July 19- reading

    Just a quick update today. I plan to write a little about the conference I attended earlier this week, but I'll get through this first. Today I realized that I am 8 books behind on my Goodreads challenge so I better start cranking out these books. Here's what I've read since the lat reading post.

 

    I suggested The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell for my book club because I kept hearing about it. I'm not usually a crowd follower with my reading, but I hadn't really heard anything negative from the tons of people I saw writing about it. The book is about a boy named Sam Hall, who was born with ocular albinism. (His eyes are red in color.) It follows Sam from his adult life back into his childhood where you see how the events of his past kind of make him the man he grew up to be. It talks a lot about family, friendship, and overcoming your circumstances. I really enjoyed it. The end was a little, I don't know, simplified? but I still enjoyed it. 

 

     I wanted to read this book to expand my horizons a bit. I didn't know anything about the Chinese poet Lin Zhao and I didn't know many specifics about Communist China. I was also interested in learning about Lin Zhao's faith as a Christian. I really didn't enjoy this book. Obviously, the story of someone who has been imprisoned by the Communist party is not going to be a happy story, but more so, I didn't have enough background knowledge to fully appreciate many parts of the book. I'm usually a fast reader but this took me a long time because I just wasn't invested. 

      Next up- another NetGalley ARC. I'm hoping to finish it by next Friday at the latest. (I also have book club next week so I will have a new book club book to read.)

 

    What are you currently reading?