President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Recently Amazon was offering two of President Uchtdorf's talks for free!  I realize that they are talks turned into books so what does that make them really?  But they are wonderful still.  It will be nice to refer to both of these talks on both good days and sad days.  And since they are talks and not beefy books it will be perfect for this busy momma.

If you have read them, do so.  What you get out of these talks will be different than what I do.  Just like every time I read them I will learn something different that is the gift of the Holy Ghost and the power of living scripture.  What a tremendous blessing it is to have living Prophets and Apostles on Earth today.

The Opportunist

This book caught my eye because it was $4 on my kindle and looked interesting.

(Can I just say one of the things I love the most about my kindle, besides being able to read in the middle of the night, is that I can tape on any word in a book and it will define it for me.  It has been wonderful to learn what these big words authors use actually mean.)

 

Anyway...this book is about a "damaged" young woman.  Her father left when she was young and only came back around when he was broke and would take whatever money her mother had made for food.  At times that left them eating nothing because daddy dearest took the last dollar and went to McDonald's for his own dinner.  Awful and sad.  At the age of 17 her mother died.  She is basically alone. 

 

The hunk of the book comes for booka-bucks and a mother that is a snob. 

 

Together they make one hot mess.  They might be in love but it isn't really a healthy relationship. 

 

I can't decide what I think about this book.  One on hand it had some language and a few sexual scenes that I could have done without.  On the other hand it was interesting to read about how messed up people can be without a moral compass.  When they aren't taught correctly what happens...

 

I am glad I read this book it was interesting and I wanted to know what happened to the characters in the end. 

 

 

 



Keeping Faith

Faith is a little girl in the middle of a horrible situation.  For the first chuck of her life her mother was a little too self absorbed for a mother and then one day they came home to find her father home with another women.  GROSS.  AWFUL. 

 

It sent Faith's mom into a spiral down into a deep depression as she dealt with the rejection as well as a divorce her husband was now filling.  Faith withdrew into her own world.  She didn't understand who the woman was and in her mind her Daddy left because of her.  She quites talking.

 

And then she begins to have an imaginary friend who teachers her scriptures and songs that her parents never taught.  In fact they never went to church or had any religious leanings.  How is this little girl doing this?  And then miracles begin happening.

 

In this day and age a little girl performing miracles will draw a crowd...and boy does it.  As the divorce goes from awful to ugly Faith's mom becomes the mother she always dreamed of...because she realized that motherhood isn't perfection, it isn't doing everything right while wearing the perfect clothes and beautiful hair.  It is loving completely no matter what and doing what is best for her child.

 

It was a good book.  Since I have very little knowledge about the Catholic faith or the Jewish beliefs I was learning a lot in this book.  It was interesting for sure.  Plus it was an amazing story.  Then again if you have ever read a novel by Jodi Piclout then you know that her stories have layers...many layers. 

 

There was some language but I would still say it was a good book and I am glad I read it.

Divergent

Oh man...this is a great book.  I mean GREAT!!

 

It takes place in the future, but it isn't so weirdo that it is crazy to believe it.

 

People are separated into factions (groups)...based on their talents or really their personality traits.  So the selfless live all together, the peaceful all live together, the intellectuals, and brave.  There might be one other but now I am not sure.  Living this way has kept the peace as people live together but separate.  All the groups need each other in some way or another and they have learned how to help each other without bringing out the negative sides of their factions.

 

The Prior family are Advergents which is the selfless group.  Beatrice has never felt like she fit in and so when she turned 16 had a choice to make.  See when kids turn 16 they can choose to stay in their current faction or switch.  Once they switch that is it.  No going back.  If the try they become factionless which is seen as worse then death. 

 

So Beatrice turns 16 her older brother is just 9 months ahead of her so he also chooses the same day. No one talks about it.  So no one knows what will be chosen until the very moment.  Intense.

 

It goes from there.  It is a great book.  Very interesting and I highly recommend it. I would tell you more...but I don't want to ruin it.

