Tag Archives: What I’m Reading

What I’m Reading: The Rosie Effect

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From Goodreads.com:
Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are back. If you were swept away by Graeme Simsion’s international smash hit The Rosie Project, you will love The Rosie Effect.

The Wife Project is complete, and Don and Rosie are happily married and living in New York. But they’re about to face a new challenge.

Rosie is pregnant.

Don sets about learning the protocols of becoming a father, but his unusual research style gets him into trouble with the law. Fortunately his best friend Gene is on hand to offer advice: he’s left Claudia and moved in with Don and Rosie.

As Don tries to schedule time for pregnancy research, getting Gene and Claudia back together, servicing the industrial refrigeration unit that occupies half his apartment, helping Dave the Baseball Fan save his business and staying on the right side of Lydia the social worker, he almost misses the biggest problem of all: he might lose Rosie when she needs him most.

Get ready to fall in love all over again.

My review:
I finally decided to download The Rosie Effect last week after much deliberation. It’s been over a year since I read the first story of Don and Rosie in The Rosie Project (link to my review here), and I once found myself cheering for Don. There’s something strangely loveable about him and I couldn’t help but want him to “win.”

The actions of some of the characters in this book were rather irritating, however. Rosie, who should know how Don’s brain is programmed to work, should have done more to keep him in the pregnancy loop. Granted, she was busy with everything going on in her own life, but knowing that you have to give Don specific instructions if you need him to complete a task, I feel she was too quick to judge Don for his emotional detachment. And unless I missed something – why did Rosie not discuss having a baby before, *ahem*, pulling the goalie and getting pregnant?

I’m thankful for Don’s team of friends for supporting him while he tries to figure out how to be a father and how to save his marriage. The story could have done without George though; I felt he didn’t particularly add anything to the storyline that was essential to Don’s development. The only thing he seemed to teach Don was to maybe not tell your kids to go ahead and try drugs. (Parent of the Year, right there.)

Despite my slight irritations, I still really enjoyed the second instalment of Don & Rosie’s journey, and I’m going to give it 4 stars out of 5. I dare you to read it without picturing Sheldon Cooper as Don.

What I’M Reading: Who Do You Love

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From Goodreads.com:
Rachel Blum and Andy Landis are eight years old when they meet late one night in an ER waiting room. Born with a congenital heart defect, Rachel is a veteran of hospitals, and she’s intrigued by the boy who shows up all alone with a broken arm. He tells her his name. She tells him a story. After Andy’s taken back to the emergency room and Rachel’s sent back to her bed, they think they’ll never see each other again.

Rachel, the beloved, popular, and protected daughter of two doting parents, grows up wanting for nothing in a fancy Florida suburb. Andy grows up poor in Philadelphia with a single mom and a rare talent that will let him become one of the best runners of his generation.

Over the course of three decades, through high school and college, marriages and divorces, from the pinnacles of victory and the heartbreak of defeat, Andy and Rachel will find each other again and again, until they are finally given a chance to decide whether love can surmount difference and distance and if they’ve been running toward each other all along.

With honesty, wit, and clear-eyed observations about men and women, love and fate, and the truth about happy endings, Jennifer Weiner delivers two of her most memorable characters, and a love story you’ll never forget.

My review:
First of all, can I just say how pathetic it is that I haven’t read a book since April? Sad, sad, sad. Honestly, there just hasn’t been anything out there that has piqued my interest, but I knew Jennifer Weiner was coming out with a new book in the summer, so I held off.

I’m glad I did! Jennifer Weiner’s newest novel did not disappoint and was just what I needed as a post-baby pick-me-up. It was an easy read but an enjoyable one, and I finished the book (which I had bought and downloaded for my Kobo the day it was released) in just over a week! Not bad considering I only read it while I was nursing Norah; I even switched lamps around so I had better lighting and could see the screen, that’s how much I liked the book!

