**The heat has broken and the air feels cooler than it has in weeks. I almost put a cardigan on this morning, then decide to enjoy the weather before autumn, before I am really going to need it. I write some letters to my family in the countryside and walk to towne to post them. In towne, I stop for some tea, stirring in the milk and sugar until it lightens the color of the hot drink. I listen to the sounds of conversation drift amongst the other tables and sip my tea. My, how I wish summer would never end.**

I have had a few books recommended to me in the past year, so I figured that I should probably get to some of them. Over the past few weeks, I read three of the books that people have recommended to me and we’re going to see my thoughts on each.

Not in any order, but the first book we have is Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. Someone in my family has been telling me to read this for almost a year now, and I finally did this month! This book follows a boy named Jesse who wants to be the fastest runner in the fifth grade, but gets beat by the new girl Leslie. The two eventually strike up a friendship and create Terabithia where they rule over it in the woods. A tragedy occurs and Jesse has to deal with his grief. I was actually pleasantly surprised by this one. It wasn’t a favorite, but it was entertaining with good writing. It is definitely an emotional read, but has a great story. I do think this was worth the read.

My next book is Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz which I read last month. This was recommended by someone I work with. This was very different from my normal reads because it’s a nonfiction book and I listened to it on audio, both of which are outside of my normal reading habits. This book is written by a former FBI hostage negotiator who shares his tips and tricks for negotiating in different situations, even everyday life. As I said, nonfiction is not something I ever read or really like, and I don’t really like audiobooks either. However, I think the audiobook helped me get through this. There were some slow parts in this book, but I did find parts interesting and actually took notes while reading. I would love to test some of the tips and see if I could actually negotiate based on the author’s tips. Overall, this one was okay but nonfiction is still not for me, but I still took some things away and parts were interesting.

The last book I read for this post was supposed to be The Five Wishes of Mr.Murray McBride by Joe Siple. This was recommended by a family member, but I didn’t get to it. I ended up reading Run on Red by Noelle W. Ihli at the beginning of the month which was actually a recommendation by the same person, so I am using that instead. This book is a thriller following two girls on the way to a party, but get followed by two guys, which turns into a chase through the woods on foot. I was not a fan of this. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t my favorite. I felt like the reveal wasn’t a good one and I just wasn’t thrilled with the book as a whole.

I had known I wanted to do this post for a few weeks which is why I started reading some of the recommendations I’ve gotten. It made me read books I wouldn’t have picked up myself, and it can be cool to see what books other people like. My favorite of these is probably Bridge to Terabithia, but I would love to do another at some point and see which ones are worth picking up.

xoxo,

Just another reader