Fourth Week Wrap Up

This week I read 4 books.

I started with And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. I'm not a huge fan of mystery but I had the audiobook so I decided to give it a whirl. I was hooked by the second hour. I didn't see the ending coming and was intrigued as to the details the whole time. This doesn't qualify for my O.W.L. readathon but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I gave it 4 stars.

I then finished Evicted by Matthew Desmond. This blew me away. Desmond lived in a trailer park and in the ghetto in Wisconsin as he studied the effect of eviction on low-income families. He focused on slumlords and tenants alike. He made me feel for these people, even though some of them were there due to their own bad choices. (i.e. drugs) This won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016 and it was well deserved. I will definitely seek out anything else he writes. This fulfilled my challenge of Muggle Studies (read a non-fiction book.) I gave this 5 stars.

Next I picked up The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory. I haven't been in the mood for romance lately (feeling it too insubstantial) but I haven't been feeling well lately and thought a light fluffy book was just what I needed. This was a fast, enjoyable read though I found it frustrating that the main source of conflict was that people didn't communicate. While this happens in real life, it just feels forced in a book. I gave this book 3 stars.

Then I finished Charlie Bone and the Invisible Boy by Jenny Nimmo. I'm really enjoying this series. It's a simple story but with fun magical twists. This fulfilled my challenge to read a book with a magical creature on the cover for "Care of Magical Creatures." I gave this 3 stars.

I started Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente but after only 17 pages, I had to quit. The book was full of run-on sentences and crammed full of too many descriptors. Literally one sentence took up half the page. The only other book by Valente that I picked up before was also DNF'd shortly after starting due to her juvenile writing style. I guess she's just not for me.