May Reading Round-Up

Here's a look at the books we loved, didn't love, read, rated, or DNF'd this month!

Jay's Reads (10):

   
   
 

What I Rated Them:
The Turn of the Key - ☕☕☕☕.75
The Dead Girls Club - ☕☕☕.75
Finding Peace - ☕☕☕☕.5
The Book of Essie - ☕☕☕☕
When We Were Vikings - ☕☕☕.5
Know My Name - ☕☕☕☕☕
The Bright Side of Going Dark - ☕☕☕☕.75
An American Marriage - ☕☕☕☕.5
One of Us is Next - ☕☕☕.75
You Were There Too - ☕☕☕.5


Favorite Read:
Know My Name, by far. The strength and courage it must have taken to write gives me goosebumps.

Least Favorite Read:
You Were There Too

DNF?:
The Genius of Women

Rolling over to next month: 
The Substitute
Daisy Jones and the Six
My Dark Vanessa

Meg's Reads (9):

  
  
  

What I Rated Them: 
Storm Warning: The Story of a Killer Tornado- ☕☕☕
The Mercy of the Sky: The Story of a Tornado ☕☕☕☕
Shotgun Angels: My Story of Broken Roads and Unshakeable Hope ☕☕☕
Into the Wild ☕☕☕
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption ☕☕☕
The Book of Essie ☕☕☕☕
Hell in a Handbasket ☕☕☕☕
A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy ☕☕☕☕
In High Cotton ☕☕☕☕

Favorite Read: The Book of Essie

Least Favorite Read: Storm Warning & Into the Wild

DNF: None this month

Carrying Over to Next Month:
Up Shute Creek
Johnny Cash The Life

Five Star Friday - The Only Plane in the Sky

This week's Five Star read was read by Jay!

Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads: “This is history at its most immediate and moving…A marvelous and memorable book.” —Jon Meacham

“Had me turning each page with my heart in my throat…There’s been a lot written about 9/11, but nothing like this. I urge you to read it.” —Katie Couric

“The Only Plane in the Sky is a stunning and important work—chilling, heartbreaking—and I cannot stop thinking about it.” —Anderson Cooper

“Readers who emerge dry-eyed from the text should check their pulses: Something is wrong with their hearts.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The first comprehensive oral history of September 11, 2001—a panoramic narrative woven from the voices of Americans on the front lines of an unprecedented national trauma.

Over the past eighteen years, monumental literature has been published about 9/11, from Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower, which traced the rise of al-Qaeda, to The 9/11 Commission Report, the government’s definitive factual retrospective of the attacks. But one perspective has been missing up to this point—a 360-degree account of the day told through the voices of the people who experienced it.

Now, in The Only Plane in the Sky, award-winning journalist and bestselling historian Garrett Graff tells the story of the day as it was lived—in the words of those who lived it. Drawing on never-before-published transcripts, recently declassified documents, original interviews, and oral histories from nearly five hundred government officials, first responders, witnesses, survivors, friends, and family members, Graff paints the most vivid and human portrait of the September 11 attacks yet.

Beginning in the predawn hours of airports in the Northeast, we meet the ticket agents who unknowingly usher terrorists onto their flights, and the flight attendants inside the hijacked planes. In New York City, first responders confront a scene of unimaginable horror at the Twin Towers. From a secret bunker underneath the White House, officials watch for incoming planes on radar. Aboard the small number of unarmed fighter jets in the air, pilots make a pact to fly into a hijacked airliner if necessary to bring it down. In the skies above Pennsylvania, civilians aboard United Flight 93 make the ultimate sacrifice in their place. Then, as the day moves forward and flights are grounded nationwide, Air Force One circles the country alone, its passengers isolated and afraid.

More than simply a collection of eyewitness testimonies, The Only Plane in the Sky is the historic narrative of how ordinary people grappled with extraordinary events in real time: the father and son working in the North Tower, caught on different ends of the impact zone; the firefighter searching for his wife who works at the World Trade Center; the operator of in-flight telephone calls who promises to share a passenger’s last words with his family; the beloved FDNY chaplain who bravely performs last rites for the dying, losing his own life when the Towers collapse; and the generals at the Pentagon who break down and weep when they are barred from rushing into the burning building to try to rescue their colleagues.

