The Big White Farmhouse

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#34. THE BOUNDLESS by Kenneth Oppel // ★★★☆☆
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This middle grade novel was a recommendation from my 11 year old son.  It takes place on a train and is action packed and just a little bit scary!

#35. THE FILTER BUBBLE: WHAT THE INTERNET IS HIDING FROM YOU by Eli Pariser // ★★★☆☆
(amazon // better world books)

Even though this book was written over 10 years ago, I found it very relevant and thought-provoking.  There were quite a few, but one of the biggest takeaways for me was that “over-personalization” of your online experience greatly decreases the ability to think creatively.  As an example, he talks about serendipity, the process of stumbling across the unintended.  I recently experienced this as I used Pinterest to find a recipe.  Years ago, I would be able to see a wide variety of things on my home page, especially what all of my friends were pinning…now all I see as I scroll is more of the same topics I have searched for in the past.  It’s becoming harder to discover something fresh and new, something that excites me and raises my curiosity.  Like Pariser says in the book, “Google is great at helping us find what we know we want, but not at finding what we don’t know we want.” (p.104)  It takes intentional effort to pull yourself from the bubble the Internet creates for you, but I’m inspired to try.  (I chose this book as part of my non-fiction Alphabet Reading Challenge.)

#36. THE GOOD DAUGHTER: A MEMOIR OF MY MOTHER’S HIDDEN LIFE by Jasmin Darzink // ★★★★☆
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This memoir was so good.  The author is an Iranian immigrant who moved to the US when she was young.  In her early twenties, she was helping her mother move when a photograph fell from a stack of old letters. The photograph showed her mother wearing a wedding veil, but the man at her side was not her father.  When Jasmin inquired, her mother refused to speak about the photograph.  Months later, however, she received from her mother a handful of recorded cassette tapes that would bring to light the story of her family’s time in Iran.  I flew through this book and found it both fascinating and utterly heartbreaking.  The writing was beautiful.

#37. THE FOUR WINDS by Kristin Hannah // ★★★☆☆
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Elsa had never thought of land that way, as something that anchored a person, gave one a life.  The idea of it, of staying here and finding a good life and a place to belong, seduced her as nothing ever had. (p.52)

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I’m on the fence about whether Kristin Hannah’s books are a good fit for me.  I loved The Nightingale but had issues with The Great Alone…where would this one fall?  I’m fascinated by the Great Depression and thought the book was good, but it felt like a hundred pages too long.

#38. THE NEW NEIGHBOR by Karen Cleveland // ★★★★☆
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Karen Cleveland wrote one of my favorite thrillers, so I was excited to get my hands on her latest book!  Super fast read and I didn’t guess the twist at the end.  Need to Know is still my favorite, but this was fun.  (The New Neighbor will be released on July 26, 2022.  Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book!)

#39. THE END OF THE PRESENT WORLD AND THE MYSTERIES OF THE FUTURE LIFE by Father Charles Arminjon // ★★★☆☆
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This is a beautiful book, but for whatever reason, it took me forever to get through!  I would definitely like to read it again sometime in the future.

#40. ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH by Alexander Solzhenitsyn // ★★★☆☆
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This one is about a grueling day in the life of a prisoner serving time in a Siberian labor camp.  So brutal.  (This was also my 1962 pick for the 20th Century in Literature Challenge.)

#41. NOTHING TO HIDE by J. Mark Bertrand // ★★★☆☆
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This is the third and last book in the Roland March Mystery series.  Fast paced with plenty of twists and turns.