Need A Good Book?

I've been on a real reading kick these last 8 months or so and it's been wonderful. The funny part is that all through school I HATED reading. I have always been a slow reader, I think part of this has do with the fact that I like to read dialogue in the way it would be actually spoken. I can read faster, but it doesn't sound as good and my characters lose all their accents and inflection.

In 7th grade I got a C in reading because I'd just put my head down and fall asleep. They gave me this completely bogus and unattainable goal, so after about a week I didn't even try (I'll try not to teach my children this trait). In high school I was supposed to read Crime and Punishment at least 3 times, I think I read 30 pages... oops. Then in college, by my third year, knowing I wouldn't read the books, I didn't even buy most of them. I saved my parents a ton of money (you're welcome). Tangent... senior year of high school, AP English teacher gives the assignment to ask our parents one piece of advice for college. You can assume the usual, "stay on top of reading, visit the professor, don't get behind, do the reading, blah blah blah." My mom's advice, "Go To Class. If you go to class, you don't have to do most of the reading." Best (and truest) college advice I ever received.

However, something in me switched once I was no longer made to read, and to read books that I had absolutely no interest in. Now, I'm an animal and cannot stop. A small praise to Jesus for this 180, since My Hunka Hunka Burning Love is reading law books most nights until bed time, it's nice to sit on the couch together and read rather than ostracize him to the office to work.

Below are 5 books that I've read recently and highly recommend. I tried to pick ones that hopefully you haven't seen on all the best seller lists and the like.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

If you're like me and didn't quite understand all the fuss about her other book, The Secret Life of Bees, it's ok, this book is still phenomenal!!

Early 1800s Charleston, the story of a slave girl and the plantation owner's daughter and how they walk the road together towards freedom from both of their worlds of bondage.

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

This is a very easy read, due to this, when I finished it at first I kind of brushed it off. Slowly the story just kept coming back to me over and over again and I realized that while it's not a piece of literary genius, the story is so sweet, heart warming and heart wrenching. It's slowly creeping up as an all time favorite.

 Doll-baby by Laura Lane McNeal

This is not The Help 2.0 like some of the reviews like to compare it to. It does take place during Civil Rights era in New Orleans, but the plot serves a completely different purpose. It's a touching story about a young girl who ends up living with her grandmother after her father's death, and how they essentially raise and protect one another.

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

I read this one a while back, so I don't remember the exact details, but it's during Rafael Leonidas Trujillo’s dictatorship and how four sisters, only one who's still alive, lived through and resisted political oppression.

 Villa Triste by Lucrieta Grindle

I've read several WWII novels, but this is the first one I've read that depicts what was happening in Italy and the resistance forces that emerged after the armistice to help resist the German invasion. The story unravels a great mystery of betrayal by some of the leaders of the resistance.






I may or may not love historical fiction. In school/never was/am I very good at remembering the details of big historical events, but wrap history in the story of particular people, some falling in love, families learning hidden secrets, tangible examples of how people were living day to day, I'm hooked. Maybe social history would have suited me a little better.

Let me know if you have any recommendations.