Prognosis: A Memoir of My Brain (Sarah Vallance)

Why I have this book: I got it for free on Kindle. I think it was a "First Read" book (a program for Amazon Prime members).

I liked it enough for four stars on Goodreads. There were a handful of the nasty swear words, and the writer is a lesbian who talks about how her brain injury made her crave sex a lot. I didn't need to read about that part of her story, but it's her story, so...

It was interesting to read about how her TBI (traumatic brain injury) affected her life, how she worked to overcome it, and the other side effects that she had a hard time controlling.

She talks about her sexual orientation and looking for partners, both long-term and the ones she used just to satisfy her urges. There is also some use of the worst swear words, but not as a constant annoyance throughout. Physical abuse is mentioned, as well.

Chasing Fireflies (Charles Martin)

Why I have this book: I borrowed it from the ebook library after a friend (L) recommended it to me.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I gave it four stars on Goodreads.

There were a couple of editing issues (he spelled "pus" (the oozy grossness in an infected wound) as "puss" (like a cat) TWICE. How nobody caught that, I don't know. Super annoying.

I also didn't find some of the story to be completely believable, but I sure did like most of the characters. I also thought the writing made it easy to get sucked into the story, and I found myself reading most of the day just because it was nice to be lost in a book.

Fairly clean. One character had been an adult film actress. There is some mention about sexual molestation, murder, etc., but none of it is graphically described. I don't recall swearing, although there might have been one or two uses of the "milder" swear words.

The C.H.A.O.S Cure (Marla Cilley)

Why I have this book: I borrowed it from the ebook library.

I'm a fan of Flylady... or I should say I used to be a fan. Her first book is one of my favorite housekeeping manuals. I thought I'd read this one to see how it compared.

I only gave it one star on Goodreads. Her first book was much, much better. This was more like a long magazine article.

I still like her principles and her first book. I think her products are a bit overpriced for the quality, and the customer service isn't stellar. I also think her email subscription is way overcrowded with testimonials of her products... and many of them are sent out again year after year.

Sadly, this new book didn't do anything to improve my opinion of where Flylady (the business) currently is. I still say her first book (Sink Reflections) is great, and her system can't be beat.

Clean. (haha... no pun intended.) (Pretty sure I've used that on another cleaning book somewhere in these reviews...)

For Elise (Sarah M. Eden)

Why I have this book: I borrowed it from the DBS+ app.

I liked it okay. I don't know. The character Elise kind of bothered me. It got better as it went along, then was a little too sappy in the last few pages, so I couldn't go more than two stars on Goodreads. I may have rated it a 2.5 if I had that option, but I couldn't bring myself to give it a full three stars.
Anyway, there ya go.

Clean, although there is a bit of violence. It's not too descriptive.

Psych! Haha... and a bunch of books I've read in the meantime...

Okay, so I meant it when I said I wasn't going to write on here anymore... but I miss remembering what I read and WHY I liked it or not. Goodreads doesn't really pull that into it. I mean, I know I could do reviews there, but I've already started it here and I don't want to copy and paste all the reviews I've already written.

I've read probably five books or more since I stopped reviewing them here, and I don't even really remember what most of them were about.

These ones I had listed on Goodreads:

Pride and Politics (Brittany Larsen) - I gave it four stars, so I must have liked it pretty well... which is why I went on to read another book by the same author:

Sense and Second Chances - which I gave three stars. I guess I liked it well enough.

Then I "read" a book called Embracing the Broken: Letting Go of Perfection and Living by the Power of Christ's Grace by Tiffany Webster. I gave it two stars on Goodreads, and honestly, I think I ended up skimming most of it. I didn't really love the writing style, so even though her message was a good one, I didn't find it enjoyable to read.

I also read Randy Travis's memoirs called Forever and Ever, Amen. I gave it three stars on Goodreads. I did enjoy it. I always like a good memoir because people are fascinating.

Then I read a handful of even more light reads (because we've been moving and I just needed a little escape in order to fall asleep at night):

A Place for Miss Snow by Jennifer Moore. I gave this two stars on Goodreads.

Willowkeep by Julie Daines. I'd say this was about three stars.

Unraveled by Julie Daines. I'm not really into fairy tales, and the characters in this one were just too simplistic. I'm saying two stars.

Three Amish Books:

BECAUSE... I had read one and I had either one or two others of the series. So then I read the first one again (I had to buy it because it was my mom's before), and maybe I bought one of the other two because maybe the one I had was the third one in the series...? I don't know. In any case, they are titled:

A Time to Love
A Time to Heal
A Time for Peace

... all written by Barbara Cameron. I know I read (and reviewed) the first one years ago, and I liked it at that time. This go-around, I didn't get the same connection as before. I think I was in a place that I needed the message the first time I read it, and that's a good thing. The books don't seem real realistic to me... meaning, they are less realistic than usual Amish romances (haha) because in all of them, someone converts to the Amish faith. I just don't think that happens very often, so to have THREE people in the same circle who convert seems a bit unlikely.

I will give the other two (besides the one I read earlier) two stars on Goodreads. I'll probably just leave whatever stars I gave the first one when I reviewed it earlier.

I threw all these books on Goodreads in probably opposite order than I really read them. I'm just trying to get them off my back ("Write me down so you don't forget you read me!") and off my devices so I can move along.

So even though writing a quick review is kind of a pain, I have found that it is nice for me to have a little something to reference when I wonder if I read/liked/and why I liked or didn't like a book.

In all honesty, I'm not sure if there's another book or two that I read and forgot to record, but that's okay.

ALSO... just as a little side note... the ebook library keeps a history of all the books one checks out. The problem is, sometimes I check out a book and don't read it or it's about housekeeping or something and I don't really want to review it. So that list on the ebook library doesn't really reflect what I've read. It just reflects something I checked out at some point. Sometimes the same book is even listed twice because I didn't read it the first time and ended up checking it out again.

All the books were clean, except Randy Travis did talk about his immoral lifestyle (living with women without being married, being with women who were married to other men, etc.) I don't remember if there was any swearing in his book or not.