People You Meet in Heaven

Hello there!

My question of the week is based on The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom reviewed on Monday.

If you believe in Heaven, who do you think you would meet there?

Mackenzie

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Hey everybody!

This week I will be reviewing The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom.

Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination, but an answer. 

In heaven, five people explain your life to you. Some you knew, others may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?"

This is a re-read. I read it about 6 years ago and barely remembered it until the last person then I remembered little pieces. This book is fantastic. It's a book that really makes you think how you impact people. How could you meeting this person kill them. This book is so simple and perfectly lovely. It reads so easily. This book touches on death and an after life and it is well done. It was definitely kind of preachy but it was such a good book. I gave it 5 out 5 stars.

Happy reading!
Mackenzie

The Longest Ride

Hello!

Today I'll be reviewing The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks.

Ira Levinson is in trouble. Ninety-one years old and stranded and injured after a car crash, he struggles to retain consciousness until a blurry image materializes beside him: his beloved wife Ruth, who passed away nine years ago. Urging him to hang on, she forces him to remain alert by recounting the stories of their lifetime together - how they met, the precious paintings they collected together, the dark days of WWII and its effect on them and their families. Ira knows that Ruth can't possibly be in the car with him, but he clings to her words and his memories, reliving the sorrows and everyday joys that defined their marriage.

A few miles away, at a local bull-riding event, a Wake Forest College senior's life is about to change. Recovering from a recent break-up, Sophia Danko meets a young cowboy named Luke, who bears little resemblance to the privileged frat boys she has encountered at school. Through Luke, Sophia is introduced to a world in which the stakes of survival and success, ruin and reward -- even life and death - loom large in everyday life. As she and Luke fall in love, Sophia finds herself imagining a future far removed from her plans -- a future that Luke has the power to rewrite . . . if the secret he's keeping doesn't destroy it first.

Ira and Ruth. Sophia and Luke. Two couples who have little in common, and who are separated by years and experience. Yet their lives will converge with unexpected poignancy, reminding us all that even the most difficult decisions can yield extraordinary journeys: beyond despair, beyond death, to the farthest reaches of the human heart.

Angels and Demons
R
M
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Doctor Sleep
I Am Legend
Lone Wolf
Longest Ride (The)
Once Upon a Prince
Superman on the Couch

I was pleasantly surprised with this book. After the jaded story  The Best of Me I wasn't really looking forward to reading this. I thought it was going to be some regular cowboy story with the sappy Nicholas Sparks twist. Well it was and it wasn't. It was a cowboy story and it was sappy BUT the overlapping love stories was fantastic. To see two love stories in two different centuries is so interesting. I know at the beginning the two stories make no sense but keep with it. It's beautiful. It is still not the best Sparks's novel but it was definitely good. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

Happy reading!
Mackenzie

How I Came to Sparkle Again

Hello, hello, hello!

Today's review is on How I Came to Sparkle Again by Kaya McLaren.

Jill Anthony spent her young adulthood in the ski town of Sparkle, Colorado.  But more than a decade has passed since she left when, only weeks after a very late miscarriage, she finds her husband in bed with another woman, she flees Austin, Texas for the town she knows:  Sparkle. Lisa Carlucci wakes up one morning after another night of meaningless sex, looks in the mirror and realizes that she no longer wants to treat her body like a Holiday Inn. She’s going to hold out for love.  The only problem is, love might come in the form of her ski bum best friend, who lives next door with his ski bum friends in a trailer known as “the Kennel.” Cassie Jones, at age ten, has lost her mother to cancer and no longer believes in anything anymore.  She knows her father is desperately worried about her, and she constantly looks for messages from her deceased mother through the heart-shaped rocks they once collected in the streams and hills of Sparkle. 

Where She Went
How I Came to Sparkle Again
A
L
E

S

This also fits into my 2015 challenge under "A book you own but have never read".

After this I only have one more "H" to finish that letter.

