What I'm:

Reading:  about to finish The Geometry of Sisters by Luanne Rice.  I like it, and there are things I don't like as well...but overall, an interesting read with likable characters.  About to read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert next. 

Listening to:  Ingrid Michaelson and Dar Williams lately... emotional, poetic, and somewhat depressing has been the music mood lately.

Watching:  The Dr. Quinn series through.  Just started season 4.  Really enjoying it for the most part!!

Read This Book!

When You Reach Me was one of the best books I've read in a long time.  It was the kind of book you can't put down, you want to race through to find out the mystery, but at the same time you want to savor every word of this amazing author's prose.  When I was 40 pages from finishing, I was already hoping the author was working on a sequel!

It's an understatement that this book deserves the Newberry Award!  Rebecca Stead, you are a genius.  After finishing the book I wanted to hug you, then chat with you over coffee all about this amazing story, and how you came up with it! 

I truly never read a young adult novel that made me think so deeply, and that I related to so well (I mean since I was a young adult I guess!).  Though I will say, Miranda- the narrator who is 12- is quite mature and smart for her age.  She says things I've thought myself, or did closer to her age.  All the characters in the story are so real and so relatable...

I recommend this book to anyone who loves a good story... with a little bit of sci-fi, coming of age, 70s nostalgia, school days crushes and cold shoulders, and true heart... This book had it all.

~A Tree Grows in Brooklyn~

It's been a long time since I've read a book that made me love reading. A book that made me laugh, made me cry, really told a story. A book that I miss when I'm not reading it, with characters that I go to sleep thinking about and wake up wanting to visit again.

It's so easy to feel like you're in the story, in Brooklyn in the early 1900s, feeling the affects of the depression and poverty. To imagine yourself in the Nolan family flat, with two rooms and flowery curtains that Katie sewed herself from the fabric of her old dress. The writing is so all encompassing, you can smell the coffee they brew and reheat and taste the hard sourdough bread they eat with it. And get excited when they have hot chocolate for holidays!

I know I haven't made some discovery here, and I'm merely among the millions or maybe billions who have found a friend within these pages...but A Tree Grows in Brooklyn truly is one of the best books I've ever read. Why wasn't this required reading when I was in junior high? It may have helped a transitional phase of my life!