Catching Up: December 2015 Reading Recap

Hi! I'm alive and healthy, I'm not pregnant, and we have not experienced any major emergencies! (These are the three conclusions I always jump to when a blogger stops posting without warning, so I thought I'd go ahead and open with them, in case you were concerned.)

I hope no one minds if I occasionally disappear. One nice thing about blogging as a job/hobby is taking a break whenever I dang feel like. And I was starting to get bored and burned out here, and checking out now and then always helps me recharge. 

A downside of an unplanned blog vacation, though, is realizing you've fallen way behind on some things you were eager to share.

So today I'm catching up on reviews for books I read way back in December 2015 (and I decided halfway through writing this post that, in the interest of space and attention spans, I'd better save January's book reviews for another post, so check in tomorrow for more!). 

Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin 

20 years after being found barely alive amid a pile of corpses with no memory of how she got there or how she survived, Tessa cooperates with lawyers to try and unearth memories of the experience in order to exonerate the man who may have been wrongly accused of the murders. This one was so hard to put down, and I raced through it in a few days. But there were lots of unanswered questions at the end, which annoyed me a bit -- I need closure!

Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson

Written in the style of classic Regency romances, this novel tells the story of Marianne Daventry, a young woman who accepts an invitation to visit a country estate with her beautiful sister, who is determined to catch the eye of the heir of Edenbrooke. Marianne finds herself caught up in a romance of her own with a mysterious stranger. It's breezy and fun and all, and I am deep in the minority by not liking this book much. I kept wishing I was spending my time reading Jane Austen instead. But our book club meeting to discuss it was epic. Check it out.

The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Even after re-reading the summary of this book, it barely sounds familiar at all -- I remember almost nothing about it. Apparently, Ananna runs for the hills when her parents try to force her into a marriage designed to ally two pirate clans, and is hunted by an assassin from the scorned clan. They fall in love, they go on an adventure, etc. Seriously, I remember nothing about this, and if I didn't have it checked off on Goodreads, I would doubt I read it at all. I gave it a measly 2 star rating, soooo. That's that, I guess.

The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell

I'll come right out and admit: this is a weird one, and definitely not for everyone. But it earned a spot among my favorite books of 2015. 16-year old Temple grew up in a world ravaged by zombies and has few memories of her life before being taken in by an old man and young boy who cared for her before a tragedy set her out on her own. Now she wanders between remnants of society and the brutal frontier. But this is not a typical zombie book. It is introspective and thought-provoking and, oddly enough, kind of spiritual. But it is also grisly and a bit scary, and I was definitely upset for a few days after finishing it. Proceed with caution, but if this sounds interesting to you, definitely proceed. I loved it.

The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs by Matthew Dicks

Soft-spoken, easy-going, agreeable Caroline Jacobs always acquiesces, always agrees, always demures. So she shocks herself with a huge outburst at a PTA meeting. She decides her anger can be traced back to a betrayal in her youth that set her on a course of meek cowardice, and realizes she must return to her hometown and confront the former friend who turned on her. I could absolutely relate to Caroline and her obsessive people-pleasing tendencies (I'm working on that myself), so I loved seeing how she grew beyond that. Quick and enjoyable.


What have you read lately?

I'm linking this post up with Modern Mrs. Darcy's Quick Lit -- check it out to see dozens of posts with quick book reviews and recommendations!