Tag: the help

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with sensory memories

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Happy Top Ten Tuesday! Today’s theme was submitted by Jessica at A Cocoon of Books. It’s an interesting and unique theme: books with sensory reading memories (where I was, what time of year it was, who I was with, what I was eating, etc.) At first, I thought I’d have trouble with this theme, but then the memories just started rolling in.
  • Honestly, I remember little to nothing about What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones. I read it in the summer after seventh grade (2003) and Far Away by Staind was super popular. I remember that it came on the radio while I was reading and now every time I hear that song, I think about this book.
  • I remember that it was hot as all heck when I read Beauty Queens by Libba Bray.
  • I read Room by Emma Donoghue in an airport when I arrived five hours early for my flight because I am an anxious person and for some reason, I was just convinced that the plane was going to leave without me.
  • I read The Help by Kathryn Stockett in an airport amid a blizzard as my flight was delayed one hour… then two hours… then three hours… then four hours…
  • Some backstory: back in 2013, I lived in a more or less abandoned area of town in a huge house that had been converted into multiple apartments. The house was actually pretty nice but it had five doors. As I mentioned, I am an incredibly anxious person and was therefore always checking to make sure all five doors were locked. It didn’t help that this apartment was like a quarter mile from this super seedy motel where actual murders had happened. My boyfriend had to go to New Mexico for like two months for work and I made the brilliant decision to read Gone Girl while alone in the house.
  • I read Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher on the last shift of my last college job. RIP jobs that paid me to read. I did not take advantage of it nearly enough.
  • I read Lovers Like Us by Krista & Becca Ritchie in the guest room of my mom’s house and felt suuuuper awkward about it.
  • I read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green right after my boyfriend moved halfway across the country. Honestly, it was probably not the ideal time to read a sad book like that because I remember sobbing like crazy. I don’t usually cry when reading!
  • In 2011, I had a job that I absolutely loved tutoring high school kids after school. I made a lot of really great friends and I hope that I made a difference in those kids’ lives. I was in my senior year of college and it was our spring break when I read the entire Hunger Games trilogy over the course of a weekend (plus Monday morning). I wasn’t really paying attention to the fact that it was not actually the kids’ spring break, so I went to the high school a total zombie. I told all my kids to read it.
  • I was so excited when Infini by Krista & Becca Ritchie finally came out. It’s probably my favorite book that they’ve ever written and Luka is one of my all-time favorite characters. I was anticipating it so much that I considered taking a day off work to read it. I ended up not doing that because I couldn’t justify it, but then I woke up with a horrible cold the morning after it came out. I never get sick! I ended up taking a sick day and reading most of the book while trying (and generally failing) to breathe.

Honestly, I could keep going! I have sensory memories about so many books, but I’ll stop here. Do you ever get transported right back to where you were, what was going on in your life, or the people you were with when you read a particular book?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I loved more than I expected

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Happy Top Ten Tuesday!  I actually forgot to post this last week, and I even had everything all ready to go!  Luckily for me, this week is a TTT hiatus, so I have another chance to post it.

Anyway, this topic is all about books that I loved more than I thought I would.  There was an option to do books that I disliked, but I figured I’ve talked about those enough!  I tried to go back in time since I feel like I’m always raving about the same few books.  I went way back to 2013 for this one, so I hope you enjoy!

Please feel free to send me any books that you’ve enjoyed more than expected and I’ll add them to my TBR!

The Help by Kathryn Stockett: I have a documented problem with bestsellers.

Margot by Jillian Cantor: Historical fiction about the Holocaust, however important it may be, is not my favorite topic.

In the Blood by Lisa Unger: I don’t read a lot of thrillers and I really like kids, so I don’t generally enjoy books about creepy children.

Stiff by BB Hamel: This was the first stepbrother romance I ever read and I honestly did not expect to like it even one bit.

Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan: If I’m honest, I don’t generally love memoirs. Especially memoirs from people I’ve never even heard of before. But this was surprisingly good and it read like fiction, which helped a lot.

Marie Antoinette’s Head by Will Bashor: Although I was a huge fan of Sofia Coppola’s film about her life, Marie Antoinette’s hairdresser does not top my list of interests.

Lust is the Thorn by Jen McLaughlin: I really just requested this book for kicks, but even though I went to thirteen years of Catholic school and have never thought of a priest sexually before, this book was HOT!

The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland by Rebekah Crane: As a rule, I’m generally skeptical of anything from Kindle First, but this book was honestly really great.

Seventh Heaven by Alice Hoffman: I only read this book because I needed something published in 1990 for 2015’s reading challenge and it was enchanting.

The Void Series by Peter F. Hamilton: I don’t read a lot of epic fantasy – like the real kind that spans universes and millennia – but Hamilton is one of my boyfriend’s favorite authors and I can clearly see why.

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Goodreads | Amazon

What can I really say about The Help that hasn’t already been said? I mean, look at the Goodreads statistics. As I’m writing this, the book has 1,103,394 ratings and 70,412 reviews. It has an average of 4.44 stars. This is a book that nearly everybody adores. (And when they don’t adore it, they absolutely hate it.)

I’m usually a little bit afraid to read books when they get so much hype. I put the book up on a pedestal, and then I’m usually disappointed. It’s happened with a number of best sellers that I guess I just didn’t quite “get.” So when one of my coworkers gave me this book a few months ago, it sat on my bookshelf waiting for an opportunity to be read. Waiting for me to finish my advance copies. Waiting for me to finish the series I was reading. Waiting for me to find an excuse to read it.

That excuse came in the form of a much-delayed flight. I’d thrown The Help in my suitcase as a sort of “just in case” book. I hadn’t really expected to read it, but my flight was delayed by a half hour, then an hour, then two hours, and I had to do something to occupy my time. I heavily sighed, bought a cup of coffee, and powered through this book in a couple hours.

(Coincidentally, the same thing happened with Room, which I also read in an airport at the peak of its popularity, and really enjoyed.)

I was surprised at how easy it was to read The Help. It flows so easily from one chapter to the next, from one character to the next. It’s a difficult topic – civil rights in 1960’s Mississippi – but it never feels heavy. Stockett seems to effortlessly get her point across without hammering it over the reader’s head. I laughed, I teared up, and I really, really enjoyed this book.

Final rating: ★★★★★