Olympic Book Tag

Shannon started it...

Then, Kristen and Kristen joined the fun...

And Rose...

And Bev...

And Jenn...

(and if there are others I'm missing, share them with me because I'd LOVE to read them!)

How could I pass up a post like this?

A Book I Loved from the First Page:  This is the first paragraph of the Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys:  "My mother's a prostitute. Not the filthy, streetwalking kind. She's actually quite pretty, fairly well spoken, and has lovely clothes. But she sleeps with men for money or gifts, and according to the dictionary, that makes her a prostitute."  I was immediately invested in the story.

Favorite Road Trip Book:  Violet and Finch explore their home state of Indiana through some adventures similar to a scavenger hunt in All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven, but this book is about so.much.more than that.

A Book with a Good Love Triangle:  The love triangle of Ridge, Sydney, and Maggie is heart-breaking and well-written.  It's YA, and yes, there's some cheesiness, but overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover. 

A Book I Really Didn't "Get":  Sorry, not sorry.  To me, there is nothing sexy, attractive, or appealing about Christian Grey.  The believability factor was completely off the map for me with 50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James.  I quit it with only 50 pages to go because I just did not care what happened.

A Book Set in the Summer:  Released under two different names, Vanessa Lafaye's Summertime (or Under a Dark Summer Sky) is set in the Florida Keys during 1935 Hurricane Season.  A book about relationships, duty, racism, love, small town dynamics, crime, life after war, death, a hurricane, and loss, there are just so many reasons why I loved this book.

A Book with a lot of Fighting/Bloodshed:  Don Winslow's epic saga portrayed in The Power of the Dog and it's follow-up, The Cartel is a realistic account of Mexican drug cartels and the "war on drugs".  Guess what.  There's A LOT of violence, fighting, death, and bloodshed in that world.  A lot.  Not for the faint at heart, but so, so good.

A Book with a lot of Plot Twists:  After reading I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh, this is what I had to say:  "You know when you're reading and think you've got it figured out...then you change your mind... then think 'well, maybe'... then you are completely wrong...then you are kinda correct, but there's a twist...then you've figured part of it out but it doesn't matter because the book is still so good? That was this book for me. I stayed up past my bedtime because I couldn't put it down."

A Book that Made Me Sob:  Others have listed this one as well, but I posted photographic proof that Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale did indeed make me sob black mascara streaks down my face.

A Slow Paced Book:  I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid is so slow that I almost quit it, and I don't quit books often.  Then, the last third of it (or quarter of it), it changed, picked up the pace, and I felt like I was watching a horror movie.

A Childhood Favorite:  The Poky Little Puppy is the book that I remember begging anyone and everyone to read it to me.  I loved it so much, I wanted to learn to read just so I could read this book.

A Book Featuring Animal(s):  The love I feel for The Thicket by Joe R. Lansdale is all about the cast of characters: a teenager who is chasing after a group of men who kidnapped his sister, Jack Parker, a charismatic "bounty-hunting dwarf named Shorty, a grave-digging son of an ex-slave named Eustace, and a street-smart woman-for-hire named Jimmie Sue" plus a wild hog that truly is a character all himself.

A Book I Struggled to Finish:  Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs - ** SPOILER ALERT ** This book and I didn't click. Sure, I could find the hilarity in the absurdity. But some of the severity of the dysfunction (particularly the graphic sexual abuse of a young teen boy by an adult, and the acceptance and encouragement by other adults for this "relationship" to take place) was so disturbing that I couldn't take the hiding behind humor and shock value as the only view presented.

A Book with a Great Friendship:  There is so much beauty to The Book Thief by Markus Zusak including both of Liesel's significant friendships: with Rudy and with Max.  A very close runner-up that is also WWII based is The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne and the friendship of Bruno and Shmuel. 

A Book that Actually Features Olympic Sports:  When I first created this list, I thought of The Book Thief for this category because Rudy idolized the great Olympian Jesse Owens.  But, the story of the friendships was much more important, so it went to the category above.  Then, I realized I had no rock bio in my list, and I read many rock bios.  In It's So Easy by Duff McKagan (bass player and founding member of Guns N Roses and other bands), he discusses at length the many tools he learned to fight addiction and excess.  One of the disciplines he practices is cycling. 

I've discussed almost all of these books in the past, but this was such a fun way to compile them in this post.  Won't you join in the Olympic Book Tag fun?  If you don't create your own post, then at least tell me at least one book for one category that you'd select.