In April I read 3 books and listened to one on audiobook. I keep waiting for the month when life gets a little less busy and I have more time to read for pleasure, but that hasn’t happened yet.  I did enjoy these books this month.

• Insatiable Appetites (Stone Barrington #32) by Stuart Woods – Whenever I have a vacation, or even a small break, I find myself reading another in this series, because it’s fast, easy and predictable. I love Stone’s random events. It’s nice to see, at least in this story, a woman become president of the United States; and it’s fun to hear that Stone is on her “Kitchen Cabinet” of advisers!
• What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton – I’ve had this book for a while, but at first I wasn’t able to start it, and then I sad to finish it. I appreciated Hillary’s honest attempt to explain the election, her path leading up to running for president, and her resilience following the devastating loss. I feel like I learned so much more about her as a person, a woman, a politician, and an American citizen, by reading her words, her stories. And the chapter about Russia, though a year old now, was frightening, especially considering all that we know now. While I am scared for our democracy, I have hope that there are more leaders like her out there, ready to step up and support what is right.
• The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas – This was a YA book recommended by my colleague Mari (thanks Mari!); I listened to the audiobook, which was performed very well by Bahni Turpin. The title comes from Tupac’s explanation for what “THUG LIFE” meant. This was a powerful and relevant story that I would put in my classroom library if I still had one. The story address a white police officer shooting an unarmed blank boy, riots as a result, interracial dating, and many other realities of life in 2018 in America. It was well told, from the perspective of a conflicted teenage girl. I highly recommend this to everyone!
• Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich – A colleague loaned me this book because she loves the author and thought I would enjoy this. I had no idea what to expect and was more than pleasantly surprised. The writing is beautiful and otherworldly at times, in this odd dystopian novel about what happens when evolution begins to work backwards in America. Pregnant women are kidnapped, and their newborns, if they survive, are taken away to be studied. Cedar, the pregnant protagonist, spends most of the novel in hiding, trying to figure out who she is by learning more about her adoptive and birth families as she studied religions and Native American history. This was a fascinating story.

What are you reading lately?