Title: As I Have Loved You

Author: Kitty De Ruyter

Genre: Non Fiction, LDS, Biography

Published: February 28, 2003

The book starts our during Kitty's childhood living in Indonesia, being in concentration camps, living through wars, moving to Holland, then moving to the US and eventually her joining The Church of Jesus Christ of LDS.

If I managed to view what I was reading as a conversation with someone who is older and has fantastic stories to tell I found myself enjoying the book immensely. Those times where I slipped and realized I was reading a book I found myself getting frustrated with the repetition. I also found myself wanting to know how old she was during certain stories especially during those moments when she would jump to a new story. There were times where I wished she would go into more detail especially about what she was thinking and feeling.

I was impressed with her mother and believe she would have been a really amazing person to know. I was also impressed not all the stories Kitty told about herself put her in the most positive light. Even then she was able to pull morals and positives out of the experiences she had.

Overall I gave this book 4 stars out of 5.

Title: I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

Author: Michael Oher

Genre: Biography

Published: February 8, 2011

This story is The Blind Side, both the book and the movie, told from Michael Oher's point of view.

I read The Blind Side a couple of years ago and while it was very informative about football I wanted to know more about what had happened with Michael. This book goes into detail about his background and what had actually happened to him.

Despite everything he had gone through and experienced Michael is a very optimistic and positive
person. He is grateful for where he is now and for those who helped him get there. He admitted that not everything he had experienced was positive and he said he had made mistakes, but he did try to learn from them and move forward.

He stated more than once the reason he had written the book was so other kids in similar situations to his would know it was possible to get out and have a happy life. He wanted them to know they weren't stuck in the cycle just because their parents were in one. Michael talked about how just wanting something wasn't enough. You really needed to work for it and then when you got what you wanted you needed to work to improve and keep it.

Overall I gave this book 5 stars out of 5.

Title: The End of Your Life Book Club

Author: Will Schwalbe

Type of book: Nonfiction, Biography

This book is about a woman, Mary Anne, who was diagnose with cancer. During her treatments she and her son would talk about the books they were reading. They formed an informal book club. The book is told by her son Will.

I love his descriptions of his mother. The comparison to the airline among others. I could see that in my own family, how my mother is central. My father died four years ago and I still miss him. I can not imagine the time when I will no longer be able to talk to my mother everyday. I thought this was a beautiful way for the author to say he missed her.

I buy books as presents. Once someone reaches around age seven or so in my family it is rare for them to get anything but a book from me. I don't really think very many of them actually read the books, but they still get them. I loved how Mary Anne did the same thing.

My favorite line in the book was, "That's one of the things books do. They help us talk. But they also give us something we all can talk about when we don't want to talk about ourselves." I like the idea of being able to read a book around the same time as someone else and being able to talk about it. My problem is if I get unhappy with a book I put it down until I get past that part. This means it can take me forever to read some books. Not sure that would really work in a reading partnership. Still like the concept though.

I give this book 5 stars out of 5.