February Book Review – Between the Lines
This year is off to a great start and there has definitely not been a shortage of page turners for me! Today I’m sharing my February book review and all have been page turners for me.
Amazon: When a bestselling debut novel from mysterious author J. Colby becomes the literary event of the year, Emiline reads it reluctantly. As an adjunct writing instructor at UC San Diego with her own stalled literary career and a bumpy long-term relationship, Emiline isn’t thrilled to celebrate the accomplishments of a young and gifted writer.
Yet from the very first page, Emiline is entranced by the story of Emerson and Jackson, two childhood best friends who fall in love and dream of a better life beyond the long dirt road that winds through their impoverished town in rural Ohio.
That’s because the novel is patterned on Emiline’s own dark and desperate childhood, which means that “J. Colby” must be Jase: the best friend and first love she hasn’t seen in over a decade. Far from being flattered that he wrote the novel from her perspective, Emiline is furious that he co-opted her painful past and took some dramatic creative liberties with the ending.
My thoughts: Swear on this Life is just a beautiful love story! The characters were easy to empathize with and I was definitely satisfied with how the story ended. Rarely does a fiction book have me crying but this one definitely brought tears to my eyes a couple of times.
Amazon: Amber Patterson is fed up. She’s tired of being a nobody: a plain, invisible woman who blends into the background. She deserves more—a life of money and power like the one blond-haired, blue-eyed goddess Daphne Parrish takes for granted.
To everyone in the exclusive town of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut, Daphne—a socialite and philanthropist—and her real-estate mogul husband, Jackson, are a couple straight out of a fairy tale.
Amber’s envy could eat her alive . . . if she didn’t have a plan. Amber uses Daphne’s compassion and caring to insinuate herself into the family’s life—the first step in a meticulous scheme to undermine her. Before long, Amber is Daphne’s closest confidante, traveling to Europe with the Parrishes and their lovely young daughters, and growing closer to Jackson. But a skeleton from her past may undermine everything that Amber has worked towards, and if it is discovered, her well-laid plan may fall to pieces.
My thoughts: I hated Amber so, so much! And honestly I was bored with her so I’m so glad I ran across another reader who felt the same but gave the little hint that the voice would switch to another character at some point. That kept me turning the pages and I literally stayed in bed until noon one Saturday because I couldn’t put it down!
Amazon: Life often looks so very different than we hoped or expected. Some events may simply catch us off guard for a moment, but others shatter us completely. We feel disappointed and disillusioned, and we quietly start to wonder about the reality of God’s goodness.
My thoughts: I’m not quite finished with this one but wanted to include anyway. I heard Lysa interviewed on The Happy Hour podcast and knowing she wrote this book while she was in the actual trenches going through heartbreak really has made this her most personal book yet. I’m always amazed at what books like this uncover inside myself even when I don’t expect it. One morning it brought me to tears!
I may have to do a full review just on this quotes from this book because literally there is so much pink highlighter going on! While I typically read my Kindle these days I’m so glad I pre-ordered this one! I feel like this book can speak to people in very different walks of life with very different levels of pain.
Sometimes to get your life back, you have to face the death of what you thought your life would look like.
Lysa Terkeurst
Give me your favorite read so far in 2019 so I can check it out!
