I've got two very different selections for you today, friends.
This was a cute memoir-type story from the country Queen. I actually don't know that much about Ree Drummond except for I like her recipe for chocolate pudding dessert. It's a quick, cute read, really sweet and funny.
The Light Between Oceans was a really powerful book. It was really hard to read for me at times. But, then again, reading about infertility and pregnancy loss can sometimes also be cathartic for me. It's about a lighthouse keeper and his wife who live alone on an island. They desperately want a baby, and one day a baby girl washes up to shore in a rowboat. The book explores love, despair, joy, making mistakes, and, most painfully, fixing mistakes. It's also sort of about trying to understand mistakes in the first place. I took a writing class at BYU, and one of the biggest things I remember my professor saying is that you have to torture your characters. What she meant is, the more complex the problems, the more complex the characters. Their decisions become more meaningful. I have never seen that technique so painfully illustrated as in this book. It is beautiful and just so sad at the same time. The ending was the only possible ending that made sense, but it was also heart-breaking. For all the beauty, this book leaves you feeling kind of empty. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Life is like that, right? Beauty and difficulty have to coexist. Anyway, I would definitely recommend this one. Just make sure you are ready for something a little bit heavy. The book will wear on you, but it will be worth it.
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