May Reads (16)

One star = did not like it at all

Two stars = eh, it was okay

Three stars =  liked it

Four stars = really, really liked it

Five stars = absolutely loved it

1-Star (1)

*Adulting (Non-Fiction, Kelly Williams Brown)

UGH.  I got this book because sometimes I don't actually feel like an adult yet (at 40 years old).  But after reading this nonsense, I've never felt more adult in my life.

(real book, will donate)

2-Star (2)

**Interpreter of Maladies (Fiction, Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer Prize Winner 2000)

Meh.  This book is a compilation of short stories.  There was maybe 2 good ones, the rest were extremely forgettable and boring.  I am not a huge fan of short stories AND I'm not a fan of Jhumpa Lahiri (The Namesake?  I HATED that book).  I should have known.  Oh well.

(real book, owned, will donate to LFL)

**The Italian Teacher (Fiction, Tom Rachman)

The only reason this book piqued my interest was the cover.  And if you don't know what the cover looks like, it's worth googling.  But, unfortunately, that's where the good stops.  Narcissistic characters, extremely slow at times.  I almost didn't finish it, but then I read reviews that said it got really good towards the end so I stuck it out. 

(free from Libby audio)

3-Star (9)

***Behind Closed Doors (Fiction, B.A. Paris)

This story was MESSED. UP.  But it was really good.  I listened to it on audio and it kept me hooked throughout the entire book.

(free from Libby audio)

***The Underground Railroad (Fiction, Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize Winner 2017)

This won the Pulitzer Prize last year.  I can see why, although it took me a long time to get into the story.  And there's parts of the book that are absolutely horrifying, which is even worse because these things actually happened.  And while the 'underground railroad' that we were taught about in school was not a *literal* underground railroad (instead it consisted of meeting points, secret routes and safe houses), Whitehead's Underground Railroad is literally an underground railroad which was a very interesting aspect in the book.  This is a solid 3.5 read.  It's worth it, if you can stomach it.

(real book, but listened to audio for free on Libby, will donate to LFL)

***My Name is Lucy Barton (Fiction, Elizabeth Strout)

I think my favorite part of this book was how short it was.  Ha ha.  It's an endearing story about a very complicated mother/daughter relationship.

(free from Libby audio)

***Summer at Little Lava (Non-Fiction, Charles Fergus)

I enjoyed this memoir of a man who is grieving his mother (who died very tragically).  He takes his wife and son to live in remote Iceland for the summer.  My favorite quote of the book "You have not lived until you have stayed awake a summer's night in Iceland."  The land of the midnight sun.

(real book, keeper)

***The Good Girl (Fiction, Mary Kubica)

An abduction that doesn't go exactly as expected.  With a few twists and turns along the way.  (p.s. - the ending may make you want to hurl the book across the room). 

(free from Libby audio)

***Anne of Avonlea (Fiction, L.M. Montgomery)

The second book of the Anne of Green Gables series.  I liked it, but I don't think I'll read the rest of the series.  I know what happens ha ha.  The book was good, but it's hard to top the first one.

(free from Hoopla audio)

***A Piece of the World (Fiction, C. Bakerline)

I wavered a LOT on giving this book 3 stars or 4 stars.  It's the somewhat fictional story of Andrew Wyeth's painting 'Christina's World'.  The reason I ended up giving it a 3 instead of a 4 is that at times it felt a little slow and I found my thoughts drifting away from the book.  But I enjoyed the story.

(actual book, but listened to free on Hoopla audio.  Will give book to MIL)

***White Chrysanthemum (Fiction, M. Bract)

Another one where I wavered between 3 and 4 stars.  But it got 3 due to the content.  EVEN THOUGH the content was historical and actually happened.  Sex slaves in Japan/Korea in World War 2.  Heartbreaking.

(actual book, but listened to free on Hoopla audio.  Will donate book to LFL)

***Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (Fiction, G. Honeyman)

Lots of hype around this book, and I found it FINE....not great.  But it kept me entertained.

(free from Libby audio)

4-Star (2)

****Little Fires Everywhere (Fiction, Celeste Ng)

I listened to this audiobook on the drive to Denver before our Iceland trip.  I really enjoyed it, which was surprising because I did not care for Celeste Ng's first book (Everything I Never Told You).  This book tells the story of teenagers, friends, dysfunction, and the neighborhood dynamic of small town Ohio.