 

So I guess you will have to read it.

 

Go on. Read it now...because there is a 2nd book and I bet sooner or later there will be a 3rd.
(someone wants to be the next Hunger Games super star)

Insurgent

This is the second book following Divergent.  Just to give you a hint as two whether I liked these two books or not...I bought them both.  So that should be a HUGE clue.  I really enjoyed them and couldn't wait to figure out what was happening and what would happen to all the characters.  Love books that make me care.

 

 

I think what I did wrong when reading this was that I read it too quickly after Divergent.  So it was a lot of the same thing all in a short period of time.  Other wise this book is also a great one. 

 

 

I don't want to ruin book one by tell you what goes on in book two...which makes it hard to tell you what book two is about.

 

It is action packed and there is a bit of a love story. 

 

 

My beef with this book is that it is children that are doing the fighting and killing and protecting and all that.  There are adults in there too but for the most part it is kids doing all the dirty work.  I think in the first book there wasn't so much fighting and so it didn't bother me as much, but this book  was a little much.  Kind of like Hunger Games-at first I didn't think much of the main characters all being kids...but by book three it was kind of awful.  But it certainly doesn't change the fact that they are all great books.  See what I mean?

 

See why I think I should have taken a break and then read book 2?  I don't think I would have had a problem with it then.

 

 

I highly recommend this book.  It is great and I am betting there will be a book 3-which I will read as well.

 

Also in my looking around they have  a cast for the movie...not to be compared to The Hunger Games...but even though the stories are totally different they are kind of the similar.   

 

Here is the link: http://www.divergentthemovie.org/divergent-trailer/

Tales from the Crib

This is anoter free Kindle book. and it was well okay.  The story was interesting but there were parts that I was bothered by. 

 

 

It starts off with a couple who have been married for several years and have been unable to have a baby.  So sad.  The years have been hard and they were having some struggles in their marriage.  Well, the wifey finds out she is going to have a baby and is beyond thrilled to tell her husband and when she does he tell her he wants a divorce.  RUDE.  And then to add insult to injury he says that it would be cheaper to not do it.  To live as roommates raising their baby together they would keep their house and pay taxes together.  He would pay the bills and she would be a stay at home mom and they could date who ever.

 

I mean think about it a live in baby sitter.

 

How awful is that?  The poor woman didn't know what else to do but agree.  So as she get bigger and bigger with child she had to watch her fake ex-husband date other women.  So wrong.

 

 

Well, over time you can imagine that this situation wouldn't work out so well.  They eventually ummmm.....well I don't want to ruin it just in case you do want to read this middle of the road book.

 

 

There were some other interesting characters in the story that made the characters have some layers to get through.  It was interesting.

 

But it made me mad that people would actually think this would be a good idea.  It was interesting to say the least...



War Brides

What a delightful story!  Unlike most books that I have read from this era (WWII).  But this is the first one that takes place from the perspectives of the ladies left behind.  It has now been a month or two since I last read it so chances are I have forgotten some of the details  but here is the basic run down.

 

A handful of girls all find themselves in the same small English town waiting the war out as best they can.  Not planning on falling in love, but finding themselves madly deeply neck deep in some cases.  Some carry with them secrets of murder, affairs, involvement in the war and smuggling children out of a Nazi camp. 

 

This story is FULL of love, murder, mystery, and even a spy or two.  It took me a few chapters to figure out who was who...I mean really there were just too many characters...but there isn't a single one I would want to cut out.  By the end I cared about each of them.  It was interesting to read about WWII from the wives and girls left behind.  Very well written.  There were parts of the book I could have done without.  At times they would take breaks from the girls and see what their families where doing in Nazi camps and that was awful to read.  I don't enjoy that kind of reading...to real and heartbreaking.  I could have done without those chapters.  Otherwise it was nice.

 

It was a free book on the kindle and well worth the money and time I put into it.