My Best Pandemic Reads

It must sound cliche but reading is my escape. With this pandemic going on, all I’ve got is time to do things in my own pace. I’ve got all the time in the world!

Fortunately, the books I got are timely and riveting. I have published in my previous posts about the books I’ve read earlier (The Lock Down Series, The Lockdown Series Pt. 2) when the pandemic started, this post highlights my favorite books. This comes in no particular order from my Goodreads page.

  1. Circe by Madeline Miller

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.35959740. sy475

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I was looking for book recommendation about self-discovery when I saw a Vlog on Youtube (Thank you Jenny Im!)that suggested this.

I love it! It is all so powerful and fascinating. This is an added plus because I love books about Mythology and Gods and Goddesses. Circe is a book of it’s own and I have never read a book as beautiful as this. Though a lot of people said that ‘The Song of Achilles’ is still better which I have yet to read. This just got me through the core and held me up in this pandemic. Circe’s journey from being vulnerable to being powerful is oh so wonderful. How she learned to not rely on others but herself is astonishing and how she fell in love a lot of times. I will recommend this book in my mini book club of all girls and I hope they will love it!

Favorite Highlighted Quotes
You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite.
I’ve found that courage is not a matter of age, but true-made spirits.
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2. Where the Lost Wander by  Amy Harmon

In this epic and haunting love story set on the Oregon Trail, a family and their unlikely protector find their way through peril, uncertainty, and loss.

The Overland Trail, 1853: Naomi May never expected to be widowed at twenty. Eager to leave her grief behind, she sets off with her family for a life out West. On the trail, she forms an instant connection with John Lowry, a half-Pawnee man straddling two worlds and a stranger in both.

But life in a wagon train is fraught with hardship, fear, and death. Even as John and Naomi are drawn to each other, the trials of the journey and their disparate pasts work to keep them apart. John’s heritage gains them safe passage through hostile territory only to come between them as they seek to build a life together.

When a horrific tragedy strikes, decimating Naomi’s family and separating her from John, the promises they made are all they have left. Ripped apart, they can’t turn back, they can’t go on, and they can’t let go. Both will have to make terrible sacrifices to find each other, save each other, and eventually… make peace with who they are.

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Jouana Farlin Seva‘s review

Oh God, it’s so beautiful and sad.. but happy and enlightening..

I couldn’t even describe it.

I have never been disappointed with all the Amy Harmon books I’ve read, though I have yet to read some of her previous books.

****This is probably my fourth book from Harmon and true enough, you cannot describe Harmon’s books. You experience these mixed emotions while reading. I have so many highlights of the lines that hit to the core.
Favorite Highlighted Quotes
Love is the only thing worth suffering
The hardest thing about life is knowing what matters and what doesn’t. 
If nothing matters, then there’s no point . if everything matters, there’s no purpose. The trick is to find firm ground between the two ways of being.
The pain. It’s worth it. The more you love, the more it hurts. But it’s worth it. It’ the only thing that is. 
That’s what marriage is. It’s shelter. It’s sustenance. It’s warmth. It’s finding rest in each other. It’s telling someone ‘You matter the most’. 
There are more engrossing scenes and quotes if you read the book. Check it out now!
Other books to review on my next post! 

The Lockdown Series pt.2

Another Great Book!

So this book is a new release from Rebecca Serle, “In Five Years”.

Blurb:

Where do you see yourself in five years?

When Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Cohan is asked this question at the most important interview of her career, she has a meticulously crafted answer at the ready. Later, after nailing her interview and accepting her boyfriend’s marriage proposal, Dannie goes to sleep knowing she is right on track to achieve her five-year plan.

But when she wakes up, she’s suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. The television news is on in the background, and she can just make out the scrolling date. It’s the same night—December 15—but 2025, five years in the future.

After a very intense, shocking hour, Dannie wakes again, at the brink of midnight, back in 2020. She can’t shake what has happened. It certainly felt much more than merely a dream, but she isn’t the kind of person who believes in visions. That nonsense is only charming coming from free-spirited types, like her lifelong best friend, Bella. Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind.

That is, until four-and-a-half years later, when by chance Dannie meets the very same man from her long-ago vision.

Brimming with joy and heartbreak, In Five Years is an unforgettable love story that reminds us of the power of loyalty, friendship, and the unpredictable nature of destiny.

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I can’t help but see myself in Dannie. I have been always the careful one, always thinking that if I do this this will lead to this. Causality has always been my way of living and was also the way I was brought up. It has always been effective, still is. Though it has it’s disadvantages but I’m not gonna talk about that.

The book gravitated on relationships, especially friendship between Dannie and Bella. They have this strong and profound relationship probably because they met when they were little. They have opposite personalities but one compliments the other.

When I started reading I began to predict some disappointments for Dannie but it never came out that way.  I was amazed by their kind of friendship, I wonder if that kind really exists. I thought for a second Dannie might have actual feelings for Bella, as in romantically but there isn’t. Both their relationships with men where to good to be true but their friendship has always been tight. Being together for so long has made it much stronger, being there for each other when life happens when they were young up until becoming adults.

I have many highlights of beautiful and touching lines from the book but this simplest one stuck,

‘Love doesn’t require a future.’

Made me realize of the many cliches about descriptions about love. It is what it is as long as it’s felt — it exists.

I can make a lot of statements about this but I would greatly suggest you read the book. I am getting Serle’s other books soon, I’m kind of loving her writing. I just wish she would give a more elaborate ending for Dannie and Aaron, a second book perhaps? I hope so…

In Five Years : A Novel by Rebecca Serle is out now.

Gave it 4 on Goodreads!