When I Should Be Studying

Reasons For Reading This Book: Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese was the book of the month for November for the podcast book club The Readheads. This is a monthly podcast book club that I have been apart of since it was established in 2020. I love getting to hear the thoughts of the hosts each month. I was intrieged and excited to read this book because I read and enjoyed The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne in high school.  Content of This Book: This book is a fictional telling of the personal life of Nathaniel Hawthorne and what lead him to write The Scarlet Letter . It is known th at his other w orks of literature are based on his life and people in his life, so it can be assumed that the same is for The Scarlet Letter. Lauris Pico Albanese took it upon herself to write what she imaged Nathaniel Hawthorne's life was like and what influenced him to write the story of Hester Prynne and The Scarlet Letter.  Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress with generations of secrets she has

  Reasons For Reading This Book: I had seen that The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelidas was a popular read right now (September/October 2022) on social media. I really had no interest in reading it until my mom brought it home from the library. She had read it years ago and remembered liking it but didn't remember the ending so she reread it. When she finished it I started it. I started one because of convenience, two because I was in between reading books on my list, and three because I wanted to see if it lived up to the praise that my mom and others were saying about it. My mom really enjoyed it and couldn't wait until I finished so we could talk about it. I read most of it at my regular pace and then woke up super early one morning to finish it as I was leaving the state for an extended work trip and would not be back when it was due back to the library. My mom was very excited to talk to me about it as she drove me to the airport.  Content of the Book: Alicia Brenderson i

Since returning home from my year of service with AmeriCorps NCCC FEMA Corps I was able to go to one of my favorite stores, Half Priced Books. I went in knowing some of the books that I wanted to buy but also let myself shop around for other books that peaked my interest. If you have been following my blog for sometime you may know that I have a degree in environmental studies and love reading about how to live sustainably, environmental practices, and climate change. This is the first year I am dedicating a full blog post to the environmental and eco books I read in a year. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it. I went in knowing I was going to buy the used copy of Wear No Evil by Greta Eagan . A friend of mine who runs a business on sustainable fashion check her out Hart Collective . I reached out to her to see if she had any books, podcasts, or documentaries that she recommended I watch to learn more about sustainable fashion. She recommend Wear No Evil by Greta

The first 'self-improvement' book that I read in 2022 was The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy by Caroline Dooner . I am not going to get into the details of why I read this book but if you know at all what this book's goal is then you can probably guess my reasoning for reading it. I read this in January and began implementing the practices while reading it. I found this book to be helpful for the initial start of my journey, but also found the content to be very repetitive. With that being said it did kickstart my journey so for that I am grateful. I found the discussions of different starvation and other studies to be very interesting and helpful in understanding the significance of what the author was telling the reader to do. Throughout the book and at the end the author included resources and additional materials on various topics. I have put some of the books given in the resources section on my to read list for 2022.  One of my favorite YouTubers Angie Bellmare

Last year I took all the books I read and ranked them into a list. To make it easier, this year I designed a book bracket that I filled out throughout the year. In this blog post I will share my book rankings for the year along with the links to my reviews of them.  I will continue to update the links in this blog post as I post the remaining reviews for the 2022 year. Books that did not make it passed the first round: The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy by Caroline Dooner 4 star Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart   1 star The Secret by Rhonda Byrne 4 stars Majesty: American Royals 2 by Kathrine McGree  4 stars Every Last Secret by A.R. Torre  4 star A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Dugard  4 stars All Rhodes Lead Here by Mariana Zapata  3 stars The Housewives: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewives by Brian Moylan  5 stars  Girls With Bright Futures by Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman  2 stars We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han  3 stars Everything I Know About Lov

Reasons For Reading This Book: American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins was put on Oprah's Book Club list in 2020 and I have always wanted to read it. When it was first put on the book list I was still in college and had access to the school library where I almost checked it out multiple times. I never went through with it because it was such a long book I did not know if I could commit to it and finish it by the due date. Since then it has still been on my to read list, but I never got around to reading it until I was at a thrift store and they had a copy. I was at a point in my life where I had plenty of time to read and fully immerse myself in the story. I feel as though I read this book on my own time and when I was supposed to read it.  Content of This Book: Lydia Quixano Pérez is bookstore owner living in the city of Acapulco, Mexico. She is a dedicated and loving mother to her only son, Luca and a supportive wife to her journalist husband. Even with the drug cartels slowly starting