Books and Needlepoint: BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge

Showing posts with label BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge: Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan

Shared by Kristi

Here is the second review book for the BookSparks 2014 Summer Reading Challenge. I don't know about you - but it hasn't felt like spring around here yet, let alone summer! We saw snow earlier this week - Winter, I am so over you!

Love and Other Foreign Words

by Erin McCahan

Josie lives her life in translation. She speaks High School, College, Friends, Boyfriends, Break-ups, and even the language of Beautiful Girls. But none of these is her native tongue. And Love? The most foreign language of all. So when being fluent in True Love becomes the only way to avert a sure catastrophe, Josie is forced to examine her feelings for the boy who says he loves her, the sister she loves but doesn't always like, and the best friend who hasn't said a word -- at least not in a language Josie understands.

Insightful, poignant, and laugh-out-loud funny, this is an irrepressible love story about sisters, friends, boys, and how it feels to find someone, at last, who speaks your language.

My thoughts: I loved Josie! She was funny, smart, loyal - but it was probably her quick-wit and dry humor that endeared me to her the most. I wish that I could be as quick with the comebacks. As her family says, she is 15 going on 30 - and she juggles as much as some 30 year olds. She is a sophomore in high school in the afternoon, but as part of an accelerated program she is also a freshman in college in the mornings. She plays volleyball, runs track, and is very close with her family - which include two older sisters.

She is okay with her oldest sister's husband, but when her middle sister comes home engaged, she has a hard time finding anything to like about him. She spends the majority of the book trying to find reasons to make her sister break up with him, or at least to make her family see that they are not right together. She is enthralled with languages and believes that everyone has their own language, and you won't really fit in if you don't speak their language.

This made me think about the situations that I find personally to be the most uncomfortable - and when it comes down to it, it is because I don't feel that I will be able to speak the right language to fit in. Knowing this, I think it will make me approach some situations differently - and without such trepidation.

Something else that she wrote that stuck with me is "It's easier to hate than to hurt." Just think about that for awhile and I am sure you will come up with an instance that you could apply this to your own life. I am passing this book along to my daughters.

~I received a complimentary copy of this book from BookSparks PR in exchange for my unbiased review.~

Purchase Links:

Kindle:

Paperback:

About the author: Erin McCahan is the author of the YA book I Now Pronounce You Someone Else (Scholastic, June 2010).
Erin’s debut novel was a 2010 Cybils Award finalist. She grew up in Michigan and worked extensively
with teenagers before beginning her writing career. She lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Author Links:
Facebook / Website / Twitter / Goodreads

All the books for the challenge:

May:

The One and Only by Emily Giffin - reviewed May 12

Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan

Cure for the Common Breakup by Beth Kendrick

June:

The Witch of Belladonna Bay by Suzanne Palmieri

The Revealed by Jessica Hickam

The Walk In Closet by Abdi Nazemian

July:

Elly in Love by Colleen Oakes

After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Serenade by Emily Kiebel

Queen of Hearts Vol. 2 by Colleen Oakes

August:

Gravel on the Side of the Road by Kris Raddish

The Curse of Van Gogh by Paul Hoppe

Wild Within by Melissa Hart

Add-ons

My Last Kiss by Bethany Neal

In Bloom by Katie Delahanty

Monday, May 12, 2014

BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge: The One and Only by Emily Giffin

Shared by Kristi

I am very excited to be a part of BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge and am kicking it off with my reivew of The One and Only by Emily Giffin! To see a full list of the review books, continue reading to the bottom of the post.

The One and Only

by Emily Giffin

Thirty-three-year-old Shea Rigsby has spent her entire life in Walker, Texas—a small college town that lives and dies by football, a passion she unabashedly shares. Raised alongside her best friend, Lucy, the daughter of Walker’s legendary head coach, Clive Carr, Shea was too devoted to her hometown team to leave. Instead she stayed in Walker for college, even taking a job in the university athletic department after graduation, where she has remained for more than a decade.

But when an unexpected tragedy strikes the tight-knit Walker community, Shea’s comfortable world is upended, and she begins to wonder if the life she’s chosen is really enough for her. As she finally gives up her safety net to set out on an unexpected path, Shea discovers unsettling truths about the people and things she has always trusted most—and is forced to confront her deepest desires, fears, and secrets.

Thoughtful, funny, and brilliantly observed, The One & Only is a luminous novel about finding your passion, following your heart, and, most of all, believing in something bigger than yourself . . . the one and only thing that truly makes life worth living.

My thoughts: This book started out slow for me, but I was interested enough in Shea that I kept reading. I soon became invested in Shea's life, wanting to know who she would end up with as well as what career path she would take.

Shea was raised by her mother, but considers her best friend Lucy's family as her own as well. When Lucy's mother Connie dies, it leaves a hole in all of their lives, including Coach Carr, her husband, who is also the winning coach of Walker football and has been for years. Shea's relationship with Coach Carr has changed over the years, from him being her best friend's dad, to mentor, to friend. She understands and is involved in football in a way that Lucy is not, so is closer to coach than his own daughter. He has most recently given her a lead on a job that would finally get her out of the Walker atmosphere and start a life of her own.

The relationships in this book were complex and messy. And that is what I liked best. The author does not back away from the uncomfortable, but meets it head on. She explores unlikely attractions as well as unhealthy ones. She shows us that what might appear perfect on the outside sometimes hides ugly secrets and the things that make us uncomfortable might really be what's worth fighting for.

I will definitely pick up another book by Emily Giffin!

~I received a complimentary ecopy of The One and Only from BookSparks and Net Galley in exchange for my unbiased review as part of the BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge.~

Purchase Links: