I've been a little better about reading these last couple of weeks, although it's really hard to find the time! These are the books I would really like to read this summer. I know, summer is half way over already but at least I've started on one of them!
1. Under the Dome by Stephen King
I started reading this one last summer. I can't seem to get into it. I think it's because it's completely different than the show, and I love the show. This is why you should always read the book first! I still want to finish it though because I really want to know what's going on.
"On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the
town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world
by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky
in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes
down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided
from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what
this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.
Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out."
Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out."
2. Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Thomas Sweterlitsch
"A decade has passed since the city of Pittsburgh was reduced to ash.
While the rest of the world has moved on, losing itself in the noise of a media-glutted future, survivor John Dominic Blaxton remains obsessed with the past. Grieving for his wife and unborn child who perished in the blast, Dominic relives his lost life by immersing in the Archive—a fully interactive digital reconstruction of Pittsburgh, accessible to anyone who wants to visit the places they remember and the people they loved.
Dominic investigates deaths recorded in the Archive to help close cases long since grown cold, but when he discovers glitches in the code surrounding a crime scene—the body of a beautiful woman abandoned in a muddy park that he’s convinced someone tried to delete from the Archive—his cycle of grief is shattered.
With nothing left to lose, Dominic tracks the murder through a web of deceit that takes him from the darkest corners of the Archive to the ruins of the city itself, leading him into the heart of a nightmare more horrific than anything he could have imagined"
While the rest of the world has moved on, losing itself in the noise of a media-glutted future, survivor John Dominic Blaxton remains obsessed with the past. Grieving for his wife and unborn child who perished in the blast, Dominic relives his lost life by immersing in the Archive—a fully interactive digital reconstruction of Pittsburgh, accessible to anyone who wants to visit the places they remember and the people they loved.
Dominic investigates deaths recorded in the Archive to help close cases long since grown cold, but when he discovers glitches in the code surrounding a crime scene—the body of a beautiful woman abandoned in a muddy park that he’s convinced someone tried to delete from the Archive—his cycle of grief is shattered.
With nothing left to lose, Dominic tracks the murder through a web of deceit that takes him from the darkest corners of the Archive to the ruins of the city itself, leading him into the heart of a nightmare more horrific than anything he could have imagined"
3.Divergent by Veronica Roth
"In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into
five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular
virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the
brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an
appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the
faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice,
the decision is between staying with her family and being who she
really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises
everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive
initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles
alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made.
Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and
intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences.
As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends
really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating,
sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris
also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's
been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing
conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she
also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or
it might destroy her."
4. The City by Dean Koontz
"Here is the riveting, soul-stirring story of Jonah Kirk, son of an
exceptional singer, grandson of a formidable “piano man,” a musical
prodigy beginning to explore his own gifts when he crosses a group of
extremely dangerous people, with shattering consequences. Set in a more
innocent time not so long ago, The City encompasses a lifetime
but unfolds over three extraordinary, heart-racing years of tribulation
and triumph, in which Jonah first grasps the electrifying power of music
and art, of enduring friendship, of everyday heroes."
5. The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman
"In 1913, little Malka Treynovsky flees Russia with her family. Bedazzled
by tales of gold and movie stardom, she tricks them into buying tickets
for America. Yet no sooner do they land on the squalid Lower East Side
of Manhattan, than Malka is crippled and abandoned in the street.
Taken in by a tough-loving Italian ices peddler, she manages to survive through cunning and inventiveness. As she learns the secrets of his trade, she begins to shape her own destiny. She falls in love with a gorgeous, illiterate radical named Albert, and they set off across America in an ice cream truck. Slowly, she transforms herself into Lillian Dunkle, "The Ice Cream Queen" -- doyenne of an empire of ice cream franchises and a celebrated television personality.
Lillian's rise to fame and fortune spans seventy years and is inextricably linked to the course of American history itself, from Prohibition to the disco days of Studio 54. Yet Lillian Dunkle is nothing like the whimsical motherly persona she crafts for herself in the media. Conniving, profane, and irreverent, she is a supremely complex woman who prefers a good stiff drink to an ice cream cone. And when her past begins to catch up with her, everything she has spent her life building is at stake."
Taken in by a tough-loving Italian ices peddler, she manages to survive through cunning and inventiveness. As she learns the secrets of his trade, she begins to shape her own destiny. She falls in love with a gorgeous, illiterate radical named Albert, and they set off across America in an ice cream truck. Slowly, she transforms herself into Lillian Dunkle, "The Ice Cream Queen" -- doyenne of an empire of ice cream franchises and a celebrated television personality.
Lillian's rise to fame and fortune spans seventy years and is inextricably linked to the course of American history itself, from Prohibition to the disco days of Studio 54. Yet Lillian Dunkle is nothing like the whimsical motherly persona she crafts for herself in the media. Conniving, profane, and irreverent, she is a supremely complex woman who prefers a good stiff drink to an ice cream cone. And when her past begins to catch up with her, everything she has spent her life building is at stake."
6. All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner
"Allison Weiss got her happy ending—a handsome husband, adorable
daughter, a job she loves, and the big house in the suburbs. But while
waiting in the pediatrician’s office, she opens a magazine to a quiz
about addiction and starts to wonder…Is a Percocet at the end of the day
really different from a glass of wine? Is it such a bad thing to pop a
Vicodin after a brutal Jump & Pump class…or if your husband ignores
you?
The pills help her manage the realities of her good-looking life: that her husband is distant, that her daughter is acting out, that her father’s Alzheimer’s is worsening and her mother is barely managing to cope. She tells herself that they let her make it through her days…but what if her increasing drug use, a habit that’s becoming expensive and hard to hide, is turning into her biggest problem of all?"
The pills help her manage the realities of her good-looking life: that her husband is distant, that her daughter is acting out, that her father’s Alzheimer’s is worsening and her mother is barely managing to cope. She tells herself that they let her make it through her days…but what if her increasing drug use, a habit that’s becoming expensive and hard to hide, is turning into her biggest problem of all?"
What's on your summer reading list?
(This post might also be linked up to some of these lovely parties.)
