Catching up on book reviews

I think I've read six books since the last time I updated my reviews, so I thought I'd crank out some super short reviews and let you know what I've been reading.

taken from Goodreads.com

I heard about this book on the Relevant podcast and decided to look into it recently in an effort to learn a little bit more about myself. The concept of the Ennegram, which is essentially a personality spectrum, is not unique to this particular book at all but I chose this one to have the added bonus of learning about my personality/strengths/weaknesses through a Godly and Biblical perspective. It was really interesting and I've learned a lot...now comes the hard part of actually implementing it. If you're curious about learning more about yourself and why you may respond to things the way you do, I'd definitely recommend it.

taken from Goodreads.com

I mentioned recently that I reread the first book in this particular Lemony Snicket All the Wrong Questions series, and here's the second one. It was just as good as the first, and I loved every sentence. I have to say, again, that I am just so incredibly impressed with Snicket's (or, Daniel Handler, which is his real name) writing style. The man is a wordsmith, and if you haven't read any of his books I strongly recommend them. Just pick one and start reading. You won't regret it.

taken from Goodreads.com

Since I was able to listen to All the Light We Cannot See via audiobook a couple months ago, I thought I'd give Seabiscuit a try too. I'm glad I listened to it, but I just did not enjoy it that much. There were parts that were really interesting - particularly the descriptions of how the jockeys lived - but overall I just didn't really like it. I don't think that was Hillenbrand's fault as much as it was my fault for thinking I'd be interested in the topic. Oh well. Now I know.

taken from Goodreads.com

My mom's been recommending that I read this book for years, and I finally snagged a copy and read it recently. It is very very good; it's actually less about anxiety than it is about contentment, and learning how to trust God with everything that your life is in order to be fully content and let all the fears, stresses, and anxieties go. It's rooted in scripture as well as lots of personal testimonies, and I really enjoyed it. It will be one that gets revisited every year or so to remind myself.

taken from Goodreads.com

This was on my reading goal list for the year; it's one of the ones I grabbed from the Green Valley Book Fair and thought looked interesting. It's about a 17 year boy whose family was on a reality TV show when he was five, and everyone knows him as the problem toddler who wreaked havoc on his family for years on national television. The plot was super interesting and unique, but I feel like about halfway through the book King lost me a little. Maybe it was too long, or maybe I didn't really feel like I understood the main character anymore...I don't know what it was. But I didn't love it. It was interesting, but I didn't love it.

taken from Goodreads.com

And the third book of Snicket's new series was finished last night. I got a couple of questions answered which was nice, but still have lots of questions that I hope get answered in Book 4 (the last one). It's also really cool how in this book he's starting to reveal some similar plots and characters from the Series of Unfortunate Events, which is what we all really want, am I right?


So this last book makes #17 for the year so far. I couldn't really tell whether I should be happy with that or feel like I'm slacking, so I decided to crunch some numbers. This time last year, I had read 20 books, which is obviously more than 17 but not by a ton. It's also significant to note that of those 20 last year, 12 of them were audiobooks and only 8 were on my Kindle; this year only 2 of the 17 I've read are audiobooks and 15 were either on my Kindle or in real flesh-and-blood books. So on the one hand, I completed more books last year by this time but I have devoted more time to actually reading this year (since I listen to audiobooks by way of multitasking, while cleaning and washing dishes and driving, etc.). So I'm happy with those numbers, and I'm also excited for the opportunities for reading this summer will provide. I've still got quite the stack of books staring at me waiting to be read.