Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Title: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban  Author: J.K. Rowling  Pages: 435  Genre: Fantasy

Harry is getting ready for his third year of Hogwarts. However there is news that a mass murderer is loose from prison. As he gets closer to actually able to go to school he is told that this murderer is after him! There are a lot of twists and turns in this novel that keeps you turning the pages to find out what happens to Harry and his friends. 

This is my favorite Harry Potter book! I felt like it was more relate-able then those that dealt with Voldemort. This is a series that is fun to read with kids or just by yourself. There is so much more detail in the books that they need to leave out of the movies due to time probably and the "artist rights" and all. I can not recommend this series enough. I can even get my non-reading boyfriend to read them and enjoy them. I encourage everyone to try and read this series. There is so much you miss out on by just watching the movies. (I am in no way badmouthing the movies I think they are great too!)

Goosebumps: Trapped in Bat Wing Hall

Title: Goosebumps Trapped in Bat Wing Hall  Author: R.L. Stine  Pages: 137 Genre: Suspense/Thriller/Choose Your Own Adventure

It is done as you are the main character and you get to choose which path you take and how it ends. There are many different scenarios that can be played out. You get invited by a boy to go to "Bat Wing Hall" for horror story sharing. However it isn't story time its game time. How will you pick the ending?

I have always enjoyed the "choose your own adventure" books, I have however found it is harder and harder to find them. This is a book I will read over and over to see what different things can happen. The choice is yours :)

Twilight

Title: Twilight Author: Stephenie Meyer  Pages: 498 Genre: Fantasy/Romance

Bella had to move to the small cloudy town of Forks, Washington. Here she thought she would spend a couple miserable years with her Father before doing her own thing to let her Mom be with her new husband and travel. She was not expecting to meet Edward and his family. Edward is not your normal hot guy at school, he and his family have a huge secret and are very good at keeping it. However, when Bella starts interacting with him events start to unfold around the two of them. She finds out Edward's and his family's secret and still can't stay away from him despite the warnings she has been given. She has a run in with a vampire that wants to hunt her. Edward who has fallen for her and she for him now needs to save his very accident prone lover from this fearful vampire. 

This is my second read through and I did enjoy it and loved being able to contrast it to the movie. There are some differences but not a whole lot. The idea of having a boyfriend who would go to the ends of the earth to keep you safe is a great ideal, however the possessive love that they have shows a lot of insecurities about them both. As an adult I now have a hard time deciding if I like the love story of this book. It's nice and a wonderful safety net to know that someone would do anything for you but on the other hand I strongly believe you need to know who you are on your own before you get into a serious relationship where they consume who you used to be and change you into something else entirely. 

You Are a Badass

Title: You Are A Badass  Author: Jen Sincero  Pages: 244  Genre: Motivation/self-help

This book is a way to motivate you and get you moving on making a life that you want and that you are proud of. Jen uses things that has happened in her life and she has experienced to give witness that good things happen to people that work for it and have faith that it will happen, have the thoughts that it will happen for them and that they are worth it. A lot of the time I think we get complacent in life and we need to read something like this to get us back into gear to fight for what we want.

Let's get this out of the way now, its to the point that if you have read one self-help book you have read them all right? I feel the same way. The difference with this book is with Jen's writing you feel like you are sitting on a couch talking to a friend telling her that life sucks and you want that change, you are dying for that change. She is there not to tell you that she agrees life sucks but to tell you to get off your butt and do something about it. There is swearing in this book so that is why I stated there is adult content. There is a part of this book that I didn't agree with that stood out. There is a chapter where she is stating to get rid of the toxic people in your life that feed on your energy and do nothing for themselves or you. Now I can agree you need to get rid of friends' like this but she made it sound like you need to "ghost" them. Where you just stop talking to them with no explanation and make them wonder why they aren't good enough to talk to anymore. I do not agree with this and believe that if you want to get rid of someone you need to tell them why you don't want to be around them anymore. They can't change and challenge themselves to be better if they don't know why everyone keeps abandoning them. 

Parenting with Love and Logic

Title: Parenting with Love and Logic  Authors: Foster Cline MD and Jim Fay  Pages: 224 Genre: Self-help/Parenting

I was recommended this book by my sister, it is a way to parent your kids and have them be more self reliant. Instead of chastising your child for a bad grade, its about how you can have them shoulder the responsibility since its about their work and how they are paying attention at school. There are two parts to this book; the first part is about general little tidbits and giving an overview of it all. The second part is the "Pearls" where it is a small chapter about a specific problem you maybe having. It covers things like grades, peer pressure, lying, stealing, disrespect among much more. 

This book went up and down with me. I enjoy getting insight from other parents and books about how to best help my kids. See if I can change how I look at something to make their lives better and mine easier, as much as it can be with kids anyhow haha! There is a bit of scripture at the beginning of this for those that want to avoid that or have more of it at home. One of the parts that got me was that the underlying message is more important then what us as parents actually say; as an example you can say that something doesn't matter to you but your tone of voice and your body language could be saying the opposite and it can really effect a child's mindset. There are some of the "Pearls" I will want to try at home to give my kids a tad more freedom and give them more responsibility. There are other things that I didn't agree with and will not be pursuing in my home. To each there own. I suppose this is why there are so many different parenting books out there. Good luck to all you parents and soon to be parents out there that decide to pick up this book! 

Diablo 3

Title: Diablo 3  Game System: Xbox One X  Game type: Fantasy

You create your character, you get to pick male or female along with your class. After you do that of course you get to pick your name. You follow the story line and there are some side quests along the way. The basic of the story is that Diablo has started wrecking havoc on the world and you are a nephalem and you are the only one that can stop him. With help from some people along your journey you get to not just take out Diablo but Death himself as well. After you finish the story line you are able to go through adventure mode and get some really cool gear!

This is a very well made game. Blizzard always knows how to make some of the best games. This game is on all platforms. I have it on PC and have access to it on Xbox. I love playing with other people and just questing on my own. This is a game you can play over and over and it is fun every time. 

Brisingr

Title: Brisingr  Author: Christopher Paolini  Pages: 748  Genre: Fantasy

Eragon is needing to fulfill promises and he starts off by helping his cousin save the love of his life. Then he has to travel all the way to the dwarves town and help sway the vote for the new king in the favor of the Varden whom is fighting the Empire to free all the people so no one is slaves. After he helps with Dwarves he has to go and learn as much as he can about being a dragon rider and get some history of whom he really is by the elves. After all that he has to go back to the Varden as promised and go back to the war to try and save as many lives as possible. 

This book is war or history of the dragons and of course Eragon himself. Without history who are we? He had to learn a lot in this part of the story and myself along the way. It did take me a while to read it was hard to keep my attention at times. It is well written just dry at some points and it was hard to focus on. It wasn't my favorite in the series by far but Christopher has always been a great author in my opinion.