May 2019 Book Review

It’s May Book Review Time!!!

For some reason, May felt like one of those weird months that went by crazy fast but also seemed like it was never going to end.

The first book I read this month feels like it was an eternity ago!

I started off the month with

My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan

My Oxford Year was a fun little about a young girl who had a grand plan for her life.

Ever since she was a little girl. She knew exactly what she wanted to be. Where she wanted to go for school. The career she wanted.

Everything was lining up exactly as she envisioned it.

She was getting ready to spend a year in Oxford for school before she pursued her dream job in politics.

Then life threw her a curveball, and then another, and another. Until she ended up in a situation where she had to choose.

Follow her plan or follow her heart.

I loved this book.

I felt like it was such a great story about life and how sometimes (most of the time) it doesn’t go as planned.

It was one of those, Just live in the moment and enjoy the ride kind of books.

Definitely a great one to start the month off with.

The next book I picked up was “Then she was Gone” by Lisa Jewell

This one was super bizarre!

I wasn’t expecting it to be so dang strange but it really was.

I found myself very bored with this book but also wanted to keep reading to see exactly how it ended.

I think I had higher hopes for a crazy twist at the end but it ended up being a pretty predictable read from the beginning.

“Then She was gone” is about a girl who went missing back in 2005. The story then jumps forward to 2015, following the family of the missing girl. Mostly focusing on the mother and how her life fell apart after that day. How she never really grieved properly since they never actually found the remains of her daughter. There was no proper funeral or burial. No closure about what happened. And no justice served.

I think one of the first things that made this book eerily strange for me was that the date that the girl went missing was the exact day that my oldest daughter was born. May 26, 2005. I know its a fictional story but it still just seemed so weird to me that I picked up a book with that date in it. I always felt like there are strange connections with dates and numbers.

But anyway, back to the book.

So, in the story, almost ten years to the date that the girl goes missing the mother gets a phone call from the police department with news that they’ve found something they’d like her to come in and take a look at.

Later she meets a man and his daughter who end up having a strange connection with her daughters case from years ago.

I didn’t LOVE this one but I also didn’t hate it. It just seemed too odd. Have you read it? What were your thoughts? I’d love to hear different opinions on this one.

After this strange and twisted book I felt like I wanted something light. I heard rave reviews about this one so I knew I had to give it a read.

“Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” by Gail Honeyman

This one is hands down, so far, THE BEST book I’ve read this year.

At first I thought I would be bored with it. I had a hard time getting into the first several chapters. But once I finally did I was HOOKED!

It was one of those unputdownable books and told a story that I will always carry with me.

Eleanor Oliphant is a thirty year old woman who lives by herself and has lived by herself for her entire adulthood. She has a very strict schedule that she follows daily.

She eats the same exact foods. Takes the same exact route to work every day. She shops at the same store. Wears the same basic clothes. Hasn’t had a hair cut in ten years.

She is just an ordinary, keep to herself kind of girl.

She’s a girl who gets stared at and judged on a daily basis.

She has zero friends and a mother whom she talks to once a week at the same exact time each week. But no relationship with her at all.

Its such an amazing story of a women who is so lost in the world. Who, from childhood, was mentally and physically beat down. Was told she was no good. That she would never amount to anything.

She was bounced around in foster care from the age of ten and never really knew the meaning of love and family.

Until one day she meets someone who changes so much. Someone who helps her face all the demons of her past. Someone who teaches her what it feels like to be cared about and helps her learn how good it feels to care for others.

It was such a feel good book. I laughed and cried with every chapter and every new day that Eleanor went through.

It was just such a good one guys and I would definitely recommend it!

I can’t remember what drew me to this last book of the month, but it was not at all what I expected.

I was at Target the other day and found myself wandering to the book section.

I think one of the reasons I wanted to check it out was because its a HBO series and I love reading a book before watching it unfold on tv.

I chose “Sharp Objects” by Gillian Flynn

This one was even stranger then,”Then She was Gone”.

Like insanely bizarre.

It started off seeming like it was going to be a good mystery type book but then just got stranger and stranger with every new detail and every turn of the page.

I should have know when I saw Stephen King gave an outstanding review of the book.

It’s about a thirty something reporter who just got out of a mental institute. She writes all the articles of murders and police activity.

Her boss got word of a possible serial killer from her home town and sent her there to try to get a story.

There was a young girl discovered a year prior. She was missing for several days before they found her body. And now a year later another girl is missing and they are fearful that she was taken by the same person.

Everything about this book was bizarre.

The relationship this reporter has with her boss and his wife.

The relationship she has (or doesn’t have) with her mother.

The town she grew up in and allllll the people in it.

The murder. The suspects.

Just everything.

Strange on so many levels.

But I will say, it did keep me reading.

It was slightly predictable too which I don’t love.

I like when there is a twist in a book that you would never see coming.

I’ll probably still watch the HBO series just to see how they do putting it on screen, but all in all, I don’t know, I feel like it was not really a favorite of mine.

I like books I can relate to. Or mysteries that have me on the edge of my seat. This one was just odd and really messed up on many levels.

So, I think it was an ok month for me.

I didn’t hate any of the books.

I definitely could have probably done without “Then she was Gone” and “Sharp Objects” but the other two were great! I loved “Eleanor Oliphant is Perfectly fine” so much that I could probably read it again.

What books are you guys reading?!

Drop some recommendations below. I’m hoping to blow my reading goal out of the water this summer!! Reading by the pool or on the beach is one of my absolute favorite things to do!

Make sure to check out some of my other reviews from the year!

• January 2019
• February 2019
• March 2019
• April 2019