Wow, it has been quite awhile since I did one of these! And I do have a very good excuse–my daughter Evangeline Judy was born in early July, and I’ve been trying ever since to figure out life with four kids five and under, one of whom insists on being held 24/7!

But I have slowly been finding where writing fits into this new normal over the past few weeks, and I have some news I’ll share in another post soon. In the meantime, we still have more than 60 books to review from last year, so I had better get back to it!

I got this one at a retreat for homeschool moms a few years ago, but hadn’t gotten around to reading it yet. With so many little kids, even though we hadn’t technically started homeschooling yet, romance can definitely be hard to fit into one’s life!

I liked the book, and thought the advice and suggestions in it were solid, but it wasn’t quite as earth-shattering as I was hoping. There was nothing really new or revolutionary in it, which is perhaps the whole point–there is no quick fix or easy secret to keeping the spark alive in one’s marriage in the midst of a busy life. But it was full of good, helpful reminders that always make for a good refresher course.

Okay, so I’m going to admit I sort of cheated with the next four–I read four Stephen King novellas in one collection, but I put them separately into Goodreads to help my reading quota. They’re all listed on Goodreads separately, so why not?

That said, this was my first Stephen King. I bought the collection years ago at a thrift store because I’d heard that his shorter stories could be less horrifying than his novels, and while I’m very sensitive to horror I wanted to read some of his works since he’s known as a great writer. I’d already seen the movie The Shawshank Redemption and liked it, so this seemed like a good place to start.

The book was every bit as good. Well-written, inspirational, engaging, and from what I remember the movie stayed very true to it. It’s definitely a famous story for a reason!

This was the second novella in the collection, and honestly it only has three stars because of the quality of King’s writing. Otherwise it would be two or even one. It was honestly a disgusting story, truly horrific, with multiple parts I skipped over.

But I will admit that it made quite a powerful point about evil and its influence and the ways it may not look like we expect. The relationship between a former Nazi and the young boy fascinated by his past actions is more than a little disturbing, but really demonstrates how twistedness can perpetuate and feed off of itself.

All that said, I very much do not recommend it.

The third novella in the collection was another really well-written and engaging one, and I was fascinated by how King manages to say a lot without really saying much of anything at all. In fact, after reading the book I watched the movie version, Stand by Me, with my husband and he complained that it “wasn’t really about anything.”

But at the same time, it gives such a window into boys and boyhood and growing up and how circumstances can change and influence us. There were several things I didn’t appreciate in the story, some language and just some of the attitudes, but it was really well done.

The final story in the collection was–strange. And the story itself was contained in another story that was also strange and didn’t really make sense to me. But the core of it was compelling and was such a bizarre and creative way to comment on a mother’s love and willingness to sacrifice for her child.

Again, all that said, it was strange and somewhat disturbing (no surprise there) so I don’t know whether I would recommend it. But I do appreciate it.

I doubt I’ll be reading more Stephen King anytime soon, though I have a couple of his books on my shelf that I may get to at some point. But other than Apt Pupil I enjoyed them, and I appreciated his skill in all of them and felt that I did learn a lot as a writer, so mission accomplished!

So there we have it! I’ll try to do these more frequently to make it through the rest of the list before the end of the year, and I also have a few more things coming up, like a guest post, an announcement, and a giveaway (not necessarily in that order) so keep an eye out for all that!