Books I’ve read this month | March 2019

So as I mentioned in my February book round up, I had just started reading ‘Chase the Rainbow’ after reading fellow mummy blogger, MummySetra’s, rave review about it over on Instagram and I finished it a week or so into March. I started another book too….

Chase the Rainbow – Poorna Bell 
“An honest yet uplifting account of a woman’s life affected (but not defined) by the suicide of her husband and the deadly paradox of modern-day masculinity.
 
Punk rocker, bird nerd and book lover Rob Bell had a full, happy life. He had a loving wife, a big-bottomed dog named Daisy and a career as a respected science journalist. But beneath the carefully cultivated air of machoism and the need to help other people, he struggled with mental health and a drug addiction that began as a means to self-medicate his illness. In 2015, he ended his life in New Zealand on a winter’s night. 
But what happened? How did a middle-class Catholic boy from the suburbs, who had an ocean of people who loved him, and a brain the size of a planet, end up dying alone by his own hand? How did it get to this point?”
Recently, I’ve been reading a lot of crime thriller/suspense types of books, so I’m not sure if it was the change of pace or whether I was slightly disappointed as I expected to absolutely love this book; and I feel terrible about it as it’s a true story, through the eyes of the people left behind after a suicide.  I just wasn’t gripped, empathetic – yes, and shocked at some of the revelations but I didn’t have the ‘must read this until midnight’ vibe which I had been having – great for my earlier nights, but not so great for keeping my brain engrossed. I could put the book down and happily leave it a couple of days to pick up again.
The journey through the pages was so descriptive, so real life, so full of emotion yet I almost felt like it might be sadder, Poorna writes so well and eloquently yet it wasn’t as raw as I imagined.
If there is one thing this book is amazing for though is highlighting the often silent troubles men face around mental health, how they brush their worries aside or sweep them under the carpet as it’s not ‘manly’ to feel down, they hide addictions to try and save face – often living a lie which in the end they can’t keep up. Unfortunately for Poorna – she discovered all this, and more, firsthand.
Three Dark Crowns – Kendare Blake 
“When kingdom come, there will be one.
In every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born—three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions.
But becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins.
The last queen standing gets the crown”
I always knew this one was going to be a bit more touch and go, it was a book club suggestion – as soon as I heard the term ‘Young Adult’ and read the blurb on the back I knew two things – a) as much as it pains me to admit it, I am not a young adult. b) it all sounded a bit unbelievable, a bit ridiculous. The reasons I don’t watch Harry Potter, Star Wars and other make believe stuff. Reluctantly I picked it up and started it, but at 20 pages in I gave up. And all I’ve learnt from it is that if you’re renting books from the library, don’t take them back late or your fine will rack up just like Daddy Pig’s book ‘All about concrete’ did – but unfortunately there’s no Mrs Rabbit to give me a telling off and I’ll have to part with cold, hard cash.
In summary, Three Dark Crowns is a thumbs down for me, however the other girls in ‘da club’ loved it and went on to get the other books in the series, so maybe give it a bit more of a chance than I did!
 
Feeling a bit letdown by the second book ‘failing’, I didn’t pick up another one immediately which was a mistake (does anyone else fall foul to this?!) but as part of my ‘be more kind to me‘ attitude I am determined to pick the books back up again and keep at it.