Project Read || August + September

Hey, everyone!  It's been awhile since I've done a Project Read post!  I'm a tad bit behind, but I think I'll catch up by the end of the year. Here's what I read in August and September:

You by Caroline Kepnes – Okay…this book was creepy.  And graphic.  And creepy some more.  But I could not put it down!  And I feel guilty admitting that I liked it.  This is the story of Joe, who meets Beck when she comes in to his bookstore.  He is immediately attracted to her…and then he begins stalking her.  Joe is a full-on stalker.  He watches Beck through windows, he reads all her emails and he figures out how to deal with people who get in the way of their “relationship.”  It’s fascinating to read the story from his point-of-view and the book is written in second person, which is definitely an interesting literary device.  None of the characters are likeable, but somehow Kepnes makes it work.  This story reminds me a lot of Dexter in the sense that the main character is a BAD guy and even though you are repulsed by what he’s doing, you can’t stop reading and in a weird, weird way you almost (almost!) want him to succeed.  There is a sequel to this book scheduled to come out in February of 2016 and you can pretty much guarantee that I’ll be reading it!

Ten Girls to Watch by Charity Shumway – I love, love, LOVED this book.  It is a chit lit book for sure, but it manages to be different.  This book tells the story of Dawn, a young woman still desperately struggling to find a real writing job after she’s been a college graduate for over a year and a half.  In a lucky turn of events she gets a temporary job working for Charm magazine where she is responsible for re-connecting with all the past winners of the magazine’s annual “Ten Girls to Watch” column.  The women are inspirational and Dawn learns a lot from each conversation she has.  There is a love story in here, too, and lots of other miscellaneous personal drama.  However, it’s not a typical love story and not a typical chick lit story, and without giving anything away, I LOVE how the love story part of the book ended.  It was refreshing!  I’ve tried to find other books by Shumway, but I believe this is her only book so far.  I’ve followed her on GoodReads, though, to ensure that I don’t miss her next book whenever it comes out.

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter – I saw this book highly recommended on one of the blogs I follow.  The reviewer talked about how amazing the book was and how it was one of her favorites of the year.  I don’t feel the same.  It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t blow me away.  I thought it was an average book and there were times when I felt like the story was dragging on and I just wanted it to be over.  This story follows the lives of a whole cast of characters, including a famous movie star whose name we’ll all recognize.  The story takes place across multiple generations (from WWII to present day) and in all different places (from Italy to Hollywood) on the globe and it is fun to see how all the characters’ lives overlap.  This is not a fun-loving chick lit book; it is certainly emotional in places.  If you can get into the story better than I did (and by looking at the reviews, plenty of people did), this should be a fairly quick read.  I know I didn’t give a great synopsis of the book, but it’s a bit hard to explain…the link should tell you more (I didn’t want to plagiarize Amazon!)

Enchanted, Inc. by Shanna Swendson – If you are looking for just a fun book, this is it!  This is the first book in a whole series and introduces us to Katie Chandler, a completely non-magical person.  In the world, most everyone has a little bit of magic in them, which in turn makes most people susceptible to magic.  They often don’t notice the fairies and ogres walking around amongst them or recognize when someone is using magic to their advantage.  But since Katie is completely non-magical, she sees everything and can’t be touched by magic.  This makes her very valuable to Magic, Spells and Illusions, Inc., a magic company who produces and sales spells to magical beings.  When an evil wizard threatens MSI and the values it stands for, Katie’s skills become even more valuable.  The book also includes the typical romance, but it’s all just so cute and fun, that I have to highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a light read and a little magic.

As always, if you have any recommendations for me, please let me know!!