(free from Libby audio)

****The Soul of an Octopus (Non-Fiction, Sy Montgomery)

This book was beautiful and incredibly heartbreaking.  I learned a lot, but I also had a debate going on in my head throughout the entire book about when enough is enough regarding animals in captivity.  The author was pretty flippant about some things (when she was talking about possibly getting an octopus as a PET (really?!?) and also when she was talking about how they would just order octopuses online.  Sigh.  It's just....sad.  But again...that's where the debate in my head came in.  I feel incredibly blessed to have learned so much about these magnificent creatures (hence the 4 star rating), but at what cost?  But at the same time...I eat meat.  From cows and chickens that are certainly 'captive'.  Ugh.  So....again, it's a 4-star read and it was written very well, but it broke my heart at the same time.

(free from Libby audio, but I also own the book, which I will keep)

5-Star (2)

*****Anne of Green Gables (Fiction, L.M. Montgomery)

Okay so this is technically not the first time I've read this book.  I read it when I was maybe 10 or 11.  But I hadn't read it since!  And since it's been 30 years since I've read it, I'm counting it as a new read.  And it was just as excellent as I remember.  I love how you can see Anne grow and mature throughout the book.  And there are many laugh out loud moments.

(owned, keeper)

*****Lord of the Flies (Fiction, William Golding)

This is a re-read, but the last time I read it I was in 8th grade I believe.  It was just as good (and dark and haunting and horrifying) as I remembered.  However, this time I listened to the audio book, which was fantastic.  It was read by the author, and before he began, he explained how he came to write the book, exactly why he wrote the book about boys (instead of girls) stranded on an island, and why he didn't include girls at all. 

(free from Libby audio, but I also own the book, which I will keep)

Total Books Read:  16 (3 non-fiction, 13 fiction)

Formats

E-Books: 

Audio: 11

Real Books: 5

DNF (Did Not Finish): 8 (see below)

Ironweed (I gave it like 20 pages...then something weird happened and I chucked it in the trash)

The End of the World Running Club (unlikable characters and f-bombs galore)

Missoula (I love Jon Krakauer, but I just couldn't mentally take this book about a series of rapes that happened in Montana a few years ago)

We Are Not Ourselves (boooorrrrinnnnggg)

The Burgess Boys (couldn't get into it)

The Mothers (just....foul)

My Sunshine Away (content)

High Season (content)

Iceland

I was going to split this post up into a bunch of smaller ones, but that just seemed overwhelming and would take WAY more time than I have.

So....we went to ICELAND!  

First things first...it was by far the most beautiful place I've ever seen.  It beat Alaska.  It beat Hawaii (by a smidge).  It was just.....everything.  Dramatic coastlines, dramatic inland, dramatic everything.

We left on a Saturday late afternoon and arrived Saturday morning local time.  I love taking pictures from the plane.  I can never sleep on planes, so I'm always on the lookout for good photos.  Flying above the clouds over the North Atlantic ocean:

And when the pilot announced our descent to Iceland, I got some good shots as I got my first glimpse of the country.

Our first stop was the Blue Lagoon, because it's just 20 minutes from the airport.  It's a geothermal spa located on a lava field.

The water is full of silica (a mineral) and the water is soft and healing.  The water temp is between 99-102 degrees.  

Our tickets included drinks at the swim up bar which was quite lovely.  

Tickets must be purchased in advance, because the Blue Lagoon only allows a certain number of people in per hour because they don't want it to get too crowded.  Their plan works.  It wasn't too crowded.  

After the Blue Lagoon, we drove to get groceries.  Eating out is incredibly expensive in Iceland and our cottage came with a kitchen so we decided to cook a lot of our meals at home instead of eating out.

Then we drove to our cottage.  This cottage was amazing.  It was about an hour north of Reykjavik.

Here's just a few pics of the inside:

And the views from the outside:

And here's an odd picture of the inside of the fridge and some of the groceries they got.  Iceland makes this amazing yogurt type product called Skyr.  We had it every day.  

We sat on this couch every night and took in the views, watched movies, and just RELAXED.

Sunday we drove to two of the four waterfalls we saw in Iceland.  They were beautiful of course:

After a scenic drive home (basically on a volcano), we took a walk along the beach by our cottage.

Another thing about Iceland in the late Spring...it never gets dark.

Monday was a busy day.  We woke up and drove for 4 hours to the south coast of Iceland.

On the way there, we stopped at a wool market.  Icelandic wool is a HUGE deal in Iceland.  First off....knitting is a huge deal.  Children are taught to knit in school.  Women knit.  Men knit.  Children knit.  EVERYONE knits.  So we wanted to buy either a sweater or scarf or hat or something.  Our Air B&B host said to make sure that whatever wool we buy is truly Icelandic wool and hand-knitted in Iceland.  Because a lot of tags will say 'designed in Iceland' but it's actually made in China.

