what I'm reading lately

Reading is one of my favorite things to do, and once nursing school starts, I probably won't get to pick up another novel until graduation! So this summer I'm trying to read as much as I can :) I've already blogged about my love for Water for Elephants, so here's some opinions on some other books I've read in the past couple weeks.



Steven King's Night Shift

This book is actually a collection of short stories. I hate scary movies because they terrify me for weeks months years later (The Strangers...), but I decided to give these a try. Sadly, they were too much for me to handle and I stopped reading it about a quarter of the way in. Pathetic, I know. Some of the short stories were interesting and some weren't all that interesting to me so I didn't feel the need to go on scaring myself for semi-good stories. I might try to pick it back up again later, but we'll see. One of the short stories I did like was actually a spin of Salem's Lot by Stephen King, so I may try to read that one if I can handle the scary-ness :)


Alone by Lisa Gardner

This book I really liked, though it took me maybe ten chapters or so before I started to get into it. I think I read it in about a day and a half. It isn't a literary work of art or anything, but it is a mystery and a page turner and those are some of my favorite types of books!


The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks



This will probably be the last Nicholas Sparks book I read for a while. Sadly, I'm just never very impressed and I hate the endings of two of the three books I have read by Sparks (didn't like A Walk to Remember, did like Dear John). This might also be the only time I can think of that I preferred the movie to the book it was based on. The book is much different than the movie in that it focuses on when Allie comes back to town and when the narrator is older (to not give anything away in case there is anyone on the planet who hasn't seen The Notebook!). The end is also very drawn out and quite boring, and it ends ambiguously which I didn't like. I still love the movie and a lot of the quotes from the book, but this one wasn't one of my favorites.


The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

M was highly insulted that I gave up on this book before finishing the first chapter because I think it is SO boring (and he hasn't even read it haha)! I apologize if you agree with him, but really I'd like to think I could read anything but I just have no interest in this book, though I did try. If you haven't read it, the copy that I had, which contained all three volumes, has so many appendices they took up half the book! And on top of that, an extremely long preface to recap then entire history of hobbits in case you hadn't read The Hobbit first (I haven't). Really a book that needs that much explaining just couldn't keep my attention. Sorry Tolkien.


False Memory by Dean Koontz

I started this one not too long ago, and so far I'm surprised that I have a hard time staying awake while reading it! I sit down to read and it turns into a nap pretty quickly. I'm going to keep trying to get through the drawn out beginning to the (surely?) more interesting parts before giving up on it.

Other books I want to read this summer...

Sorry this blog layout has a ming of its own and changes up the picture/text layout no matter what I do!