The Running Bibliophile

In an effort to meet my reading challenge on Goodreads.com, Second Best created by Francine Pascal is one of four books I read in the Sweet Valley Twins book series. It is the sixteenth book in the series.  Growing up, these books targeted kids eight years old up to twelve years old and in third grade through seventh grade. However, I think they have changed the target ages to younger age groups because children are learning to read much earlier and growing up a lot faster than when I was kid. Second Best (Sweet Valley Twins #16) deals with seventh grader Dylan McKay feeling like he is second best to his younger brother Tom McKay, who is in the sixth grade. Tom is the popular kid who does well at everything he does . . . making friends, playing sports, and getting good grades. When Dylan learns that he hasn't been invited to Kimberly Haver 's party, but his brother has, Dylan decides to run away. The first thing I have to mention that I never noticed until I ...

I belong to a couple of book clubs, and one of them reads a bit of everything. It's this book club that chose It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover as one of three book selections for the December Book Club Meeting. Normally, we only have two selections, and we can choose to read one of them or both of them. I decided to go with the aforementioned book because it takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, and Boston is one of my favorite cities to visit. With that being said, I wasn't too sure I'd like this book because we had read another one of Colleen Hoover's books, and it was just okay. Anyways, despite the heavy topics in It Ends With Us , I ended up loving the book. Topics included spousal abuse, accidental death by gun, and homelessness. It does include some graphic scenes, so it may be too upsetting for people to read if they've gone through any of this in their life. At the very end of the novel, the Collen Hoover explains that the book is semi-autobiograp...

Back in October, my local library system, which has 16 libraries throughout the county, had their semi-annual book sale where all proceeds help the library system. I was originally supposed to be in Nashville for the weekend but had to cancel my plans at the last minute, so I decided to go to the library sale instead. Browsing through the books, I came across a book that I loved in middle school called Horseback Summer (Horse Crazy # 1) by Virginia Vail. I didn't even hesitate, I grabbed the book and bought it for old times sake. Now if I can only get my hands on the rest of the series! There was some drama in my neighborhood earlier this week and knowing that there might be some additional drama tonight, I decided I needed to read something that wouldn't be too dramatic or to difficult to read. It was a perfect time to read Horseback Summer (Horse Crazy # 1) . As I began, it was exactly as I remembered and brought back all those fuzzy wuzzy feelings of my childhood. ...

When I heard that Paula Hawkins was coming out with another book called Into the Water , I was super excited. I really enjoyed The Girl on the Train so I expected her second novel to be even better. I deliberately stayed away from reviews of Into the Water because I didn't want my mind colored by anyone else's thoughts of the book. However, with that being said, I kept procrastinating on either buying the book or checking it out from the library, so the more chance there was that I'd actually read reviews or hear one of my friends talk about the book before I actually got around to reading it.  I would have probably procrastinated even more had one of the book clubs I belong to not selected it to discuss in December. I finally bought Into the Water on November 12 while at Target and began reading it that day, but I didn't get too far into it. It just wasn't grabbing my attention. It wasn't until this past Sunday that I started to really dive into it b...

Has a book ever made such an impact on you while growing up that you desperately wanted a sequel? P.S. I Love You (Sweet Dreams, # 1) by Barbara Conklin was one of those books for me. I recently checked out the reviews of this particular book on Goodreads.com, and much to my surprise, a couple of people mentioned that there was a sequel.  I immediately started looking for Falling In Love Again (Sweet Dreams, # 23) by Barbara Conklin on BarnesAndNoble.com and Amazon.com as these are my go to sites for used books. Both sites said that they were temporarily out of stock, which was the second time I had received a message like this when looking for a used book, and I was starting to panic because I really wanted to know what happened.  Then, I remembered I had bought a few used books from ThriftBooks.com . I searched their site, and couldn't find the book at first. I changed my search parameters and three copies were available. All three of their copies were only in ...

During a school book fair in middle school, I stumbled upon a teen romance series called Sweet Dreams . Each book in the series is actually a stand alone book. In addition, each book in the series is written by a different author with many of the authors penning several throughout the years.  I believe the first book I picked up was The Golden Girl (Sweet Dreams, # 169)  by Jane Ballard, which was about a teenage girl who wins a contest to become the Trent's Department Store spokesperson. I loved the book and began reading more and more books from the series, which started in 1981. One of the books, The Popularity Plan (Sweet Dreams, # 2)  by Rosemary Vernon was one that I desperately wanted to read but had trouble finding. I finally gave up looking in my college years. Fast forward 15 years . . . buying used books on Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com had become a popular thing, and they were making it easier to find them. ThriftBooks.com was advertising The Popul...

With Crooked House coming out in theaters soon, I knew I had to reread the book before watching the movie, and I was glad that I did. I didn't remember anything about the book going into it, but as I read, bits and pieces started coming back to me. Reader beware . . . this mystery is one of Agatha Christie's stand alone books that is not part of any of her popular detective series . . . so no Hercule Poirot & his little gray cells, no Miss Marple, and no Tommy & Tuppence. Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot series is my favorite so at first I was a bit disappointed that he wasn't in this particular book. The book begins with the narrator, Charles Hayward, meeting Sophia Leonides in Egypt during the European War, which we know better as World War II. Charles instantly falls in love with Sophia but since it is too soon for him to propose to her, they make plans on meeting in England once the war is over to see if they are both still available and interested i...

Looking at the cover of Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, my expectations weren't high going in as it had a similar look and feel to the covers of Emily Giffin books. There is also the fact that many of the people I knew that were raving about Me Before You have completely different taste in books than I do. The journey you take with the characters is a hard one because it deals with a man, Will Traynor, who is involved in an accident and becomes a quadriplegic. He becomes depressed with his situation and has no desire to live on. Louisa Clark is brought on to be his day to day caregiver and companion by Will's parents in hopes that she will help him change his mind about assisted suicide. Louisa isn't aware of the fact that Will wishes to die until she overhears his mother talking about it with Will's sister. Louisa does some research and plans things for Will to do in hopes he will change his mind. There are readers out there that feel like Jojo Moyes is tel...