Okay, as for my review. I read this book when I wasn't feeling so great and thought I could use some more sparkle in my life. BUT this book was about how the protagonist, Jill, ended back in the town Sparkle....Ugh. Not exactly what I was looking for. It was an okay story. It was cheesy and kind of cute. It was so typical and predictable. The relationship between Cassie and Jill is the best part of the book. I also found the story behind Jill heartbreaking. I thought it would be super heartwarming. It fell flat. Some of the dialogue and movements seemed forced. There were also too many characters to keep track of. Half of this book was great and half of it was juvenile. I gave it 3 out of 4 stars,

Keep reading!
Mackenzie

Paranormal

Hey everyone!

My question this week is...

What is your favorite paranormal creature and why?

Please comment below with your answers! And see everyone else's answers on Friday!

Happy reading!
Mackenzie

Dead Until Dark

Hey everyone!

Today's review is for Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris which became the True Blood TV show.

Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn't get out much. Not because she's not pretty. She is. It's just that, well, Sookie has this sort of "disability." She can read minds. And that doesn't make her too dateable. And then along comes Bill. He's tall, dark, handsome - and Sookie can't 'hear' a word he's thinking. He's exactly the kind of guy she's been waiting for all her life. But Bill has a disability of his own: He's a vampire. Worse than that, hangs with a seriously creepy crowd, with a reputation for trouble - of the murderous kind. And when one of Sookie's colleagues is killed, she begins to fear she'll be next.

This unfortunately doesn't fit into the alphabet challenge. But it does cross off "A book based on or turned into a TV show" in my 2015 challenge.

So I pick up this series thinking great it will be a good mystery book, oh and cool vampires. I did not expect it to have so much sex. Overall though it was a decent book. It's a fairly quick, easy, somewhat sleazy read. This story was set up so that most of it was introducing characters and then the end and the problem all just kind of happened at the same time. It was kind of set up poorly. Unfortunately, Sookie is the perfect looking protagonist, the only difference is that she has her own kind of power. These books were silly and ridiculous with not that great writing but they are now a guilty pleasure of mine. I gave it 3 out of 5 stars.

Keep reading!
Mackenzie

March Update

Hey there!

Oops...looks like I accidentally skipped the February Update. But anyways here is one for March and February.

In these past two months I've only added a few books to my challenge. I've also added a separate challenge that I'm working on and encourage all of you to as well. But sticking just to this challenge I present what I have so far:

Angels and Demons
R
M
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Doctor Sleep
I Am Legend
Lone Wolf
L
Once Upon a Prince
Superman on the Couch
  
Boy in the Suitcase (The)
Under the Dome
Confessions of a Mask
K
Still Alice

C
O
Book of Lost Things (The)
R
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
S
  
Defending Jacob
Insurgent
N
Graveyard Book (The)
O
S

Ender’s Game
Light Between Oceans (The)
Exhale
Persepolis (The Complete)
Happiness Project (The)
Angel in a Fur Coat
Narrative of Fredrick Douglass
Two Towers (The)
Self-inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation

Funniest Cop Stories Ever
E
N
N
E
Chemist (The)
Fellowship of the Ring (The)
O
X-It

Gone Girl
O
R
Inhale
L
L
Along for the Ride
S

Hobbit (The)
E
Divergent
G
E
Handmaid’s Tale (The)
O
G
S

If I Stay
G
U
A
N
A
S

Just Breathe
And the Mountains Echoed
Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina de Jesus
K
Allegiant
L
S

K
Angel Sister
N
G
Among Schoolchildren
R
O
O
S

L
I Am Number Four
O
N
S

M
O
N
K
E
Y
S

N
About a Boy
R
Warriors Don’t Cry
Horns
A
L
S

O
C
Touched by Angels
O
Palestine
U
Speaker for the Dead

Perks of Being a Wallflower
E
A
C
O
C
K
S



Q
U
A
Intensity
L
S

R
A
V
E
N
S

S
N
A
K
E
S

This Is Where I Leave You
U
R
K
E
Y
S

U
R
C
H
I
N
S



V
U
L
T
U
R
E
S 

Where She Went
H
A
L
E
S

Xenocide
E
N
O
Princess Ever After
S 

Y
A
K
S 

Z
E
Bourne Identity
R
Aunt Jane’s Hero

S

I have still only finished the word "ELEPHANTS" and the letters B, D, F, J, P, and X. Please keep reading for more updates and reviews!

Happy reading!
Mackenzie