Book 3 of 15 -- Heaven Is For Real

The third book I chose to read this year was "Heaven Is for Real."  After reading the terrible Frog King book I needed something uplifting and positive.  A book about heaven seemed it would fit the bill.  It did. 

Specs:
Title: Heaven Is For Real
Author: Sonja Burpo, Colton Burpo, and Lynn Vincent
Pages: 208 pages
Rating: *****/*****
Started: January 15th
Completed: January 17th

You can buy the book HERE.

This book is only 208 pages so I finished it in a breeze.  The basic storyline is about Colton & Sonja's 4 year old son who has some terrible health problems and ends up with a ruptured appendix and in emergency surgery.  During that time Colton's son visits heaven and sees things and later tells about things that a 4 year old (even with a pastor father) upbringing wouldn't know unless he had actually been there.    It's an uplifting book perfect for those that believe in heaven and want to know more or those that are on the fence about whether or not heaven "exists."

Up next is "90 Minutes In Heaven." Why not stay on the heaven "kick" for a little bit, right?

Book 2 of 15 -- The Frog King

Specs:
Title: The Frog King
Author: Adam Davies
Pages: 316 pages
Rating: **/*****
Started: January 6th
Completed: January 14th
This book was so filled with curse words that I just wanted to hurl it across the wall.  It seemed trashy and screamed to the fact that it was written by someone young that couldn't afford to have any creative writing training.  Or, written by someone that has a large disregard to respect and using curse words as emphasis instead of a dialect of young adults.  But then again, I'm pushing 30, so maybe I'm just getting "old."
It was a story about a mid-twenties guy in a dead end job.  He has a girlfriend that he loves that he can't express his love to.  This is likely because he has such a huge drinking problem that he's out of touch with the real world.
I only awarded it two stars.  I would have given it 1 star, but I did actually finish the book so something about it must've posessed me to read on.   Although upon completion I'm not sure why I did.  I was grateful to be done with the book.  Save yourself some hours of your life and DON'T pick this up.  I didn't even think it was worthy of my taking time to snap and edit a picture, so I stole a stock picture from amazon.

Book 1 of 15 -- The Glass Castle

Have you ever been working on a long email, document, blog post and then {{{POOF!}}} it's gone?  Yeah, that just happened to me.  Can you see the thrilled look on my face???  Well, let's try all this again, shall we?
My second New Year's Resolution was to read 12-15 books this year.  On January 2nd I started The Glass Castle.  You can purchase it HERE.
Title: The Glass Castle
Author: Jeannette Walls
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 288
Rating: *****/*****
Started: 1.2.2011
Completed: 1.5.2011
I completed this book in just 3 short days.  It was a really simple and exciting read.  I hadn't even read the back of this book because so many people had told me that I just HAD to read it.  It wasn't until I was finished with it that I realized it was a memoir.  The details of the story are threaded together in such a wonderful way that I just found myself gliding from sentence to sentence, chapter to chapter, year to year in her life.  It tells the tales of living with her 2 sisters and 1 brother in a "home" full of uncertainty, raised by an alcoholic father and a mentally unstable, extremely irresponsible mother.  The bounce from town to town, house to house, lifestyle to lifestyle.  Lice, dirtiness, lack of electricity and heat, and empty pantries and refrigerators were the norm for Jeanette and her family.  This certainly makes me look around my home and my life and take an extra moment to be thankful and appreciative.  It's a story of great dedication to make something of yourself against all odds.  I'd highly recommend this book.