The Broken Girls has been on m TBR for over a year now after seeing it in an airport bookstore. Recently I have been going around to all of the independent bookstores in Minneapolis looking for a used version of this book so I could save some money and after a dinner with friends not too long ago I was able to pop into one and find it. I immediately got to reading this book and it did not disappoint. Whenever someone talks about this book there is a lot of hype around it and I completely agree because this book feels like more than a mystery or thriller, but also historial fiction and paranormal. This book touches on so many aspects of multiple genres in the best ways and it makes it an enthralling book! This is the first book I finished in just three days in a long time and it is because of how captivating the story is. The only reason I gave this book four stars is because I want to know more about all of the characters now and would have liked it if the book was longer (which I do not say often). I highly recommend this book if you like a little scary in your stories and if you want to read a book that ties in so many different elements.

And Then There Were None was my 45th book this year and it was the last book of my 2019 goal! This was my first book by Agatha Christie and I did enjoy it, but it was not what I expected. I have heard really great things about this book and Agatha Christie because she is the original thriller and mystery author. I did think this book was good because of the mystery behind the deaths of the guests on the island, it just took some getting used to when reading because of the language used and the amount of characters in the story. I am imagine that at the time this book was an incredible mystery, but now we have some really amazing mysteries and thrillers to read anytime so this book did not impress me too much.

This is my first “thriller” of 2020, but I would classify it more as a ghost story because this book definitely has all of the ghosts you can hope for. I was so excited to see The Sun Down Motel as an @bookofthemonth pick for January and I jumped on reading it right away because of how much I loved The Broken Girls by Simone St. James when I read it not long ago. Like her other book, The Sun Down Motel did not disappoint and stood apart from all of the other thrillers that are saturating the book industry right now. I really enjoyed this book and read it within a few days which says a lot because I have to make time to read on a daily basis. I loved this book because of how fast paced and intriguing it was with elements of mystery, horror, and suspense all wrapped into one. I loved how interconnected all of the stories were and how you are kept guessing the whole time you are reading. I do not want to say too much because I do not want to give anything away but this spooky story about a haunted motel in a town known for its missing girls is a great read for anyone look to be on the edge of their seat. I cannot wait to see what Simone St. James writes next!

Troublemakers is a self help book for helping you reframe your outlook on human behavior. This book is for anyone, but especially for educators no matter if you are new to the profession or an experienced teacher. As you can see I have a lot of flags posted in this book and that is because on almost every page I saw an worthwhile quote. Troublemakers has already helped me change my work with my students as a preservice teacher because this book suggests that a lot of the systems in place at schools around the country are problematic. This book was a part of a professional book club that I engaged with for one of my grad school classes and I can see how it would be a great book for starting conversations in among educators.

Verity is my first ever Colleen Hoover read and I am not disappointed! I do admit I had trouble finding this book to be able to read it, but it was worth the search! Before reading Verity I had no clue what to expect because I knew that Colleen Hoover is an amazing romance writer, but I had heard that Verity was a thriller and romance wrapped into one. Verity is definitely a thriller with romance tied in and there were moments in the book that made me feel uneasy and a bit scared. I really enjoyed Verity because it constantly keeps you guessing and I had trouble predicting the end. This book has twists and turns that will keep you guessing which is why I read this in less than three days, because I just had to know the end. Even then, I am still thinking about the ending... TLDR; Read this book!

I purchased The Grace Year not too long ago after giving into the hype that bookstagram had placed around this book. Although I did enjoy The Grace Year, I only gave it three stars. The Grace Year tells the story of Tierney and her sixteenth year where she, and the other girls her age, must be exiled to rid themselves of their magic which one comes into at this time. Tierney is unlike the other girls in her town where she defies the patriarchy that oppresses her and she looks forward to returning from her grace year to be a laborer. Going into reading this book, I thought there would be a lot of feminist messages, which I do agree there are, however the author took the story on a different route than I had thought and I found that Tierney’s character became more passive as the book went on. There was also the addition of a romance for Tierney that I thought took away from the story because I wanted to see how all of these girls together could harness some amazing girl power to beat the patriarchy. Sadly, this was not the case and as a result the book did not settle with me as well. If you like dystopian novels, this book would be a great one to read, I just recommend going into it with an open mind, because the book is not as described on the inside cover.

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