Maternity leave and breastfeeding has given me ample time to read… which I love. If it hasn’t been clear on here before, I love reading. I started to read at a very young age and I worked in a public library during high school. There were times it was difficult for me to barcode and catalog the new books, simply because I was so interested in seeing what they all were. (Don’t worry, I did all my work. I was a damn good library employee!)

Here are some of the latest things I’ve read:

Delirium, Hana and Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

I’ve been into dystopian books lately, I guess everyone has because they’re all the rage. These books are part of a trilogy… although Hana isn’t really part of the MAIN trilogy, it’s basically a 1.5 to give a perspective from another character. That seems to be trendy these days too… Rewriting a story from another character’s point of view. Anyway, this series the future has eliminated love… they look at the emotion as a disease and get a surgical procedure to numb their feelings. It’s an interesting perspective and I’m eager to read the last one in the series… although I should have waited until the entire trilogy was published to begin it, I hate waiting for the next book! Requiem, the last book in the trilogy, won’t be out until March 2013.

Honey on Your Mind by Maria Murnane

This is basically chick-lit. I was turned onto this series by a success story posted about the author, how she pursued her novels by being self-published and found success with Amazon. The main character has a weird name, Waverly, and like most chick-lit books she does absolutely ridiculous things. But for some reason I find these easy to read and not too annoying. Although, the entire product line the character creates seems kind of dorky to me. But they’re fun, frivolous reads and I find them not as grating as that damn shopaholic series.

A Life Worth Breathing by Max Strom

This book was sent to me, it sounded like something I would enjoy… silencing our inner critic and adopting a yoga practice can help us live a more meaningful life. But truthfully I had a really hard time reading this book. Something about it felt a little preachy and/or patronizing. It didn’t seem to motivate me to do something to make my life more fulfilling… it mainly caused me to drift off. And that kind of bummed me out as the premise sounded so promising.

Run to Overcome by Meb Keflezighi

This book was interesting because you got to see where Olympian Meb came from; from a very poor childhood in Eritrea, to his family escaping the war-torn country to move to the US, becoming citizens and finding success in a new country. He and all of his siblings (family of 10!) have had great success in academics, which impressed me as they moved to California without even knowing English and had to jump right into elementary and middle school. There are some critics that say Meb comes across as a little braggy in this book and I guess some of the accomplishments do sound boastful… but the guy has done some amazing things, it’s hard to present those without sounding impressive and when it’s written in first-person there is no other way to say it besides “I did this…” At the end of each chapter there are little tips for running and life success, those are a nice touch.