Happy New Year! New Year, new goals. My reading goals this year will be somewhat reduced from last year. I would like to read more books, but do less challenges. I wasn't going to participate in any reading challenges this year, but then a woman from my book club tagged me in this group and I thought, "Wow, that looks fun." (Except for the steamy read. Not a huge romance fan.)
For my Goodreads challenge this year, I would like to read 75 books. I didn't read quite as many in 2020, but I was also emotionally and mentally exhausted at times. I'm hoping to read a lot this year. We all know we'll have some time this year when there is not much else to do.
Book 1:
"The Secret Keepers" by Trenton Lee Stewart
I got this book for my younger son after he loved The Mysterious Benedict Society books, written by the same author. "The
Secret Keepers" is about an eleven year old boy named Reuben, who lives with his mom in the city of New Umbra. While his mom works hard to try to support the two financially, Reuben often spends his days exploring his new neighborhood. This is not something he is really supposed to be doing, but he is curious about places around him and finds it a challenge to hide somewhat within plain sight. He is weary of a group of men called The Directions, who spend the day scanning the city and talking to business owners. He knows they answer to The Counselor, who works for The Smoke. Nothing happens in New Umbra without these men knowing about it.
One day Reuben stumbles upon a pouch
that had been hidden inside a brick wall, on a ledge, about halfway up
an abandoned building. Inside the pouch, he discovers an antique watch,
property of P. William Light. He brings this watch to a few people to
see if they can tell him the value and quickly learns that this is a
very valuable watch, and far from ordinary. There is a problem though,
there have been other people who have been searching for this watch for a very
long time.
Throughout his journey to find out more about the watch, he
meets the Meyer family, who have secrets of their own. This story is
filled with adventure and was a good read. The characters were enjoyable
and the book had a few good lessons about character, family, friendship. greed
and honesty. I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads. If you enjoy illustrations, this book has at least one quote illustrated in each chapter and an illustration for the chapter title. I liked them a lot. The illustrator is Diana Sudyka.
I'm hoping that writing reviews on one book at a time will allow me to be a little more detailed than last year and will help me keep up with my blogging.
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