lily alone understood the importance of communication and letting your children have their own space.  Because Jenna’s parents never let her communicate effectively with them even after her comma, she slowly broke away from the perfect Jenna, becoming the Jenna she wanted to become—a regular teenage girl.  When Lily listens, Jenna begins to see what she failed to see her entire life—pleasing other people does not bring peace. 

At her last ballet recital, Jenna releved instead of stomping and grinding.  However, with Lily’s help Jenna finally was able to overcome her parent’s expectations and obtain what she wanted.  She released Kara and Locke, and her own trapped mind because she wanted it.  “I need to own my life” (Pearson 254) is what she needed most of all.  She wanted to be a normal girl with the same chance of survival as everyone else.  When she realized this and destroyed her backup she found peace, she found strength, and she found the real Jenna. 

Works Cited

Pearson, Mary E. The Adoration of Jenna Fox. New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2008. Print.

For more information of Mary E. Pearson click here. 

*Please note that I know the word "releve' has an accent on the last "e". My computer will not let me put one there.  So just pretend there is one.  

Rocky Road

Rocky Road

By: Josi S. Kilpack

The Scoop:

Dr. Hendricks has gone missing.  The community of St. George, Utah is devastated.  After all, he helped save countless lives with his breast cancer charity.  All of the polices’ leads have ended in dead ends and Sadie is 100 percent not getting involved in this mystery!  Nope not her.  She has a wedding to think about and a girl’s week to enjoy.  But how can she enjoy her girl’s week, when the girls want to get involved in the disappearance of Dr. Hendricks? 

Summary

Sadie is supposed to have a relaxing week in St. George, Utah with Caro, Pete’s cousin, and Caro’s cousin, Tess.  Sadie didn’t expect to have an investigation thrust on her the moment she sets foot in her hotel room.  Sadie doesn’t want to get involved at all.  She wants to turn it all over to the police.  After all it’s their job, and she’s done stepping on the polices’ toes.  But when the police ask her to get involved and poke her nose in other people’s business, how can she resist? 

Sadie as a Dynamic Character

Throughout the series Sadie slowly changes.  Sometimes it takes several books to see a change, and other times a drastic change happens over the space of one book.  As mentioned in previous reviews, I believe that’s what makes this mystery series different than other mystery series. 

Sadie had struggled with her faith since Pumpkin Roll after the death threat from Jane.  In Rocky Road she finally undergoes a spiritual change. Caro quotes a scripture to Sadie at the beginning of Rocky Road that states God doesn’t intend for us to hide our light under a bushel.  From there Sadie encounters several God fearing people including Officer Nielson, the detective assigned to the case.  For the first time since Pumpkin Roll, Sadie actually prays in faith.  She asks to be led to the right places to figure out what happened to Dr. Hendricks.  All the time Officer Nielson continues to mention God and how He plays a significant part in his life even though bad things have happened to him.  Sadie leans on Officer Nielson’s faith throughout Rocky Road until she’s able to stand on her own.

I had been waiting for this change in Sadie for several books now.  By not restoring Sadie’s faith immediately after Pumpkin Roll, (there’s about 1½ years between Pumpkin Roll and Rocky Road) Kilpack shows Sadie’s imperfections and insecurities that make Sadie a round character.  It also shows she’s not a superficial person, but someone that many of us can connect with.  I know there are many people who go years struggling with their faith because of something that happened in their lives.  I’m happy that Kilpack not only let Sadie struggle with her faith, but also brought back her faith slowly and believably.

Personal Review

I loved how Kilpack brought Caro back into the story.  I find that many minor characters who aren’t directly related to Sadie are usually forgotten after they make an appearance in one of her books.  When Caro showed back up and played a major roll in Rocky Road, I was thrilled.  I do, howerver, feel that Caro is somewhat a flat character.  Nothing about her stands out except she loves solving mysteries.  So does Sadie.  What makes Caro different than any other character?  In my opinion nothing.  As good as this book was, it could have a lot more complexity if Caro were a round character.  Despite Caro’s character, I would recommend this book.  It was a plot twister and page-turner.  

Baked Alaska

Baked Alaska

By: Josi S. Kilpack

I don’t know about you, but I definitely want to try some Baked Alaska.  It looks absolutely divine.  All that chocolate and strawberry baked into one desert.  Yum.  And who knew you could actually bake ice cream?  That fact was as foreign to me as Shawn’s aloofness to his mother during their Alaskan cruise.  The once loveable Shawn is now keeping secrets from Sadie. Pete and Breanna even know what’s up.  Why are they keeping Sadie out of the loop?