While the ending was rather predictable, as it is with the majority of romance stories of any form, I couldn’t help but still cheer for the two main characters, Rachel and Andy, to find their way back into each other’s arms. Their story of high school romance hit close to home for me, with Kyle and I being high school sweethearts, and I found myself with my fingers all crossed for them to cross paths just one more time.

What don’t I like about the story? Not much, however, I do wish that we got to know a bit more about Andy and his background. His “chapters” were more subdued, just like his character, and I wish more was revealed about his background. Still, I couldn’t help but love the way things worked out for both him and Rachel in the end.

Overall, I’m going to give Who Do You Love 5 stars out of 5. I can safely place it amongst my top three favourite Jennifer Weiner books.

What I’m Reading: American Sniper

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From Goodreads.com:
From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. The Pentagon has officially confirmed more than 150 of Kyle’s kills (the previous American record was 109), but it has declined to verify the astonishing total number for this book. Iraqi insurgents feared Kyle so much they named him al-Shaitan (“the devil”) and placed a bounty on his head. Kyle earned legendary status among his fellow SEALs, Marines, and U.S. Army soldiers, whom he protected with deadly accuracy from rooftops and stealth positions. Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle’s masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the great war memoirs of all time.

A native Texan who learned to shoot on childhood hunting trips with his father, Kyle was a champion saddle-bronc rider prior to joining the Navy. After 9/11, he was thrust onto the front lines of the War on Terror, and soon found his calling as a world-class sniper who performed best under fire. He recorded a personal-record 2,100-yard kill shot outside Baghdad; in Fallujah, Kyle braved heavy fire to rescue a group of Marines trapped on a street; in Ramadi, he stared down insurgents with his pistol in close combat. Kyle talks honestly about the pain of war—of twice being shot and experiencing the tragic deaths of two close friends.

American Sniper also honors Kyle’s fellow warriors, who raised hell on and off the battlefield. And in moving first-person accounts throughout, Kyle’s wife, Taya, speaks openly about the strains of war on their marriage and children, as well as on Chris.

Adrenaline-charged and deeply personal, American Sniper is a thrilling eyewitness account of war that only one man could tell.

My review:
I’ll say right off the bat that I watched the movie before I read the book. I bought the book for Kyle (my husband, not the author, obviously) for his birthday after we watched the movie in theatre and he said that while he enjoyed the movie, he didn’t LOVE it because of everything he had heard/read about Chris Kyle and the controversy behind, well, everything. I’m not going to delve into the politics behind Kyle’s (the author, not my husband, lol) experiences or the war overseas in general because to be 100% honest, I haven’t paid too much attention to it all. This is just a review of the book. I digress … 

(And for the record, when I mention Kyle from here on out, I’m referring to the author, not my husband …)

Diving into the book, I found it to be a really interesting read, especially since reading it helped explain some of the events that occurred in the movie. The movie reflected the book almost perfectly, with the exception of a couple of events that were changed to make the movie more “Hollywood” I guess. (I won’t give anything away for those who haven’t read the book or watched the movie.)

It’s hard to really be critical about an autobiography, though, and this is only the 4th one I’ve ever read. I know a lot of skeptics have criticized Kyle for writing this book, but I think it’s a bold thing to do for someone who had so much first-hand, up-close-and-personal experiences with the war. You put a lot on the line when you lay out your life story like the way Kyle does.

He is also a relatable person, when you take away the war and the preconceived notions that he’s a “killer.” In the end, all he wanted to do was his job, and is that not what most of us want to do? Whether you live to sell stocks, bag groceries, or be overseas fighting for your country, it doesn’t matter; Kyle just wanted to serve his country and made that very clear.

I know everyone has their own opinion on the war, so before I start making things too political after I said I would refrain, I’ll nip this review in the bud. Overall, I still give American Soldier 4 stars out of 5. It was an extremely interesting and eye-opening read, and I definitely recommend those who are interested in the movie to read the autobiography instead.