It's the end of January and I read 7 books this month.
I am so proud of that number! My goal for the year is 50 books, so I am right on track, or actually a little ahead of schedule but who is keeping count? Well, Me!
I wanted to do this post because I read some REALLY good books this month, and I had to share with you guys in case you were looking for a good read.
There were four books in particular that stood out to me. I'll share the
Goodreads excerpt then my opinion!
From Goodreads:
Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.
Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby wants—and needs—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match
***I cannot even begin to tell you how much I loved this book and how it left me wanting, no needing, more! I have heard a lot of people compare it to 50 shades, and there are some intense sexual moments but it is nothing like 50. I actually love the relationship between Abby and Travis. It's not a healthy relationship by any means, but it has that factor of bettering and improving who you are, not only for yourself but for the one you love. I read this in one day and cannot wait until the next book comes out in April!
From Goodreads:
In this literary tour de force, novelist Arthur Golden enters a remote and shimmeringly exotic world. For the protagonist of this peerlessly observant first novel is Sayuri, one of Japan's most celebrated geisha, a woman who is both performer and courtesan, slave and goddess.
We follow Sayuri from her childhood in an impoverished fishing village, where in 1929, she is sold to a representative of a geisha house, who is drawn by the child's unusual blue-grey eyes. From there she is taken to Gion, the pleasure district of Kyoto. She is nine years old. In the years that follow, as she works to pay back the price of her purchase, Sayuri will be schooled in music and dance, learn to apply the geisha's elaborate makeup, wear elaborate kimono, and care for a coiffure so fragile that it requires a special pillow. She will also acquire a magnanimous tutor and a venomous rival. Surviving the intrigues of her trade and the upheavals of war, the resourceful Sayuri is a romantic heroine on the order of Jane Eyre and Scarlett O'Hara. And Memoirs of a Geisha is a triumphant work - suspenseful, and utterly persuasive
***So begins my obsession with this Japanese culture. I swear, for over 3 hours after I finished this book I was googling everything I could to learn more about Geishas. Never before have I had an urge to go to Japan but now it is officially on my bucket list. I was actually surprised to see all the of controversy that went on after this book was published between the author and the source. I loved the way this book reads, it truly reads like a memoir and you completely forget that it's fiction. It's enchanting and magical, then heartbreaking. It's a great love story that doesn't finish until the last pages. I was 20 years late reading this book, and I wish I could read it for the first time again.
From Goodreads:
Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies…
That’s what seventeen-year-old Sky realizes after she meets Dean Holder. A guy with a reputation that rivals her own and an uncanny ability to invoke feelings in her she’s never had before. He terrifies her and captivates her all in the span of just one encounter, and something about the way he makes her feel sparks buried memories from a past that she wishes could just stay buried.
Sky struggles to keep him at a distance knowing he’s nothing but trouble, but Holder insists on learning everything about her. After finally caving to his unwavering pursuit, Sky soon finds that Holder isn’t at all who he’s been claiming to be. When the secrets he’s been keeping are finally revealed, every single facet of Sky’s life will change forever
***This book starts like any other YA fiction love story. Here are two teenagers who are in love at first sight, then fight it, then develop a relationship of some sort. It differs from other YA fiction because this book takes you down deep and really dark turns. I don't want to give anything away because you don't see it coming until it hits you. This too has some heartbreaking moments, and touches very difficult subjects but she does it very tactfully. I am a huge fan of Colleen Hoover after Slammed and Point of Retreat. She did not disappoint with this book.
From Goodreads:
In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father’s prosperous rickshaw business, twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn’t be more different: Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree . . . until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides.
As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America. In Los Angeles they begin a fresh chapter, trying to find love with the strangers they have married, brushing against the seduction of Hollywood, and striving to embrace American life even as they fight against discrimination, brave Communist witch hunts, and find themselves hemmed in by Chinatown’s old ways and rules.
At its heart, Shanghai Girls is a story of sisters: Pearl and May are inseparable best friends who share hopes, dreams, and a deep connection, but like sisters everywhere they also harbor petty jealousies and rivalries. They love each other, but each knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt the other the most. Along the way they face terrible sacrifices, make impossible choices, and confront a devastating, life-changing secret, but through it all the two heroines of this astounding new novel hold fast to who they are–Shanghai girls
***This book wasn't exactly a page turner for me but I really enjoyed it. Once again I loved learning about a new culture. Lisa See does a really good job explaining all of the relationship dynamics between siblings, husband and wife, parental, and with arranged marriages. She also gives the reader a glimpse into the difficult and dark times the Chinese experienced during the war and even after. She wrote about their reluctant journeys to a better life and a better land. You come to sympathize with both sisters for very different reasons. I finished this book two nights ago and I was reading along, next thing I know I am crying, I am talking ugly crying. Very good book!
Have you read any good books lately?
