This audiobook paired really well with the book about military dogs in the Middle East that I‘m reading now—it showed another side of that story and broke my heart in totally different ways.

I‘m enjoying this story, but I have trouble staying awake long enough to read more than a few pages at a time. Soth apparently does, too.

When you‘re just reading a cat mystery and then see the characters are going to read the same poem at the wedding in the story that you read at your brother‘s wedding, you have to stop to take a picture

He‘s sleeping so peacefully that I‘d hate to disturb him, so I guess that‘s a good enough excuse to stay up a little later to read.

A book with pictures is about all I have energy for this week. I‘m going to savor this one.

Rye and I both think this title would be appropriate for the whole book instead of just one chapter—but the middle schoolers apparently love it, so I have to prepare English Festival quiz questions on it.

My #BOTM books lately seem to take a long time to draw me in and then once they do, the story is over. I HATED the novel within a novel idea and ended up skipping most of those chapters. I would have liked a lot of detail about the conflict and the exile world. There were just a lot of things I was interested in that were barely discussed at all.

I‘m intrigued enough to keep reading, but not into it enough that I couldn‘t put it down after two chapters and go to sleep last night.

It took me a long time to start to care about these characters and about the time I was invested in their lives, the book was over. The ending all seemed too easy and I wish there would have been more focus on the survival elements that started showing up in the last chapters about Candace‘s solo time in NYC. I got some great naps in while reading this, though, and I don‘t regret reading it—I just wanted more from it.

Normally, I hate books narrated by animals, but Nana‘s voice was so authentically cat that I didn‘t mind it in this one. I almost didn‘t finish it because I knew where it was going and I knew it would make me sob. But I did finish it. And I did ugly cry. And then I snuggled my guy a little longer. It was beautiful and worth all the tears.

I definitely wasn‘t expecting the ending on this one, but I wouldn‘t say that I couldn‘t put this down. It was a slow read for me and I never felt really all that connected to Kya—all of the time spent showing her pushing other people away just resulted in me feeling really distant from her, too, so I really didn‘t care about the murder plot line. I was much more interested in her survival story. I also hated the poetry throughout the book.

One dog on my wrist, one dog on my feet, and a good book in my hand. A perfect rainy Friday night.

New favorite word = helitywhoop.

Soth thinks this chapter title needs a little editing: “A Private Book for Girls [and Cats]” Can Boys [and Dogs] Read Little Women. Spoiler alert: Soth‘s answer is no. He doesn‘t want to have to explain the scenes with Beth‘s kittens to his dog sisters.

I wanted to bail on this book after page 10, but I kept reading to see if my early predictions were correct. Most were. This book lacked character development, which made it impossible for me to care about why they were having this strange dinner and trying to solve Sabrina‘s problems. Sabrina was so immature and I got angrier the more I read. I will not be picking up anything by this author again—so not for me!

Barley thinks this book makes the perfect paw pillow, and I think it‘s gorgeous. I can‘t wait to start exploring these poems with my students in a few weeks!

When after over two years of living in your house you realize that one of your trees is the perfect backrest for a sunny reading spot, you can overlook silly things like the main character in your book deciding to drive her truck with one arm in a sling even though she‘d made a big deal about the truck being a manual in a previous book in the series, making this moment pretty much impossible.

I‘m not entirely sure I know what this even means, but I want to start using this phrase frequently.

When I read this for the first time a few years ago, I loved it. This time around, I have to read it aloud or I find myself turning the page and not remembering a thing I read on the page before. This is not boding well for my first attempt at teaching this book coming up in a few weeks. (Also, Rye does not want me to read this aloud to her.)

😖 argh!!!

I spend too much time reading with a pen in hand for work to do it when I read for fun, but sometimes I just really, really want to circle things with a big fat red mark.

I‘ve been listening to this in the car, but it‘s just making me feel too many things, so I might need to make this my folding laundry book where it‘s ok if I cry, convulse, cheer, and scream over and over again.

