Happy Wednesday everyone!!! I have to apologize for not getting a post out on Monday! Thomas and I were binge watching Orange Is The New Black all weekend and before I knew it, it was 1:00 am Monday morning! Has anyone watched this show? It ran 7 seasons but when it aired, my first thought was that I wasn’t sure how I would connect with the characters and chose not to get into the hype of it. But let me tell you, I love this show! It is based on real life experiences from someone who spent 13 months in prison for drug and money laundering. She was sentenced to serve 15 months and started journaling and blogging her experiences during her time in prison.

During this quarantine, I have finished several books that were recommended to me or that I found interesting by reading the reviews on www.barnesandnoble.com. Before this quarantine started, I had a stack of unread books waiting for me to pick up and read. Now that I’m working through the pile, I thought I would do a book review on those I have read and my thoughts on each. One of my favorite things to do is get snuggled up under a thick heavy blanket, have the dogs laying next to me, grab my coffee and dive into a good book. Reading helps calm me and for someone whose mind is always going, reading helps to keep me focused. I love romance and mystery and a good autobiography! I was once told I like childish mysteries but that is ok, to each their own!  Here you will see a wide selection of books but I think it can get boring if you are reading the same type of books all the time!

If anyone has a good book recommendation, let me know!  I love getting recommendations!  Also, see my last book review HERE!

Open Book by Jessica Simpson – I’m starting with this one because I hesitated on buying it. I have always been a fan of Jessica Simpson but wondered what she could possibly say about her life that we didn’t already know. I’ve followed her since her career started but by the end of this book, I really felt for her and was able to connect with her in a different light. It was inspirational, organic, loving, witty, and an “open book”! Her heart has been broken so many times but still she remains so loving, understanding, and caring. If you have ever been deeply hurt buy someone you loved, bullied, humiliated, or broken, but have come out of the situation with peace, this book is a must read.

Sweet And Deadly by Charlaine Harris – Charlaine Harris is one of my favorite authors. If you ever watched the vampire series, True Blood, with Sookie Stackhouse, you know who I’m talking about. Not only has she written the Sookie Stackhouse novels, she has gone on to write the Aurora Teagarden, Lily Bird, and Harper Connelly mysteries. And yes…I have read every one of them! Sweet And Deadly is about a newspaper reporter Catherine Linton ignoring her investigative instincts when her parents die in a mystery car crash six months ago. She ignores all of the warning signs that something is amiss. When she discovers the beaten body of her father’s nurse, Catherine quickly realizes her parents’ death was no accident. Catherine finds herself both the sheriff’s lead suspect and the killer’s new target. With the help of her friends, she sets out to untangle the dark roots of the murders and stop the killer.

A Secret Rage by Charlaine Harris – Nickie Callahan is a super model living in New York until one day she is dropped by her agent. At the old age of 27, she can’t compete with the new faces and heads back to Knolls, Tennessee’s to finish school at Houghton College. But Knolls isn’t the quiet town Nickie remembers from her youth. A rapist is targeting the women of Houghton. When the violence affects Nickie personally, she moves from fear to fury and joins forces with another survivor to find the sicko. She discovers the attacks are not random and that the rapists knows his victims.

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck by Mark Manson – This book came highly recommended from friends of ours but I have to admit that I couldn’t get through it and quit with only a few chapters to go. Mark Manson is a blogger who has written from his life’s experiences as well as scientific research and proof that you might want to choose what to give a fuck about. I found the same information to be regurgitated over and over again just in a different way. The point of the book is that we must choose what is important to us and what is not. And what is not, we should not worry ourselves over. We can’t change what has happened. We can only change how we deal with it. This makes sense to me but I don’t need a whole book to tell me. New York Times says “Resilience, happiness, and freedom come from knowing what to do care about-and, most importantly, what not to care about. This is a masterful, philosophical, and practical book the will give readers the wisdom to be able to do just that.” I found the book to have some sarcastic humor but to many fucks turned me off.

Asking For It by Louise O’Neill – This writing was motivated by real life cases of sexual assault. It was both hard to read because this poor girl loses the people who are supposed to care about her and is going through this humiliation at such a young age. Her life has been negatively impacted forever. I let it sit next to my desk for many months but during all this time at home, figured I better read it since I paid for it. This book got rave reviews from The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and Elle. Emma O’Donnavan is eighteen, beautiful, and fearless. It’s the beginning of summer in a quiet Irish town and tonight she and her friends have dressed to impress. Everyone is at the big party, but all eyes are on Emma. The next morning Emma’s parents discover her in a heap on the doorstop of their home, unconscious. She is disheveled, bleeding, and disoriented, looking as if she had been dumped there in a hurry. She remembers nothing from the party. That day several devastating photos from the party are posted online and go viral, eventually launching a criminal investigation and sending the community into tumult. The media descends, neighbors take sides, and people from all over the world want to talk about her story. Emma’s life has been changed forever by an unthinkable and all-too-common act of s sexual violence, and all she wants is to disappear.

How To Raise The Perfect Dog by Cesar Millan – I bought this book because Jake and Maggie can be reactive when together and can pull on their leash when overly excited about something. How To Raise the Perfect Dog answers all of the most commonly asked questions and guides you toward a loving, satisfying lifelong relationship with your best friend. A dog starts his training the minute it is born. A mother dog’s “training’ is also done through connecting. She has a real relationship with her pups, expressed through constant calming assertive leadership. This is why Cesar advises all puppy owners to think “connection,” then “communication,” before they think “training” or “conditioning.” Learn to converse with your dog the way another dog speaks to her; using energy, body language, and eye contact before you ask to master the intricacies of any human syntax. Your conversations will have much deeper meaning for your dog that way, and you will be sharing a true connection. Connection is the language of energy; it is the cornerstone of the lifelong bond between you and your dog. Connect and fulfill first, then move on to conditioning.

Cesar’s Fullfillment Formula

1. Exercise – in this form of a minimum of two structured walks with a pack leader, twice a day.
2. Discipline – clearly communicated and consistency enforced rules, boundaries, and limitations.
3. Affection – in the form of physical affection, praise, treats, and playtime

…all in this order.