What I have been reading in April

I am linking up to Modern Mrs Darcy's," What I am reading. " Check out what  everyone is reading.

Girl at the End of the World by Elizabeth Esther was a book that grabbed me from the hot reads table at the library.  Those darn librarians and their merchandizing. In all seriousness, this book details Elizabeth's escape from fundamentalism and how she finds her faith and voice.  I live in an area that has a high concentration of these fundamental  Christians.  I use to run into these types all the time when my children were younger.  I found her story fascinating as her grandparents were the founders of their group of fundamental Christians.  There was abuse within their church. I was also surprised to open her book and find a name I recognized on the dedication to Hana Alemu Williams.  Hana Williams is a adopted child who was starved to death by her adopted parents and is from the area I live in. ( Great post by Light of Day on Hana) Elizabeth's parents used the Pearl's book of child training.  Elizabeth has strongly come out against Micheal Pearl in an Anderson Cooper Interview.  There was an author's interview in the back of the book I read and it was extremely interesting and also goes into a bit of whye she transitioned to being catholic which is also discussed at the end of the book as well.

I also read Miles From Nowhere by Barbara Savage. This is one of those real life adventure books I love.  This documents Barbara and Larry's round the world bicycle adventure. They biked across the US, England, Italy, Spain, Egypt(!), Thailand, New Zealand, India.  I loved their commentary and I can't imagine bicycling in many of the places they did.  They talk about the encounters and the absolute kindness of strangers.  I was sad to see at the end of the book there was a remembrance page for Barbara.  She was killed in a head collision with a car on her bike.  I thought of all the dangerous places she biked and then to be killed right outside of her home in the US.

The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen is from a genre I don't usually read, fantasy.  I did enjoy it and found it a quick read.  This is the first book in a proposed trilogy and I believe this book is in development for a potential movie. There was some aspects of the book I felt could of be fleshed out a bit more but overall a good storyline - Princess returns to become Queen and set kingdom to rights.  This new Queen is not your typical pretty face. 

I really didn't think I needed to enter the reading confessional so soon again BUT I picked a book based on the fact it talked about geocaching.  My friends think I need a geocaching intervention. I read North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley.  North of Beautiful is a young adult book.  It is a book about Terra who has a large birth mark and how she feels flawed. She wants o escape her life and she meets a boy who changes how she thinks about herself and her current circumstances. The boy also teaches her to geocache.