At once a powerful tribute to the courage of everyday Americans and an essential addition to the literature of 9/11, The Only Plane in the Sky weaves together the unforgettable personal experiences of the men and women who found themselves caught at the center of an unprecedented human drama.

Genre? Non-fiction.

Backlist? Yes. Published September 10, 2019.

New to me Author? Yes

Why I rated it 5 stars? 
If you know anything about me, you know I'm a hardcore reader. If you know me well, you know I don't generally like non-fiction books.

However, I cannot speak highly enough about this book, The Only Plane in the Sky. It was the most soul-touching, eye-opening, reflective, emotional book I think I've ever read. And it's non-fiction!

If you like non-fiction (or if you don't), if you want to have your heart ripped out of your chest and put back in, or if you just want to learn more about 9/11 (eye-opening if like me, you were young when it happened so you didn't know extra details), please pick up this book.

April Reading Round-Up

Here's a look at the books we loved, didn't love, read, rated, or DNF'd this month!

Jay's Reads (17):

        
        

What I Rated Them:
Mighty Be Our Powers - ☕☕☕.5
Get A Life, Chloe Brown - ☕☕☕☕.25
You Are Not Alone - ☕☕☕.5
The Sun Down Motel - ☕☕☕.5
The Curse Defiers - ☕☕☕.75
High Achiever - ☕☕☕.75
The Only Plane in the Sky - ☕☕☕☕☕
American Dirt - ☕☕☕.5
Oona Out of Order - ☕☕☕☕.5
Ten Big Ones - ☕☕☕☕
This is Your Destiny - ☕☕☕☕.25
Eleven on Top - ☕☕☕.75
Little Fires Everywhere - ☕☕☕
I'm Fine and Neither Are You - ☕☕☕☕
When the Bough Breaks - ☕☕☕☕☕
Twelve Sharp - ☕☕☕☕.5
Meet Cute - ☕☕☕☕.5


Favorite Read:
Absolutely The Only Plane in the Sky. It made me feel feelings that I never knew I had.

Least Favorite Read:
Mighty Be Our Powers

DNF?:
None this month!

Rolling over to next month: 
The Genius of Women
The Turn of the Key
The Unhoneymooners
The Dead Girls Club
Finding Peace

Meg's Reads (10):

   
   
 

What I Rated Them: 
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ☕☕☕☕
Unicorn Untamed ☕☕☕☕☕
Where Men Win Glory ☕☕☕☕
Fix ☕☕☕☕☕
Whiskey ☕☕☕☕☕
99 Days ☕☕☕
Never Enough ☕☕☕☕☕
Always Enough ☕☕☕☕
If There's No Tomorrow ☕☕☕☕
For the Birds ☕☕☕☕

Favorite Read: Whiskey and Unicorn Untamed.

Least Favorite Read: 99 Days and Where Men Win Glory

DNF: None this month

Carrying Over to Next Month:
Just Mercy
Hell in a Handbasket

Five Star Friday - When the Bough Breaks

This week's Five Star read was read by Jay!

Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads: The sixth book in the Rose Gardner Investigations series.

For months, Rose has suspected her ex-brother-in-law, has a foot in the criminal world, and she’s equally sure her deceased sister had the evidence to prove it—evidence stolen days just days after Violet’s death.

Those suspicions turn concrete when a body shows up at the construction site Mike works at, and the concrete cracks open wide when her niece and nephew go missing.

Rose might be weeks away from delivering her own baby, but that doesn’t stop her and her best friend, Neely Kate, from looking for the kids. She needs answers and fast, but her search leads her to the man who betrayed her months ago… the father of her baby.

James “Skeeter” Malcolm has been playing games with her for months—refusing to relinquish her paternity but refusing to tell her why. James knows what Mike is up to—Rose is sure of it—but can she convince him to tell help before it’s too late?

