Summer Reading Part Two

Summer is coming much closer to an end.  I can't believe the weather we are having here in Georgia.  We have had about 4/5 days of mixed weather.  Rain in the morning and sunshine and humidity in the afternoon.  I have noticed that some of the trees in my neighborhood are starting to change color which is three weeks earlier than normal.  I am not ready for summer to be over, so I am hoping that we still have a good month of warm sunny days ahead of us as I have a few garden BBQs planned for the month of  September.  Unfortunately, I didn't get as many books as I would have liked to read this summer. Taking care of the children's needs just took precedence.

Can't Hurt Me took the majority of the summer to read.  It is a heavy book. I am not one to read multiple books at one time, so this book was definitely one of the reasons I only managed to read three books.  This book was suggested to me by my husband. I probably wouldn't have picked this book. As I normally don't read these types of books. David Goggins tells the story of growing up in an abusive, poor, black family in Indiana where being black made one stand out even more. The story moves on quickly from victim to what I did to change my circumstances and this is what you can do as well when faced with adversity.  Let's just say David went on to achieve many great things despite the mountains of challenges he faced. His story is very inspiring. Warning the book is laced with lots of bad language, not a book I would give to a teenager though I don't know because they probably hear this type of language at school.

Loved, Loved, Loved this book.  This book is reminiscent of Patriot Games and The Fugitive-type stories. I appreciate that David writes just a pure clean story.  What I mean by that is that he doesn't feel the need to add bad language for the sake of attracting an audience, and the same goes for adding love scenes for the same purpose. Don't take me wrong, I am not against that if it adds to the story or if it is necessary for furthering the storyline; however, I find so many authors today put things in like that simply because they feel like they won't sell books if they don't.  This wasn't the first time I have read from this author.  I read his book Wish You Well many years ago and really enjoyed the story.  If you enjoy a little whose done-it kind of story then you will enjoy this book.

A Separate Peace was a book that I found at my local park in one of those free book libraries.  The book is not very long, but for some reason, it also took me a while to read. The book is set in New Hampshire during WW2 in an all-boys private boarding school.  The story explores the theme of coming of age between two friends in a time of war when there is a definite expectation to serve one's country and peer pressure from the other boys at the school. On the title of the book cover I had it promised an element of Evil.  I will let the reader be the judge of that.  I would say the book was more or less a cautionary tail.  I didn't love the story, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a good story.

Well, I need to run. I have a bunch of things I need to do before the weekend starts. I am co-hosting a party tomorrow night for a family at church, who is going away on a world adventure of traveling with their children, and I promised to make some of the food.  I need to run to Costco to get some of the ingredients for that.  I hope you have a great weekend.