December TBR

I have signed up for a lot of blog tour hosting spots this month and I have a good bit of them. This month I was going to treat it as my catch up month and read the books that I never got around to on my TBR, but that may not happen. I have already finished one and a half books this month. the reviews for that is the post before this one.

Review: G.I. Brides by Duncan Barrett & Nuala Calvi

When i first started actively participating on my Goodreads account, I was constantly reading the daily update e-mails I received from the friends I was starting to gain and I had this one friend who lived in another country and he was always adding books to his to be read shelf because he wanted to put them into a library for the people who lived in that country. This book was one of the ones that caught my eye. I am really fascinated by romances that take place during war time specifically WWI and WWII. Either it be with a soldier leaving his sweetheart back home in the states, or a soldier finding a wife in another country.

This book is about four British women who were either in the Royal Army, red cross volunteers or just looking for a husband. I found their stories to be heart breaking, and at times I was a little disgusted with their behavior once they were married and in America.

They would complain about missing their families which is obvious, but they would also do it while saying that they didn't have anything to do during the day after their chores were done. They were expecting fancy homes and lots of money and fun, but instead they got a good dose of reality when they realized they would be living with their husband's parents. or that the husband had a gambling problem and was known to everyone in town to go around the block with all of the single women.
One husband was an alcoholic and the bride left and took their kids and she ran back to England.

The only bride that I felt sorry for was Rae. The one that pissed me off the most from the very beginning and what almost made me put down the book was that one of the brides tries to do a self abortion with a coat hanger.

I did fly through this book and I was satisfied at the end that the brides got a happily ever after whether is was with an American or British soldier.

November Wrap Up

I realized that I didn't post a November TBR. I did film one and I stuck to it. It was a nonfiction November TBR. I was only going to read nonfiction books, but I signed up for a couple of blog tours and I got free books out of the thing. I ended up reading 10 books when I originally planned on reading only four nonfiction books. The books I read for blog tours will be in bold.

1. The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel

2. Wilder by Andrew Simonet

3. Wind Swept by Jadie Jones

4. Wild Wood by Jadie Jones 

5. First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung

6. Six Miles to Charleston by Bruce Orr

7.City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

8. How She Died, How I Lived by Mary Crockett

9. The City of Sand by Tianxia Bachang

10. Aru Shah and the End of Time

BLOG TOUR: Eleanor Roosevelt's In My Garage by Candace Fleming

Rockstar Books Tours is hosting a two week tour for middle grade sequel by Candace Fleming.

Title: ELEANOR ROOSEVELT'S IN MY GARAGE (History Pals #2)

Author: Candace Fleming, Mark Fearing (Illustrations)

Pub. Date: September 25, 2018

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade Books

Formats: Hardcover, eBook, audiobook

Pages: 336

Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Audible, B&N, iBooks, TBD

Summary: In this hilarious follow-up to BEN FRANKLIN'S IN MY BATHROOM!, history and hijinks collide once more when Eleanor Roosevelt accidentally time travels to a ten-year-old's home in 21st-century America!

When Eleanor Roosevelt time travels to Nolan and Olive's house in modern-day Illinois, the kids don't know who she is at first. After all, she's old and wearing a hairnet. But the First Lady of the United States--some 80 years ago, that is-- isn't a mystery for long when she starts spouting things like "You must do the things you think you cannot do." Fresh off a visit from Ben Franklin, Nolan and Olive know what they're in for with this latest guest: an adventure. From drawing on ideals of civil protest to save the town park, to (almost) doing a loop-de-loop in a single-engine plane, to avoiding that know-it-all snoop Tommy Tuttle, there's one laugh after the next in this second book in the History Pals series. Fun back matter expands the story and unpacks the amazing life of Eleanor Roosevelt.

Excerpt: https://www.scribd.com/document/394202242/Chapters-1-2

About the Author: 

Candace Fleming awarded herself the Newbery Medal in fifth grade after scraping the gold sticker off the class copy of The Witch of Blackbird Pond and pasting it onto her first novel—a ten-page, ten-chapter mystery called Who Done It? She’s been collecting awards (her own, not Elizabeth George Speare’s) ever since.

Today, Candace is the versatile and acclaimed author of more than forty books for children and young adults, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize honored The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of the Russian Empire; Boston Globe/Horn Book Award-winning biography, The Lincolns; the bestselling picture book, Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!; the Sibert-Award-winning Giant Squid; and the beloved Boxes for Katje. She contributed the chapter on Katharine of Aragon to Fatal Throne. Photo credit: Michael Lionstar.

Website |  Twitter | Facebook |  Goodreads

Giveaway Details:

3 winners will win a signed finished copy of ELEANOR ROOSEVELT'S IN MY GARAGE, US Only.

https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/e2389ba2855/

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

11/26/2018- Oh Hey! Books.- Interview

11/27/2018- Two Chicks on Books- Excerpt

11/28/2018- BookHounds YA- Review

11/29/2018- Lifestyle of Me- Review

11/30/2018- My Books-My World- Excerpt

Week Two:

12/3/2018- Good Choice Reading- Excerpt

12/4/2018- The BookWorm Drinketh- Review

12/5/2018- All the Ups and Downs- Excerpt

12/6/2018- Parajunkee- Excerpt

12/7/2018- Jaime's World- Excerpt

Review: First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung

This is another book recommendation that I got from Readtheworld.org. It's a website that has lists of books that are sets in different countries or written by authors from different countries and they are categorized by country and continent. This is the third book I have read from that site and I have enjoyed each one so far. the books are Nonfiction and Fiction.

While in the middle of reading this book, I realized that this was turned into a movie or a documentary of sorts and it was made by Angelina Jolie. I have to watch it because she has a lot of ties to Cambodia and I think one of her sons was adopted from there.

This book is a memoir and it was written by a woman who suffered at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. A couple of days before I started reading this, two men who were some important men in the Khmer Rouge regime were given life sentences for the Genocide of the Cambodian population.

We read through the eyes of Loung who grew up in Phnom Phen. Her father was a former military personnel for the previous government and they had to conceal their identities and keep their past lives quiet because if he was found out, the whole family would be branded as traitors and killed on the spot.

The family was constantly relocated from camp to camp to work and grow crops and rice for the Khmer Rouge army and to also send to China to pay for the weapons that China was giving the Khmer Rogue to battle the Vietnamese.

They were starved, worked like dogs, raped, tortured, and killed on the spot. They made child soldiers and were brainwashing these children who were very young that the Angkar government loved them and that is the children helped protect the government, the government would in turn "not really" would love them and keep them "safe" in the future.

I will be reading books 2 and 3 very soon, because I want to know how she was able to move on.

Speechless| Dan + Shay

This song has become an instant favorite of mine. I really got into it while doing NaNoWriMo and it has been on loop. Whenever it comes on, Cayce blasts it and he starts a slow dance. He so sweet!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I hope that everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving. May you be grateful for all the things you have, family and love. Also, eat until your stuffed and don't let anyone give you crap about enjoying and being thankful for the food. Enjoy you Turkeys, Churkeys (chicken) or Hams and all the fixins'.