Genre? Mystery. With some Romance thrown in.

Backlist? No. Published April 21, 2020. I read an ARC copy.

New to me Author? Not in the slightest.

Why I rated it 5 stars? 
From an actual text I sent Meg: "HOW?! HOW does Denise Grover Swank continue to make each Rose book better than the last?"

Seriously though, I've loved Rose Gardner since the beginning and every time I've ever thought, "Wow! It can't get any better than this," it does. In this sixth installment, Rose is at the end of her pregnancy. But even though she's thrilled for her baby, things are not all rainbows and butterflies in the town of Henryetta. Ashley and Mikey are missing and Rose is determined to figure out where they are. She's still trying to figure out what is going on with James and why he refused to sign paperwork for the baby. Should she make things official with Joe? So many decisions for one pregnant lady to make!

I absolutely devoured this book! Denise Grover Swank does such a fantastic job of writing in a way that allows me to visualize exactly what is going on every step of the way. I felt as if I was truly there for every conversation with Joe, every kick of the baby, everything. Rose Gardner is such a strong character and I felt her strength radiating through Denise's words. I'll be so sad to see this series end. Luckily, it's not ending here because there is still SO MUCH I want to know.

Five Star Friday - A Nearly Normal Family

This week's Five Star read was read by Jay!

Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads: M.T. Edvardsson’s A Nearly Normal Family is a gripping legal thriller that forces the reader to consider: How far would you go to protect the ones you love? In this twisted narrative of love and murder, a horrific crime makes a seemingly normal family question everything they thought they knew about their life—and one another.

Eighteen-year-old Stella Sandell stands accused of the brutal murder of a man almost fifteen years her senior. She is an ordinary teenager from an upstanding local family. What reason could she have to know a shady businessman, let alone to kill him?

Stella’s father, a pastor, and mother, a criminal defense attorney, find their moral compasses tested as they defend their daughter, while struggling to understand why she is a suspect. Told in an unusual three-part structure, A Nearly Normal Family asks the questions: How well do you know your own children? How far would you go to protect them?

Genre? Mystery. Some would call it Thriller or Legal Thriller.

Backlist? Yes. Published June 25th, 2019.

New to me Author? Yes

Why I rated it 5 stars? I don't know why I was so hesitant to read this and why it took me so long to start (I got it in my June 2019 Book of the Month box). It was AMAZING. Told in three parts, we hear about the time between a murder and the trial as told through the viewpoints of Stella's dad, Stella, and Stella's mom. After each part, I thought I had a pretty solid grip on whether Stella was guilty or not and if not - who was. But time and time again I would read about a new part of the timeline and find out I was wrong. This was a quick read and I wanted to keep turning the pages to figure out what really happened to Chris.

Five Star Friday - The Other Woman

This week's Five Star read was read by Meg!

Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads: A deliciously disturbing, compulsively readable debut domestic suspense—prepare to meet The Other Woman: there’s nothing she won’t do to keep you away from her son...

Emily thinks Adam’s perfect; the man she thought she’d never meet. But lurking in the shadows is a rival; a woman who shares a deep bond with the man she loves.

Emily chose Adam, but she didn’t choose his mother Pammie. There’s nothing a mother wouldn’t do for her son, and now Emily is about to find out just how far Pammie will go to get what she wants: Emily gone forever.

The Other Woman is an addictive, fast-paced psychological thriller about the destructive relationship between Emily, her boyfriend Adam, and his manipulative mother Pammie.

Genre? Thriller

Backlist? Yes. Published August 21, 2018.

New to me Author? Yep!

Why I rated it 5 stars?  Short answer? That twist! Long answer? Well, because that twist came out of nowhere for me.  I loved Emily, loved to hate Pammie & thought that Adam needed to step up or get out.  Reading thrillers aren't my M.O. but I've got to admit that they are the ones that I've been rating 5 stars, can't wait to see what what my next thriller holds!

May your coffee be strong and your Kindle be fully charged!