Book Review

I began the pursuit of my Master's Degree in late June 2017.  Since that time, I have hardly had any opportunity to leisure read.  In the spare moments that I could detach myself from the required reading material of my classes, I would treat myself to reading a bit of a magazine like Family Circle or Redbook which arrive in the mail.  During the summer of 2018, I finally got a library card because I found that the library carried one of the textbooks I needed for a class and it saved me from buying the book off of Amazon for over a hundred dollars (yes, that was the used price!).  Over the summer, I took 18 hours of coursework which involved numerous readings and papers.  Once I handed in my final paper during the first week of August, I treated myself by checking out a leisure book for the first time in 14 months.

I was supposed to conduct my field experience this fall, which meant that I was going to be in a classroom observing a teacher and potentially teaching some lessons myself.  I anticipated being assigned to a classroom during the third week of August.  In the meantime, I kept reading and kept checking out book after book.  I covered a lot of ground in the leisure reading department because I did not get a field experience placement until October 1st.  Once I got settled into the classroom, I found the work required of me to be abundant, but not difficult per se.  This allowed me the freedom to continue to devote a fair amount of time to reading.  Michael's hospital stay and recovery week at home also provided ample opportunity to continue to read.  Now that the semester is drawing to a close, I am focused on completing all remaining school forms and preparing to be recorded as I teach a lesson in the classroom this week.  Once I hand in all projects and papers, I will be free to read again on Christmas break before beginning my internship this spring.

Without further ado, here are the books I read from August until present:

August:
Summer Rental by Mary Kay Andrews
Beach Town by Mary Kay Andrews
The Fixer Upper by Mary Kay Andrews
When Life Gives You Lululemons by Lauren Weisberger
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
Ladies Night by Mary Kay Andrews

September:
The Cat Who Went Up the Creek by Lilian Jackson Braun
Spring Fever by Mary Kay Andrews
Save the Date by Mary Kay Andrews
The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand (read the first half, skimmed the rest)

October:
Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan


November:
Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (currently working on this one)


I read someone else's review of Summer Rental which got me started on reading many books by Mary Kay Andrews.  Although she has a few books featuring the same characters, I chose not to read those yet because I wanted a book that wrapped up all loose ends within its own pages just in case I had to jump right into field experience and couldn't devote any more time to reading a series.   That hasn't seemed to be the case, obviously.  I did decide to try out a series in October with the Kevin Kwan books.  My aunt from Michigan who was coming to visit my mom actually brought Crazy Rich Asians to me while I was in the hospital with Michael.  I ended up buying the remaining books in the trilogy one by one because they were that good.  There is language in them, so don't choose to read this series if that is a deal breaker.  I enjoyed the satire and the constant internal questioning of "is this real?!?" 

Leisure reading has certainly offered a good diversion from the waiting game of getting a field experience placement and from the medical issues surrounding us this past month.  Aside from Big Little Lies, All the Light We Cannot See and the Kevin Kwan books, all of these were rented from my library.  I bought Big Little Lies and All the Light We Cannot See for 50 cents each from a local branch of the library, and I paid the Target price for the Kevin Kwan books. 

I'm excited to check out more books mid December when I'm on Christmas break!

Until Next Time, 
Much love, Reba