Weekly Round Up #8

I hope that all of you had a fabulous Thanksgiving! My parents came down to visit for a few days and we had a great time. I love when they get to come down and visit with us. We did some shopping on Black Friday too. Because we live in Key West there’s not much down here shopping-wise so we drove up to Miami and we were gone for 18 hours! We found a bunch of good deals and it was surprisingly calm! We didn’t have anyone that was nasty and the longest line was only about 20 minutes! We had a lot of fun and I was able to get some Christmas presents while I was up there too.

It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to sit down and write one of these! I’ve missed doing the Weekly Round Ups but now that (mostly) everything has settled down I’m going to try to go back to doing them every week.

This last week I read quite a few books, most of which were excellent! Books in blue are finished and books in purple are in progress. Just in case someone is color blind or having this read out loud to them I will also have the words “finished” or “in-progress” in parenthesis as well.

• I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella (finished)
  • This book was recommended to me by one of my coworkers and friends, Patricia. This book was fantastic! I read it in about 2 days and it just flew by. It is a British rom-com all about Poppy Wyatt and her upcoming marriage to her fiance, Magnus. It all starts out when Poppy loses her engagement ring and then her phone all in the same day. Luckily for Poppy she finds a new phone! But technically, it’s not hers. The phone’s owner needs it back but Poppy persuades him to let her borrow it, just until her ring is found. The rest of the story is cringey, hilarious, and just all around wonderful. I would highly recommend this to any fans of romantic comedies, romance novels, or just lighter fare in general. 5 out of 5
• Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World by Pénélope Bagieu (finished)
  • This was a fantastic non-fiction book all about women throughout history that made a difference in some way or another. This book included women who are unfortunately gone from this world and ladies who are still with us. I absolutely LOVED this book. Some of the women I was familiar with but most I had never heard of before. The illustrations were amazing as well and I will definitely be adding this one to my collection. I really learned a lot reading this book and I would highly recommend it to anyone!
• Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani (finished)
  • This was a really great book! I originally heard about it from a different book, Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks by Annie Spence that I read in November. I wasn’t sure if I would like this when I started out reading it but it grew on me quickly. The main character, Ave Marie, is a 35 year old women that owns her own home and business, does not have a boyfriend or children and really is just living on her own doing her own thing. It was very refreshing to read about a woman that was older (NOT old) and was just doing her own thing without necessarily looking for love in the process. I also loved the dialect in this book. Being from the South it wasn’t to hard to fall into the mountain language of Big Stone Gap. I would highly recommend this to pretty much anyone but especially women who are about to hit the big 3-0 and aren’t sure if their life is going how they want.
• Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (in-progress)
  • I’m reading this one along with one of my coworkers but we are struggling to finish it. Not that it is bad. We’re attempting to read classics that we haven’t read yet and since I really liked Of Mice and Men when I read that last year, we thought this one would be a good one to try out. I’m liking it so far but like I said, I’m struggling to finish it.

That was all for this last week! Come say hi on Twitter!