It's Monday 5/12! What Are You Reading?

In case you missed the news last week, Great Books for Kids and Teens has merged with Book By Book, and now you can find content from both blogs right here! That includes book reviews of books for middle-grade readers through adults, all in one place. You can still visit Great Books for Kids and Teens to search the archives for great book recommendations for kids, teens, and YA.

Hope all the moms out there had a wonderful Mother’s Day yesterday! We spent the weekend at my mom’s house in Connecticut, to celebrate both her birthday and Mother’s Day, an annual tradition. It was good to see everyone, though a very tiring weekend for me. Now I am by my husband’s side, waiting for him to get eye surgery this morning (no WiFi at the hospital so posting will have to wait).

And today is International ME/CFS Awareness Day. ME/CFS is a debilitating immune disorder that I have had for the past 12 years, and both of my sons have it, too. It has dramatically changed our lives, so if you want to know more about it, head over to my CFS blog.

And that’s all the news – now onto the main subject: books! Here’s what we’ve been reading this week:

• I am reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed, though with our busy weekend, I haven’t had as much time for reading as I’d like. It’s a memoir about how the author hiked the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) in an effort to heal after her mother died and she became self-destructive and lost. It’s excellent so far, a chronicle of both physical challenges and emotional pain and growth.
• I also started - and finished - a graphic novel last week – that’s the only kind of book I can read at the same time as another, since I can squeeze it into little bits of time. This One Summer by cousins Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki was wonderful, the story of two adolescent girls’ summer spent at their families’ cottages on a lake in Canada and all of the changes they are dealing with.
• I finished – yes, finally finished! – Time Management from the Inside Out by Julie Morganstern. I actually read it through twice and have been starting to implement some of her advice as I read. It’s been helpful so far.
• And I started listening to a new audio book, Popular, written by teen author Maya Van Wagenen. It’s wonderful so far – the true chronicle of a modern 8^th grader’s quest to become popular, with the help of a 1950’s popularity guide for girls. Hard to believe the author is just a teen!
• My husband is still reading The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Potzsch on his Kindle. It's a thriller set in Germany in 1660. He hasn’t had a lot of reading time lately, either.
• Jamie, 19, unbelievably finished The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (at over 700 pages) this week and started book 2, Red Seas Under Red Skies. He is loving this series that combines mystery and suspense with fantasy.
• Craig, 16, is officially finished with books in his Brit Lit class – unfortunately, they ran out of time to read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, as planned. I still hope to read it myself this year.

As I mentioned above, I merged my two book blogs into one blog (this one!) to save myself some duplicate effort. So, now all of my book reviews – for all ages – will be posted here. Here are the reviews I posted last week:

Review of Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys, a teen/YA novel

Reviewof The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, an adult novel set in India
What are you and your family reading this week?    

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, with a kid/teen version hosted by Unleashing Readers.