Read This Book!

I’m an advocate for books. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m known for. I became a teacher because I wanted to share my passion for books with others, hoping they would fall in love with reading too. I am so enthusiastic about books I love that I do little happy dances and tell people if they don’t read that book right now they are missing out on life and happiness.

When friends or family want a good book, they ask me. I’ve never left a doctor’s office without recommending at least two books to pretty much every single person I talk to. I read while waiting in the doctor’s office, which means the nurse always wants to talk to me about books. If it is a doctor I visit often, they start asking for recommendations the moment they see me. Once the doctor comes in, we usually spend more time talking books than about what I’ve come into the office for. And I love every single minute of it.

When I talk books, I talk about the ones I love. The ones that kept me up at night, that were the reason my husband had to dig out his oldest pair of jeans because nothing else was clean, the reason I considered playing hooky from work just to stay home and read all day. I talk about the ones that made me cry. Made me laugh. Made me read them several times.

Because this is what we do when we love books. We want others to love them too. I don’t recommend books I don’t like, the ones I can’t finish, the ones I toss aside in disgust. Yes, I’ve read plenty like that. But no one wants to hear about those. They want to hear about the ones I loved so that maybe they will fall in love too.

So that is why I only review books I like, and that is why if you check out my Goodreads, you’ll only see 4s and 5s. No, not every book I read gets 4s and 5s. Sometimes I’ll go a couple of months without updating because I don’t love the books I’m reading. I decided a while back that I would only talk about those books I would recommend to others. That’s what I do.

I do believe there is a need for critical reviews. I have plenty of opinions about why books didn’t work for me. I discuss those with my book club or friends who have read the same book. I adore critical book discussions, picking apart the character development, voice, plot. But my blog reviews and Goodreads were created to get others to read. I sort of feel like that’s my calling.

So here are a few of the books that I love. And keep checking out my blog or Goodreads if you want to hear about more.

 

A few of my favorites:

IT by Stephen King

A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES by Deborah Harkness

REBECCA by Dauphne du Maurier
FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
THE SWAN THIEVES and THE HISTORIAN by Elizabeth Kostova
Anything Jane Austen, but particulary PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
THE SHADOW OF THE WIND by Carlos Ruiz Zafron
 

HARRY POTTER by JK Rowling (obviously)

JELLICOE ROAD by Marlina Marchetta
CRACKED UP TO BE by Courtney Summers
SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS  and AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES by John Green
JUST ONE DAY by Gayle Foreman
THIRTEEN REASONS WHY by Jay Asher

(And I’m going to stop there because once I started making this list it started getting out of hand. How do you pick your favorite books?!)

Happy Reading!