After dealing with seemingly unending car repairs, I‘m feeling Meg‘s pain right now. Still waiting on Julie Andrews to show up and tell me I‘m actually a princess.

My little dog might have given up the will to live because we did nothing but read (in my defense, I did read outside while she chased squirrels for a while)—I don‘t remember the last time I finished a book in a day! I‘m not sure the plot was realistic, but I was entertained the whole time and it kept me guessing almost the entire book.

I wanted to like this book but the style just kept me from ever really connecting with the story or the characters. The last third was much faster paced, but by that point I was just so over the ridiculous words and the weird sometimes dialogue and normal scenes, sometimes scripts and stage directions that I didn‘t really care how it ended.

This book is making me batty with its style. Sometimes it‘s written like a script complete with stage directions and other times it‘s normal dialogue—often in the same scene. It‘s exhausting and keeping me from really being able to get into the story because I keep wondering why this is happening.

This book is a lot weirder than the back cover led me to believe it would be.

Soth doesn‘t know why I read books like this when he‘s the only pet that stays awake to keep me company while I read. I‘ve tried to tell him it‘s hard to find a book about sheep cats, but he says that‘s no excuse.

This mysteriously showed up in my mailbox and nobody is claiming to have sent it to me. But I never turn down a book about a border collie.

I could not tear myself away from the residents of Beartown and Backman brought me to tears on several occasions. This book is about so much more than hockey: growth, hope, grief, anger, family, community, hatred. How Backman can fit so much between two covers will always be a mystery to me.

That moment when you‘ve found several typos in a book that‘s otherwise really good and you really want to mark them all as you read, but you also don‘t want to mark up your pretty signed copy of the book. #editing

We had a little them against me situation this morning: I wanted to stay in bed and read a couple chapters; they wanted me to get up and feed them. Emotions ran high. Someone had to lose. (Spoiler: it was me.)

There‘s a wurse in my book! 💗

It seems strange that characters in a book published in 2018 would be surprised by the idea of goat cheese or amused by the thought of a friend eating it. Especially since some of them are very into cooking.

Based on their reactions to cows, I‘m having trouble imagining these two as relatives of the wolves in this fabulous audiobook.

“It‘s ok with me that you‘re the only guy in my life. . . . A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” #cats #catmystery

Reading this ER synopsis on Hulu makes it clear why we need the Oxford comma. Being stabbed by an icicle and a diminutive stripper is very unlucky.

This is literally the slowest book I‘ve ever read. I don‘t particularly like any of the characters, I‘m not intrigued by the mystery of Isaac‘s equation, yet for some reason I can‘t bring myself to bail.

Audiobooks are great for when you need to prep for class and fold laundry and only have a few hours left of spring break.

So glad I checked this out on a whim. I didn‘t love the way Andre‘s voice was narrated, but these were such compelling characters and my heart ached for Roy and Celestial. Such a compelling story.

I wanted to love this, but I couldn‘t connect with any of the characters. Their actions all seemed unrealistic and I couldn‘t buy into their motivations at all. And the last section was completely unrealistic.

Started this audiobook at work today and I can‘t stop listening to it, so I started a new crochet project at midnight.

The perfect setting for starting a new book.

Another night of reading by flashlight. Tonight‘s choice is reminding us that even though it‘s stupid cold in the house, things could be worse.

Reading by flashlight isn‘t as fun as they make it seem in the movies. Maybe the power will be back on tomorrow 😕

From the beginning, I was in love with this beautiful, wild setting & characters. The first 200 pages were slow for me. I enjoyed them, but I could walk away from them for long periods. The second 200+, I read in a day. The ending wrapped up a little too tidily for my personal tastes, but I enjoyed this. It also confirmed that I made the right decision when I trusted my instincts & didn‘t go to Alaska for grad school. I wouldn‘t have survived.

Maybe I‘ve just read Little Women too many times, but I‘m pretty sure that taking a tent onto the lake and ice fishing is not safe today.