Imaginary Book Club: A Girl in Need of Good Reads

I've been getting most of my recent reading material from the Target book aisle.  As much as I love me some Target, I'm starting to think I need to branch out a little.  Because most of it didn't impress me much.  I'm a girl in need of some good reads. 

Lone Wolf by Jodie Picoult:  Okay.  I’ve read all her other books so when I’m trolling through Target and see a new one it's an automatic response to toss it in my basket.  She’s losing me though.  I don’t know if that’s because this book wasn’t as good as the others or if maybe I’ve just sort of got down pat how her plots roll.  There’s a central hot button kind of issue, we’re pretty sure how it will have to roll but she tries hard to make a case for why the other way isn’t completely cracked out not going to happen but then it ends up the way we think it will.  On top of that, there will be some random topic of expertise involved and we’ll learn everything we ever wanted to know about that topic.  As an example, she had a book about sounds made by whales, another was about apples (No really! Apples!), there was autism, music, and this one is about wolves.   I wasn’t that into learning about wolves and eventually started skipping the mini chapters that sound like a textbook about wolves.  I consider it a bad sign when I start skipping pages in a book.   But it wasn't bad.  It just wasn’t great.

White Girl Problems by Babe Walker: The chick in this book is so shallow she has absolutely no redeeming qualities.  I’m guessing it's supposed to be over the top spoof-ish and funny.  But she gradually just got on my nerves.  I kept thinking about whether or not there really are people like that in the world and it became slightly depressing.  I stopped reading and just skimmed the rest of the way to the end because I'm incapable of not finishing a book.    I’m sure this book is someone’s cup of tea but it’s just not mine. 

Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close:  According to the cover of this book, this is a national bestseller.  The publisher of this book is either a big fat liar or America has some really crappy taste in books.  How did this thing become a best seller?  I thought it was complete blah and did nothing for me.  Well, nothing other than not inspire me to read.  I got halfway through it and then didn’t care about going any further and I’d keep finding other things to do instead of read but not want to start another book because I already have this one started.  Which is annoying!  Because there are so many great books in the world just waiting to be read! What the hell.    

Matched, Crossed and Reached Trilogy by Ally Condie:  I am a sucker for a nice clean well written series for young adults.  Twilight and The Hunger Games being two great examples.  So I saw someone online mention this series and decided to try it.  2 thumbs up.  I didn’t love it like I did Twilight or The Hunger Games.  But I liked it.  Very Big Brother watching kind of feel and interesting.   I was actually more fascinated by how the society in the book operated than anything else but it was also a sweet and clean kind of love story.  It’s young adult so it’s pretty simple reading but pretty good.  The third book was my least favorite but of course you have to read it to find out how things get wrapped up in the series.

And that’s what I’ve been reading.  Which essentially means I’ve been reading a whole lot of crap.  WTH.  And now I’m telling other people about the crap as if anyone wants to take those recommendations and go waste their life reading them?  Stupid.  It should be a rule that a blog post about books has to offer the name of at least one good book suggestion. Based on that, I say don’t read any of that other crap.  Read Room by Emma Donaghue instead. 

That’s the name of it.  One word.  Room.   And I could not possibly recommend it more.  If you haven’t read it, you should.  It’s a helluva great book.  I couldn't put it down and read it in 24 hours.  And it lingers with me to this day.  It’s not funny and it’s not romantic.  But it’s suspenseful.  And it made me think about life.  It made me think about the importance of perspective in life.  And it haunts me when I contemplate a mother’s love and the power it has to give a woman a reason to get out of bed every morning and keep on keepin’ on no matter what the circumstances.   Such a great book.  Boom.