Friday Reads

**SPOILERS**

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I found this on kindle unlimited at work the other night. Half asleep and I was so confused and thought the book was about aliens and meteor hitting their house...I decided to restart it the next night and I am so glad I did! 

An old couple crippled by the grief over their son dying at 8 years old are living on a small not so friendly island in a house they built on a cliff. The story of his death is told early on, which I enjoyed b/c you can focus more on the story of how they are handling it and not trying to figure out what happened. The Grapes' are being evicted from their cliff side home due to zoning issues. The night before their eviction, a bad storm comes and a bolt of lightening strikes a cable holding the house from falling off the cliff. When the Grapes wake up the next morning, their house is in the ocean floating on volcanic rock.  Their journey continues for a couple weeks through the freezing waters. Unsure of where they are, the husband is pretty resourceful, and is able to give them electricity for water and to cook. The story is pretty incredible, they are 2 older people lost at sea and are able to hold it together. A few weeks into their journey, they come across some nomads  After almost freezing to death trying to walk to the camp, they are spotted and brought in to safety.  They live with the nomads for a few weeks, until the nomads tell them it is time to leave their current camp since the ice will be melting soon. The head of the nomads tells the Grapes, they can either contuine to travel with them to the new camp, or they can drop them off at the trading post where they will be found and brought home. Obviously, they chose to go home. 

Now here is where the story starts to be a little unrealistic in my opinion. After a death within the nomad community, and a trip back to their house on the ice to retrieve any things they may want to bring with them, they decide they don't actually want to go home, they want to sail the ocean in their little house. Which, while they were talking about it I really thought they were going to the trading spot, be rescued and get a boat and sail like normal people. Nope. They take off in their little house that's been beaten all to shit by the ice and harsh weather of the past months. They have no food, very few clothes, no radio AKA NOTHING one would need to sail the ocean. And these people are in their 60s! I'm sorry I just don't find that realstic even the slightest. Sure, they did it before, but it was out of necessity and they both almost died, multiple times. Why not get rescued, go home and actually get the things to help you survive? So dumb. 

Overall though, I did love the story and it was a nice heartwarming story about how a couple who lost any hope or ambition or really, any love for each other the night their son died, found love in each other again and learned to live. 

September Wrap-up

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I wanted to love this book and I am so sad that I didn't. Maybe at a different time I would love it, b/c the story is great. It just kind of bored me.

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What I think is interesting about this book, is it has the same sub plot (?) as the first book I read for the month. I usually pick my books by randomly scrolling Amazon, and both this and the 1st book had main characters that had imaginary friends growing up, and were eventually told they were strictly made up imaginary friends, only to find out later in their adult life that they weren't imaginary at all, and they were real people.

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I've had this book on my TBR list for awhile, and finally grabbed it on Scribd. It was a little more graphic that I expected and not that believable. There is a kid in high school who assists the cops in a case he's convinced is a serial killer. A high school kid would never have been able to get this close to a crime scene more than once, as this kid did. Even with that, the story was good. 

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Hands down the best book I read this month, maybe in the past couple months. I've read several books by this author this year and was really shocked by this book. His other books are suspense/thriller. This was just a heartbreaking story of a kid who was born with a rare eye condition. Highly recommend this book!!

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I love this author, having read a book of hers years ago. Her books always have some sort of twist at the end that I always enjoy. I thought I figured this one out, and was surprised by the ending when I was wrong about the twist. 

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I was really disappointed in this book. It was portrayed as memoir of a runaway who struggled to support herself. She wasn't really  a runaway, she was 18 the day she left the house. She "ranaway" to a friends house, where she overstayed her welcome, then went to another friends house where she overstayed her welcome again. She still went to high school everyday, and her dad (parents divorced) still sent her money every week. The second house she went to, the parents asked her to find a job and support herself. She not only refused to find a job, but she lied to the mom about it. She didn't feel like she should have to get a job and help out, she wanted to be a kid and enjoy her theater stuff. After she overstayed her welcome there, she then went to her dad's house in a different town and after that it was just  a basic custody battle between 2 divorced parents who hate each other, but since she was 18 it really was just a teenager, in my opinion being a brat. Neither parent were the all star parent that they should have been, and for that I feel bad for it. Other than that, I didn't really think this story was all that exciting. The ending was exciting and it worked out well, so there is that at least. 

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I felt like this story was sort of all over the place. It was a cool, creepy book, but there was a little too much romance in it for me personally. When I read a thriller/suspense, I do it b/c I don't want a love story. There was completely random sex scenes in the book that just irritated me. Romance, or a happy ending, okay whatever, but the actual sex scenes I could have done without. This could have been a 4 star for me, but couldn't after the sex.