I set a goal to finish 75 books in 2019 and a second goal that 25 of those books will be self-help or educational. Those types of books inspire me and help me with blogging so I wanted to make sure a good amount of my total books read come from that area.
By the way, I’m truly loving using GoodReads to track my reading. You all were right! It is really motivational to see my progress! I’m a little behind where I should be towards my reading goal but I’ve been reading a ton lately. So I’m confident I will catch up.
I wanted to start sharing every month what I’ve read and how I liked them. I find so many great books from other bloggers and on Instagram so I wanted to start sharing mine.
I finished 6 books in September —- which is great! Here’s what I read + my honest thoughts on each of the books:
1. The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger
I get lots of emails on books that are popular or recommended to me and this was one of them. I didn’t know if I would really get much out of this book but I wanted to give it a read.
I’m so glad that I did because this was a fantastic read. It was super interesting to read bob’s life working in entertainment and eventually running Disney.
He shares tons of great advice and information about being successful as well as lots of interesting behind the scenes information about running Disney and interactions he had over the years.
My rating 5 stars
2. A Grownup Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson
This year I discovered books by Joshilyn Jackson and I’m so glad that I did because she is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. A Grown-up Kind of Pretty is the latest of her books that I’ve read.
This book is a powerful saga of three generations of women, plagued by hardships and torn by a devastating secret, yet inextricably joined by the bonds of family. Fifteen-year-old Mosey Slocumb-spirited, sassy, and on the cusp of womanhood-is shaken when a small grave is unearthed in the backyard and determined to figure out why it’s there.
Liza, her stroke-ravaged mother, is haunted by choices she made as a teenager. But it is Jenny, Mosey’s strong and big-hearted grandmother, whose maternal love braids together the strands of the women’s shared past–and who will stop at nothing to defend their future.
My rating 4 stars
3. The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin
I read this book years ago and instantly became a fan of Gretchen Rubin’s and since then have read all her books. I wanted to give this one a re-read because it had been a long time since I read it.
This book really gets you thinking about how to begin living your life more fully. By setting goals and resolutions for yourself in different areas of your life.
With the ultimate goal to be a happier person and live a happier life. Which is something I know I want more of. To be happier. How about you? This book gets you thinking of how to do that in your own life and how to begin your own happiness project.
While I love this book I have to say that her book The Four Tendencies is my favorite of her books and the one that helped me the most.
My Rating 5 stars
4. Finale (Caraval #3) by Stephanie Garber
Finally got the chance to read the third and final book in the Caraval trilogy. That’s the problem with having so many books that I want to read. Sometimes it takes a long time to get to ones I had planned to read.
I got this book from the Library and it took a while for it to be my turn which is part of why it took me a long time to read it.
A love worth fighting for. A dream worth dying for. An ending worth waiting for.
It’s been two months since the Fates were freed from a deck of cards, two months since Legend claimed the throne for his own, and two months since Tella discovered the boy she fell in love with doesn’t really exist.
With lives, empires, and hearts hanging in the balance, Tella must decide if she’s going to trust Legend or a former enemy. After uncovering a secret that upends her life, Scarlett will need to do the impossible. And Legend has a choice to make that will forever change and define him.
Caraval is over, but perhaps the greatest game of all has begun. There are no spectators this time: only those who will win and those who will lose everything.
My rating 4 Stars
5. Born to Shine: Practical Tools to Help You SHINE, Even in Life’s Darkest Moments by Ashley Lemieux
I’ve followed Ashley on Instagram for a while and knew some of her story. She and her husband lost the children they had raised through a contested adoption.
She wrote a book about how to still thrive in life while going through something traumatic and hard. This is why I was excited to read her book, having gone through my own struggles I find other peoples journeys to be enlightening and inspiring.
My Rating 5 stars
6. One Day in December by Josie Silver
If you are a fan of love stories and romance mixed with Friendship then One Day in December is a great read. I could not put it down and devoured this book.
This book follows Laurie. Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn’t exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there’s a moment of pure magic…and then her bus drives away.
Certain they’re fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn’t find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they “reunite” at a Christmas party, when her best friend Sarah giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It’s Jack, the man from the bus. It would be.
What follows for Laurie, Sarah and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered. One Day in December is a joyous, heartwarming and immensely moving love story to escape into and a reminder that fate takes inexplicable turns along the route to happiness.
My Rating 5 Stars
