What I Read in March

What a long, and strange month. When I looked back to see what I read in March, the first book I finished feels so far in the past I can't believe it was really read last month.

* means I listened to the audiobook

Before We Were Yours - 4/5
This one was the first book I finished this month and it broke my heart. It's a fictionalized version of what really happened to disadvantaged children and families. Only read this if you are ready to have a good cry.

The Four Tendencies* - 3/5
This had interesting parts, but I felt like Gretchen Rubin made a personality framework just because she likes to sort things... and I don't agree with the framework. When she talks about how to make sure you capture the motivation of all four tendencies I think that does a good job of covering your bases, but it really could've been a blog post and not a book. I do like listening to her books while I do chores because it doesn't need a lot of deep thinking...

Talking to Strangers* - 3/5
This one was okay. I usually love Malcolm Gladwell's books, and this one had great production quality, but the story itself felt meandering and, again, it could've been much shorter than it was.

Less - 4/5

Stay With Me - 4/5

The Boys in The Boat - 4/5
The Boys in the Boat took me the longest to read (I bought it in January, and started it then too), not because it wasn't a good book, but because it was a physical copy. I've been doing most of my reading on my Kindle while breastfeeding, and this book is on my nightstand so I haven't been getting as many minutes in with the book. That being said, it was an inspiring story and would make a great read when you need to feel like you can make it through a tough situation and come out the other side (like right now...)

Three Weeks with My Brother - 2/5
Well, I was not the intended audience for this book. I read it on recommendation of my grandma who loved it. I do not like Nicholas Sparks novels (whoa, I put Cage the first time I typed that!) and am not a religious person so I found both the writing style and the 'have you been skipping church' narrative to be frustrating. The flashbacks about his childhood were interesting, because he has had a sad and dramatic life. I found that to be the part of the book that made me keep reading, rather than the worldwide trip.

-- This is where I stopped writing the post in April and now I'm reaching way back into the recesses of my mind in early August to what I read in March. Let's see what I retained!

What Happened* - 4/5
As a Canadian I think I missed out on a lot of what was going on in the 2016 US election and this was an interesting insight into how the candidate that I assumed would win didn't end up as the president after all. 

Brief Answers to the Big Questions* - 4/5
I am not a physics buff (it was my least favourite required course in my science degree), but I have been more interested since meeting my husband who was a physics major for his undergrad degree. This book had some information that was 'just right for me' and also a good amount that was more complex than I needed, but was interesting to my husband. 

The Proposal - 2/5
This one... was not for me. I am not a big romance reader to start with and this one was just too cheesy. It was predictable with poor dialogue. I appreciated that the characters were more diverse than usual romance novels, but that was really the only redeeming quality.