Summary

Secrets are always at the heart of a mystery, and that is the last thing Sadie wants to solve while on an Alaskan cruise with her children and boyfriend.  Unfortunately secrets have a ticket to board the cruise as well.  They start the moment Sadie finds Shawn talking to a mysterious woman whom he refuses to talk about.  Soon the secret leaks out to Breanna and Pete, leaving Sadie in the dark.  When Mysterious Woman is found unconscious and a man dies in the buffet line, Sadie starts her own investigation, convinced she’ll get to the bottom of Sean’s secret if she finds out what happened to these people.

Sadie’s Family at the Center

This book wasn’t so much about the mystery as it was about Sadie’s family relationships.  She comes to realize that though her relationship with her children is good, that relationship changes as her children grow older.  She won’t always be the one who they go to when they scrape their knee, get pushed over on the playground, or are trying to find themselves.  Sadie has to learn that as she travels through the beautiful Alaskan country. 

Relationships Explored

Breanna is trying to plan her wedding, but her soon-to-be mother in law keeps getting in the way.  She wants Breanna wedding to be everything Breanna doesn’t want.  Liam, Breanna’s fiancé, is caught in the middle of it.  Breanna and Liam’s relationship are tested in Baked Alaska.  Can Breanna really handle being the wife of a well-to-do English gentleman?  Though this isn’t the main relationship readers follow in the book, it nevertheless delves into Breanna’s character more than in previous books where Breanna is hardly present. 

Sadie and Sean’s relationship is at the core of Baked Alaska.  Perhaps the real mystery isn’t what made Mysterious Woman pass out, or what happened to the man who collapsed in the buffet line, but how Sean and Sadie can keep their mother-son relationship without Sadie treading too much on Sean’s life.  The mystery is the background story for the relationships blossoming in this book, including Pete and Sadie’s.  But I’ll stop there.  I don’t want to give anything away. 

Personal Review

I enjoyed this book for the family element contained within.  I feel the family relationships were explored in more depth in Baked Alaska than in any previous book in the Sadie Hoffmiller series, which makes this book stand out among other books in the series.  I would highly recommend reading this series if only to get to Baked Alaska.  It may have you questioning where you fit in with your family and how your relationships have changed with family members. 

Tres Leches Cupcakes

Tres Leches Cupcakes

By: Josi S. Kilpack

Undercover work.  That’s all Sadie is doing.  Harmless, gather-people’s-name-and-address undercover work.   Then she and her new friend, Margo, uncover two dead bodies at an archeological site in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  It seems Sadie’s safe stay in Santa Fe isn’t too safe after all.

Summary

Jane is still a threat to Sadie.  So Pete ships her off to Santa Fe to stay with his cousin Caro, and to be an undercover informant for the Bureau of Land Management.  It’s dirty work, but Sadie is at least safe, until Sadie and Margo go poking around for answers as to what the bodies were doing in the archeological site, and who put them there. 

Sadie can’t run away from this mystery either.  No matter how hard she tries the mystery follows her against her will.  This time she is forced to solve it. 

Plot Elements

Sadie is slowly learning to control her anxiety attacks.  Even with being in a bar fight, getting arrested, being kidnapped, and chased through the night desert, she keeps calm through every situation.  She knows that if she doesn’t it could cost her, her life.  This shows Sadie’s developing character.  Even a 50 odd year old woman can overcome her weakness and continue to help others.

As mentioned before Sadie isn’t too keen on investigating this mystery.  She wants to watch the hot air balloon fiesta and continue to do her harmless undercover work.   Fate would not have it, and Sadie is literally forced to solve the mystery by none other than the suspects themselves.  This plot element makes Tres Leches Cupcakes different than the other books in the series.

These two elements add the necessary depth that make this mystery entertaining and keep the series moving forward. 

Bonus: A Lesson on Relationships

Caro and her husband, Rex, are going through a tough time in their marriage.  As empty-nesters they each of different ideas of what their life will now be like.  While Caro and Sadie are discussing this relationship it got me thinking of how relationships change when major events happen in our lives.  Both parties must communicate in order to make the relationship last.

This happened recently in my own life.  My husband and I were blessed with a daughter (our first child).  With this new addition to our family our roles shifted, expectations changed, and sometimes tempers ran high.  We both have to come to a middle ground and understand what the other person is going through. 

A similar thing happens in Tres Leches Cupcake with Caro and Rex.  They come to realize they both need to better understand one another to make their marriage work. 

Kilpack often places strained relationships in her books.  Sometimes they are worked out, and other times they are not.  Not every relationship works out the way we want it to.  In addition if we want our relationships to be happy we have to work at it, just as Rex and Caro must do in Tres Leches Cupcakes.

Personal Review

Though Tres Leches Cupcakes was a page-turner, it wasn’t my favorite in the series.  I understand why it was necessary to put in the series—it shows Sadie further overcoming her anxiety.