50 Book Challenge: #39 Water for Elephants

Orphaned and penniless at the height of the Depression, Jacob Jankowski escapes everything he knows by jumping on a passing train — and inadvertently runs away with the circus. So begins Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen’ s darkly beautiful tale about the characters who inhabit the less-than-greatest show on earth.

Jacob finds a place tending the circus animals, including a seemingly untrainable elephant named Rosie. He also comes to know Marlena, the star of the equestrian act — and wife of August, a charismatic but cruel animal trainer. Caught between his love for Marlena and his need to belong in the crazy family of travelling performers, Jacob is freed only by a murderous secret that will bring the big top down.

Water for Elephants is an enchanting page-turner, the kind of book that creates a world that engulfs you from the first page to the last. A national bestseller in Canada and a New York Times bestseller in the United States, this is a book destined to become a beloved fiction classic.

What I say: I loved this book. I haven’t seen the movie so I was able to lose myself in the book. I read it on my new kobo Aura which I just love. The story wraps you up in the imagery of being in the circus and what it must’ve been like not only to live a vagabond life but also back in the era of the Depression. The love story is caring and romantic and the bond the characters share with the animals is wonderful. I definitely recommend this one!

50 Book Challenge: #38 Bone Season

12 / 12 / 135 / 25 / 18

What kobo.com says:

A major event-the first book a seven-part series of dizzying imagination. Welcome to Scion: No Safer Place.

It is the year 2059. Several major world cities are under the control of a security force called Scion. Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of Scion London, part of a secret cell known as the Seven Seals. The work she does is unusual: scouting for information by breaking into others minds. Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant, and in this world, the voyants commit treason simply by breathing.

But when Paige is captured and arrested, she encounters a power more sinister even than Scion. The voyant prison is a separate city-Oxford, erased from the map two centuries ago and now controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. These creatures, the Rephaim, value the voyants highly-as soldiers in their army.

Paige is assigned to a Rephaite keeper, Warden, who will be in charge of her care and training. He is her master. Her natural enemy. But if she wants to regain her freedom, Paige will have to learn something of his mind and his own mysterious motives.

The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine-a young woman learning to harness her powers in a world where everything has been taken from her. It also introduces an extraordinary young writer, with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.

What I say: This book is epic and one of my top books of the year. I love me a good young adult imagination book and this one is SPECtacular! Hoping the next 6 books in the series are just as amazing. I could barely put the book down. I loved the description and the character building and was definitely already picturing it as a full motion movie because of how well it took my imagination away. I loved the supernatural aspects of the book, the human caring elements and the slow to build romance! So for me who likes so many different things I loved loved loved this book.

50 Book Challenge: #37 Joy and Love

12 / 10 / 135 / 25 / 18

What kobo.com says:

Joy & Love is the new personal and world development classic. The idea is to maximize joy in your life, and love in the world. It masterly breaks down how to achieve both those goals, using one formula. Apply the formula to the 6 elements in your life: Spirituality, Health, Knowledge, Character, Wealth, and Relationships. As you increase personal joy in your life you will be able to transcend it to increase compassion for humanity, compassion for the environment and ultimately achieve the thought provoking mystery – Heaven on earth

What I say: This book meant a lot to me to read it. I consider John a great friend. He was my real estate investor when I purchased my condo almost 6 years ago and he’s stayed a positive motivating person in my life. I think the message and the hope of this book is amazing. I did have a bit of problems with the writing and I think he tried to accomplish too much in one book but the message is there. The steps to take to have joy & shine love in your life are all in this book. There is quite a lot of information and it covers so many aspects of your life that the book could be overwhelming. Your perception of the book will totally depend on where you’re at in your life. I myself have gone through a year and a half of finding joy in my life so I have taken the majority of these steps to better my life. It’s always a good reminder to know what is important for yourself even if you already do it. What I will say is reading the first chapter caused tears to rush to my eyes. John shares a part of himself that will hopefully touch others. We have parallel paths in life and it brought back memories of toughness. I truly hope you pick up this book, support John and the amazing person that he is, who simply wants the world to love more.

50 Book Challenge: #36 The Signature of All Things

12 / 5 / 135 / 25 / 18

What kobo.com says: A glorious, sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, from the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed

In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker—a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry’s brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father’s money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma’s research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction—into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a utopian artist—but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life.

Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the globe—from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad. But most memorable of all, it is the story of Alma Whittaker, who—born in the Age of Enlightenment, but living well into the Industrial Revolution—bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold, questing spirit of that singular time, Gilbert’s wise, deep, and spellbinding tale is certain to capture the hearts and minds of readers.

What I say: This book was really hard to get into and nothing like her previous two books that I thoroughly enjoyed. The book seems completely unorganized and although it takes you on a galloping adventure across the globe I wasn’t sure how everything tied in together. I didn’t understand why the main character’s life was so random but that’s life I guess. I was riveted at the end to find out if dreams or wishes came true. I don’t think I would recommend this book. I may need to let it soak in a bit more but I wasn’t exactly thrilled with it.

50 Book Challenge: #35 Proof of Heaven

11 / 1 / 135 / 25 / 18

What kobo.com says:

Near-death experiences, or NDEs, are controversial. Thousands of people have had them, but many in the scientific community have argued that they are impossible. Dr. Eben Alexander was one of those people.

A highly trained neurosurgeon who had operated on thousands of brains in the course of his career, Alexander knew that what people of faith call the “soul” is really a product of brain chemistry. NDEs, he would have been the first to explain, might feel real to the people having them, but in truth they are simply fantasies produced by brains under extreme stress.

Then came the day when Dr. Alexander’s own brain was attacked by an extremely rare illness. The part of the brain that controls thought and emotion—and in essence makes us human— shut down completely. For seven days Alexander lay in a hospital bed in a deep coma. Then, as his doctors weighed the possibility of stopping treatment, Alexander’s eyes popped open. He had come back.

Alexander’s recovery is by all accounts a medical miracle. But the real miracle of his story lies elsewhere. While his body lay in coma, Alexander journeyed beyond this world and encountered an angelic being who guided him into the deepest realms of super-physical existence. There he met, and spoke with, the Divine source of the universe itself.

This story sounds like the wild and wonderful imaginings of a skilled fantasy writer. But it is not fantasy. Before Alexander underwent his journey, he could not reconcile his knowledge of neuroscience with any belief in heaven, God, or the soul. That difficulty with belief created an empty space that no professional triumph could erase. Today he is a doctor who believes that true health can be achieved only when we realize that God and the soul are real and that death is not the end of personal existence but only a transition.

This story would be remarkable no matter who it happened to. That it happened to Dr. Alexander makes it revolutionary. No scientist or person of faith will be able to ignore it. Reading it will change your life.

What I say: This was an ok book. Although I love the parts that talk about the neurosurgeon’s family and how they helped him through the NDE and his life history, I couldn’t for the life of me focus on the parts of the book that were more philosophical and scientific. Not gonna lie they just didn’t hold my interest. So for me this book was womp womp.