Anyways....we stumbled upon this little store in the town of Hella (if you can call it a town) and decided to take a look around.

We walked in and there was an older lady sitting in a chair, knitting, of course.  She was somewhat grumpy and pretended not to speak English but she KNEW English.  :)  We perused the store and picked out some wool hats, knitted by local residents with pure Icelandic wool.  And let me tell you...that hat saved my ears that day! 

Our first stop was the village of Vik.

It's a black sand beach with a 'treacherous' ocean.  There aren't many signs in Iceland as far as trails or 'keep out' or anything like that, but there ARE signs on Vik beach telling you NOT TO TURN YOUR BACK ON THE OCEAN.  Multiple signs.  They aren't messing around.  Apparently this waves here can be so strong that it can whisk you away if you're not paying attention.

And yes, I realize the irony of this because during this picture we had our backs to the ocean.  However, I could SEE the ocean in my phone as I was taking this picture.  Does that make it okay?  :)

On our way back to the cottage, we stopped at TWO more waterfalls.  The first one was my favorite part of the whole trip.

Skogafoss.

It's a 200 foot waterfall that you can pretty much walk right up to and stand near the bottom.  It falls into a stream.  But it is so incredibly powerful.  And the fact that you can get so close to it is just....surreal.  

There were just a handful of other people there.  The beauty of traveling off-season.  There was a couple from Texas that were there so we took some pictures for them and they took some pictures for us.

Except for these, which my husband took.  This was right after I stood as close as I possibly could to this ginormous waterfall and let it spray me directly in the face.  I was laughing.  It was just one of those moments that I will never forget!

Even though it was cold and we both got drenched....it was completely worth it.

After we were happy and drenched, we stopped at the cafe that was near the waterfall for some traditional Icelandic lamb stew to warm up (it was really good!).  And beer and hot chocolate (of course).

And then we drove to Seljalandsfoss.

Impressive, right?  But the super cool thing about this waterfall is that you can WALK BEHIND IT.  Again....there are a couple of signs that say 'at your own risk'.  Because you're basically climbing a bit and on slippery rocks.  With nothing to hang onto.  But we couldn't go to this waterfall and NOT walk behind it!!  So we were careful and we walked behind it.  It was amazing.

We got wet, but not as wet as we did at Skogafoss.  

And just pure prettiness on the way home.

Because Monday was such a long day (8+ hours in the car total), we decided to take it easy on Tuesday.

We slept in, had breakfast at the cottage and just RELAXED.

Then we went to Akranes, the closest 'city' to us (maybe a 15 minute drive?).  There are about 7,000 inhabitants that live there.  We went to the lighthouses and climbed to the top of one of them.

Again...hardly any people were up there.  In fact, the lighthouse keeper (is that what they call them?) said 'if you're the last ones up there, close the hatch please'.  So my husband closed the hatch on a decades old lighthouse on the Icelandic coast.  :)  

After we got home, we soaked in the hot pot (a.k.a. hot tub, they call them hot pots in Iceland).  With this view:

On Wednesday, we went to Reykjavik.  Reykjavik is the northern most capital city in the world.  It is home to about 150,000 people, about 1/2 of the population of Iceland.

We walked around the city center, snapped some pictures, went into a couple of shops.  And then we went to the mid-week meeting.  It was wonderful!

Thursday was full of more beautiful things.  First, we made a pit stop in Borgarnes.  This was literally the view right outside the market.

It's just....unreal.

Then we had to make another pit stop when we saw these beauties near the road.  

This was another one of those surreal moments.  Feeding carrots to Icelandic ponies.  Gah!!!!

Then we made it to our destination:  Arnarstapi.

Oh my.

Just....so much beauty.  We hiked and just when we thought it couldn't get prettier, it got prettier.

On the way home, we stopped for lunch at this amazing hotel pretty much in the middle of nowhere.  We were the only ones there for lunch.  There were, however, two men in the 'lounge' room knitting.

It was just so charming.  The food was really good too.

Friday was our last full day in Iceland.  We had a slow morning, then headed into Reykjavik one more time.

We then had an early evening and packed up.  Of course we spent more time in the hot pot.  

And then Saturday evening we headed back to America.

Iceland was everything I imagined it would be.  It was beautiful.  Dramatic.  Unexpected.  Wonderful people.  Wonderful experiences.

I have a 'travel tips' post in the works that has more details about our trip.  I also plan to write a 'what we bought' post as well.

Until next time Iceland.  We WILL be back!!