#91 - CHECK!

You may or may not have noticed that I changed the books that are listed to the right of my blog under "Currently Reading" and "On Deck". This is because I have already finished the original two that were there. The "currently reading" was ManHunt by James Swanson. It took me FOREVER to read this book. I don't know if it was because I already knew how it ended or because I was busy between working longer hours during busy season and focusing on P90X when I got home. Either way, it took me almost 3 months to finish that book.

ManHunt is about the 12 day chase of John Wilkes Booth after he shot President Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theater. I wanted to read it because Lincoln is one of my favorite US Presidents and I wanted to know more about what happened. I mean, everyone knew that he was shot, JWB ran through Washington, Maryland and into Virginia and finally was shot himself, but I wanted to know more detail about it. It was a great book. Don't let the fact that it took me so long to read it discourage you from picking it up off the shelf. It was an awesome book and James Swanson has really done his research! Anyway, back to the 101 List.

Number 91 on my list was to read a Nicholas Sparks love story. I'd never read a book by Nicholas Sparks before and didn't even see the movie the Notebook until about 2 years ago. My choice was Dear John, which is what was on the "on deck" column to the right. I finished ManHunt on Thursday night and started Dear John on Friday. I finally finished Dear John at 1:00am on Sunday morning. I think that may be a record for me. It took me less time to read Dear John than it did to read Twilight, my favorite book ever, however, in Twilight's defense, it was much longer and when I started reading it, I was out of town for several days and could only read here or there. I'm about to go into my opinion on Dear John so if you plan on reading it, you may want to stop here.

I think I may never read another Nicholas Sparks book again. As much as I loved it, I hated it. I hated the ending. I don't know if its because I'm such a sappy person that likes happy endings, but even more than that, I hated that it ended badly for someone who was fighting so hard for our country in its time of need. John only had two things going for him in his life, his dad and Savannah, and he lost both. Savannah was what kept him alive in Iraq and as soon as I read the sentence "I'm in love with someone else" I wanted to throw the book across the room. I will say, however, that Mr. Sparks did an excellent job of giving you a mental picture of what its like to be a soldier in love stationed far away from the that person and you only get a few weeks out of every year to see them. It's heartbreaking and it actually made me cry. The book did give me a HUGE respect for the wives and husbands of those in Iraq fighting for our country that support their spouses and wait for them. If every soldier was as heartbroken as John because his love didn't wait for him, we may have to bring brack the draft because no one would volunteer to be in that much pain and agony. I'm torn on whether or not to see the movie. I know that the movie has a happier ending, but I don't know that I'll be able to get out of my mind what "really happened".

So I have replaced my upcoming books with The Reliable Wife and House Rules, both of which I am really excited to read! I'll let you know if they're good or not :) Happy Monday!