Nineteen Minutes

If you have not read a book by Jodi Picoult, I would recommend it. Make sure that you are in an emotionally stable place in your life because Jodi takes real life events and portrays them as fiction but places you right smack dab in the middle of the controversy while also showing you all sides to the story. In Nineteen Minutes, she address the drama of school shootings. I know that some of you might be turned off at the travesty of these events; but by all means give it a chance. The reader not only sees the shooting from the obvious victims views but also the shooter and a couple of the families too. A good size book but a quick read too. I highly recommend this and any Jodi Picoult novel.

Glass Castle

The Glass Castle, A Memoir by Jeanette Walls is an interesting book about Jeanette's parents, brother and her two sisters growing up in a lifestyle that is not very solid. The family moves around a lot and her dad is a drunk. The whole time I was reading this, I kept looking at the author photograph in the back and thinking 'no way could that beautiful woman experience this much hardship. I'm not saying that I don't believe her. It just felt to me like her style of writing made the story feel like fiction and not a memoir. It was an enjoyable story but a memoir to me should provide some "aha" moments that make the reader be inspired by the struggles that the person has been through. Overall, I enjoyed it but would only recommend it as a rental from the library.