2013 Book Review

I've done this post for a couple of years now, and I do it mostly just for my memory. I tend to read something, think it's wonderful and fantastic, and then a few months later find it hard to recall why I liked/disliked the book so much. I'm also a list keeper/checker-offer and I like keeping track of things like this. However, maybe you might find something you'd like to read as well. Hope it helps!

1. Biography of Mary Ashcroft Crosby
I'm so grateful for the history my Grandma Crosby and her Dad kept. I LOVED reading it and was so sad when it ended about 30 premature. I've been nagging her ever since to keep writing her history.

2. Tess of The Durbevilles- Thomas Hardy
Loved it! It's a bit of a darker book, which I oddly tend to like. A girl's life is pretty much ruined by her parents and being raped. She struggles to raise herself out of her circumstances the entire book, and almost succeeds when she falls in love with a man on the farm where she works. I'll leave it there in case you're planning on reading it.

3. A Heart Like His- Virginia H. Pearce
It's nice to have a quick, uplifting, religious read here and there throughout the year. I enjoyed her honesty and openness.

4. Screwtape Letters- C.S. Lewis
What a great read! It wasn't necessarily quick read, I had to keep re-reading things to try and get the full impact of what was being said, but it was powerful! It's a fictional set of letters written between 2 agents of the adversary who are trying to corrupt a young man. Sometimes it was scary to "peak into their minds" and find yourself in the same traps being set for the young man. Powerful.

5. Unbroken- Laura Hildebrand
Long book, but I read this one the fastest. Holy cow, what an amazing story! It's the biography of a WW2 vet whose plane gets shot down by the Japanese. It's the story of his survival and one of the most riveting stories I've ever read. There are some graphic things that happen in the book, but it's not blown up in great detail or anything, it's just the nature of what was happening. Just FYI.

6. Miseducation- David Elkind
I had to read this book while I was getting my degree, and every now and again I'll pull it out to refresh my memory. I tend to get caught up in the idea that I have to push my children, and they're falling behind because of me, and if I don't get them into certain programs they're at a disadvantage! AHHH! So then I pull this book out and remind myself to be a sane person and calm down. He goes into detail about the type of culture we live in, as far as raising super-kids goes, and documents why it probably does more harm than good.

7. SOS Parenting
Yup, I've already forgotten most of this book.

8. Sing and Sign with your Baby
I mostly just skimmed through this book because it's formatted in a series of lesson plans, for the most part. It will come in handy when I actually put it into practice when this baby gets here. I really loved signing with Miles, but dropped the ball with Gwen. It's so helpful, I totally recommend it.

9.The Hurried Child- David Elkind
Same author as "Miseducation", same idea as "Miseducation."

10. Daughters In My Kingdom
How ridiculous is it that it's taken me this long to read this book? The church put it out, what, like 5 years ago? I'd read parts, but not from front to back in it's entirety. This needs to be on your reading list if you haven't already read it. Really good information.

11. Letters- Marjorie Pay Hinckley
Who would have thought that a bunch of "meaningless" letters about daily life could be so entertaining! I loved reading about the prophet's wife as a person, and a mother. What a tender and real woman.


12. Les Miserables- Victor Hugo
I was intimidated by the idea of reading this book. I mean, it's like a million pages right? I actually got through it a lot faster than I thought I would have. It was fantastic! Yes, I read the unabridged, but I don't feel I can claim bragging rights because when it got to those long, filler parts about the war and about the sewer, I totally skipped them. The thing I'm going to remember most about reading this book is how much I disliked Marius! In the plays and movies he's portrayed so differently (I feel), and in the book he just seemed like a love-sick wimp. I loved learning the back stories of all the characters, and even the back stories of all the "lesser" characters. So fantastic!


13. Becoming Jane Austen
I was anticipating this book to read like a fictional book, so I got slowed down when it read like the biography it is. It took me a while to finish, but nonetheless, it was a good read. I'm amazed at how many Jane Austen books I've never read (or heard of). It was fascinating to watch her life progress and how that played into her own writing.

14. Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy
Technically I finished this book a day or two ago, but I'm counting it for 2013 because I read most of it last year. Wow, what a fantastic book! This is also a whopper of a book, but I read it much faster than Le Miz. Even the parts where I felt like Tolstoy was just filling up space were interesting to me because of the way he wrote. A brief synopsis is that it follows the progression of 3 couples. 1 married couple has issues with infidelity but tries to make it work, at the expense of their overall happiness. 1 couple develops a wonderful relationship and it is full of everything that a healthy relationship should have. And the last is between Anna Karenina and her husband, and her lover. It never went into juicy details of the affairs, but it showed you in detail how those choices affected everything else and essentially ruined people's lives. It ends on a happy note, however, and I really enjoyed reading it.

I'd like to out-read myself this upcoming year, but let's be realistic, I'll be happy with a few good books here and there. What are some of your favorites that I should put on my list for 2014?