Frugal Coupon Living

I didn’t have a Behind the Scenes in March and now we are at the end of the month, but I did have some good books I wanted to share! As you know, picking up a book and sitting down to read is not always the easiest for me but I can listen too books in the car, as I clean the house and falling asleep at night so this is how I get these books read (so quickly too!) I choose Audible to read. You can get three free months today!

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr – Of the four, this one was my favorite. It takes two individuals story as they go parallel in separate lives during WWII.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is 12, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

Sharp Objects Audible by Gillian Flynn – this is the same author as Gone Girl. I actually really liked the story line and twists and turns but I did not appreciate some of the crass parts. I am not a fan of books like Shades of Gray though this book wasn’t anywhere close.

WICKED above her hipbone, GIRL across her heart

Words are like a road map to reporter Camille Preaker’s troubled past. Fresh from a brief stay at a psychiatric hospital, Camille’s first assignment from the second-rate daily paper where she works brings her reluctantly back to her hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls.
NASTY on her kneecap, BABYDOLL on her leg

Since she left town eight years ago, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful 13-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed again in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille is haunted by the childhood tragedy she has spent her whole life trying to cut from her memory.
HARMFUL on her wrist, WHORE on her ankle

As Camille works to uncover the truth about these violent crimes, she finds herself identifying with the young victims a bit too strongly. Clues keep leading to dead ends, forcing Camille to unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past to get at the story. Dogged by her own demons, she will have to confront what happened to her years before if she wants to survive this homecoming.

With its taut, well-crafted writing, Sharp Objects is addictive, haunting, and unforgettable.

If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch – I JUST picked up this book last night and have not read a page. I found the description intriguing.

A deeply compelling mix of high school drama and page-turning mystery that asks profound questions about family, truth, and love

Fourteen-year-old Carey and six-year-old Jenessa have been living in the woods with their mother for as long as they can remember; the sheltering trees and a broken-down camper are all they know. But what they’ve never been told is that Carey vanished from the real world ten years ago, when their mother took her, causing an uproar in the media – and in her father’s life.

Now, abandoned by the mother they trusted, they’re often left alone for long periods of time to fend for themselves – but, in one moment, everything changes. They’re found by Carey’s father and thrust into a bright and perplexing new world, one of shopping malls, shiny appliances, new clothes, and mouth-watering food. Carey desperately wants to believe in this new reality but is held back by a deep and painful loyalty to her mentally ill mother, who gave Carey her violin and taught her how to play the soaring music that helps her survive.

And then there’s the other piece of Carey’s past that haunts her, the story of what happened to her and Jenessa on that dark night in the woods – the reason Jenessa hasn’t spoken a word in over a year. Will Carey ever be able to trust her father and his family enough to fit into this new life? Will Jenessa finally break her silence and ruin the cocoon of safety that Carey’s built so carefully around them? And what will happen if the secret comes out?

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman – a complex situation. It basically shows the butterfly affect how one persons decision or actions can change the life of others for a lifetime. I liked the book.

A captivating, beautiful, and stunningly accomplished debut novel – the story of a lighthouse keeper and his wife who make one devastating choice that forever changes two worlds.

In 1918, after four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia to take a job as the lighthouse keeper on remote Janus Rock. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes only four times a year and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Three years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel is tending the grave of her newly lost infant when she hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up on shore carrying a dead man and a living baby. Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the dead man and the infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim the child as their own and name her Lucy, but a rift begins to grow between them. When Lucy is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world…and one of them is desperate to find her lost baby.

M.L. Stedman’s extraordinarily compelling characters, still trying to make sense of life in the wake of so much death in the war, are imperfect people seeking to find their north star in a world of incomprehensible complexity.

As a reminder, get 3 months FREE on Audible. You can also purchase these books online if you prefer a hard copy.

See the behind the scenes in February 2016 and what I was reading!

WHAT’S TRENDING? Looking for a few engaging activities? Grab Minute to Win it Games – Traditional, Holiday, Group, and more! Use these fun activities in the office, classroom, or at your next birthday party.