Friday, December 22, 2017

Life After

Wow! Here I am. It's been such a long time since I posted anything here! I've been considering coming back here to write. I know I was never a full time blogger anyway, but I have a friend and then Tim's cousin's wife, who are both blogging now and it seems like fun now that I have real life friends blogging!

Anyway, I'm here to leave my review for Blogging For Books. I requested this book so long ago and just now got around to it! I have no idea what took me so long! It was good. I read Life After by Katie Ganshert.



It could have been me.

Snow whirls around an elevated train platform in Chicago. A distracted woman boards the train, takes her seat, and moments later a fiery explosion rips through the frigid air, tearing the car apart in a horrific attack on the city’s transit system. One life is spared. Twenty-two are lost.

A year later, Autumn Manning can’t remember the day of the bombing and she is tormented by grief—by guilt. Twelve months of the question constantly echoing. Why? Why? Why?Searching for answers, she haunts the lives of the victims, unable to rest. 

Paul Elliott lost his wife in the train bombing and wants to let the dead rest in peace, undisturbed and unable to cause more pain for his loved ones. He wants normalcy for his twelve-year-old daughter and young son, to see them move beyond the heartbreak. But when the Elliotts and Autumn are unexpectedly forced together, he fears she’ll bring more wreckage in her wake. 

In Life After, Katie Ganshert’s most complex and unforgettable novel yet, the stirring prose and authentic characters pose questions of truth, goodness, and ultimate purpose in this emotionally resonant tale.


It was very interesting to read about how everyone who lost someone, dealt with the loss. And of course, Autumn is dealing with Survivor's Guilt in the worst way. I can't even imagine how she felt, actually I can since Katie Ganshert did a wonderful job writing! I loved this whole story and it's definitely worth the read. There's several twists and turns that leave everyone involved and the reader, looking at everything differently.

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."
























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Monday, January 2, 2017

Eleanor

It has been an incredibly long time since I read and reviewed a book for Blogging For Books. I've been doing a ton of reading, of course. I just can't seem to quit YA books. I'm not embarrassed by the fact that I'm a 32 year old reading books about teens because I just love them so much! I recently finished The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater and they were fantastic!! I also, recently, read The Diabolic by S.J. Kincaid and it was so amazing as well! Both of these series are very adventurous and not full of high school romance, the one thing that annoys me about YA. All the love triangles and drama that comes with them is the most annoying. I mean, I guess there is a love triangle....or two perhaps, in The Raven Cycle, but it's not done in an obnoxious way. Just please read them!

Ok, now on to the reason I'm here today......

From Goodreads:

Eleanor and Esmerelda are identical twins with a secret language all their own, inseparable until a terrible accident claims Esme’s life. Eleanor’s family is left in tatters: her mother retreats inward, seeking comfort in bottles; her father reluctantly abandons ship. Eleanor is forced to grow up more quickly than a child should, and becomes the target of her mother’s growing rage.
 
Years pass, and Eleanor’s painful reality begins to unravel in strange ways. The first time it happens, she walks through a school doorway, and finds herself in a cornfield, beneath wide blue skies. When she stumbles back into her own world, time has flown by without her. Again and again, against her will, she falls out of her world and into other, stranger ones, leaving behind empty rooms and worried loved ones. 
 
One fateful day, Eleanor leaps from a cliff and is torn from her world altogether. She meets a mysterious stranger, Mea, who reveals to Eleanor the weight of her family’s loss. To save her broken parents, and rescue herself, Eleanor must learn how deep the well of her mother’s grief and her father’s heartbreak truly goes. Esmerelda’s death was not the only tragic loss in her family’s fragmented history, and unless Eleanor can master her strange new abilities, it may not be the last.



Ok, so I didn't realize, when I requested this book that Eleanor would literally go from one reality plane to another. And it was so well written that it was so intriguing! The author, Jason Gurley, really did a fantastic job! I definitely recommend this book! It's easy to read and keeps you wanting more. There is no violence or anything sexual and therefore, it could be for teens and adults. I think it's adult fiction, but I would recommend it to my 13 year old son and I think he would love it! I can't really write anymore about it because I'm afraid to give any unintentional spoilers. Just please read it!!


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