What I have finished this week
Another slow week this week. I have visitors at the moment, and will do so until the middle of August - makes finding time to read challenging!
What are you reading Monday is hosted by Shelia over at Book Journey. Head over and check out what others are reading!
I did manage to finish one book.
What's Happening To Our Girls by Maggie Hamilton
From Goodreads:
Why are girls as young as five years old concerned about their looks and addicted to shopping? Why are they having sex and binge-drinking so young, responding to chat-room predators, and bullying their peers via email and text messages? Many of the guidelines we offer girls no longer apply, or are contradicted by messages from media and advertising telling girls how to look, think, behave and feel.
Over two years Maggie Hamilton interviewed girls, teachers, school counsellors, psychologists, and law enforcement and medical personnel to get an insider’s view on what girls are experiencing at present, from birth to the teenage years.
I actually stopped reading The Hour I First Believed in order to read this. I've been waiting for it come in from the library for awhile now and it's only a short loan due to its popularity. It was incredible - I will be buying my own copy, and it's companion volume, What's Happening to Our Boys. I will also be recommending it to all my friends who have daughters.
What I am reading now
The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
From Goodreads:
When forty-seven-year-old high school teacher Caelum Quirk and his younger wife, Maureen, a school nurse, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, Caelum returns home to Three Rivers, Connecticut, to be with his aunt who has just had a stroke. But Maureen finds herself in the school library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed, as two vengeful students go on a carefully premeditated, murderous rampage. Miraculously she survives, but at a cost: she is unable to recover from the trauma. Caelum and Maureen flee Colorado and return to an illusion of safety at the Quirk family farm in Three Rivers. But the effects of chaos are not so easily put right, and further tragedy ensues.I've finally hit my stride with this book, so am hoping to finish it off soon.
While Maureen fights to regain her sanity, Caelum discovers a cache of old diaries, letters, and newspaper clippings in an upstairs bedroom of his family's house. The colorful and intriguing story they recount spans five generations of Quirk family ancestors, from the Civil War era to Caelum's own troubled childhood. Piece by piece, Caelum reconstructs the lives of the women and men whose legacy he bears. Unimaginable secrets emerge; long-buried fear, anger, guilt, and grief rise to the surface.
As Caelum grapples with unexpected and confounding revelations from the past, he also struggles to fashion a future out of the ashes of tragedy. His personal quest for meaning and faith becomes a mythic journey that is at the same time quintessentially contemporary—and American.
What's next?
Next on my list will be August's book group read - Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. After that I may finally get the chance to read We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. We decided at book group yesterday to reschedule this one for September.
So what are you reading? Leave me a link!
